Kiss Mommy Goodbye Read Free

time until she was assigned to the kitchen clean-up crew and spent the hours from midnight till two A.M. washing dishes in the sink, the automatic dishwasher having decided to get in the holiday spirit and take the weekend off like everybody else. As she had stood there, her hands sinking into the hot water and overabundance of suds, watching the revelers return with yet another armload of dishes just when she had thought she was through, she had been reminded of a book she had studied in college, and one she had recalled often since, Albert Camus’
The Myth of Sisyphus.
According to the ancient Greek myth, Sisyphus had angered the gods for reasons which had escaped her then as they did now, and he had been condemned to spend the rest of eternity pushing a large and monstrously heavy rock up to the top of a huge hill, only to have it roll back down to the bottom just as he was reaching the summit. Camus had asked theseemingly ridiculous question, was Sisyphus happy? More ridiculous still, he had concluded that yes, Sisyphus was indeed happy because he knew in advance that the rock would never reach its destination, that he would always be forced to carry it just so far and then watch it backslide, that there was no hope of his ever succeeding. And in abandoning hope, he had gained his salvation; by knowing and accepting his fate, he became superior to it. Donna had pondered these existential theories of existence as her hands went in and out of the water, and she had decided as yet another sinkful of dishes emerged from beneath the bubbles, that if, in fact, there was a hell, and each person was assigned his or her own particular and private hell, then hers would undoubtedly be eternal kitchen duty. The thought of having to spend forever at the kitchen sink, coming to the end only to find another load waiting, brought home to her the concept of hell, its possible reality, in a way that no amount of Sunday sermonizing could ever have hoped to accomplish. For the first time in her life, Donna Cressy had feared death.
    And now here she sat in the starkness of the courtroom and heard herself described, accurately she had to admit, at least superficially, as some maniac for cleanliness who woke herself up in the middle of the night in order to wash the dishes her automatic dishwasher was perfectly able to handle. Did she sound like a woman in control of her life? Did a woman whose hair coloring traveled from Gloria Steinem to Lana Turner to Lucille Ball to Dorothy Lamour to Mia Farrow—anybody but herself—in the space of a few months have any right to supervise the development of two young children with perfectly healthy heads of hair?
    Not according to what she had just heard. And there was more much more to come, she knew. They hadn’t begun to talk about Mel, about her immorality. They had thus far avoided any detailed mention of the children themselves. Victor was only the first witness to be called. There was doubtless a long string of witnesses to follow, all to condemn her in tones varying from outrage to pity. She had only herself. Once again she found herself smiling ruefully—why should their divorce be any different from their marriage? Then she noticed the judge was staring at her, silently questioning her smile, so incongruous under the circumstances. He thinks I’m crazy, she said to herself, as the judge banged his gavel and adjourned the session for lunch.
    Victor was standing beside her before she could even think of rising from her chair, his face full of gentle concern.
    “Can I talk to you for a few minutes?” he asked.
    “No,” she said, standing up and pushing her chair back. Her lawyer had already moved to the back of the courtroom where he was talking to Mel.
    “Donna, please, don’t be unreasonable.”
    She looked genuinely surprised. “How can you expect me to be anything else? You expect the lady I just heard described by your very own sincere mouth to act with reason? As usual, Victor, you