she walks away, no longer sounding angry, but more like a robot.
I finish dressing the twins just in time to see a cab pull up and Louise heading out with two stuffed garbage bags, the customary Palmer luggage set. I follow her with an unknown twin in each arm. Lillian has by now managed to throw every toy out of her playpen and is demanding that I fetch them for her.
Louise opens the front door and I stand there speechless. What am I supposed to say—that she can't leave me in this situation, what about school, what about
money
? Then I truly will be acting like Mom and Dad and her actions will be evenmore justified. Besides, I don't completely blame her for generating an exit strategy. Deep down I realize that if I had an out I just might take it, too.
Only Louise can get away with this. It's hard to explain, but because she's beautiful, it's as if her good looks make her extremely fragile, to the point they're actually some sort of a
handicap
, and thus people act as if she needs extra help to navigate the world. Whereas the more plain-faced among us are always expected to be strong and to sacrifice.
This has always been the case, at least in our house. If Louise didn't want to eat dinner or attend a skating lesson, it was fine. If the rest of us tried to wriggle out of something, we heard about wasted money and the need to “start what we finish.” If you were ever to point out this child-rearing protocol discrepancy to my parents, they'd completely deny it. I suppose it's true what they say: that every child is born into a different house.
As the taxi pulls out of the driveway and speeds down the street the red taillights become smaller. A light snow begins to fall and low dark clouds move quickly toward us from the west, another storm on the way. It crosses my mind that luck is a lot like the weather and sometimes for no apparent reason it turns really bad.
TWENTY-TWO
T HE LAUNDRY ROOM IS IN THE BACK CORNER OF THE BASEMENT, A dimly lit concrete bunker with piles of clothes reaching almost to the ceiling, and particularly attractive to spiders of the daddylonglegs variety.
Mom has a system where she washes about three loads every day, from six different categories—baby clothes, boys’ coloreds, boys’ whites, girls’ coloreds, girls’ whites, and then a mishmash pile of sheets, towels, washcloths, bibs, and baby blankets. If one of the kids is sick and Mom gets a few days behind, it's almost necessary to go in there with a miner's hat and a steam shovel.
The next three hours disappear in a flurry of cleaning, vacuuming, and throwing away decaying fruit.
As I finish giving Lillian and the twins lunch, Eric returns home from the hospital with Aunt Lala and Uncle Lenny. “Did you give Teddy some lunch money? After you left I realized he didn't have anything to eat.”
“He stayed at the hospital,” says Eric. “We agreed that he'd come home with you. There's a cafeteria and some vending machines.”
“Is Mom better?” I ask hopefully Though better than what
I'm not exactly sure. I haven't seen her since leaving for school at the beginning of the year.
“Still the same,” says Eric. “She doesn't respond. I mean, I know that she sees us, and I'm pretty sure she recognizes us, but she doesn't say anything.”
“Then what is Teddy wanting to stay there for?”
“To be honest, it's a good thing he came along,” says Eric. “After the first ten minutes of trying to pretend that everything is fine, the rest of us ran out of steam and sat there in silence or talked with one another. But Teddy just prattles on as if Mom understands every word he's saying.”
So much for my plan to ask Mom about the age mystery— why her birth certificate makes her two years
younger
than we've always believed her to be.
“Well, the big excitement around here since you left is that Louise left for Boston. She's going to live with Brandt.” In the old days I might actually have enjoyed the shock value of
I finish dressing the twins just in time to see a cab pull up and Louise heading out with two stuffed garbage bags, the customary Palmer luggage set. I follow her with an unknown twin in each arm. Lillian has by now managed to throw every toy out of her playpen and is demanding that I fetch them for her.
Louise opens the front door and I stand there speechless. What am I supposed to say—that she can't leave me in this situation, what about school, what about
money
? Then I truly will be acting like Mom and Dad and her actions will be evenmore justified. Besides, I don't completely blame her for generating an exit strategy. Deep down I realize that if I had an out I just might take it, too.
Only Louise can get away with this. It's hard to explain, but because she's beautiful, it's as if her good looks make her extremely fragile, to the point they're actually some sort of a
handicap
, and thus people act as if she needs extra help to navigate the world. Whereas the more plain-faced among us are always expected to be strong and to sacrifice.
This has always been the case, at least in our house. If Louise didn't want to eat dinner or attend a skating lesson, it was fine. If the rest of us tried to wriggle out of something, we heard about wasted money and the need to “start what we finish.” If you were ever to point out this child-rearing protocol discrepancy to my parents, they'd completely deny it. I suppose it's true what they say: that every child is born into a different house.
As the taxi pulls out of the driveway and speeds down the street the red taillights become smaller. A light snow begins to fall and low dark clouds move quickly toward us from the west, another storm on the way. It crosses my mind that luck is a lot like the weather and sometimes for no apparent reason it turns really bad.
TWENTY-TWO
T HE LAUNDRY ROOM IS IN THE BACK CORNER OF THE BASEMENT, A dimly lit concrete bunker with piles of clothes reaching almost to the ceiling, and particularly attractive to spiders of the daddylonglegs variety.
Mom has a system where she washes about three loads every day, from six different categories—baby clothes, boys’ coloreds, boys’ whites, girls’ coloreds, girls’ whites, and then a mishmash pile of sheets, towels, washcloths, bibs, and baby blankets. If one of the kids is sick and Mom gets a few days behind, it's almost necessary to go in there with a miner's hat and a steam shovel.
The next three hours disappear in a flurry of cleaning, vacuuming, and throwing away decaying fruit.
As I finish giving Lillian and the twins lunch, Eric returns home from the hospital with Aunt Lala and Uncle Lenny. “Did you give Teddy some lunch money? After you left I realized he didn't have anything to eat.”
“He stayed at the hospital,” says Eric. “We agreed that he'd come home with you. There's a cafeteria and some vending machines.”
“Is Mom better?” I ask hopefully Though better than what
I'm not exactly sure. I haven't seen her since leaving for school at the beginning of the year.
“Still the same,” says Eric. “She doesn't respond. I mean, I know that she sees us, and I'm pretty sure she recognizes us, but she doesn't say anything.”
“Then what is Teddy wanting to stay there for?”
“To be honest, it's a good thing he came along,” says Eric. “After the first ten minutes of trying to pretend that everything is fine, the rest of us ran out of steam and sat there in silence or talked with one another. But Teddy just prattles on as if Mom understands every word he's saying.”
So much for my plan to ask Mom about the age mystery— why her birth certificate makes her two years
younger
than we've always believed her to be.
“Well, the big excitement around here since you left is that Louise left for Boston. She's going to live with Brandt.” In the old days I might actually have enjoyed the shock value of
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