Mother Nature: The Journals of Eleanor O'Kell by Michael Conniff Page B
Authors: Michael Conniff
Tags: Science-Fiction
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to imagine the horror of those nine months for Mother, but the idea of carrying Tom’s child after he raped me is unthinkable, unbearable. The worst thing that ever happened to me could have been even worse.
January 22, 1971
I ask Mother to tell me about Father’s inventions. “ My inventions, you mean.” What do you mean? I say. “I was inventing things long before I met your father, Eleanor. When I met him he was a little lost lamb. He was working for his father, for Edison , but Edison was all wrong about DC , and your Father had no clue. None. He thought Direct Current was the future. Ha! That’s a fat one even now! Your father had no idea about Alternating Current before he met me. None.” So he was a fake? “Not a fake. Nor a charlatan like so many in those days. And not a man with any badness in him, either, not then. Your father was simply a man of talent shy of greatness. Just a middling man. I had to take him by the hand.”
January 24, 1971
I’ve been thin king about what you said, I say—about Father. But it’s so hard to believe. “You want an example?” Mother says. “Your father could no more have eliminated the algae from the swimming pool at the Beach Club in Southampton than Franklin Delano Roosevelt could have got up and walked. ‘What do I do now, Katie?’ he asked me that night, after he told me about the algae. I told him what he had to do. It was child’s play for me. It was what I was put on this earth to do. But for your father it was a chore.” How come you never told anyone? I ask Mother. “Oh, I could never take the credit for anything, not in this man’s world. No one would believe me.” I say it’s never too late. “You don’t say?” Mother says. Sheets to chin, the corners of her lips slide up into a smile. Mother has time to tell me everything, and I have nothing but time to listen.
February 5, 1971
I ask Rebecca and Diana to dinner but they won’t come and I know why. They don’t want to talk about what Tom did to us, they don’t want to admit the worst thing in the world happened to every one of us.
February 18, 1971
Did Thomas Cushing rape your mother? I ask Mother. “No, child. My mother was married to an albino, a baker, and there was no way they could have children together. When Thomas Cushing came knocking my mother wanted him to knock her up. My own mother Constance Briody said to me: ‘That’s the only way I could have had a child. That makes you a love child, Caitlin.’ My mother Constance loved Thomas Cushing, you know, though he never loved anyone back.”
March 8, 1971
Tell me about The Tommies, I tell her. “I will,” Mother says. “I promise.”
March 17, 1971
Will’s day, a day for most people to forget themselves in the bottom of a bottle, my day to think of him as if he never left. Will is fading away in my memory, but he’s here today more than ever in my heart.
April 2, 1971
Were all the Sons all bad? I wonder. “Bad enough,” Mother says. “Don’t forget his Sons were the heroes during the Great Fire, saving everyone and their own half-sisters. They took over the town because they were the only men left worth a spit. But after the Great Fire, Thomas Cushing’s Sons had at Thomas Cushing’s own daughters, the daughters of Hads and Had Nots! The half-sisters born of Hads were like a harem at the beck and call of his godforsaken Sons, and their children were all Cushing, or nearly so. The Sons were plenty bad enough, Eleanor, even for that town.”
April 11, 1971
How did The Tommies get started? I ask Mother. “There would have been no Tommies if John Patrick Cushing hadn’t raped me like a nickel whore,” Mother says. That was the way the Hads and Had Nots came together.” Tell me more, I tell her. “Someone saved my life that morning, Eleanor. Someone came into the bakery out of nowhere and beat John Patrick Cushing to within an inch of his life. I never found out who saved me. No one
January 22, 1971
I ask Mother to tell me about Father’s inventions. “ My inventions, you mean.” What do you mean? I say. “I was inventing things long before I met your father, Eleanor. When I met him he was a little lost lamb. He was working for his father, for Edison , but Edison was all wrong about DC , and your Father had no clue. None. He thought Direct Current was the future. Ha! That’s a fat one even now! Your father had no idea about Alternating Current before he met me. None.” So he was a fake? “Not a fake. Nor a charlatan like so many in those days. And not a man with any badness in him, either, not then. Your father was simply a man of talent shy of greatness. Just a middling man. I had to take him by the hand.”
January 24, 1971
I’ve been thin king about what you said, I say—about Father. But it’s so hard to believe. “You want an example?” Mother says. “Your father could no more have eliminated the algae from the swimming pool at the Beach Club in Southampton than Franklin Delano Roosevelt could have got up and walked. ‘What do I do now, Katie?’ he asked me that night, after he told me about the algae. I told him what he had to do. It was child’s play for me. It was what I was put on this earth to do. But for your father it was a chore.” How come you never told anyone? I ask Mother. “Oh, I could never take the credit for anything, not in this man’s world. No one would believe me.” I say it’s never too late. “You don’t say?” Mother says. Sheets to chin, the corners of her lips slide up into a smile. Mother has time to tell me everything, and I have nothing but time to listen.
February 5, 1971
I ask Rebecca and Diana to dinner but they won’t come and I know why. They don’t want to talk about what Tom did to us, they don’t want to admit the worst thing in the world happened to every one of us.
February 18, 1971
Did Thomas Cushing rape your mother? I ask Mother. “No, child. My mother was married to an albino, a baker, and there was no way they could have children together. When Thomas Cushing came knocking my mother wanted him to knock her up. My own mother Constance Briody said to me: ‘That’s the only way I could have had a child. That makes you a love child, Caitlin.’ My mother Constance loved Thomas Cushing, you know, though he never loved anyone back.”
March 8, 1971
Tell me about The Tommies, I tell her. “I will,” Mother says. “I promise.”
March 17, 1971
Will’s day, a day for most people to forget themselves in the bottom of a bottle, my day to think of him as if he never left. Will is fading away in my memory, but he’s here today more than ever in my heart.
April 2, 1971
Were all the Sons all bad? I wonder. “Bad enough,” Mother says. “Don’t forget his Sons were the heroes during the Great Fire, saving everyone and their own half-sisters. They took over the town because they were the only men left worth a spit. But after the Great Fire, Thomas Cushing’s Sons had at Thomas Cushing’s own daughters, the daughters of Hads and Had Nots! The half-sisters born of Hads were like a harem at the beck and call of his godforsaken Sons, and their children were all Cushing, or nearly so. The Sons were plenty bad enough, Eleanor, even for that town.”
April 11, 1971
How did The Tommies get started? I ask Mother. “There would have been no Tommies if John Patrick Cushing hadn’t raped me like a nickel whore,” Mother says. That was the way the Hads and Had Nots came together.” Tell me more, I tell her. “Someone saved my life that morning, Eleanor. Someone came into the bakery out of nowhere and beat John Patrick Cushing to within an inch of his life. I never found out who saved me. No one
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