Marking Time in Texas

I had a list of observations about Dallas: It was incredibly hot, no one walked, the architecture was a mixture of Versailles, Victorian, and Hollywood excess, the women all had blowouts, wore tons of makeup even at breakfast and had perfectly manicured nails unless they were dressed as maids, while the men were costumed as cowboy executives, used sports analogies and drove around in construction vehicles that were spotlessly clean and had no connection to how they earned money. The highways merged without warning; there was nothing to do, nowhere to go; it was freezing cold because of the air-conditioning and blazingly hot.

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Molly Moynahan
Trying to Be a Wife

Kevin came home one day and said he’d been offered the job of bureau chief in Dallas. I had been to Texas. I had been drunk off my ass in Houston and picked up the scion of a hotel family, telling him I was Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s daughter which I’m not but then again he didn’t believe me. He met me in a Denny’s where I had ended up after a long night in a cowboy bar. Otherwise, I had no clear impression of Texas.

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Molly Moynahan
Only Myself

I went everywhere with Luke. Returning to work meant I handed him over to the women who ran the crèche, and after two hours of teaching, I would return, and they would suggest I go have a cup of tea so they could cuddle him some more. Unlike other babies, Luke did not pitch a fit when I gave them that extra time. Lying in their arms he had the swagger of a human that understands he is beloved. He would twinkle and wave me off, so I would creep to a nearby café and attempt to write. This was torture. Just as I was unable to sustain a writing practice in active alcoholism, in sober motherhood, I found the same obstacles. The path by which I had disappeared into the story, especially in my first novel, Parting Is All We Know of Heaven, was now littered with thoughts of my baby, his dimple, his knees, his face, his perfectly round, bald head.

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Molly Moynahan