My Mom Totes Messed Me Up

Grace and Ernest Hemingway. 1899.

My mother would dress me up like a girl and not allow me to cut my hair up until I reached the age of 6. By then, it was too late for me to not hate my mother. My sister got it the same. She was forced to keep her hair short and dress like a boy. Whatever sadistic game my mother was playing, we were certainly too oblivious to find any humor in it (87).

My mother was a strong, independent woman. She gave music lessons and eventually invited one of her students, Ruth Arnold, to stay and become a live in housekeeper. Ruth gave my mother the comforts to speak up to my father. She was in charge when she was home. I didn’t know what a lesbian was at such a young age, but my mother and Ruth took to loving each other when my father was not around. It was better his unabating depression forced him to take his own life. He wouldn’t have been able to deal with the humility if he found out about Grace and Ruth. It would all have been worse (87).

I did not see my mother in the last 20 years of her life (88).

Source:

Fantina, Richard. Ernest Hemingway: Machismo and Masochism. Palgrave Macmillon, Gordonsville: 2005.