Awful Beautiful Life

In all good stories, you have to understand who the character was to enjoy the journey to who she becomes. It’s no different here, I guess, for fiction often tells the truth about life, and life is often stranger than fiction. My story begins as a perfect fairy tale.

If you knew my family around Christmas 2012, you were probably invited to our annual Christmas party. On the first Wednesday of every December, my husband, Mark, and I, along with our friends the Dalgleishes, hosted a Christmas party for 450 guests at our home. The party was so big—both in its size and grandeur—that the Austin American Statesman featured our 2011 festivities as the event where Democrats and Republicans raised a glass together. “Everyone” in town knew—even if your invitation got lost in the mail—to show up at our house at six p.m. on that first Wednesday in December, and to bring an unwrapped gift.

We lived in Austin’s Tarrytown neighborhood in a sprawling eight-thousand-square-foot home, with a stone exterior and vaulted roof, which gave it a church-like aesthetic that set a perfect backdrop for a Christmas party. The side facing our quiet cul-de-sac was full of windows. During the day, those windows let in gorgeous east-facing light. On that first Wednesday, they highlighted the bustling party within.

After pulling up to our home, each visitor would hand their keys to a valet, who would take the car and welcome them to the party. On their way up the stone walk, and noting a few friends through the windows, they would drop their unwrapped toy into the sleigh in our front yard. The gifts were for the Rainbow Room at Travis County’s Child Protective Services. Each year we collected hundreds of toys for needy kids. Once the gift was nestled among the others, the guest walked up the large stone steps to the front door, where I hugged them. I always stationed myself at the front door since it was the only way to see everyone at least once. I’d tell each guest about their friends who were already inside and wish them a merry Christmas.

Stephen Shallcross’s 2 Dine 4 catered the party. Waiters silently passed through the rooms, offering appetizers to the crowd, offering mini beef Wellingtons or the party’s signature cocktail, the Powell Mistletoe Martini. They refilled their platters in the carport outside. There were waiters who worked the party every year and remembered the names of the guests, whispering to them that the favorite rosemary almonds were in a silver bowl in the living room this year.

The thirteen-foot Christmas tree sat regally in the living room, and off to the right the dining room table was piled high with Christmas desserts. Scott Calvert at The Cake Plate outdid himself that year. Our twelve-person table overflowed with every sugary delight imaginable: mini gingerbread houses, Christmas tree brownies, glittery bonbons, cake pops, and French macarons. If one walked deeper into our home, saying hello to friends and acquaintances, and enjoying the Christmas music, they’d see the seven fully decorated live trees throughout the house. Martha Stewart had nothing on me that first Wednesday of every December—this party was a labor of love, and the highlight of my year. It ushered in a beautiful, magical, and holy month for me.

Christmas 2012 was particularly memorable because, after celebrating at home, we headed to the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City. Madison, our eldest, was twenty that winter and celebrated her debut at the International Debutante Ball on December 29. It was an extraordinary affair covering four whirlwind days and culminating in a glorious ball with girls in white gowns, each escorted by a young tuxedo-clad man.

We arrived back in Austin just in time for the kids to return to school and for Mark and me to regroup for a few days before our next trip.

Mark and I always celebrated our December anniversary—twenty-two years in 2012—with a trip in January. It was a special way for us to unwind and reconnect after our busy falls. In January 2013 we headed to Bora Bora for nine days, a land of paradise. We relaxed, lay on the beach, went deep-sea fishing, snorkeled, read books, and thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company.

Once our plane touched down in Austin a week later, the new year began in earnest. I went back to my world of work and Mark returned to his…

At that time, I was a stay-at-home mom, living a fairy-tale life. I had groups of close friends, lunched out often, and volunteered across town. Not long ago, a friend told me he felt that during those years I lived for my kids, and my husband made all the decisions. I can’t say he was entirely wrong. The bills I paid came from an account Mark funded each month. The plans I made were structured in concert with Mark’s work and travel schedules. I volunteered for the Women’s Symphony League, Hospice, Young Life, and the Helping Hand Home; I served on the board of the Austin Bridge Builders Alliance, the parents’ council at our kids’ school, and the guidance committee for Westlake High School. I handled our family schedule and our kids’ activities. I orchestrated the tenor of our home. Mark managed the business of it.

Mark worked as managing director of Atlantic Trust Private Wealth Management in the Austin office. And while his work rarely took him from home, golf trips did. Mark’s great passion, besides his family, was golf. He belonged to numerous clubs around the country and was a founding member of Ben Crenshaw’s Austin Golf Club and Sand Hills. He played almost every weekend with either friends or our sons, Boone and John Luke. After all, in Austin, one can play golf year-round.

Our next full family trip was spring break in March. We headed to our usual destination, the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in the Cayman Islands.

Our final trip that spring was spent with friends in Turks and Caicos. Along with three other couples, we traveled to the Grace Bay Club to celebrate our dear friend Lisa Stedman’s fiftieth birthday in style. We returned to Austin on May 7, 2013.

From the outside, it was a glamorous life. We looked like that family. We were that family. In photographs, we smiled and looked gloriously happy. And for the most part we were. We took wonderful vacations; Mark and I attended all the named galas; we hosted fund-raising dinners and events for the governor, judges, congressmen, and other statewide politicians; and we volunteered and participated in many of the political, cultural, and philanthropic highlights in town. While one couldn’t call us “Old Austin,” as neither Mark nor I were born in Austin, we were certainly a staple within its political and cultural life.

Madison, our only daughter, was a sophomore at Baylor University that spring. She was a communications and public relations major. Our second child, Boone, was eighteen and was approaching high school graduation. We were thrilled he would join Madison at Baylor that fall. John Luke, our youngest, was twelve years old and finishing sixth grade. He too lived for the game of golf and enjoyed regular private lessons with Bill Moretti, one of Golf magazine’s “Top 100 Instructors.” Even at that young age, John Luke had a handicap that turned most men green with envy.

The kids were busy. Mark and I were busy. And the daily routines of our home felt safe and comfortable, warm and welcoming. Mark met with a men’s Bible study during the week, and I met with a women’s group. While Mark joined friends on the golf course each weekend, my friends dropped by the house most afternoons. We went to church together as a family every Sunday. And for ten years, from 2000 to 2010, we housed Young Life students from the University of Texas in our guest room and held the campus’s Young Life bi-monthly meetings in our living room. Our home and our lives were full, varied, and very blessed.

I confess that in looking back, it feels as if our lives ramped up from 2011 to 2013, and by that spring we were truly overscheduled. The tenor of our home had changed without my really noticing it. No longer tied to carpools, since two of my three children drove, Mark and I traveled more, went out more, hosted more political fund-raisers—we simply did more. Yet Mark still managed to spend time golfing with our sons and made a special effort for daddy-daughter date nights with Madison. I still cooked every evening we were home and left home-cooked meals for the kids when Mark and I dined out. But rarely did we sit down for a family dinner together as we had only a couple years before. In fact, if we were home, there were usually more people at our table.

I’m an extrovert and love nothing more than having friends and family around. Our home was a gathering place for our kids and their friends, and a gathering place for my friends as well. Friends often dropped by for a glass of wine on their way home and sat to talk while I made dinner. Many would even stay for dinner, perched at our kitchen island, chatting with my kids and their friends as easily as they would with their own children. The kids laughed, saying that our house had a revolving door, and they were more surprised when friends didn’t fill our home than when they did.

But that revolving door spun faster the spring of 2013. I was drinking more, a couple glasses of wine each night, and I slept less, often waking in the middle of the night, unable to find sleep again for hours. And just days before we boarded our flight to Turks and Caicos, Mark and I had one of our biggest fights in years. Although the subject matter was a serious and recurring theme in our marriage, Mark’s dismissive attitude that morning shocked and infuriated me. He actually said, “It’s no big deal” to me and brushed my feelings aside. If someone had taken a picture of me that day—and for a few days after—I would not have looked “gloriously happy.”

Upon returning from Turks and Caicos on May 7, life didn’t slow, though the school year wound down. On May 18 Boone was heading to his senior prom; Madison, just home from Baylor, was scheduled to leave for a semester in Italy on May 19; John Luke was finishing the school year on May 25; then we were going to celebrate Boone’s high school graduation on May 31. With all the year-end projects and celebrations, I still had final details to pull together for Madison’s semester abroad.

And there were more trips to plan. We often traveled to Colorado Springs in the summer to see Mark’s parents, and we talked about visiting Madison in Italy. But every time I tried to secure dates and book flights, Mark pushed back.

On May 15 Mark made plans for a special family dinner—just the five of us. We’d had a full family dinner at home on the fourteenth, but that night he wanted to go out. He’d planned every detail, saying this was our last night together for many weeks. His golf trip, starting two days later, meant he would miss Madison’s departure for Italy. We ate at Uchiko, one of our favorite restaurants, and swapped stories the entire evening. Mark asked the kids loads of fun family questions, including their favorite pet, family memory, and vacation.

Home again, Mark wanted to watch Caddyshack with the kids, but I put my foot down. I was all for family fun, but John Luke was too young for the movie’s humor. I headed to bed, the kids headed off to their rooms, and Mark sat in the family room strumming his guitar. I drifted to sleep as Mark played the guitar and sang one of his favorite Eagles songs. I felt incredibly blessed. I loved the daily rhythms of our lives and couldn’t see that underlying fabric ever changing.

This was who and what we were.