by Cathy Lamb
No one moved except for Fiona Butterfly, who fell off her chair. Our waiter scurried on over and put her right back up, then patted her on the shoulder.
“Poor Mom,” Lance said. “Oh, oh, oh. Poor Mom.”
“Poor Mom? Yes, poor Mom, but I’ve got ticked off issues, too,” Polly said, wriggling, agitated. “I’m mad that I spent my whole childhood trying to protect her from Dad, watching Dad attack her, belittle her, mock her, and she didn’t do anything. That wasn’t exactly a healthy environment for us to grow up in. He wouldn’t let her drive, wouldn’t let the mail be delivered to the house, buttoned her up tight with those staid blouses, and she put up with it because she’s weak. Weak! For our sakes, she should have left him so we would be protected, but she couldn’t summon up the strength to do it.” She threw her napkin in the air. “She was weak!”
“Polly,” Lance said, broken. “Mom’s an alcoholic. I know she doesn’t drink now, but she did then, and it rattled her poor mind to mush. Dad’s abuse controlled her. She was like a bunny in the jaws of a tiger. In everything he said to her, in every action, he showed her that he thought she was stupid, incapable, incompetent, uneducated, beneath him. She listened to that for years and years, poor Mom. Decades. She was freakin’ brainwashed and she didn’t have anyone to turn to, no parents, no sister—” His voice cracked and he picked up Fiona Butterfly and put her on his lap. For good comfort.
“I know, I know,” Polly moaned. “She’s a wreck.” She twisted her hands. “I’m a wreck.”
“I’m a wreck, too,” I said. “I’ve got visions, nightmares, flashbacks, and they keep getting worse.”
“And I can’t talk to women,” Lance said. “I can’t even open my mouth around them because Dad told me so many times I’d be a terrible husband, that I was weak, ineffectual, unmanly, dumb, and wouldn’t amount to anything but a stupid jock. I’ve only had two girlfriends in my life and they both broke up with me because I couldn’t speak around them. I’m a disgrace to myself.”
The waiters came with our salads. The lettuce was artfully arranged, like a 3D painting, dressing drizzled on the lettuce and then curlicued on the plate. The croutons formed a straight line. The blow-up girls did not get salads.
Polly fanned her face to get more air. She had been complaining about heart palpitations lately.
We were silent for a minute, then Lance reached out his huge hand and covered both of hers, Fiona Butterfly leaning with him.
“You do know that you’re coming close to totally crashing, don’t you, honey?” Lance asked.
“No, I’m not.” Polly shifted in her seat.
“Polly, you are.” I reached my hand out and put it over Lance’s. Polly not being well made me feel so sick. “You can’t live like this. You can’t continue to carry a bag tucked under your bra, you hyperventilate, you can’t breathe, you never sleep, you’re not eating. You’re so stickly thin.”
“I’m fine, Stevie, back off. You, too, Lance,” she snapped. “But I love you.”
“You’re way too thin,” Lance said, his voice hoarse. Fiona Butterfly wobbled in his lap. “I worry about you all the time, and sometimes I get so worried I have to go and lie down and knit. I knit for two hours straight on Sunday from the worry. I made you a hat, Stevie.”
“Thank you, Lance.” Yes, Lance knits. Learned it from some other guy named Timor on his pro football team. Timor actually owns a giant knitting store now with an order catalog and everything. Lance is “in love” with his designs. Every year he makes me and Polly at least two matching hats and scarves. He’s quite talented. We wear them all the time in winter.
“Well, quit worrying, you overgrown wimp. I’m fine. I’m fine.”
The waiter came with three types of bread and two types of butter. The blow-up girls did not seem hungry.
“Now, this lady.” He picked Fiona Butterfly up. “This lady’s got curves. You need ’em. You need ’em here”—he pointed to the doll’s boobs—“and here.” He pointed helpfully to the doll’s ass, spinning her so Polly got a close-up view of said ass. “You need more of that, honey. More bottom.”
“I don’t need more bottom,” she said. She dropped her head in her hands.
“Women should have meat on their bones, curves. They feel better with curves, too. Without curves, there’s nothing to grip in bed,” Lance said. “Not that I know much in that department…not much at all….”
Fiona Butterfly tipped toward me, and I pushed her back up. I ignored the pointed stares of the snobby women again.
“I’m not going to talk about this,” Polly said, panting a bit. She put her hand on her heart. She does that to calm herself down. Then she said, “It’s okay, heart, calm down. Everything’s okay.”
Me and Lance didn’t say anything, awash in our miserable worry, so Polly said, “Tell us about your rock party, Lance.”
“Well, dang, Polly, I don’t want to talk about it, I want to talk about you and getting yourself some boob fat and bottom fat and—”
“Lance!” she said.
“Okay, fine.” He hugged Fiona Butterfly close, then put her back in her seat. “You two are coming to Lance’s Lucky Ladies Hard Rock Party the night after the anniversary party, right? It’s out at the McMannis Brothers’ property. I rented the whole place. It’s gonna be a rock concert. I got a band that plays eighties music and everything. Oregon beer, Oregon berries, Oregon chefs. Everybody has to come dressed up as their favorite eighties rocker or they can’t get in the door. It’s gonna be awesome.” He put a hand on Katerina’s shoulder. Katerina knocked over his water glass. In seconds, two waiters were there mopping it up. More water appeared immediately.
“The ladies are gonna be the stars, but if you two don’t come—” He paused, cleared his throat. “If you two don’t come…” He got all teary-eyed. “The party will be ruined for me. Ruined. All for nothing. Please tell me you’ll be there.”
“I’ll be there, Lance,” I said. “For sure.”
“Me, too. Lance, I wouldn’t miss it,” Polly said.
“Promise me,” he said.
“Lance, my legs would have to be detached from my body before I would miss your rock party for the ladies,” I said.
Polly breathed into her white napkin again, the candlelight casting a shadow on her face. “Me, too, brother. I’m already planning what head-banging rocker I’m going to dress as.”
Lance’s face got all red, and he blinked rapidly. “I love you two.” He sniffed, wiped his eyes. “You’re always there for me, always have been. Even when we were young and Dad was so mean, so mean, so mean, hurting my feelings, my soul, the deepest part of myself. It’s always been us three, us three till the end.”
Oh, we are such babies. At the same time, me and Lance and Polly all burst into tears.
It sent our waiters scurrying right on over, panicky. “May we help you? What is it? Is it the dressing? The breads? How about some more wine?”
Being in a family is like living inside a tornado. Sometimes you’re spun around, sometimes you’re spit outside the tornado all by yourself, and sometimes you’re able to join hands with someone inside of it and wait the whole darn thing out.
Me, Lance, and Polly held hands. Fiona Butterfly fell on her head. Katerina fell backwards. The waiters picked them right back up, then brought our meals, which were not food but art disguised as food.
Neither Fiona Butterfly nor Katerina seemed hungry.
When I bought my house I knew two things: One, I didn’t have much money, and two, I would have to do almost everything myself.
My thought?
Big breath, and then, from out of nowhere I heard myself say, I can do it.
Joseph, my uncle’s kind, compassionate long-time landscaper and handyman, had taught me how to use every saw and tool under the sun, and I’d spent hours with him, as had Lance and Polly. We could build about anything, except an ark. (We would need Noah for that.)
I ripped up the 1970s brown and yellow linoleum and
moldy carpets and replaced them with old-growth timber salvaged from a turn-of-the-century home that had been torn down (free). I tore out the brown cabinets in the kitchen and hauled in an antique, slightly dented armoire to hold pots, pans, griddles, etc. It had so much personality I named it Tally ($12). I cleaned up another armoire (Tally II) with no doors to work as a pantry ($40). I then put in floor-to-ceiling open shelving, painted bright white on one full wall to hold my mismatched collection of dishes, colorful glasses, and linens.
I love old, interesting furniture that looks like it could speak in four languages and tell secrets. My kitchen island is a mechanics work table complete with tons of drawers that I bought at a country antique sale ($52). I repainted it green and spray painted the knobs gold. I heard through a neighbor that a friend was taking out her huge butcher block island counter for a new kitchen. I brought my saw, walked off with the block, and fastened it onto the mechanics work table.
I stripped the old cabinets in my bathroom and repainted them green, had a plumber install a claw-foot tub I got from a hotel that was being demolished ($25), then slapped up silver corrugated metal. (Free from a construction site. Manager said he’d pay me to take it.) It’s modern wallpaper, I think.
I use a barn door I bought for $1 at a country garage sale for my kitchen table. I painted it blue, and sawhorses (also free) act as a base. A one-hundred-year-old church pew in my living room sits across a red couch I had hauled in from a flea market sale (no fleas, $12).
On both sides of my fireplace I built white bookshelves. I didn’t know what to put in them at first. I had the same problems with filling my bookshelves as I did with choosing paint colors and furniture for my house.
Why the mental freeze? Because I had lived with Eddie, who smashed anything creative I wanted to do with searing anger and incessant ridicule, and before that with Herbert, who smashed everything in me altogether. So, with very little money, I would go to Goodwill and Value Village and garage sales and have conversations with myself as I stared at things.
What do I like?
What do I not like?
What do I want in my house?
Do I like blue glass? Do I like antique perfume bottles? What colors make me smile? Does everything I buy have to have a use or can I buy it for the pretty aspect alone?
Who am I?
Who am I?
Fixing up my home can be compared to fixing up myself. It was a constant experiment.
Ploddingly, over months, I filled my shelves with all kinds of things I learned I love: very old books, shells, lots of clocks, colored glass, blue jars, and small paintings and embroiderings. I attached a piece of wood to form a mantel over the fireplace and painted the cheesy fake rock wall white.
I found three chandeliers at garage sales, and from each chandelier I have hung crystals, pink Christmas tree balls, or colored, fake jewels. I repainted the pink, aqua, and greenish walls in my home in rich mocha and café au lait colors, with one sage wall and one brick red wall thrown in. I decorated one wall with intricately painted trays and another wall with china plates.
My house is the first thing that is completely my own. The light flows in abundance, the colors are earthy, soothing, and because of the vanilla and cinnamon potpourri, it smells good. Most important, he’s never going to be here, nor are his huge TVs, his toy car collection, or his beer bottles.
No one appreciates their home, and their own safe, peaceful place, filled with the things that make them them, more than someone who has lived in chaos, bone-gnawing loneliness, and emotional upheaval for years. The kind of emotional upheaval that is so confusing, mind-twisting, and manipulative that you don’t know which way is up anymore, let alone which way is out. As in: Out the door. That feeling of utter gratefulness for a home that exudes safety, for those of us who have lived through our own personal night terrors, never goes away. At least, that’s what I think.
I painted my bedroom ceiling blue with lots of white stars, including the Big and Little Dippers and other constellations. I call it the Starlight Starbright ceiling. It’s what I stare at when my insomnia is chasing me down like a rabid leopard.
Sunshine came to me in my dreams. She was sitting on the chair in my room, her legs swinging back and forth. She was smiling at me, talking, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying. She was holding playing cards in one hand and wildflowers in the other.
Suddenly, two words came through and I heard what she said.
“Schoolhouse House.”
Schoolhouse House.
I swallowed hard, scrunched my eyes closed, then opened them again. She was gone.
She was gone.
I knew she was gone. I had been grieving, or shutting out my grief, and my anger, for more than two decades.
So here’s a question: Does grief end?
Does the effect of trauma ever end?
Does your mind insist on going over and over your sad, crushing memories because you haven’t dealt with them or because they were simply horrific? Does it make a difference?
Was I losing my mind?
I had a lot of time to stare at my Starlight Starbright ceiling that night. Would I ever go back to Ashville? No, I couldn’t. It would tear me apart like a blender on puree.
I cringed when I heard Herbert’s voice over the telephone.
“How is the anniversary party planning going? I haven’t had a report.” No hello, how are you, how are things at your house, how’s your job, how do you feel? Never. After I’d lost 100 pounds he’d said, “At least you now have a modicum of control in your life, Stevie. Control. You’re controlling yourself. Control will get you somewhere. It will get you out of your rut. You’ll have a life you can be proud of. You’ll get something done for once, be productive.”
When I lost 150 pounds he said, “Better. Much better. More presentable. Not such an embarrassment.” He’d actually nodded at me as if he’d given me a glorious compliment.
“Are you there, Stevie?” he barked.
Herbert did not mince words.
“Yes, Herbert, we must have cut out there for a minute. The phone line was interrupted; it’s a bit windy today—”
“Yes, yes. Tell me about my anniversary celebration.”
We hate the celebration, I wanted to say. Me, Lance, and Polly think it’s a terrible idea to celebrate forty years of indentured servitude on the part of Aunt Janet, and we think you’re dysentery. “The party planning is going well, Herbert. Everything will be in order.”
“Good. We’re counting on you, Stevie, to do this right. To do it well. To have everything ready, oversee the work your cousins are doing on my behalf. The invitations are going out?”
“Uhhh…”
“Do not say ‘uhhh,’ young woman. Are the invitations out?”
“They’re going out very shortly—”
“I haven’t spoken with Polly for days, but I understand that you are now in charge of the invitations. Good for you, too, Stevie, to have a part in this celebration, not just the kids. Polly works very hard. She has a career, Stevie, a career. She is focused and motivated and driven. That’s how you get somewhere, that’s how you do it, that’s how you become someone. You climb up the ladder, not down. Anyone in your way, go through them or yank them down, Stevie. Polly’s making something of herself, and I know her success must be hard for you, but you are who you are.” He sighed.
From the moment I lived with him, Herbert compared the three of us to one another. I heard all the time about Lance’s athleticism, Polly’s outstanding grades and top abilities in track and piano, etc. All aimed at telling me, in one way or another, that I was deficient. Not enough. I didn’t fit in, wasn’t good enough.
He harassed Lance and Polly about my high test scores. How come I was so much smarter? Were they stupid?
Why? I think it was for control. He didn’t want us getting close to each other. He wanted the conflict, the dissent. It made him feel powerful.
It made us feel like we were nothing
. Nothing.
“Remember, for the invitations you are to use the photos that I initially sent Polly, the one of our wedding, and a photo of us now, with the accompanying date and time of my anniversary celebration.”
He ranted on and on after that, until he ran out of steam. This took a while. Herbert is short, stocky, with a hook for a nose and a shock of white hair.
“Dinner on Sunday night, seven o’clock, Stevie. The whole family will be there, and I will expect you to be in attendance as well.”
See how he does that? Continually points out I’m not quite a member of the family. It is deliberate. “I’ll come and sit with your family for dinner.”
“I’m glad you’ve dropped the weight, Stevie. I was worried about the photos for my campaign Web site and my anniversary celebration with your size being such an issue, but it’s not much of an issue now.”
“Thanks, Herbert. I would have hated to ruin the photos with my body.” I felt my anger trip.
“Obesity is a sign of weakness. Weakness does not run in the Barrett family.” He cleared his throat. “Except with Janet. She was not born a Barrett, though, like you, so I have had to train her in our values, strengths, and traditions.”
I conked my head on the table. I hated talking to Herbert, I well and truly did.
“I’ll try to control my weakness,” I said, trying to smash down my anger.
“Excellent. Now, I’ll let you in on a family secret,” Herbert boomed out.
I shuddered. I did not want to know any of Herbert’s secrets.
“I’m having some trouble with your aunt Janet.”
“What’s wrong?”
“She’s getting uppity.”
I gagged. “Uppity?”
“Yes, I think it’s a midlife problem that she’s indulging in. Janet has led a very sheltered life with me as the protector and provider, the head of the home, and now she wants—” He cleared his throat.