the Happy House now.
Because my school day is shorter than Cherie’s and Camille’s, I have to stay in the school library until they’re ready to walk me home. That seems okay because I flip through books all afternoon, but it doesn’t work so well when my sisters start getting held up in detention all the time. They miss school to take care of Norman, and they’re not turning in their homework, and they said that it doesn’t help that the man who’s been sneaking in our house at night likes Mom more than his wife, who happens to be a teacher at our school. When they’re in detention and I stay too long at the library and can’t watch Norman, my sisters realize we’re all in danger of Mom’s beatings. They tell me I have to walk home alone, as long as I cross with the crossing guard and walk along the storefronts.
The next fall, Mom meets a new man named Vito, who always wears a black suit and a thick belt around his waist that we’re not allowed to touch. Vito is nice to us, way nicer than Big Norman, but the two friends who are always with him are weird. They’re really quiet, and they’re always wearing sunglasses—even at night. I know this because when Vito sleeps in Mom’s room, his friends sit down in the car and wait for him so he always has a ride somewhere.
Mom begins to stay out with Vito all the time, and we love to play house without her. When the snow melts from winter, we collect our change and bundle Norman up and take a long walk to the Saint James General Store, where we treat ourselves to apple, grape, and watermelon swirled candy sticks and candy necklaces.
Then on the way to the local King Kullen supermarket we drop Norman off at home, securing him in a room by himself so we can go shopping with Mom’s food stamps. Camille and Cherie take two different carts, and I stand on the outside edge of Cherie’s with my feet on the bottom rail, adding up the cost of the food items as they’re placed in the cart to make sure we have enough food stamps to cover our groceries. When we bag our food at the cash register, my job is to hide an extra stash of bags in our cart. Then Cherie tells the cashier we have to go find our sister, and she wheels me back into the store to look for Camille, who takes the contents of her cart and stuffs it all in my bags when no one’s looking. Camille’s cart is always better—she grabs Fluffernutter, peanut butter, frozen jelly donuts, and lots of cake mixes. Then we zip out the door with our stash.
We prefer to be left alone. We watch Sesame Street, The Electric Company , and The Flintstones without any interruption from my mom’s boring shows like Guiding Light and As the World Turns . When it’s cold or raining outside, we take out the games that Mom gets from the Salvation Army for Cherie and Camille. We play five hundred rummy, chess, checkers, Connect Four, and Battleship. We take turns feeding Norman and teaching him words for the objects around the apartment. Couch , we tell him. Television . Lightbulb . Of course, we also continue his potty training.
When spring breaks, Mom’s away even more, so I go out to the side yard to make mud pies and chase worms and ants. We miss school more days than we attend, which finally brings a truant officer to our door. Then we start attending again, for now.
When the weather heats up, Mom starts coming home more. She’s always groaning that her back hurts. “You’d better get prepared,” she says. “You’ll have a new little brother or sister by Halloween.”
Mom says she and Vito want to plan a vacation together, so she begins working across the street at the deli. On weekends she brings me to stock the freezers. Her tummy is too big for her to climb around, but I’m small enough to crawl on the ground and stack juices, milk, and sodas on the bottom shelves. Then I stick around and clean the counters and mop the floor before the deli opens.
After school lets out in June, Cherie, Camille, and I put
Because my school day is shorter than Cherie’s and Camille’s, I have to stay in the school library until they’re ready to walk me home. That seems okay because I flip through books all afternoon, but it doesn’t work so well when my sisters start getting held up in detention all the time. They miss school to take care of Norman, and they’re not turning in their homework, and they said that it doesn’t help that the man who’s been sneaking in our house at night likes Mom more than his wife, who happens to be a teacher at our school. When they’re in detention and I stay too long at the library and can’t watch Norman, my sisters realize we’re all in danger of Mom’s beatings. They tell me I have to walk home alone, as long as I cross with the crossing guard and walk along the storefronts.
The next fall, Mom meets a new man named Vito, who always wears a black suit and a thick belt around his waist that we’re not allowed to touch. Vito is nice to us, way nicer than Big Norman, but the two friends who are always with him are weird. They’re really quiet, and they’re always wearing sunglasses—even at night. I know this because when Vito sleeps in Mom’s room, his friends sit down in the car and wait for him so he always has a ride somewhere.
Mom begins to stay out with Vito all the time, and we love to play house without her. When the snow melts from winter, we collect our change and bundle Norman up and take a long walk to the Saint James General Store, where we treat ourselves to apple, grape, and watermelon swirled candy sticks and candy necklaces.
Then on the way to the local King Kullen supermarket we drop Norman off at home, securing him in a room by himself so we can go shopping with Mom’s food stamps. Camille and Cherie take two different carts, and I stand on the outside edge of Cherie’s with my feet on the bottom rail, adding up the cost of the food items as they’re placed in the cart to make sure we have enough food stamps to cover our groceries. When we bag our food at the cash register, my job is to hide an extra stash of bags in our cart. Then Cherie tells the cashier we have to go find our sister, and she wheels me back into the store to look for Camille, who takes the contents of her cart and stuffs it all in my bags when no one’s looking. Camille’s cart is always better—she grabs Fluffernutter, peanut butter, frozen jelly donuts, and lots of cake mixes. Then we zip out the door with our stash.
We prefer to be left alone. We watch Sesame Street, The Electric Company , and The Flintstones without any interruption from my mom’s boring shows like Guiding Light and As the World Turns . When it’s cold or raining outside, we take out the games that Mom gets from the Salvation Army for Cherie and Camille. We play five hundred rummy, chess, checkers, Connect Four, and Battleship. We take turns feeding Norman and teaching him words for the objects around the apartment. Couch , we tell him. Television . Lightbulb . Of course, we also continue his potty training.
When spring breaks, Mom’s away even more, so I go out to the side yard to make mud pies and chase worms and ants. We miss school more days than we attend, which finally brings a truant officer to our door. Then we start attending again, for now.
When the weather heats up, Mom starts coming home more. She’s always groaning that her back hurts. “You’d better get prepared,” she says. “You’ll have a new little brother or sister by Halloween.”
Mom says she and Vito want to plan a vacation together, so she begins working across the street at the deli. On weekends she brings me to stock the freezers. Her tummy is too big for her to climb around, but I’m small enough to crawl on the ground and stack juices, milk, and sodas on the bottom shelves. Then I stick around and clean the counters and mop the floor before the deli opens.
After school lets out in June, Cherie, Camille, and I put
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