“Thank you, Sister.”
“You’ve been ill for nearly a week. Today we were going to call the doctor.”
“I don’t think that would have done any good.” I was incredibly tired again and soon fell asleep. However, when one of the sisters arrived with some food for lunch, I sat up and managed to eat about half of it by myself. Even though I slept most of the day, when I was awake I was fully awake.
It took me the remainder of Christmas vacation to regain any strength at all, but at least I was up walking around. The last day before school started again I decided I was strong enough to go through the stack of cards that had remained untouched beside my bed.
Miraculously enough, most of the cards and letters were from friends of mine at Chadwick. They contained handwritten notes expressing love for me and sadness at the terrible circumstances of my sudden departure. People I barely knew sent me little notes saying how much I would be missed. I had mixed emotions as I opened one after the other. I was deeply moved that so many people had taken the time to send me their good wishes and their love, but the sadness that overcame me was excruciating. It took all of the little courage I had not to take to my bed again. I didn’t have much left in the way of defenses, so I just sat there sobbing with loneliness and despair.
When the siege of my tears subsided, I washed my face with cold water several times and then decided to take a bath.
Somewhat refreshed, I returned to the remaining unopened letters. It was only then that I saw one addressed in my mother’s handwriting. The stationery was imprinted with a green wreath across which was embossed “Happy Holidays to You” in red script. I stared dully at the familiar scrawling handwriting. The letter read:
Tina dear
Thank you so very much for the lovely sachet – how sweet you were to make one for me and the girls.
Enclosed are your cards and letters – I would appreciate your thank you notes for all the gifts I sent up to you as soon as possible.
My love to you and hope the New Year will bring you great joy and happiness
Always –
“Mommie”
My hands were shaking by the time I’d finished reading. I looked around the room to see where “all the gifts” were, but I only saw three small boxes. I turned the letter over and reread it, even though it made me feel ill. The irony of the last sentence … “great joy and happiness … great joy and happiness … how the hell was I going to get great joy and happiness when I was locked up in a convent being held prisoner on top of a mountain with every single shred of my life taken away from me? Insensitive, cruel, monstrous bitch … the impotent rage inside me welled up and overflowed into hysterical laughter. Tears streaming down my face, I laughed and danced wildly around the room bumping into furniture and waving the “great joy and happiness” letter above my head like a banner. My foot caught on a chair leg. I collapsed across my bed sobbing uncontrollably again.
I can’t stand it any longer … I can’t stand this goddamn pain any longer … I can’t stand the snide letters from her … I can … not … take … it … anymore.
I went back to bed until the first students began to return from vacation.
CHAPTER 17
Slowly, slowly the bleak routine of the catholic girls’ school began to be my way of life too. I went where I was supposed to go, did what I was told and spent most of the weekends by myself reading. I had become numbed into subservience. The penalty for thinking was pain beyond my endurance. I walked in line and went through the motions of being alive. I cried by myself and ate candy because it was the only pleasure left. I had given up hope now, so one day or one week was the same as another. I was serving time in purgatory and no one could help me. I was serving my life sentence for crimes beyond my undoing. Institutional life, barren as it was, simply created the format of my constant penance. Punishment had become the ordinary course of my days. At least here in this convent the sisters were kind and no one beat me. Sister Benigna, particularly, took hours and hours of her evenings and weekends to talk with me, trying to keep me from slipping away again. I felt she genuinely understood, which was peculiar because she hadn’t known me very long. She was a sister, a catholic nun, sheltered from the outside world. Yet I felt she understood me and my circumstances better than anyone else ever had. She had a strength and courage that was quiet but steadfast. She began to bend the special restrictions I was supposed to live under. She allowed me to write and receive letters from my friends at Chadwick and even to make a few phone calls if I cleared them with her first.
On February 5th, I received another letter from mother. This one was typewritten.
Christina darling,
Thank you for your sweet letter. I hope you received all the presents last week. I have a list of the people who sent them to you, but do not have what the gifts are. Will you be good enough to write your thank-you letters and send them to me as soon as possible.
I hope you are feeling better.
All my love,
“Mother”
Her correspondence with me picked up and about a week later this typewritten letter arrived.
Christina darling,
Enclosed are some Valentine’s cards. I’m sure you will be grateful for them and for everyone who has been thinking of you.
Thank you for calling me on Valentine’s Eve. It was very sweet and thoughtful of you. I’m deeply grateful. I am glad you had such a lovely evening and I hope your school term is happy and that you are well adjusted.
My love to you always.
“Mommie”
I had now been at Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy three months. It seemed like a year. I wasn’t really interested in my schoolwork anymore because it was so easy compared to Chadwick that I was far ahead of most of my classmates. Not many of the girls were planning to go on to college, so the same level of academic excellence was not demanded of them. Many of the girls were from Spanish speaking countries and had considerable difficulties with English.
In addition, I discovered that catholic education contained unexpected pitfalls. My first real shock came in English class during book reports. There was no special list of books to chose from, so I picked one that I liked from my past experience and a volume I’d happened to have received as a Christmas gift. When my turn came, I got up in front of the class and my report on the Rubyiat of Omar Khayam, complete with selections of the poetry which I read to the class. When I finished, it was usual to ask for questions. But I met with stunned silence. I turned to look at the plump sister teaching the class and she was crimson! She managed to sputter that the book I had just reported so thoroughly was on the index! A gasp went up from the class, but I had no idea what in the world she was talking about. She went on to explain that the index was a list of books which catholics were forbidden to read.
It was now my turn to be stunned. A list of forbidden books? I couldn’t believe my ears. I knew, by the extreme state of agitation the teacher was in, that this was no joke. Sister asked me to sit down and see her after class.
There was nothing in my educational background to prepare me for this kind of thinking. I had been taught to question everything and think for myself, not to follow like a sheep. I couldn’t even bring myself to apologize to sister after class. All I said was that I was not a catholic and that I’d never heard of “the index” before today. Sister told me that from here on out, I was only to report on books found in the school library. There was no further discussion, although I always had the feeling sister didn’t quite know what to make of me after that incident. She tended to stay clear of me when I raised my hand in class and gave me straight A’s anyway.
The beginning of March, since I received no spending money, mother sent me a check for the school annual which I had requested. Her check was accompanied by this handwritten note:
Tina darling
Enclosed is a check for the “annual”
Loved your sweet letter – and I love you – forgive brief note b
ut I’m rushing to Queen Bee script reading –
“Mommie”
Queen Bee was a movie I found horrifying when I saw it a year later. The reason it was horrifying was that it was exactly like mother when she flew into one of her tirades at home. I can honestly say from years of experience at that particular time in both of our lives … her performance in Queen Bee was not a job of acting nor was it a characterization of another person … it was mother. It was the same person who went into fits or rage and beat us; it was the same person who refused to listen to any side of a dispute except her own; it was the same person who made up stories about me and then got everyone to believe she was telling the truth and I was the liar. It was with secret pleasure that I later read Bosley Crother’s review in the New York Times which said: “As the wife of a Southern mill owner whom she had driven to drink by her ruthless, self-seeking machinations and frank infidelity (Miss Crawford) is the height of mellifluous meanness and frank insincerity. When she is killed at the end, as she should be, it is a genuine pleasure and relief.”
Some people said she overacted. I knew that she wasn’t “acting” at all … she was just being herself. Maybe not the “self” she put on for her fellow professionals or the outside world and the press, but certainly the “self” she was at home with us and the servants.
I continued to write to her and call her once a week. It’s hard to explain why, but habit was certainly part of it. Also, I was afraid that if I didn’t make some attempt to have a relationship with her, at least let her know I was alive, she’d get crazy again and transfer me to someplace worse. I’d heard rumors about the county detention homes and foster parent programs. However much I disliked being at Flintridge I knew there were places worse and I didn’t want to be sent to one of them.
On March 28, she sent me this typed thank-you note for the small birthday gift I’d made her.
Christina darling
I just received your letter of March 14th. Isn’t that odd? And the package with the tea towel that you did.
Thank you so much for the lovely, lovely gift, beautifully done.
Thank you for telling me about your roommate. Hope the new one is nice, too. I’m sure she is. You spoke of the weather being extremely extreme, but where we are, it’s just extreme. Just hot. No air-conditioning no nothing, and, of course, as usual I’m wearing fur coats in the summer, and I can guarantee you, no matter where I am in January or February, I will be wearing bathing suits. But this is life, and this is what makes it interesting.
I adored your St. Patrick’s Day poem. It’s charming beyond belief.
By the way, darling, did you get the bras? And did they fit, because in order to get pink or black we have to buy them and then dye them, and I didn’t want to go to all that expense, unless the other two fit you. Do let me know, please.
Thank you again for writing, darling.
All my love,
“Mommie”
Even though this letter was longer than the usual perfunctory notes acknowledging a card or birthday gift I’d sent her, they all made me feel like I was part of the fan mail. The paragraph about the bras was ridiculous. I had no money to buy anything and had asked her to send me some underwear, specifying the sizes. What she’d sent were two custom-made bras that were all wrong. I never asked for pink or black either. What would I have done with them? I was living in total isolation as a student in a convent school. I was not allowed to leave the school premises and I couldn’t have anyone visit me. What on earth would I need with pink and black bras? All I wanted was some underwear, plain and simple and utilitarian and I couldn’t even seem to get that. All the “darling” business was for the benefit of her own self- image and nothing more. She knew that the sisters opened all the incoming mail before the students got it and were free to read the contents. I got the feeling it was all a put-on job for the sisters’ benefit, because she never called me “darling” over the phone.
Two days later, the following letter from my brother arrived. It was dated March 28, the same as mother’s letter about the bras.
Dear Chris,
I called mother last night and asked her if the whole family would be there for Easter. She said, “you mean Tina too?” I said, “yes.” Then she said, “Do you want happiness and fun or sadness?” Of course I said I wanted fun and then she said “that’s why, Chris, Tina isn’t coming home until she can bring some love and happiness to us.”
So if you would please come out of your shell and give instead of take you will find that lots and lots more love and joy than hate.
So if you want to be a great success like mommie is, be sweet and loving and you will find that you will gain lots more friends and have lots more fun. O.K.
Just try it and see.
Your friend and loving brother,
Chris
P.S. Write soon,
Love,
Chris
I felt like someone hit me in the stomach. It had only been four months since I last saw Chris. Through his well-intended letter to me, I heard mother’s propaganda machine grinding out the lies about me. I wasn’t mad at Chris, just terribly hurt that he’d believe any of the garbage. But I knew he was even more dependent on mother’s whim now that I was gone and couldn’t take care of him. Though I knew he was just trying to be helpful in his own way, that didn’t keep me from feeling betrayed anyway. I thought back over the years we’d been together. Surely that meant something. But he was still young and her influence was all pervasive. That was her strategy; indeed the “Queen Bee”. Why did she bother with all that phony “darling” shit, when she said terrible things about me behind my back. I was inexplicably tied to her, but my god how I hated her.
Easter vacation came and went. I never set foot off the grounds of Flintridge. There was a short note from mother wishing me a “Happy Easter” and a few cards from fans I barely knew.
Easter was an important religious holiday at Flintridge, so the few of us who were left at school had to go to mass every day. I was more familiar with the ritual by now but, even so, Good Friday and Holy Saturday were depressing. Easter Sunday’s mass was beautiful with the flowers, the gold and white robes on the alter and the priest and the joyous organ music. I was terribly lonely and felt like the outsider I was.
It was the middle of April before I heard from mother again.
Christina darling:
Thank you so much for the lovely sachet. How beautifully it is made. The monogram is just enchanting. I thank you so much. How sweet you were to think of me.
I’ll send your formal and your summer things to you. I’m delighted you are enjoying the blouses I sent at Easter.
We previewed Female on the Beach last night and it went just beautiful.
Forgive me, darling, I must run,
Love
“Mommie”
Right on the heels of her Easter letter came another, dated April 21.
Christina dear:
Congratulations on your fine report card. I am so proud of you, and I know, you are very happy about it, too. Thank you for your sweet letter. I knew you got your clothes on Sunday, as I sent them by City Messenger.
I do know that Mrs. Chadwick’s birthday is on the 26th and I am glad you want to do something for her. Why don’t you do for her, what you did for me - send her a telegram, or did you have something more extravagant in mind? Do call Miss Scheel and tell her what you would like done. I cannot tell by your letter whether you were asking for money for a gift, whether you want us to choose something, or what. So call Miss Scheel as soon as you receive this.
My love to you as always,
“Mommie”
I was furious. The telegram she referred to was something that happened a year ago. I didn’t have any money to buy her a present and I’d misguidedly thought that a telegram would be more important than just a card. So I sent her a telegram for her birthday. She interpreted the telegram in the light of how she used them … for last minute remembrances the mail w
ould have delivered too late for the occasion. She interpreted it as not thinking in advance or not caring enough about her. I had no idea when I sent it that it would displease her so very much. For years after that she brought up the birthday telegram over and over again. In fact, from that point on and for every one of the 22 years until her death, she sent me a telegram on my birthday. She was fixated on that birthday telegram, even though more than twenty years passed and I never sent her a telegram again. Over the next twenty years I sent cards and presents, and still I got a telegram from her on my birthday. I sent her one telegram when I was fourteen years old and I got birthday telegrams in return for the next twenty-one years!
The weird thing is that I know what happened. First of all mother tended to become riveted on what she considered a personal slight or an insult. She would not discuss it with you. Later, she wouldn’t remember what the explanation for it was or that it may have been unintentional. She silently brooded over the incident and carried it with her inside. She remembered the insult, however accidental or unintended, and it grew as time passes. Usually, a misunderstanding fades away with time. But for mother the process was just the opposite. Whatever happened as the years went by such as presents, cards and phone calls, she clung to the image of the old hurt, to her own secret image as the deprived, somehow cheated and unloved person.
It was like the proverbial bottomless pit into which you could pour years of loving, kindness, attempts at reconciliation and it was never enough to erase the one mistake. It put you at a permanent disadvantage because of a totally unpremeditated error in judgment. An error that existed privately in the far reaches of her own childhood deprivation, her own alienation and loneliness, her own insatiable need for love. There wasn’t enough love in the whole world to fill her need. She didn’t allow enough space for another human being to be themselves. She demanded such constant assurances of devotion that it was humanly impossible to satisfy her. Over the years, most of the people who really did love her, in spite of her demands, were pushed away from her because she seemed unable to accept others as sovereign beings. So she was forced to settle for subservience and what she interpreted as total devotion. To her, total devotion meant saying yes. It meant dropping your life to serve hers. It meant inevitably being placed in a position of servitude, however subtle. Because you didn’t have a relationship with her, you did what she wanted and said what she wanted to hear or you were banished. You treated her always like a “star”. You behaved enough like a fan to make her feel comfortable. Under these conditions, she was generous, she showered gifts and thoughtfullness beyond anything remotely required. That was the price and those were the payoffs.
Mommie Dearest Page 24