Happily Ever After

A detailed Summary of Happily Ever After

People say when you marry someone you don't just marry that one person, but you marry that person's whole family. Every family has its dysfunction's. Every family has members that are often times difficult to deal with, but that's what family is all about; sticking together and loving one another, despite what differences or opposing forces may exist. In Liar's Club, Mary Carr's Grandma didn't share this point of view when it came to Pete, Mary's father. In fact, she wanted Mary's mother, Charlie, to divorce Pete before they were even married. "Grandma subsequently viewed my father as some slick-talking hick who had baffled her only child into settling for a two-bedroom tract house when she deserved a big ranch"(Carr, 13). Grandma's presence and death were only fuel to the wildfire that scorched the Carr's family relationship, leading to disaster and divorce.

The first time Charlie threatened to divorce Pete, she pile Mary and Lecia into the car and tore off to Grandma's house in Lubbock. Upon arriving, no words of comfort or encouragement for the mending of Charlie's marriage escaped Grandma's mouth. "Grandma never did sugar coat her opinion of Daddy. She said something about Mother coming

The worst part wasn't all the change she brought, but the silence that came with it. Nobody said anything about how we'd lived before. It felt as if the changes themselves had just swept over us like some great wave, flattening whatever we'd once been(46).

This unhealthy clinging to the past did not allow Charlie to heal, it only buried her more within herself and made the gap between her an her family grow. She pushed away Pete and embraced drinking as her way of coping. "She had set down the drink when Grandma came home to die, out of necessity, I guess. Then she picked it up night she got back from the funeral..."(126). Mother proceeded to live day by day in a blur of alcohol, holding in her anger, her pain, and her sadness, occasionally pausing to vent a drunken rage at her family's support and love. Charlie severed herself from Mary, Lecia, and most of all Pete. This ultimately led to Charlie and Pete's divorce. Finalizing her divorce to Pete Charlie, perhaps unknowingly, accomplished what Grandma had wished would happen from day one.

The everyday stress of being a housewife with two children was enough for Charlie without having to deal with Grandma's constant nagging. The pressure Grandma forced on Charlie only escalated Charlie's arguments with Pete. On her worst days Charlie could be heard saying, "There's no hope, there's no hope"(38). Much to Grandma's pleasure, Charlie's warnings of divorce became a reoccurring event. And much to Grandma's disappointment, Pete never fell prey to these threats. "Daddy's response to it was usually a kind of patient eye-rolling. He never spoke of divorce as an option. In his world, only full blown lunatics got divorced. Regular citizens in a bad marriage just hunkered down and stood for it"(35).

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1288
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English