Читать книгу Starved - Anne McTiernan - Страница 12
ОглавлениеI stood next to my mother in front of a large, dark-red brick building. It was July, 1958. We had just moved from Watertown to a flat in Brighton, a working-class section on the western edge of Boston. I was so happy to be living with my mother and Margie again that I didn’t much mind the move to a new apartment. As long as I could be with them, I’d live in a shack. When I was home, it was always my mother, Margie, and me. Margie held a variety of amorphous roles in the family. She was a second mother to me, the one I ran to for banishing the pain of cuts and scrapes. She sometimes acted like a daughter to my mother and a sister to me. Then, when she was angry with either my mother or me, she’d pull back and act like we were roommates.
I now shared a room with my mother. Sometimes she made me lie next to her in her bed for a morning snuggle. I hated being that close, hated the vinegary smell of her before she washed and applied perfume. I didn’t dare complain about this new arrangement for fear that my mother would get mad and send me away again. At least Margie still gave me big hugs at night and rubbed my back to help me get to sleep.
Some of my dresses that used to hang loose were snug around the waist, now that I’d had five months of my mother’s cooking and Margie’s goodies to fatten me up. My shape was getting closer to its genetic roots—my mother was always overweight. She’d bemoan her girth frequently. “You just have big bones, Mary,” Margie would say.
“Where are we?” I asked my mother as we gazed up at the brick facade.
“That’s your new school, God willing.”
I shivered in spite of the heat. School meant being sent away and sleeping in a strange room with children I didn’t know. It meant I would hardly see my mother and Margie.
“I feel sick,” I said.
We had walked the mile to the school, keeping to the shady sides of the streets. On our block, we passed two- and three-family houses that housed typical, large Irish Catholic families, each with a father, a mother, and half-dozen kids. We avoided the Projects, a public housing development filled with the larger Irish families, often with twelve or thirteen kids. Many would be “Irish twins,” born ten months apart. We walked along a street of single-family houses that my mother said were where the well-to-do lived, the middle-class couples who might have only two to four children. These were a mixture of Catholic and non-Catholic, Irish and non-Irish families. The fathers were professionals—doctors, lawyers, accountants—but not making quite enough to live in the wealthy suburbs to the west of Brighton.
My mother dressed nicely today, like she did for work, even though it was a Saturday. She wore a yellow shirt dress that reached just below her knees. A thin belt matched her white patent leather pumps. Pearl clip earrings, a single-strand pearl costume necklace, and white cotton gloves completed her outfit. Her short dark hair rose straight back from her forehead, and pancake makeup reached perfectly to her hairline. She made her thin lips visible with a careful application of red lipstick, and her eyeglasses with turned up corners matched her hair color exactly.
My blue and green plaid taffeta dress crinkled as I moved. I carried a miniature version of my mother’s purse, which housed my white cotton gloves. A tight ponytail and plastic headband controlled my blond hair. I felt very proud to be all dressed up and walking with my mother.
If I’d known how to read, I’d have seen “St. Columbkille School” engraved in large letters over the rounded stone alcove. My mother hesitated, took a deep breath, and opened the dark wooden door. Inside, cool stale air and red linoleum-covered staircases greeted us. I stopped, unable to move. The dimly lit stairs and strong Lysol scent reminded me of Rosary Academy and caused a wave of nausea.
“Come on, Anne Marie,” my mother said. “We’ll be late.”
I climbed the steps slowly, my feet like blocks of wood. My mother grabbed my arm, her fingers pressing in deep. We stopped at a door to our left. My mother opened her purse and pulled out a piece of paper on which I recognized her sloped handwriting in blue ink.
“I think this is it,” she said.
She pulled off her gloves and knocked on the door once, softly. There was no response. She knocked again, louder this time. After a minute, the door opened. A lady appeared, dressed in a black gown like the Rosary nuns. A stiff white material framed her face and reached upward like a small pastry box, topped with a long black veil. Her black eyebrows stretched out in front like cat whiskers. I wondered if this nun would give me baths and put me to bed at night.
“May I help you, dearie?” the lady asked.
“I’m Mrs. McTiernan. I’m here to see Mother Superior about my daughter.”
“Oh, yes, dear, I’ll tell Mother Superior. You can have a seat right there.”
We sat side by side on a wooden bench, each with our hands in our laps holding onto our purses, me with my legs swinging, my mother with her legs crossed at the ankles. My mother looked straight ahead, her face expressionless.
“Stop moving around, Anne,” my mother said. “You’re rocking the bench.”
Sitting as still as I could, I decided to count the tiles of linoleum around us. I had reached thirty-two when the door opened. The nun said Mother Superior could see us now. She led us into an inner office with narrow windows covered with dark green shades that didn’t keep out the hot sun. Another nun sat reading papers on her desk. Suddenly she looked up, as if surprised to find someone else in her room.
“This is Mrs. McTiernan, Sister,” said the older nun. “And this is Anne.”
“Hello,” said Mother Superior. “Have a seat.” She motioned to two wooden chairs in front of her desk. My mother sat in one. I shimmied myself up into the other. My mother held her purse so tight the pink went out of her fingers.
“Well,” said the nun, “I understand that you’d like Anne to attend Saint Columbkille’s in the fall.”
“Yes, I . . .”
“You know she’s younger than our first graders usually are,” Mother Superior interrupted. “From your application I see that she’s only five years old.”
“Yes, Sister,” my mother said. “But I have no other choice than to send her to school. Her father and I are separated, so I have to work. And I can’t afford a babysitter.”
“What made you choose St. Columbkille?”
“Anne’s father went to school here.”
My ears perked up. My mother rarely mentioned my father; she only told me that he had gone away. I couldn’t understand why she wanted to send me to his old school. I wondered if this lady had been my father’s teacher.
“And did you attend parochial school?”
“No, Sister. My family lived out in the country, in the town of Kingston, near Plymouth. The only schools were public. But I went to Sunday school.”
Mother Superior pressed her hands together like the statue of the Blessed Mary that sat on my mother’s bureau. The nun looked at me for what felt like a long time. I jumped when she addressed me. “Anne, what did you learn in kindergarten?”
I felt like crawling under the chair. I looked at my mother. She was sitting at the edge of her seat, leaning forward.
“She knows her ABCs,” my mother said.
“Can you say your ABCs for me, Anne?” asked the nun.
I didn’t respond.
“Answer her, Anne Marie,” my mother said. “Sister asked you a question.”
“ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ,” I said quietly without pausing.
“Very good, Anne,” the nun said. Then turning to my mother she asked, “Is she a good girl?”
I held my breath as I waited to hear what my mother would say. At home, she often told me I was a bad girl.
“Yes,” said my mother. “Anne is a very good girl.”
I smiled when I heard this, even though I knew it was a lie.
“Well,” said the nun, “you know that we have to charge you tuition and fees. For one child that will come to a total of thirty dollars a year. Can you pay that?”
“Yes,” said my mother. “I’ll manage.”
“Is her father involved in her care?” Mother Superior asked.
“No. I’m on my own.”
“Does Anne have any sisters or brothers?”
“No, she’s an only child.”
“So it’s just the two of you living together?”
“My sister lives with us. She’s never been married.”
“Do you both go to Church and keep up with the sacraments?”
“Yes,” my mother said. “We go to confession every Saturday and Mass every Sunday, and we take communion every week.”
“There are no male friends visiting you or your sister?”
“Oh Lord, no,” said my mother. “That’s out of the question for either of us.”
“Good,” said the nun. It sounded like she was calling my mother and aunt good girls. “You’ll need to send a lunch with her every day.”
“You don’t serve the children lunch?” my mother asked.
“Most of the children go home for lunch. Those who live too far away stay for lunch. So Anne won’t be alone. But we can’t send her home to an empty house for lunch.”
“No, of course not. I just thought maybe you had a cafeteria.”
“We closed our cafeteria several years ago. We found that the families couldn’t afford to pay for prepared lunches and preferred to have their children come home in the middle of the day.”
I didn’t want to be different from the other kids who got to go home in the middle of the day, but I was very happy to hear that I wouldn’t have to eat food made at the school.
“Who will take care of Anne after school?” Mother Superior asked.
“Our landlady, Mrs. John Reilly, has agreed to watch her. She’s home with her seven children.”
“Ah, yes, the Reillys are blessed with a large family. I see that you live on Turner Street. That’s quite far from school. Will you walk her to school in the morning?”
“She’ll walk to school and home with the Reilly girls.”
That seemed to satisfy Mother Superior, who nodded slowly while looking at me. She stood up.
“Well, we’re happy to welcome another child of Christ to our family. We’ll send a letter before school starts letting you know who her teacher will be, her classroom number, and the times and days of classes and holy days. We’ll also send information on where you can purchase Anne’s school uniform.”
I didn’t like the idea of a uniform. The uniforms worn by the older girls at Rosary had made it difficult to tell them apart. I wondered why I couldn’t wear my own dresses like I did at Rosary.
“Thank you for allowing Anne to come to St. Columbkille. She’ll be a very good student for you, Sister.” My mother stood up.
“Do you have any questions for me, Anne?” asked Sister.
“Where will I sleep?” I asked.
The nun laughed. “In your bed at home of course, dear. What a funny question.”
Margie walked me to my first day at St. Columbkille. She had pulled my hair into a ponytail so tight that I had trouble closing my eyes. My classroom, one of three for first grade, had fifty-three children. A single nun taught us; there were no assistant teachers or interns or parent volunteers. I listened carefully to everything the sister said, afraid I’d get sent away or slapped if I was not a good girl. The nun rewarded me with gold stars on my papers and all As on my report cards. These were something tangible, something I could show my mother, so she might like me a little more or hate me a little less. The nun assigned me to work with the children who were lagging, so at age five, I became an unpaid assistant teacher. I couldn’t understand why the teacher chose me to help others—I felt insecure and lost, not capable at all. All my life I’d experience what psychologists call imposter syndrome. Even when I’d succeed at a difficult endeavor, such as finishing medical school, I’d feel as if I didn’t deserve the rewards of my hard work.
Living at home, my weight quickly rebounded and shot up. I went from resembling a concentration camp survivor to a chubby kid. A condition called the refeeding syndrome is caused by rapidly replacing nutrients in someone who has been starved. The person can develop severe electrolyte abnormalities if fed too much, too soon, and the risk of serious complications, including death, is high.
I don’t know if I starved enough at Rosary to have had this level of risk. Studies of people exposed to starvation as children show an excess of fat accumulation in the period of refeeding and catchup growth. Looking back, I can see that this is what I experienced. Finally living in a more stable environment, food represented comfort rather than terror, and I was able to eat. My body, still in a state of metabolism caused by the Rosary starvation, was too efficient at using calories. So my body ballooned up, and I became a fat girl.
The Reilly family had so many kids that to an outsider I blended in—just one more Irish face—although I felt more like a stray kitten nursed by a mother dog along with her litter. Mrs. Reilly’s care pretty much amounted to a benevolent smile whenever I ran through her flat on the heels of her kids. But she never hit or scolded me. One of her daughters was in first grade with me, and her closest sister was a year older. The girls looked similar enough to be twins—both with pale skin, freckles, and mousy brown hair cut short. My mother said Mrs. Reilly cut her kids’ hair around a bowl, as if this was shameful. I pictured her seven kids lined up with cereal bowls on their heads waiting for their trim. I thought they looked cute and wished Mrs. Reilly would cut my hair, too.
The Reilly girls taught me how to eat peanut butter out of the jar with a spoon and how to make mud pies in the backyard. Sometimes we played Red Rover or Cowboys and Indians with their brothers. We rode all over the neighborhood on our roller skates tightened to the bottom of our sneakers with special keys, skinning our knees when cracked sidewalks tripped us. I always went to Margie with my banged-up knees—she knew just what to do and say to make the hurt go away faster.
My mother arranged one of her week’s vacations to coincide with my Easter break. This didn’t mean that I saw much of her. There were no family-goes-to-amusement park types of vacations for working-class Boston Irish. Rather, we roamed with the neighborhood kids all day until our stomachs growled for supper. One evening, after climbing the stairs to our flat, I found the door ajar. This was odd, but being six years old by then, I didn’t worry about it. I just shoved it open.
“Ma!” I called. “I’m hungry.”
The flat was silent. I walked through each room, calling for my mother. I couldn’t find her. I didn’t think to see if her things were gone. I knew that she’d had enough of me and decided to leave. I must have been a bad girl, I thought. I wished I knew what I’d done wrong so I could make sure never to do it again. I wished I knew where my mother was so I could tell her I was sorry and loved her and would never be bad again.
When Margie arrived home an hour later, she found me standing in the living room, crying.
“What’s the matter, Anna Banana?” she asked.
“My mommy’s gone,” I said.
“What do you mean gone?”
“She’s gone. She wasn’t here when I came home from playing with the girls.”
“Oh dear God, I hope nothing’s happened to her. Let’s go ask Mrs. Reilly if she’s seen her.”
We walked downstairs and knocked on the Reilly’s door. Mr. Reilly answered. His face held a scowl and a two-day stubble.
“Hi, Mr. Reilly. Have you or Mrs. Reilly seen my sister Mary? She wasn’t home when Anne came in, and she didn’t leave a note.”
“She’s gone off to the hospital with my wife and daughter. The stupid kid got her fingertip sliced off on her bicycle. So now I’m taking care of all these brats on my own.” Behind him we could see a blur of kids shoving each other in the kitchen.
“Stop that now or I’ll give it to you,” he shouted. He closed the door in our faces.
“That rude, ignorant man,” Margie muttered as we climbed back upstairs.
My mother finally came home after Margie fed me hot dogs and beans and got me ready for bed. I heard them arguing.
“Where in hell have you been?” Margie asked.
“Little Mary Reilly cut her finger badly,” my mother said. “Mrs. Reilly took her in a taxi to the hospital. I went along with her. I had to help.”
“Well, you left Anne here without anyone to watch her,” Margie said. “I found her sobbing in the living room.”
“I had no choice. Mrs. Reilly needed my help.”
“You couldn’t even tell Anne where you were going? You couldn’t even take time to leave me a note? What was I supposed to do? For all I knew, you were lying in a gutter somewhere.”
“Oh for Christ’s sake, Margaret, I was just trying to do the right thing and help that little girl. Nothing bad happened to Anne. And you were coming home soon.”
“What if I’d been delayed? Who would have given Anne her supper? Who would have gotten her ready for bed?”
“Jesus, Margaret, I knew Anne would be fine on her own for a while.”
“She’s only six years old! She’s a little girl.”
“You just want to baby her. It’s about time she did more around the house for me.”
“I’d like to see how you could manage without me. I’ve a good mind to get my own apartment.”
“Oh, stop being such a martyr, Margaret.”
There was silence after this. I heard plates rattling in the kitchen, presumably my mother making herself supper. Now I had two things to worry about. Earlier, I worried that my mother had left me because of something I’d done. Now I was petrified that Margie might move out. I didn’t know what I’d do without Margie. Who would kiss my skinned knees? Who would play Go Fish with me? And who would rub my back at night and tuck me in so that I could sleep?
I crept out of my bed to the bathroom and saw my mother from the side of my eye as I passed. Margie’s door was closed, but light leaked from underneath. Back in bed, reassured that they were both home, I slept.
April arrived with cool mornings and warm afternoons. I let myself into the apartment after school using the key I kept on a ring with a picture of Saint Anthony. The saint was supposed to guard against losing things. I threw down my book bag, hung up my winter coat, and grabbed the sweater I’d just pushed out of the way to make room for the coat. I didn’t stop to change out of my school uniform—I had very few clothes anyway, so I couldn’t see the point.
Outside the back door, I fastened the roller skates onto my shoes, giving the key an extra twist so they wouldn’t fall off. I quickly caught up with the Reilly girls and off we went. After two hours of strenuous play, we skated into our backyard in response to Mrs. Reilly’s call. We trooped into the kitchen, where a half-dozen kids were trying to grab early tastes of dinner. Mrs. Reilly, baby on one hip and toddler pulling her nylons down her calf, was swatting the bigger kids away from her stove with a big wooden spoon. At 5:15 P.M. sharp, my mother walked in. My mother smiled and thanked Mrs. Reilly for once again watching me.
I followed my mother up the stairs to our flat. I was tired and hungry, glad to be home. My mother was quiet. We walked into the apartment.
“Shut the door,” my mother said.
After releasing the knob, I turned, ready to head for the bathroom. The blow to the side of my head stunned me. I couldn’t figure out what was going on. My mother held her big black leather purse in both her hands. Then she hit me again with the purse, this time striking my face. I didn’t dare react. I knew by now that whatever she was doing would only escalate if I cried or tried to protect myself.
“You little shit,” she finally said. I remained silent, afraid to ask why she was angry.
“How dare you wear your good white sweater outside to play? You’ll get it filthy, you’ll ruin it, and how am I supposed to replace it? Do you think I’m made of money?”
“Sorry. I didn’t think.”
“Of course you didn’t think. You never think. You certainly never think about me, working so hard with no thanks coming from you.”
I stood there, head down, in part to hide the flowing tears, in part to avoid her eyes. If I looked at her, she might start up again. Now I can see that my reaction was real animal behavior, victim pacifying the aggressor. If a menacing dog threatens you, stand still and avoid looking it in the eye because it reads movement as aggression. My stand-still-head-down stance was to avoid the wild dog’s bite.
I didn’t understand the level of her anger. I didn’t see why wearing a sweater outside to play bought me a beating. There was no dirt on the sweater. But I was only six years old and didn’t discriminate well among clean, smudged, and filthy. So maybe she saw something I didn’t.
As an adult, I rarely wear white. I tell people it’s because I dribble tea or coffee on most things I own, and light colors won’t forgive my sloppiness. Or I say that my skin is too pale—I’d look like a monochrome painting. But in reality I avoid wearing it because it reminds me of getting bashed in the head with a heavy black purse. This became a problem for me in medical school. While most of the students were excited to don their white jackets that marked them as doctors-in-training, I was ambivalent and wore it only when required. The saving grace was that it was okay to get it dirty.
My mother disappeared that summer for two weeks. At first, I didn’t know where she was and thought I must have made her really mad to leave for good. Mrs. Reilly took care of me during the day and in the evening when Margie said she had to go to the hospital. I didn’t know what a hospital was.
“Your mother had an operation,” she explained.
“What’s an operation?”
She paused. “It’s when some doctors open you up to fix things inside you.”
“What did the doctors fix?”
“They took out one of her kidneys.”
“What’s a kidney?”
“It’s what helps you go pee-pee.”
“Why did they take it out?”
“It was sick.”
I wondered how the doctor opened my mother up. Was it like unbuttoning a jacket? And would she still be able to pee? Did something I do cause her to have this problem?
Mrs. Reilly took me with her kids to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital one night after dinner. However, children were not allowed in the hospital. While she went inside, I caught fireflies on the hospital’s grassy tiers with her kids, which diminished some of my disappointment at not being able to see my mother.
When my mother finally came home, Margie and Mrs. Reilly helped her up the stairs to our apartment. My mother sat in the pink Queen Anne chair, frowned, and closed her eyes.
“Anne, you’ll need to be quiet so your mother can rest,” Margie said.
My mother looked very weak sitting there, but I wasn’t sure whether she could still hit me in her condition. Just to be sure, I resolved to do whatever Margie told me so I could stay out of trouble.
“Okay,” I whispered. I really wanted to know what the doctors had seen when they opened my mother up but didn’t dare ask. I don’t think this was an early sign of interest in human physiology. Rather, it was as if I wondered what my mother was made of, what was her essence. And would she be less angry with me after having this sick kidney removed? I hoped she would get better soon.
My mother groaned. “Oh, Dear God, I’m in pain.”
“What can I do for you, Mary?” Margie asked. “The doctors said you were weak but you’ll get stronger every day.”
“They were just saying that. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be on God’s green earth. I’ll be dead soon, I’m sure.”
This shook me. If my mother died, what would happen to me? My mother told me that Margie wouldn’t stay home to take care of me. Would I have to go back to Rosary? I started to cry. My mother turned her eyes to me without moving her head.
“For Christ’s sake get her out of here, Margaret. I need my rest.”
“C’mon, Anne,” Margie said. “Help me make your mother some tea.”
She hustled me off to the kitchen, where she gave me milk and Toll House cookies while she made tea for my mother and herself. Tea was prescribed whenever someone was sick in our house. The Irish imbue tea with almost mystical powers of rejuvenation, and Irish-Americans continued the tradition. My mother and aunt drank it strong and black, unless they needed a special treat, in which case they’d add a dollop of milk. They preferred the modern teabag over tea leaves, happy to adopt time-saving methods.
My mother stayed out of work for almost a month. She lay on the couch most of the time in her nightgown and bathrobe. When Margie was at work, it was my job to get things for my mother—her cigarettes, the lunch Margie left in the refrigerator for her, the newspaper. I even learned to make her tea. I had to stand on a chair to reach the stove. My hand would shake from the weight of the kettle after I’d filled it, and it would shake even more as I poured the boiling water into the teacup. The steam would burn my arm as it traveled up from the kettle spout. My mother wanted the teacup nice and full, so I’d have to walk very slowly to avoid spilling. A few drops would usually fall, but they hit the top of my Keds, so they didn’t sting for very long.
I prayed for my mother. I prayed that she’d get well soon. I prayed that she wouldn’t die. And I prayed that she’d see how helpful I was and let me keep living with her and Margie.
I’d later learn that my mother suffered from recurrent kidney stones and infections. At the time, there were few treatment options, and her case was compounded by poverty and lack of access to specialists. After her surgery, her kidney specialist instructed her to limit intake of calcium to prevent formation of new stones. Every time we had ice cream, she’d say, “I’m not supposed to have this. It could kill me.” It kind of spoiled the pleasure of my hot fudge sundae.
Later that summer, my mother had returned to work but was so weak that Margie had to do all the cooking, cleaning, and shopping. But on one particularly hot day, Margie, home on vacation, said she and I should go to Revere Beach. She packed us a lunch of bologna sandwiches, potato chips, and a thermos of cold orangeade. We stood in the back hallway, packed beach bags leaning against our legs. Margie stretched out her right hand, key poised a hair’s breadth in front of the lock.
“Did I turn off the stove?” she asked.
I didn’t say anything. I knew she wasn’t asking me. A kid would never know the answer to such an important question, even a mature six-year-old like me.
“I have to go back in and check.”
Her mouth was set as tight as it could be given her lower teeth overlapping her top teeth. She looked at me. The iris, normally brown, was practically all black, which meant she was having one of her “nervous” feelings. She opened the kitchen door and walked over to the stove. I trailed behind her. The big black line on each of the burner and oven dials pointed straight up in the off position. One by one, Margie grasped each dial and made the motion of turning it to the right. She repeated this two more times.
“I’d better make sure the front door is locked,” she said.
I waited in the kitchen while she went to check the door we used only on the rare occasion of the doorbell ringing. I heard the lock slide back and forth three times. It was always three times. Margie returned to the kitchen. Beads of sweat sat on her forehead. She blew air up from her mouth.
“Anne, are the lights all out?” she asked.
“I think so,” I answered.
“I’d better check.”
We passed through each room of the apartment: the living room with its dark green brocade-covered couch and little black-and-white television on the rolling metal stand; the dining room dressed with my mother’s cherry table, chairs, and hutch; the room my mother and I shared with our twin beds pushed too close together for my liking; Margie’s bedroom with its mahogany bureaus and double bed. Margie pushed each light switch down, as if to make it more off than it already was. She checked every unlit lamp. She pressed the dials on unmoving window fans to their off positions. She performed all these checks three times. We returned to the back door. Margie paused. “I forgot to check the window locks.”
I tried to keep my face placid. I was sweating but I knew that if I complained about how long this was taking, Margie would start her routine all over again. This time I waited by the door. Hopefully she’d remember to check the faucets on this turn around the apartment. Her routine never wavered: stove, front door, lights, window locks, faucets, back door. In the summer, she added the fans.
Margie appeared again. She opened the door and started to go out.
“Wait,” I said, “I have to go pee-pee.”
“Well, hurry up, then,” she said.
Finally, we were outside. As we walked, I scanned both sides of the street to see if any of the kids from school were around. I hated meeting my classmates, afraid they would laugh at me or point out my fatness. But I also felt proud to be walking with my aunt. I wanted the world to see that an adult loved me enough to spend time with me.
We didn’t meet anyone on our journey. We had left the house at nine o’clock, after the morning commuter rush, so we had seats next to each other all the way to the beach. I loved sitting close to Margie. Neither the streetcar nor the subway train were air conditioned, so my fat little body must have made Margie even hotter, but she didn’t seem to mind and even let me put my hand in hers. I couldn’t kiss her in public though—she said it wasn’t right.
At the beach, Margie spread out our old navy wool picnic blanket and put something heavy on each corner so it wouldn’t fly away. We stripped to our bathing suits, and I ran toward the water.
“Anne,” Margie called after me, “don’t go in over your knees.”
“Okay,” I yelled back. I didn’t understand this rule. At the YMCA summer camp I’d attended for two weeks, I was the best swimmer of the Minnows. My fat body floated very well in water, which made swimming easier for me than for most of the skinny kids.
But I knew better than to argue with Margie. The water petrified her, along with heights, open-slatted stairs, bridges, cars, planes, thunderstorms, fires, horses, speaking to strangers, and electricity. My mother’s fears were more about health—every symptom, ache, or pain portended immediate death. My own fears were a mixture of theirs and some of my own: being sent away, my mother, speaking to strangers, speaking in public, other kids, boys, men, being sick, spiders, and bees.
My later decision to become a doctor might have derived from an innate desire to heal my mother in order to heal myself. I felt so powerless as a child, so dependent on my mother’s moods. If she was angry, I flinched. If she was sick, I fretted. If she was frustrated, I tried to do better. In my immature mind, I connected these together. She was sick, therefore, angry, therefore, frustrated with me. I wanted the power to cure her illness, calm her anger, and heal her frustration. A healthy mother would allow me to be a healthy child.
Margie sat on the blanket, smoking her Chesterfield cigarettes and reading a paperback novel. She looked up and smiled every time I called her to watch me. I emerged only for lunch and to build sand castles with the pink pail and shovel we had brought with us. Later in the afternoon, we strolled along the boardwalk, chocolate ice cream cones in hand. After five minutes I was covered with sticky brown residue. Margie wiped what she could with the single-ply napkin the clerk had wrapped around the cone.
“You’ll have to go back in the water to wash off,” she said. I didn’t complain at this. Too soon, Margie called to me that it was five o’clock and time to go home.
“Please, can we stay a little longer?” I pleaded.
“I need to make dinner for your mother. We don’t want to keep her waiting.” She had that nervous look again, so I didn’t protest.
On the ride home, I leaned against Margie and enjoyed every minute of it. She made me feel safe and protected on our outings. With her, I could be a little girl.
