SIX GENERATIONS OF FIRST BORN WOMEN: IGNORING ABUSE

Since RG's been away I've spent more time than usual on the phone. Our circle of friends, our own dysfunctional family, seem to press even closer to me in his absence, as though responding to some law of physics, trying to fill the void.

First Lotti calls and then Ron. I have long, rambling conversations with each of them. Lotti claims she's observed changes, positive changes in our mutual friend, Don. I was especially aware of his improvement last night over dinner. He was more relaxed, he could stay focused longer, without the panic and need to flee setting in. Don has always been affectionate to me. He's the first openly gay man I've felt close to. He loves to play the role of the charming, solicitous male, helping me with my coat, holding doors, pulling out chairs, offering to do things. After RG I guess it's Don who calls me most frequently, then Ron.

Ron tells me the wedding has been put off again, 3 more months. The new date is March 21st. It had been originally set for Christmas. Since his fiancé Pamela is currently out of town, Ron asks me out for this Saturday night. Bill and I are already booked for a party in Dorchester at John Kane's house so Ron and I make plans to see a movie next Thursday. Meanwhile the conversation drifts to "What I did over Christmas". Ron thinks I'm making a big mistake opening up wounds, torturing my parents and myself by confronting them with "reality".

Ron feels his childhood was "normal". He says he has a close, loving relationship with his mom. Turns out, after not much probing on my part, things were not so perfect. Ron's father had an incestuous relationship with his younger sister when she was 15. It lasted till she was 19. At 19 she became pregnant. The mother found out, took the kid to a hospital for an abortion, but never spoke a word about who might have caused the pregnancy. The mother had been aware of the situation, but everyone pretended nothing was going on. Ron says he forgives her because she was a "good Catholic woman", and scared to death of her husband. (The husband was 58 at the time and died of a heart attack at 67.) I called her a sanctimonious coward. Her behavior toward her daughter was devastating.

Ron says no, his sister was unaffected by the whole thing, is married now to a wonderful man who doesn't know a thing about her childhood. I'm dumbfounded. This woman is living in a pressure cooker. One of these days the lid will blow off and she may not survive it. I tell Ron he's a stupid fool, he's blinded by his attachment to his mother, I suggest there may have been some incestuous elements in his relationship with her. He denies it. He never gets mad at anything I say to him. I can toss him around like a rag doll and he comes up smiling. We talk a bit more about his lack of initiative in this whole thing, perpetuating all the illusions and myths for the sake of the nuclear family. Another sacrificial virgin to the altar of the   "THE FAMILY". To my mind the concept of family is just a myth some people feel the need to perpetuate.