Sometime during the night, I hear the fighting and jolt awake.
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” my father is saying to my mother.
I hear the slam of the freezer, ice clinking in a glass.
“Leaving a bottle of pills lying around. What kind of mother are you?”
My mother is a wonderful mother.
My mother is lying for me. My heart is pounding. My mother never lies.
She mumbles something I can’t hear.
“And where the hell was Aislinn?” he shouts.
Fear grips my stomach. Will he come drag me out of bed? I want to hide, but I want to hear. If I can hear, I can handle things.
“She was putting laundry away,” my mother says. “That girl works so hard.”
“Well, she should have been paying attention!” he shouts.
“Roe,” Mom says in the calm voice she uses when he’s drunk-angry like this. “We need to hire a babysitter. A is just a child herself, and this is her summer vacation.”
“She’s thirteen,” Dad shouts. “And who’s going to pay for a sitter, Maggie, huh? What do you think we are, millionaires? You know my commissions are down!”
They’re probably down because you’re drinking so much.
“Aislinn’s twelve,” Mom says. “She should be out playing with kids her own age,” my mother says. “She deserves —”
“Yeah,” my father says. He slams his glass down on the counter. “We all deserve a lot of things.”
Sue-Ellen’s pool party with Mike now seems highly unlikely. Dad had said I could go to Maizey’s camp unless “something” came up. This is definitely “something.”
My father is yelling louder. I hear my mother let out a sob. Eddie is crying. God only knows how many drinks my dad’s had. Do you know, God? You know everything, right? Then why don’t you do something?
My fear turns to fury. This isn’t right. My father can’t hurt my family like this. We need help. Who can help us? Somebody has to make him stop drinking!
I used to think …
If only I sweep the floor better, he won’t drink.
If only I fold the laundry better, he won’t drink.
If only I keep the little ones quiet, he won’t drink.
If only I get all A’s on my report card, he won’t drink.
If only, if only, if only.
Callie shuffles in the bunk above me. I hope she can’t hear them.
It’s Flop’s turn to be loved favorite. I hug him to my cheek, kissing his brown furry face. “Good thing you only have one ear,” I say.
I love you, A, he says.
“Love you, too, Flop. Good night.”
I’ve dreamt in my life dreams
that have stayed with me ever after,
and changed my ideas.
— EMILY BRONTË
On Sunday morning, I wake up wondering who I can tell about my dad’s drinking. I also wake up wet. Oh, no.
I get out of bed, peel off my cold, clingy pajamas and put my bathrobe on.
The bathroom is empty. Thank goodness. There are pink spots from my father’s vomit on the toilet seat. I wipe them away with toilet paper.
He throws up every morning now.
I run water in the tub and clean myself off. I wish we could get a shower like everyone else in the modern world. Dad keeps promising, but his promises mean nothing anymore. Maizey said Sue-Ellen has her very own bathroom with a shower and tub and a makeup vanity with a cushioned chair and a closet you can walk around in, clothes all hung in pretty rows with matching shoes underneath. That girl is so lucky. I bet her birthday party will be fit for a princess. Please, God, let me still be able to go.
Back in my room, I strip the fitted sheet from my mattress and stare at the little puddle of pee on top of the plastic garbage bag Mom makes me put down to protect my mattress in case of accidents like last night. How embarrassing. In the fall I’ll be a teenager and I still wet the bed like a baby.
I put the wet sheet in the laundry basket in the pantry that’s already overflowing with dirty clothes again even though I just did four loads of laundry on Friday. On second thought, I shove the wet sheet down into the bottom of the basket so my father won’t notice. Not that he ever does laundry.
I turn on the teakettle and put a slice of rye bread in the toaster. When it pops up, I slather on some butter and Welch’s grape jelly.
I take my breakfast to my favorite spot, the phone bench in the dining room.
My father is down below on the lawn. There are cans of paint by his side and he’s kneeling on the grass with a brush in his hand touching up the statue of the Blessed Mother Mary. That was a gift he gave Nana for Mother’s Day once.
Nana must be so busy helping Aunt Bitsy that she hasn’t had time to write. I hope she’s having some fun, too, riding the cable cars and going to the beach. I don’t know any grandmothers who work like my nana does. When I was little I used to sit watching her iron her “work dresses,” all starched perfectly, at her kitchen table for her job at Russell Sage College. She’d put on pearls and an overcoat with a matching hat and walk sprightly up the street to the bus, shoulders back, chin up.
I thought my Nana was a teacher. It was just recently I discovered she’s a housekeeper. She cleans President Froman’s house, starches his shirts, polishes his floors. She is also the vice president of the worker’s union. The first woman ever.
The Blessed Mother sits about as tall as Callie in the center of the sloping lawn that is our yard, a hill too steep to play kickball on. It would be a perfect hill for sledding, except if you didn’t stop at the hedges you’d go over the bank across the sidewalk and smack into the highway where you’d be hit by a car, crash, you’re dead, and so forget about sledding.
Mother Mary sits all blue and white and silent, hands folded, fingertips pointed heavenward in prayer, surrounded by the rosebushes my father plants for her each year.
Dad stops painting for a moment. He bows his head, probably praying. He’s getting balder on top, his dark hair ringed round like a monk’s.
My father loves the Blessed Mother. My mom has a “strong devotion” to her as well. In May, which is Mary’s special month, my mother makes all of us kneel to say the rosary in front of the small Mary statue we have on the buffet in the dining room. There is always a bouquet of fresh lilacs and a votive candle lit in Mary’s honor. My mother makes us say that entire rosary, every bead, no matter what. No matter if the phone is ringing, or my father is yelling, or dinner is burning, we keep praying.
Sometimes I watch my mom’s face as she prays, eyes closed, lips moving, often tears streaming down. Why are you crying? I want to ask, but I already know why. She’s crying about the drinking. It has to be that.
I think of the Beatles song: “Mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom, let it be.” Send my dad some wisdom, Mary. Help him stop drinking, please.
I walk down the back steps and across the lawn to where my father is working. He has finished repainting an area of blue on Mary’s sleeve and now he’s got his smaller brushes out, touching up her face. He doesn’t notice me. I swat away a bee buzzing close to my face. A cicada drones nearby, heralding more hot weather.
My father closes one can, opens another. “Oh, A … What do you think?”
“Beautiful,” I say. “She looks beautiful.”
My father smiles. He looks like he’s going to cry — the way he does when he comes out of confession. He nods his head up and down. “Yes,” he says. “She does.”
We all get dressed in our Sunday best and trudge up the hill to Mass. There’s the old man in the brown suit and matching hat with the gull feather in the rim. Nana’s friend Mrs. Casey asks if we’ve heard from her yet. She stares at Mom’s belly. “Are you …” And Mom nods yes.
“Oh, thank God and his Blessed Mother,” Mrs. Casey says, clasping her hands together.
Maria and Leo Carroll are talking with another young couple. Maria sees me, “Aislinn, hi
!” waving for me to join them, but the organ is starting and we have to sit.
Beck’s wearing his baseball dream on the sleeve of his shirt. Dad reads it and smiles. He gentle-punches Beck’s arm. “Let me see what I can do, Buster Brown.”
Beck’s face nearly bursts with joy. It’s like they’re already sitting in the bleachers, eating peanuts and Cracker Jack. Oh, I hope it comes true for you, Beck!
After I receive Communion and return to our pew to kneel, I pray the same thing I do every Sunday. Please, God, make my dad stop drinking.
I look up at the statues. They stare back — rock hard marble, cold and silent. I look at the face of Jesus. Open your eyes, please. I need you to see.
After we walk home from Mass, my mother makes a big brunch, scrambled eggs and sausage, toast with jelly, cinnamon rolls, orange juice, and tea. We all sit, shoulder to shoulder, around the formica table with the Christmas-card propped leg.
My father looks excited about something. He gets a piece of paper, writes like he’s making a list. “Got to get some things. I’ll be back,” he says.
When I finish drying the dishes, Mom says, “Why don’t you go do something fun, A? Go ahead, get out of here.”
I dial Maizey’s number, no answer. No surprise.
I pack a lunch for later, bologna and cheese with mustard, a thermos of soda, some onion-garlic chips, and the Freihofer’s cupcake I wrapped in a napkin and hid behind the breadbox yesterday. With so many people in the family, you have to take precautions. A box of Freihofer’s chocolate chip cookies usually lasts two days; there are probably thirty in there, but cupcakes come six to a box, one for everyone. Once Eddie starts eating regular food, somebody’s going to be sorry.
I put my lunch bag in my satchel with my diary and pen and sling my guitar on my back, then, checking that the coast is clear, I head up the path to my house.
Prisoner Number One, Aislinn aka “Dream” O’Neill, out on temporary parole.
In my Peely-Stick Shop I sing my heart out — “Green-Eyed Lady” by Sugarloaf, “Cracklin’ Rosie” by Neil Diamond, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” by Diana Ross, and “Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes” by Edison Lighthouse. I eat my sandwich, smiling at the happy words tacked on the trees: DREAM. BELIEVE. LOVE.
I think about how much I miss having Nana right downstairs from me. We are different, but we love each other strong. She keeps her feelings to herself, so proud and private. Me? I’d spill the contents of my heart to the milkman if he asked.
“We’ve got to toughen you up, Aislinn,” Nana says. “You need to grow a thicker skin. You’ll get crushed wearing your heart on your sleeve like you do.”
I lie down, sun-stars twinkling through the pine bough roof, and take a nap. Later when I wake up, I walk to the edge of the hill, where I can see the river in the distance. There’s a ship moving slowly by. Where are you going? I wonder.
I gather up my things and head back down the hill, where much to my surprise I see my father standing by the old outhouse. He’s prying a board away with a long steel tool. There is a stack of lumber on the ground, and a window.
“What are you doing?” I say.
“I’m building Mom a little writer’s house for her birthday,” he says. He smiles, looking at me like I should pay him a compliment.
I would except, in that moment, I have all I can do to not burst into tears. If he’s building her writer’s house here, it must mean he’s never going to build her one at our house in the country.
We are never going to get our house in the country.
But there’s nothing half so sweet in life
As love’s young dream.
— THOMAS MOORE
Dreamsleeves worked for Beck.
One of Dad’s customers had a family conflict and couldn’t use his box seats at the Yankees game. Dad took Beck, just the two of them.
When they got back from New York City late last night, I swear Beck looked like he was ten years old, not a “little one” anymore.
He taped the ticket stub and popcorn box and Yankees pennant on the wall by his bed, proof to him that dreams come true.
And we finally got a postcard from Nana!
“Greetings from San Francisco” with a picture of a cable car.
Dear Roe, Maggie, and Family,
Bitsy had a boy. 8 lbs, 7 ounces. They named him Robert William III, after his father and grandfather. Baby and Mom are healthy. Love, Mother (Nana)
I rush to tell everyone the good news.
“I want to make the baby a picture,” Callie says, and I get out paper and pencils and crayons for the little ones. I write my aunt Bitsy a congratulations letter and send a letter to Nana, too.
Sue-Ellen’s pool party is Saturday.
The good news is that I think I can still go to “Maizey’s camp” for the weekend. I reminded Dad and he said he “didn’t see why not.”
The bad news is that Dad is drinking more, coming home earlier and earlier from work. If he doesn’t make calls, he doesn’t get commissions, and that means no house. I refuse to believe that dream won’t come true. And if it’s not the money, but Nana that’s holding him back, I will talk to Nana when she gets home. I’ll wear that dream on my sleeve. Nana is so proud of this house she raised her family in. My mother deserves to raise her family in her own house, too, and six kids need more than two bedrooms.
I wonder what Nana will think of the “little writer’s house.” Back when Nana and Papa were building their American Dream, clearing the land and constructing this house, before they got their plumbing installed, they used the outhouse for a toilet, like in “the old country.” There’s a quarter moon cut out near the top of the door to let the light in.
My father has been working hard to change the outhouse into a writer’s house. He sawed out a square and installed a window. He stuffed rolls of pink insulation up and down and overhead, put up new walls and painted them, hired an electrician to install a light. He covered the old stink hole with a long piece of wood, then nailed wood around to make a desk, bought a new chair, and in what I thought was a very elegant touch, he hung a brass knocker engraved with an M, for Maggie, on the door.
Dad also hung a picture on the wall. It’s a photo of Mom and Dad, the night of their senior prom. She’s wearing a gown and a corsage. He’s in a suit and tie with a boutonniere. They are wearing crowns, just named King and Queen of the Prom. Mom is showing off the diamond ring on her finger. They would be married six months later.
“What do you think?” Dad says to me on the morning of Mom’s birthday, as he’s polishing the brass knocker.
“It’s nice,” I say.
“Go get her typewriter and papers before she wakes up,” Dad says, and I do.
I make Mom her favorite breakfast, two eggs over easy on rye toast with pineapple juice and coffee. B, C, and D give her the cards I helped them make in school. I give her the present I made up in my shop — a flower vase made out of a plastic laundry detergent bottle, with other chips of plastic glued on like a mosaic.
“Happy Birthday, Mom.”
“You made this, A?” she says. “I love it.”
I go to Nana’s garden and pick Mom a bouquet, set the vase in the center of the kitchen table. “Beautiful,” Mom says, “thank you, honey.”
Dad comes into the kitchen all freshly washed up and in a blue shirt that makes his blue eyes look even bluer. “Are you ready for your present, Your Majesty Maggie?” my dad says, holding up his arm for her to take.
“What’s this?” Mom says, even though I know she knows Dad’s finally ready to show her what he’s been working on all this time. She’s seen the purchases and heard the drilling and hammering.
“Oh, wait,” Dad says. He whispers something to Callie and she runs off, coming back seconds later with the ballet princess crown she got for her birthday.
“Here, Dad, here,” Callie says, so proud to be helping.
My father sticks the crown on my mother’s head, pushin
g the ends into her thick brown hair so it stays. The little ones watch in awe.
“You look beautiful, Mommy,” Callie says.
Dad escorts Mom down the steps and up the hill past our school shed, me behind him carrying E, followed by B, C, and D.
My mother smiles at the knocker. “Thank you, Roe,” she says.
Dad opens the door for her. “Go ahead, Your Majesty. It’s all yours.”
There sits my mother’s typewriter over the spot where the toilet used to be. I guess the GANE will be like my mother’s garden, her story springing up from the old manure underneath. I sniff in. It still smells bad, but I would never say that. The window is open and there’s a breeze coming in. Perhaps over time the fresh air will work. And there are the lilac bushes, too.
There’s an envelope in the typewriter. “MY OWN MAGGIE MAGPIE,” it says.
My mom opens it. A birthday card from my father. She reads the inscription, looks at him, and smiles with a look of total love. She sees the photograph he nailed on the wall, walks to it, peers in, her eyes filling with tears.
“I love you, Magpie,” my father says, kissing her forehead, hugging her.
“I love you, too, Roe,” she says, kissing him on the lips.
“Oooh, mushy,” Beck says. Callie giggles.
“Come on, let’s do something,” Dad says. “It’s a beautiful day.”
“How about a drive to Crystal Lake,” Mom says. “I’d love to go for a swim.”
“Can we stop at Jack’s for lunch, Dad?” Beck says.
“Ask your mother,” Dad says. “It’s her birthday. Whatever she says, goes.”
When my family starts down the hill to the house, I stay behind for a minute. I stare at the photograph of my parents. They look so beautiful, so happy. That was the year they won three dance contests. Mom always says it was Dad who deserved the ribbons. “He just swept me off my feet,” she says.
Their senior prom. Six months later they would have a fairy-tale wedding, a honeymoon in Niagara Falls. They would live in the basement of his parents’ house, “just for a year or so” until Dad made enough money to get them “a place of their own.” Dad would make a ton of money and drive a new Cadillac every year and buy my mother a house in the country with apple trees and a stream running by and she was going to go to college and write the Greatest American Novel Ever, and then they had me. Sigh.
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