Comstock's magazine 1117 - November 2017 | Page 58

unsweetened whipped cream frosting. Diane had baked her eldest son’s favorite
cake for his twelfth birthday and placed it atop a plastic, imitation-crystal cake
tray. Before cutting the cake, Cabaldon insisted that he, his mother and 9-year-old
brother Dylan wait for Larry, their father, to return home.
The family of four lived in the upscale Hollywood Hills neighborhood, in a
spacious home Cabaldon says his parents barely afforded. Diane, a university pro-
fessor, had grown up in a blue-collar family in Michigan as the daughter of Czech
factory workers, and moved to California as a teenager to study economics at Cal
State Northridge, where she met Larry.
Larry was a second-generation Filipino immigrant — his parents worked at a
soda fountain in the Central Valley, and Larry's father ran a secret gambling ring
under the store. Through Cabaldon’s early childhood, Larry worked as a corporate
headhunter. He now operates a consultancy firm for businesses and has authored
a book titled, “God in the Boardroom: Why is Christianity losing market share?”
But on that night in November, Larry didn’t arrive home. As the hours passed,
Diane grew distressed. After Dylan went to bed, Diane inexplicably gave Cabal-
don the “birds and bees” talk. He remembers being repulsed by
the thought of human reproduction, later equating sex with his
mother’s aggrieved state of mind and distancing himself from
both.
Past his bedtime, Cabaldon eventually crawled under his
covers and fell asleep with the untouched cake still sitting in the
kitchen. He awoke to the sound of crashing glass and scream-
ing, and crept down the hallway to investigate. Diane was in
hysterics, throwing things in the kitchen. Larry still wasn’t
home. The front door stood open. The cake was smashed to bits
on the front porch.
Two days later, Diane and Larry summoned their two sons
and announced the couple was divorcing. Larry would imme-
diately move out while Diane looked for a new home for herself
and the boys. Neither parent mentioned that Larry had met
another woman, a cocktail waitress who would move into the
family’s home shortly after Diane’s death.
On a Friday night the following April, Diane drove her sons to the house of her
sister, Janice Tully, to celebrate Tully’s daughter’s birthday. Wine f lowed freely, Hall
& Oates played on the stereo and the kids played games. Cabaldon recalls his moth-
er acting upset — a common sight following the breakup — and finishing several
drinks. After the party, the two boys piled in the back of the car and Cabaldon im-
mediately fell asleep. After Diane pulled away, Tully noticed Diane had forgotten
her purse.
The accident occurred with the BMW traveling back toward Tully’s house. Diane
drove the wrong way up an off-ramp on Highway 170 and crashed into a guardrail.
Tully heard the news in a late-night phone call and rushed to the hospital. “It was
a horrifying sight,” Tully recalls. Diane “was hooked up to all these machines that
were keeping her going. [The doctor] said she was basically braindead.”
Cabaldon remembers getting into the car and then waking up covered in ban-
dages in a hospital bed in Glendale. His ankle and arm were wrapped, and he had
THE NEXT THING
CABALDON
REMEMBERS IS THE
SOUND OF HIMSELF
SCREAMING.
58
comstocksmag.com | November 2017