Every year, like clockwork, my mother would walk into my childhood rocking chair late at night and break her toe.

The first broken toe accident happened some time after my father—the second man to leave my mom widowed—died. He was 48. She was 47. I was 12. Even though he was the one who physically died, and she lived, what remained of her was an angry ghost of her former self.

Mom never cried. She told me that when you’re an adult your tear ducts dry up and you don’t cry anymore.  Her tears froze solid inside her, holding back the playful, fun, outgoing mother she’d been. Lavish parties where everyone dressed up—men in suits and ties, women in full-skirted dresses with pointy high heels—disappeared. A stern working woman dressed in straight skirt knit suits replaced my elegant mother, once adorned in designer clothes, her beautiful face enhanced with only mascara and bright red lipstick, smelling good with her favorite perfume.

 

The first ad appeared in the Los Angeles Times in April, five months after dad died, around the date that would have been their wedding anniversary. Ruthie D. Love B.

Maybe that’s when mom broke her toe the first time.

Each year, the mysterious ad appeared, and each year my mom walked into the one-of-a-kind rocking chair my dad created for me, and broke her toe.

We never spoke of Dad’s death until she came to live with me near the end of her life. She told me she never cried after he died. I guess in her case, tears did dry up.

 

I’ll never know why every year my mother walked into my rocking chair, who put those Ruthie D. Love B. personal ads in the paper, or why my father’s heart exploded leaving shrapnel in my mother’s heart.

Perhaps, instead of tears, she grieved by walking into my childhood rocking chair.