Читать книгу Cover My Dreams in Ink: A Son's Unbearable Solitude, A Mother's Unending Quest - Jessie Dunleavy - Страница 10

Chapter 1

Pure Gold

Hope was painted yellow,

lighting a path and guiding us when we thought we were blind.

Compassion was painted blue,

the color of the sky, because once it’s within us, it goes on forever.

Last but not least is love, which was painted gold,

because there is no value greater than its gifts.

IT WAS OCTOBER 1982. The nurse dialed the number and handed me the receiver, attached by a long cord to the phone on the wall in the mostly barren recovery room.

“Mommie! I had a boy!” I exclaimed.

“You did not,” my mother replied, expressionless.

She was a gracious and genuinely sweet person whom we all called “Mommie”—which she emphatically spelled with an “ie” and not a “y”—but she could be so deadpan.

“I did! Really! I’m lying here in the recovery room; I’m LOOKING at him!”

“I know you are pulling my leg because you haven’t been in the hospital long enough to have had the baby,” she said with the utmost confidence.

I don’t remember exactly how our brief conversation ended, but I can tell you this: I made no headway. I do remember thinking to myself that my mother was right—I hadn’t been there “long enough” if you calculated averages, even if you cut a wide swath in doing so.

Paul was born within twenty minutes of my hospital arrival, surprising everyone, including my husband, Don, who barely made it in time for the delivery, and my doctor, who told me an hour earlier I had plenty of time. But I knew too that my mother found the “boy” part of my news as far-fetched as the twenty-minute labor and delivery. You see, I came from a family of three girls and, at the time of Paul’s birth, I had a daughter and my older sister, Jennie, was the mother of three little girls. Paul broke the mold.

When I was pregnant with our daughter Keely back in 1979, an era when the baby’s gender was unknown until birth, Don and I decided that if we had a son we would name him after my father. We also agreed we’d call him “Paulie,” my father’s nickname as a young child. On the day of Paul’s birth, I realized further merit: The name certainly wouldn’t hurt as my mother adjusted to this obvious curveball.

Weighing eight pounds even, Paulie was precious—fair skin and reddish hair—and healthy, as verified by looking at him, hearing his cry, and learning of his Apgar test scores. Furthermore, we now had the perfect family—a girl and a boy, spaced three years apart, just as Dr. Spock had championed.

*

BORN A FEW blocks from home at Anne Arundel Medical Center, Paul came into this world as a fifth generation Annapolitan and a member of an exceptionally close extended family. In fact, my sisters and my mother were my best friends.

My own childhood had been idyllic, and my family was a huge part of my identity, as well as a source of pride. The household of my youth included my mother and father—whose enduring romance was an inspiration to all—my two sisters, my mother’s father, and my father’s brother, all characters who, to put it mildly, kept life interesting. Love was unconditional. Mutual support was a given. And we shared countless good times.

My father’s family had moved to Annapolis when he was in the fourth grade, meaning he wasn’t—and never would be—an Annapolitan. This was enshrined in my mother’s book of gospel. Even though he attended St. Mary’s, where he also was a member of the parish and an altar boy, graduated from Annapolis High School and St. John’s College, and ultimately became a civilian English professor at the United States Naval Academy, Mommie said, “You and your ‘people’ have to be born in Annapolis for you to qualify for the distinction.” This was not debatable.

Mommie was born and grew up in the heart of Annapolis’ historic district. She was proud of the small town where her father was a prominent figure. The Alderman of Ward One for twenty-six years and the Fire Chief of Annapolis for nearly thirty, he was a respected voice within the city government.

As newlyweds my parents moved to Washington, D.C., where my father taught at George Washington University. After a year of living there, my mother missed her parents so much that she and my father moved back to Annapolis and into her parents’ home, where they remained, caring for her parents, for the rest of their lives. My father then commuted to GWU until my older sister was born, at which time he sought a position in Annapolis. While he was a superb teacher and undoubtedly found his niche within the world of English literature, his family life drove his place of employment, not the other way around.

My father left the house to meet his classes and promptly returned home to study and correct papers. Of my childhood friends, about half had working mothers. Mine did not work outside the home and in fact was the consummate homemaker. I recall being asked if my mother was home when my school day was over. “My mother and my father are home when I leave for school and when I return!” I said.

For both my parents, family was everything. My father was particularly close to his mother and sought her company frequently, prompted by enjoyment rather than obligation. He also was close to his siblings, deriving much pleasure from time spent with his two brothers. One of his brothers never had children and in many ways functioned as another parent to us, living and vacationing with our family when we kids were little and subsequently assuming parental roles for many years after our father’s untimely death.

While my parents were fun lovers, open minded, and encouraged acceptance of people who were different from us, flexible thinking did not apply when it came to their expectations for our education. In truth, I’d say they were downright rigid. The bar was set high. And being good kids, we fell in line, racking up advanced degrees and maintaining a strong work ethic along with a commitment to devote ourselves to a noble cause.

*

AMONG MY TWO sisters and me, we had eight children within a ten-year period. In addition to Jennie’s three and my two, my younger sister, Erin, had three children. “The cousins,” as we called them, grew up within blocks of one another. Family gatherings for every holiday and birthday, local events, as well as Friday pizza nights, brought the whole clan together with great frequency, most often in one of our homes. Bound by blood, proximity, and friendship, “the cousins” also shared the same middle name—Dunleavy. As young girls, my sisters and I had decided on this strategy to keep our name alive.

Our mother remarried when Keely was five and Paul was two. She was lucky. Not only had she and my stepfather grown up together, but also there were intersections in their adult lives, stemming for the most part from his career as a civilian French professor at the Naval Academy. I was nothing but happy for my mother, but I didn’t even stop to think about how much this man would enrich my life. I think I can safely speak for my sisters in saying they felt the same. And beyond our gaining a stepfather, our children gained a grandfather who loved them as his own and, along with our mother, was a central figure in their formative years. For Keely and Paul, he was the only grandfather they ever knew.

Just a few months after my mother and stepfather married, Don and I separated. In the end, it was my idea that we do so, but I didn’t feel there were other options available to me. While I had gone into the marriage as madly in love as I’d ever been before, and quite frankly since, the disappointments for me were overwhelming. I’m sure some of the blame lies with me; maybe I expected too much. It’s hard to say. But I could see that family life wasn’t an important priority for Don, and I found myself increasingly alone with the children, often for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

I had stopped working when Keely was born, and Don had started his own architectural business, the demands of which I understood and supported. The fact is, I was enamored of his work and shared his excitement for each new project landed. And I knew from the start that a big part of my investment called for a sacrifice that included long hours of tending to the homefront. But as I suffered the loneliness, and gradually figured out that it wasn’t always work that kept Don away in the evenings, I took a stand.

Some moments in life are forever etched in memory. For me, this is one: I was driving Keely and a couple of her pre-kindergarten classmates to school. As we rounded the corner from Church Circle onto Duke of Gloucester Street, Keely said, “I haven’t seen my Daddy in days and days and days.” Another child in the car innocently responded, “I see him all the time. Last night he took me bike riding!” This was my first clue that Don wasn’t always honest with me, a realization that hit me hard. How I kept the car from running up on the sidewalk, I still do not know.

Even though I didn’t jump to any specific conclusions, my plight was worrisome enough that I briefly became somewhat of a sleuth. During my stint as a covert operative, I do remember steaming open the American Express bill—a skill they don’t teach in school and something that isn’t as easy as it looks.

As I struggled with the task, Paulie toddled through the kitchen to the playroom and announced to Keely: “Mommie’s cooking mail.” Startled by his having noticed, I swung into cover-up mode, speaking sternly so as to derail any further communication, “No, Mommie is paying bills—that’s all.”

During the first year of the separation, we didn’t see much of Don. At the time, I figured the children’s lives weren’t as disrupted as mine, given that our routines stayed pretty much the same. I was the primary caretaker, and we remained in the family home. One day, several months after Don had moved, he walked up to our front door.

Paul saw him first and came running into the kitchen to alert me, exclaiming, “Uncle Daddy is at the door!” I had to smile to myself as I considered his point of view—to little Paulie all men were called “uncle-something” and he knew this guy’s name was Daddy. Made sense!

As Paul tried to follow the mailman down the street or chose to hang out with the dryer repairman for the duration of his time in our basement, I realized his hungering for male attention. My sensitive and good-hearted stepfather didn’t miss a beat in taking Paul under his wing. In fact, the bond formed between Paul and his grandfather was a blessing for which I remain thankful.

*

THE GRANDPARENTS LIVED in the Wardour neighborhood, just a few blocks from my home and those of my sisters. One of the amenities of their old and quirky house was a huge screened-in porch where the entire family, and then some, could gather for a meal or just sit and talk. And talk we did. If there wasn’t a new matter at hand, we would happily rehash what we had talked about the day before. In either case, our topics ranged from local politics to world events, and from our problems and triumphs to those of our friends and neighbors.

Screened in on four sides and surrounded by massive old trees, the porch provided camaraderie, a respite from the heat, and a view of a good-sized yard with a pool where our children played for countless hours as summer days became summer nights. We gathered at “Grandmommie and Granddaddy’s” for occasions throughout the year but always looked forward to the warmer weather when life could be lived outdoors, usually kicked off by an elaborate Easter egg hunt for our children and their friends. Fortunately for all of us, we had twenty years of this sanctuary with our parents, years that ushered our children into young adulthood.

In addition to his recognition of Paul’s emotional needs, Dad—as I came to call him—often stepped in to meet the practical needs, an increasing challenge over the years due to Paul’s medical appointments and the uniqueness of his school situation, not to mention my being a single parent with a demanding job.

For Paul, spending time at his grandparents’ home was routine. If Granddaddy was cutting the grass, you can bet Paul would be out there too. I can picture Paulie now, pushing his plastic lawnmower about ten feet behind his grandfather.

The longest section of my parents’ fenced-in backyard was bordered by a deep ravine, once the right-of-way for the old Baltimore and Annapolis Railroad. To empty the lawnmower bag, my stepfather would lift it over the fence and, with arms extended, hold it open to allow the grass clippings to go down the steep vine-covered embankment.

One day, as my stepfather was performing this ritual, the weight of the grass shifted, causing him to lose his grip. The bag and its contents tumbled about halfway down the ravine before getting snagged on an old tree root. Because the bag was out of reach, the drop nearly straight down, and the stability of the terrain unpredictable at best, there was no way my stepfather could have retrieved it. Therefore, against my mother’s pleas to the contrary, he decided to tie a rope around his little buddy Paul’s waist, loop it over the fence, lower Paul down until he could reach the bag, and then hoist Paul back up and over the fence. The operation was a success. Even though I wasn’t there, I have a clear image of this event in my head thanks to my mother. After losing the debate over the safety and wisdom of this maneuver, what did she do? She ran inside and got the camera!

Absent the benefit of mainstream schools or even consistency in schools, Paul didn’t have a lot of friends, a fact that was compounded by his lack of social confidence. Because our family was close, his cousins and their friends were his primary social contacts, providing much-needed consistency as well as a safe haven.