I never wanted to have kids. I had mom and dad. And that was enough for me.

Ever since I can remember, they’ve behaved like children, bratty, infantile and unrestrained. Amid all the melodrama, someone had to be the adult in the family. And on my sixth birthday, it was decided it would be me.

That year, dad showed up late for my party, smelling of cigarettes and cheap perfume. The kind his secretary wore to the company Christmas dinner a few days earlier, when she sat next to her boss looking more like his wife than my mom did. Her left hand never made an appearance at the table that night. "The whore" barely touched her food, so busy was she touching my father’s T-bone. I wasn’t there. But I got served all the sordid details with my slice of triple chocolate birthday cake. So did my classmates who looked terrified under their party hats. When the shouting escalated, one of them started sobbing. I didn’t fault mom for her outrage. I had issues however with her timing and delivery. Did she have to fling the cake at dad, sending sprinkles and children scurrying all over the place? Some of my friends didn’t even get a taste!

As I said… Unrestrained.

Thirty years later, I am still the adult in charge of the playground that is my parents’ marriage. My father has squandered all his talents chasing women, while my mother wasted her best years in the elusive pursuit of sainthood. I don’t know which I find more infuriating: his Peter Pan ways or her martyrdom complex. Regardless, over the years I learned an important lesson: when called upon to break a fight, do it in public and in broad daylight. It cuts down on time and hysterics.
So here we are, on a cold Sunday morning, tucked at a corner table at Balthazar, trying to deal with scrambled eggs and scrambled lives. Mom had called last night, her usual frantic self. I barely listened to her rambling detonation. I was in the middle of my own crisis, hanging out at the Monkey Bar, trying to decide between two Wall Street traders to spend the night with. I knew the honor would eventually go to the lesser asshole, but the more brazen of the two was better-looking. I was conflicted.

I quickly dismissed mom, my inebriated brain promising to meet her and dad the next day for brunch. The same brain now throbbing with punishing vengeance. I should’ve stuck with the nicer banker. I didn’t say nice. Just nicer. The financier with the looks turned out to be too much work for very little rewards. Just like my stock portfolio this year.

Now I am tired and craving sleep.

Irritated, I stare at my dad. In the gray light, he looks every minute of his sixty-three years. A profusion of chest hair peeks out of his open collar, in flagrant contempt to his balding head. His face is lined and puffy. A jutting gut stretches the shirt around his midsection, making me nervous sitting across the table from him. Those mother of pearl buttons look ready to pop! There is barely anything left of the dashing man who had conquered Madison Avenue with nothing but Brilliantine and bluster. Maybe a waft of the same expensive cologne. But that’s it! This doesn’t bode well for Don Draper.
Yet, despite his decrepitude, my dad is still acting like the young warrior he once was. Just last month, a chance encounter at the Four Seasons bar allowed me to watch him in action with an aspiring actress. I don’t know what bothered me more: that he looked totally unfazed by my presence, or intolerably old to attract such young talent. Clearly, flashing his money compensated for flashing his aging smile. After all, this was New York City, where oysters acted as aphrodisiacs only if they came with a pearl inside.

The memory of that evening jars me, indelible images etched in my mind like scars.
I can still see his roaming hands on her exposed thighs, his loosened Hermès tie and the bottle of Cristal that sat between them. I can hear her giggle every time he leaned over to whisper in her ear, her full breasts moving freely under her thin T-shirt, a heart-shaped Lalique pendant nestled like a drop of blood on her milky cleavage. I can feel the conspiratorial wink he shot me and my companion across the room as if to say: we’re all grownups here! Except I didn’t feel like a grownup then. I felt rather small, helpless and embarrassed, for me, the man I was with, the crafty young actress, but mostly my father who was making a fool of himself. I rapidly fled the scene, my scorn left unspoken and untamed.

My dad squirms in his chair as if reading my mind.

We never spoke of that episode and I never knew how his evening had ended. But if history is any indication, it would be safe to guess that a serving of Viagra and Beluga, along with an unobstructed view of Central Park from the Four Seasons elevated bed, helped my father seal the deal. Thanks to the little blue pill, Peter Pans all around the world were alive and well, their flight only hindered by the bulge in their tights.
That thought makes me smile. I relax a bit.

"So, Dad, what is it this time?"

My mother snorts. I almost forgot she was here. I look at her sipping her Cappuccino. She is glowing this morning. Her skin is smooth and dewy, her long-lashed eyes sparkle, and her dark hair lends her lovely face a flattering softness. She looks positively radiant and much younger than her years. To this day, I don’t understand why she has never left my dad, or at least taken a lover.

But that is not her thing. Never was. My mother thrives on drama, and no one provides her with more tragedy than her philandering husband. The more he strays, the more animated she becomes. The lower he falls, the higher she soars. This morning, I can almost see the halo above her silky curls.

"That’s it… I’ve had it!" she says."I want a divorce!"

I roll my eyes. I have heard this empty threat so many times that it no longer holds power over me. Yet it never fails to rattle my father. I glance at him. Sure enough, he looks terrified.

For years I remained baffled by the ties that kept my parents together. I knew it wasn’t the money. They had both achieved, through birth and perseverance, the kind of financial freedom that unravels marriages. While it was clear to me that my mother still loved my father, his reasons for not walking away remained a mystery. I used to think that he strayed because he fell out of love with her and into strangers’ arms. But looking at him now, I realized that in his own reckless manner, he loved my mother the only way he knew. Flawed. Broken. Wrecked. Inadequate. He was the kid who trampled his favorite toy, dropped it for newer playthings, but at night couldn’t fall asleep without it. He gave my mother all the love he had to give. Sadly, it wasn’t much. Of the two, he suffered the bigger defeat.
A wave of affection sweeps over me. I feel protective of my wounded parents. I lean closer, reaching for the right words to reassure him and pacify her. Tired arguments about their enduring love for each other. It all rings hollow and stale. After all, we have been here before. We know what is to come. As if on cue, my mother starts sobbing, her heaving shoulders attracting stares from the tables around us. An angry torrent of familiar accusations comes pouring out of her body, her voice shrill and penetrating. Mangled stories of credit card charges and concealed jewelry purchases. Of prolonged golf outings that stretch late into the night. Of unexplained absences and strange behavior. Everyone in the restaurant gets served a complimentary side of drama with their Eggs Benedict.
Thankfully, the public space keeps a lid on the hysterics and no dinnerware is hurled or shattered. Once her anger released, mom simmers down to a whimper.

"I’ve never owned a Goddamn Lalique necklace!" she sighs.

And that’s when the magic happens. Reaching into his coat pocket, my father produces a Lalique jewelry box that reveals a shimmering heart-shaped crystal pendant. An identical match to his kindness toward struggling, busty actresses.

"I was saving it for Valentine’s Day… But what the heck!" he says, wrapping the silk cord around my mother’s neck.

She shrieks in delight, her face as red as the lovely ornament. I stare at it in disbelief, my fondness for my parents draining out of me like a bleeding wound. How can he be so devious, she so naïve? In her endless quest of the smoking gun, he is always a step ahead of her, hiding his deceit in a maze of cash purchases and parallel gifts, tailoring his lies to her credulous heart. Then again, is she herself entirely innocent? I wonder. In this charade, isn’t denial the mother of deception?
I glare at my father but he is too pleased with himself to care. Already my mother is cooing adoringly, a prelude to a sizzling make-up session. I have seen my parents at love and war. I have heard their raucous romps as well as their fights. I have watched them, like children, go from needy to selfish at the slightest hint of happiness.

Wrapped in their own blissful bubble, they become oblivious to the world and hurt around them.

I sit there wallowing in my resentment, feeling drained. This spectacle of smugness and gullibility grates on my nerves. I have to get out of here.
"Gotta go!" I mumble. My besotted parents don’t seem to care as I storm out of the restaurant.
Walking the two blocks to my apartment on Mercer Street, I am a jumble of emotions. Angry at my father for perpetuating the lies. Furious at my mother for maintaining the pretense. Mad at myself for getting sucked into this sham, over and over again. I am not sure which dishonesty I find more offending. The one carried out in the service of decadence, or the other in the name of love? Who is more responsible for my unending, senseless defeats, my stunted, cynical heart? Is it my father’s lack of devotion, or my mother’s excess of it?

I climb the stairs two at a time looking for salvation, praying it is still warm in my bed. I feel a rush of relief as I open the door and am greeted by music coming from inside. My Wall Street trader is standing there, in his boxer shorts, looking more ravishing than I remember. He is checking out my collection of Vinyl records. In the morning light, he doesn’t seem so cocky.

"Hiya mate!" he says cheerfully. "Where’ve you been?"

Holy shit! He’s Australian? When did that happen? Did the man-fairy come at night and leave him on my pillow? Just how drunk was I when I left the bar with him yesterday?

I look at him, tight abs and tousled hair, and feel a deep desire.

"Long story…"

"I’ve got all day, mate."

He smiles and my troubles fade away. He holds out an album jacket approvingly.

"Leonard Cohen… Awesome!" His accent is all the music I need.

I watch him put the record on, hope welling up inside me like a sob. Leonard Cohen? Maybe he’s not so shallow after all. Maybe I’ve stumbled on the one guy on this planet who looks like Hugh Jackman, works on Wall Street yet has enough depth left for Leonard Cohen.

But then he opens his mouth.

"My doodle is feeling lonely" he whines, thrusting his bulging crotch in my direction. My hopes deflate like a punctured balloon. Once again, there will be dance but no romance. But who am I to complain? For every inch of shallowness, I got a pound of callousness to go.

Mesmerized, I watch his "doodle" rise up to the sultry music flooding the room. He comes closer, his eyes dangerous, his lips inviting. A tingling is spreading from my head to my toes, the closest I have ever come to happiness. He throws my coat on the floor and kisses me deep and hard, his mouth an explosion of wondrous sensations. Who needs love anyway? Love is a travesty, but this, this is real. This I own, even if for a moment.

My body is aching with desire. I step out of my knit dress and stand there with nothing on but my knee-high boots. He moves back and stares.
"Fuck me, mate! You are gorgeous!" he exclaims. A lone instant of absolute sincerity, and the only worship I’ve ever known.

"Allow me!" I tease, pushing him onto the bed and straddling his hard body. Soon we are lost in a heap of rumpled sheets and glistening limbs, moving and breathing as one, a perfect union of minds, bodies and souls. Only the heart remains indifferent. But does it really matter, when the heart can morph into a crystal bauble given to harlots and saints alike?

I look into his eyes. In them I see all the passion, pleasure and joy and none of the hurt. The last thought I have before I completely surrender is that I am truly my parents’ daughter.

Then I give in. To the moment. To truth. To happiness.

I arch my body to offer myself up to the ecstasy gods. Today, the gods come from Down Under. Who knew?

Grunting and moaning, we soar together. High in the air above us, floats Leonard Cohen’s sensuous, raspy voice:

I did my best, it wasn’t much.
I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch.
I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you.

And even though it all went wrong
I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah.

Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah…..