What happened yesterday was bound to be part of our reality; I’m only surprised it took six days for it to arrive. The squabble carried through to today before things grew so bad that we simply stopped speaking to one another.

Momma bird has never been good about tending to the nest, letting her young fend for themselves; this is the privilege of an only child. Approaching Montreal, I find myself grinding my teeth. While we cannot fully bypass the city, I make a circuitous route to avoid the center, but from what I can see of the diversity and architecture from afar, this would be a great place to explore with someone in love with what’s really important. Mom is grumbling about how worn out she is from our grueling drive and her insatiable hunger.

I’m not stopping for anything except border control in the United States. I want out of Canada so she can stop shitting on my sense of being inclusive of cultures, diversity, and adversity. Breakfast can wait until we are in Vermont. From my view of Montreal on the edges of the city, I can see a place bustling with a mashup of people on the streets. Hasidic Jews walk amongst Jamaicans, Hindus, Africans, Asians, and various other Canadians. Where I grew up in Los Angeles, ethnic groups seem to be segregated into enclaves, just as New York City had predominantly Irish and Italian neighborhoods prior to gentrification.

I am determined that Caroline and I come back at the first possible chance as this is much closer than Europe with a lot of the cultural charm that attracts me to those old-world countries. It has been a breath of fresh air to see gasoline priced in liters and kilometers per hour on the highways; the temperature, while a hot 36 degrees Celsius, has this American loving the differences.

Our breakfast was in North Hero at Hero’s Welcome, but only reluctantly so. You see, Caroline and I stopped here five years ago and loved the place. My return was made in order to call Caroline from here and tell her if it was still the same and still as appealing as we thought. It was.

Further south in Charlotte, Vermont, is America’s oldest still-operating ferry crossing. We are heading across Lake Champlain for Essex, New York.

With some food in us, my mom and I decided that we’d try to leave the events of the last 12 hours behind us. Serious damage has been done to our relationship, though I don’t believe my mother understands that. She thinks that what we say is of little consequence and that I take things too seriously. She is my mom; for god’s sake, I am supposed to take her seriously. I drove and stopped for the occasional photo, hoping my mom wouldn’t return to blurting out any more of her intolerance.

Turbulent waters don’t settle quickly. I grew up at a time of great diversity, both generationally and culturally, combined with obvious gender and racial divides that were collapsing. Los Angeles in the 1970s and early 80s was a melting pot of people from all walks of life having an infinity of roles that were being played out. Not only did my mother dislike personal responsibility to such a degree that she abandoned my sister and me at kindergarten around 1968, but she’d carry that forward into her later years regarding her health, spending her own and other people’s money, along with her own mother, father, and aunt who she convinced to move to Arizona so they could be closer to a supportive caregiver. In the end, she squandered their savings on bad investments, travel, food, and her own business while putting a roof over their head but little more.

She knew when she threw us away that the man who would care for us was violent and physically abusive. One of my earliest memories of my father was seeing him beating up my mother in rage; I was probably about 3 or 4 years old. My mother wanted the yacht club life of being doted on by someone who would tolerate her and allow her to do as she pleased. I tend to believe that the only reason my mother brought my sister and me back into her life when we were in our late teens was so she could hang out with people who would be impressed by her carefree, do-anything lifestyle. Tragically, I didn’t understand the extent of her selfishness earlier and would get caught up with her fantasy life, but only to a point. The instinct to cherish and love your mom is innate, apparently, the same regarding your children is not the rule.

As we drove through New York, passing the touristic town of Lake Placid, I couldn’t help but stew on, wondering who this stranger was next to me. I’m in conflict about the sense of responsibility and what love for a parent means when both of them turn out to be fundamentally broken. The child still within continues to look for approval and a motherly embrace, but in mine, I see a seething, horrible person who puts on a facade in order to attract sympathetic people to her pretend plight. Has my mother ever known happiness besides the times she’s left alone behind a plate of food? Her solace is a dish of oysters, and her altar is found in the Temple of Crème Brûlée.

You may think these are harsh words for someone who is dead at the time when much of it is being written, but the sentiment of her selfishness and narrowmindedness was shared with her more than once, which resulted in us not talking for years or me leaving family gatherings such as Thanksgiving after her spit-filled anger of calling me an asshole, just like my rotten father. So what is love when your parents are miscreants? For a long time, it was an unknown but highly desired mythical something that didn’t seem would exist for me. I couldn’t find it in others. Then, somewhere along the road, back while I was living in Germany and before I met Caroline I found a path to loving myself and all of my peculiarities, misgivings, fear, anxiety, and self-loathing. Relatively quickly, I discovered that just because your parents resent you and do not know how to share love doesn’t mean you must be bereft of such feelings within.

Ah, the sunset. Caroline and I share the same appreciation and love of the magical sunsets that close out wonderful days. I look upon this one and dream of the next sunset I’ll share with her, knowing that it will stir mutual feelings of wonderment, and for those moments, we’ll be the only people on earth basking in the warm golden embrace of the sun.

This is Saranac Lake, where I first thought of stopping for the night before deciding to continue down the road.

In Potsdam, New York, we visited Sergi’s Italian Restaurant & Pizzeria suggested to us by a couple walking along the road in the Adirondacks near Mount Arab. We gorged ourselves because that’s what we do, especially when confronted with emotional turmoil. Mom ate so much baked ziti, which she couldn’t finish that she had to skip dessert.

We continued westward to Massena, grabbing a room at the Lakeview Motel. Only $50 for the night and right on the shore of the Saint Lawrence Seaway. The evening comes to an end with me learning that my mom doesn’t believe one of her three children respects her. I am lost.