Chapter 1
Chapter 1; May 4, 1955; 8:05 pm:
“Well, I put baby Tommy to bed; so.. can we talk now? I need to tell you something, something important.”
“What is it dear?”, Mr. Scott Lawrence’s wife, Joanne, asked in her soft and placid voice, which mostly concealed her feelings of general concern.
“I’m going to shoot this short film that depicts Operation Cue, the test where they blow up different types of houses to see which ones would be the most likely to survive a nuclear explosion, you know, for work. I’m going to be only two miles away from Ground Zero, which is pretty darn close to the explosion.” Mr. Lawrence, almost instinctively, got a bottle of scotch and poured some of it into his small clear glass with transparent square designs engraved on its outside, as he was explaining this.
“Scott, I don’t like this.. this new dependence on alcohol. Just because I’m dealing with this strange depression does not mean I don’t notice how you pour yourself at least one glass of scotch per night.” Joanne commented in a tone of anger, struggling to keep her usual soft and placid voice intact.
“Well, I don’t like how your strange depression keeps you away from our son! Because of you - I have to work twice as hard as I should for this family! I work all day and take care of Tommy in the evening and while he cries so intensely in the middle of the night, while you do nothing! Absolutely nothing!!!” As soon as he finished revealing how he really felt about his wife’s postpartum depression, he suddenly smashed his glass on the kitchen table in a way that created at least a hundred minuscule glass shards, flying through the air in a formation that reminded him of a nuclear explosion. Immediately, he became shocked at his fit of rage. The blast or the strong wind that came off of the explosion was a force of potent anger that quickly blew from Scott to Joanne, which expressed itself in the form of Joanne shouting: “SCOTT - WHAT DID YOU JUST DO?!?! I HEARD MANY TINY PIECES OF GLASS BREAK AND IF YOU THINK THAT I AM GOING TO PICK THEM UP YOU ARE IN FOR A RUDE AWAKENING! I AM NOT GOING TO PICK UP THE PIECES - OF OUR MARRIAGE NOR THOSE GLASS ONES!! IN CASE YOU DIDN'T NOTICE, I AM STRUGGLING RIGHT NOW! I TRIED TO CONNECT WITH TOMMY YESTERDAY BY HOLDING HIM BUT I COULDN’T! I JUST COULDN'T!!! HE DIDN’T SMILE AT ME AT ALL AS BABIES DO WITH MOST MOTHERS, INSTEAD, HE GOT INTO A FIT SO INTENSE I HAD TO ASK YOU FOR HELP! DO YOU REMEMBER THAT YOU INSENSITIVE, IMMATURE JERK?!?!?! I AM TRYING TO FIX MY ISSUE BUT YOU AREN'T!!!!”
Scott followed that rant of rage with complete silence which spoke volumes because it contrasted so strongly with Joanne’s outburst. The shock or an explosion’s sudden strong impact on water or the underground was how Joanne’s Lacrimal Gland burst with tears the way water burst out of a dam, well, almost as forceful, which Scott responded with a silence that was even more deafening and immediate than the moment after her rant. Part of this shock and blast originated from her potent postpartum emotions. But the other part was a mixture of emotions relating to the situation like anger towards her husband, the terrible surprise of her husband’s glass shard explosion, and sadness, specifically the feeling of failure about how she could not bond with her own baby. Then the fits of extreme anger and sadness ended when Joanne commented: “Well.. we’re not like those happy couples on TV.” Scott replied: “We’re definitely not. We should go to bed now.” “Agreed.”, Joanne responded. “Agreed” was the last word spoken between them that night.
