The Next Three Stories (10-12) From the Boarding House

10.Frannie and Joe

11.Uncle Charlie

12.My Mother's Nerves

Heading this section is a photo of my mom, dad, Aunt Sophie and two male cousins all dressed up to go visit family on Long Island.

Left to right: Mom, Aunt Sophie, me, cousins Louie and Daniel; my dad in crouching in front of us.

10.Frannie and Joe

For the second day in a row, the rain showed no sign of letting up. Now, on an Friday

morning, I looked around our small apartment and wondered what to do. I’d been

home from school with chicken pox and had missed a week of 6th grade. Monday

couldn’t come soon enough.

“Mom, I’m so bored,” I yelled into the kitchen. “Anyone around today?”

Mom and I lived in a boarding house in Queens. During the day, she did

housework for people in the neighborhood but that wasn’t enough to make ends

meet, so she also managed the boarding house. That entitled us to a rent-free

apartment, bed linens, bath towels, and utilities included.

Most of the tenants in the house were single and had no kids. They often

invited me to keep them company for a while, especially on weekends when they

weren’t working.

“Ingrid and Doreen have left for work already,’ Mom said. Darn, I thought.

Ingrid had just moved to New York from Germany with her husband and felt

homesick; she liked to talk about her sisters and brothers. Doreen had just gotten

engaged and was saving up for a big wedding. She loved talking wedding plans.

“There’s always Mrs. Malley,” Mom said with a knowing smile, “she’s always

around.

“Thanks, Mom. That would really make my day!” Mrs. Malley was my least favorite boarder. At 78 and widowed, she never had agood word to say about anybody. Mostly, she complained—to anyone who’d listen—about her bad legs and how hard it was for her to go up and down the stairs.

“But maybe Ann is home.” Ann was my mother’s favorite, an older, religious

woman who didn’t talk much but was always ready for a card game of Hearts. I went

next door and knocked on her door, but there was no answer.

“She’s probably gone to morning mass,” Mom said.

My last hope was Frannie.

Frannie and Joe, one of the few couples in the house, had been tenants for over

five years and, for reasons I never understood, didn’t have a kitchen in their room; it

was in the basement.

Frannie had a “bum” left arm. From her shoulder to her elbow, it was normal,

but the part from the elbow to the hand was shrunken to half its normal length.

At the elbow, the arm turned at a sharp right angle, positioning her clutched hand

against her stomach, unable to move in any other position. With only one fully-usable

hand, Frannie wasn’t able to find work outside the house, so she spent her time

adoring Joe and keeping their small room in perfect order. Mom said they were the

most devoted couple she’d ever met.

Joe was an accountant who always had a friendly hello and goodbye, but never

seemed interested in saying anything more. Frannie was the opposite: ready to talk

to anyone about anything. I found it hard to understand what she saw in Joe, but

Mom said it’s not always easy to understand what people see in people.

That must have been the case with Joe because, from the outside, all I saw was

a man with a slight build, two small gray eyes behind rimless glasses, and a big

bulbous nose slightly red at the tip. When he smiled, his lips stayed together, as if to

hold back the words that he was too shy to say.

On the other hand, Frannie was tall, heavy and bosomy, with a head of thick,

unruly brown hair, parted in the middle and pulled back by barrettes on each side,

whereas Joe was thin and bald with a few strands of gray hair carefully brushed back

from his forehead. But when they took their daily walks, Joe always appeared to be

the stronger of the two, as he drew Frannie toward him to protect her bad arm and

hold it at the elbow.

This Friday morning I heard Frannie bring her laundry down to the basement

and I asked if I could help. Everyone in the house was allowed to use two side-by-

side washbasins, a washing machine with a hand-wringer, and an ironing board and

iron. But everyone had to bring their own detergent, bleach and rinsing solution.

Frannie filled the washing machine halfway with water from a hose connected

to one of the wash basins. She threw in the dirty clothes, added detergent, and

turned it on. When the clothes had finished swishing around, with her one good

hand Frannie placed each piece of clothing through the wringer so that it fell went

into a basin of clean warm water. Then she swung the wringer over the second basin,

filled with cold water, for a final rinse.

One by one, she put each piece of clothing through the wringer for a second

time, into the second basin of water, to which a mixture of two parts water to one

part vinegar had been added. Finally, she put them through the wringer once

again; they landed in a big straw basket ready to be hung on the clotheslines in the

basement. My job was to hand her the clothespins.

Frannie loved to talk while she did the laundry. She told me stories of growing

up in lower Manhattan, watching the iceman deliver chunks of ice to their railroad

flat, and laying in front of the radio console listening to her favorite stories on Sunday

nights. But most of all she loved talking about Joe. “Sometimes people don’t come gift-wrapped,” Frannie said, “but when you open the box, you like what you see inside.”

“Joe was the first man who looked at me and didn’t see my little arm. We met

in high school when I was a Junior and he invited me to the Senior Prom. From that

day on, Joe was my Prince Valiant.” That’s what I loved about Frannie—her way of

saying things like no one else I’d ever heard.

One day I noticed a cat in the shadows of the house, curled up near the

chimney. It was a fully grown female. I gave her some water and she kept looking up

at me for more. She had shiny black fur and spots of white on the belly. After several

days, I figured she didn’t have a home and asked Mom if we could keep her. Her

answer was “the boarders can’t have pets, so we can’t, either.”

Two weeks went by and the cat still lingered by the chimney. By now I had

named her—Blackie—and continued to feed it, but Mom still said no to my daily pleas.

“Mom says I have to bring it to the pound,” I told Frannie, the words sticking in

my throat.

“Have you asked Mom if it could stay in the basement,” Frannie suggested.

“I could ask a few tenants if it’s OK with them, and I’m down here in the kitchen so

often, I could help take care of it.” I ran upstairs to find my mother. She was vacuuming the hallway on the second floor.

“Please, oh please,” I yelled over the noise of the vacuum cleaner. “If Blackie

stays in the basement and Frannie helps take care of her, you won’t be bothered at all.”

Turning off the vacuum, Mom took a deep sigh and finally nodded. “But if

anyone complains, Blackie will have to go.”

I rushed outside before she could change her mind, and brought Blackie to the

basement. She kept circling my feet as Frannie helped me arrange some old blankets

near the furnace, find some bowls for water and food, and set up a litter box.

Every morning before school, I freshened Blackie’s food and cleaned up the

litter. Afternoons, I’d check to make sure she was OK. Thanks to Frannie, the other

tenants came to accept Blackie’s company while they did the wash. Except when she

moved strangely and made strange, loud noises, and then they complained to Mom.

“Why does she arch her back and make that weird sound?” I asked. “It’s just

something that female cats do,” Mom said, sounding disinterested, and went back to

cleaning the oven.

Frannie had more to say about the matter. “She’s in heat. She’s looking for a

male cat to make babies with. Make sure not to let her out when she’s like this.”

That night at dinner, I told Mom what Frannie had told me. “Sounds right,” she

said. “Let’s just hope the tenants understand.”

A few months later, I came home from school and went to find Blackie, but

she wasn’t in the basement. Frannie hadn’t seen her that afternoon either. I spent

the rest of the afternoon searching the neighborhood, thinking that Blackie had

gotten out through an open window, which happened from time to time but

she always come back. This time I couldn’t find her, and she hadn’t returned by

dinnertime.

“Something must have happened; she’s always back by now.” I was on the

living room couch talking to Mom, who was in the kitchen starting dinner. “Will you

come help look for her after dinner?”

My mother’s voice seemed lower than usual. “I’m too tired tonight. Maybe she

got lost and couldn’t find her way back. Maybe another family took her in.”

I went into the kitchen. She was at the stove, head bent down, staring at her

hands. They were holding on to the front edge of the stove, clenched.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

Without turning around, her head still bent down, she said, “I had Blackie put

down this afternoon.” She spoke so softly, I didn’t think I heard her right. When I

didn’t say anything, she turned to face me. With tears streaming down her face, she

said, “Blackie is gone. I’m so sorry.”

I looked at her and started to cry. I couldn’t speak. Mom anticipated the

question I was too stunned to ask. “Because she scratched Mrs. Malley this morning

as she tried to get out.”

Mrs. Malley? The old crank who lived on the second floor in the smallest

room in the house? Who paid $4.50 a week for space the size of a walk-in closet—

with no kitchen facilities other than a small sink and a hot plate? Mrs. Malley? Who

complained to everyone who still listened about her bad legs—how painful it was

for her to go up and down the stairs to get the mail or do the laundry? Who was so

unpleasant about everything that the tenants avoided her in the hallway?

“That cranky old lady?” I screeched. “She’s a witch! She complains about

everything. How could you believe her?”

“She showed me the scratches on her leg,” Mom said. “She said she’d leave if

we kept the cat.” I stared at my mother. And then I slapped her. Right across the face. She

slapped me back.

“I hate you,” I shouted. I ran down the hall to find Frannie but she wasn’t in her

room. I ran down to the basement. She and Joe were having dinner as they listened

to the radio.

“Mom had Blackie put to sleep today. I hate her! I hate her!” Frannie looked up, spilling some of the water she was pouring in her glass. Joe put down his knife and fork and turned off the radio. “It’s all Mrs. Malley’s fault!

Frannie reached for me and sat me on her lap. “We wondered why Blackie

didn’t join us for dinner tonight.” Her good arm held me tight.

“And Mom hit me, too.”

Joe folded his napkin. “Where’s your mother now?” With my head buried in

Frannie’s shoulder, I pointed upstairs. Joe stood up. “Stay here.”

After a while, during which time Frannie held me and explained why she

thought Mrs. Malley was such a grouchy lady (“She’s old and lonely”) and why Mom

had to do what she did (“She was afraid Mrs. Malley would leave.”), Joe came back

and had Mom with him.

“I had no choice, I really didn’t,” Mom sobbed. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“Why didn’t you ask me?” I stammered, my head still buried in Frannie’s

shoulder.

“I knew what you would say. And I couldn’t bear to tell you.”

Frannie looked up at Joe with a what-do-we-do-now look. Several minutes passed.

“You know the little room that’s next to this kitchen?” Joe said finally, “if no

one uses it; maybe we could turn it into your own private space, key and all.” He

looked at Mom; she nodded.

“But that won’t bring Blackie back!” Joe looked at Frannie again, not sure what to say.

“I know,” she said, “but sometimes when very sad things happen,”—she

paused, and then went on—“we have to try real hard to understand and find a way

to make one another feel better.”

“You’ll have your own room, you’ll be the boss and you’ll be in charge,” Joe

said, continuing his thought.

The next week, Mom cleaned out the room and waxed the worn linoleum floor.

Joe painted the walls yellow, my favorite color, and Frannie made white curtains for

the small window. On a bookshelf left behind by a former tenant, I placed my radio,

books and magazines. Frannie found a small, comfy chair and floor lamp at a used

furniture shop. Joe, true to his word, put a lock on the door and handed me the key.

My room may have been smaller than those of my friends, but none of theirs

had its own lock and key. I finally had a place where we could do homework

together, listen to the radio, and share movie star magazines. We papered the walls

with full-page photographs of Alan Ladd, John Derek and Robert Wagner cut out

from our favorite fan magazine, Photoplay. When she had time, Mom brought down

some cokes and potato chips.

I never forgave Mrs. Malley. I forced myself to be polite to her in the hallway,

but kept wishing she would die. That didn’t happen, but a year later, too frail to

manage on her own, she left to go live with her only niece.

“Good riddance,” was Frannie’s reaction, which was the only time I ever heard

her speak like that about anyone. As for Joe, if he had any thoughts about Mrs.

Malley, he kept them to himself. He had returned to being a man of few words.

But I would always remember how Joe had spoken up, and how lucky I was to

have seen the special gift that was inside the plain box.

11.Uncle Charlie

Charlie, my father’s older brother, was tall, lean and ruggedly-handsome, with a

cigarette always in his hand. He looked a lot like Randolph Scott, a popular movie

star who appeared in cowboy films many years ago. Today I’d compare him more to

Clint Eastwood.

When Dad died from tuberculosis at 47, I was 13. Uncle Charlie became a daily

visitor to our house. He lived next door with his wife and kids. He and Aunt Alice,

like my Mom, managed a boardinghouse. After dinner, he would come over, bottle

of beer in hand, to see if there was anything he could do: fix a leak, change a ceiling

light bulb, or check the furnace. Then he and my mother would spend the rest of the

evening at the kitchen table reminiscing about my father.

“JohnJoe was such a good man,” my uncle would say. “He didn’t deserve to die

so young.” Mom would nod. “I hope God knows what he’s doing.”

Sitting in the living room, I could hear them share their favorite memories of my

father. How he loved his beer. How much he loved listening to the radio, especially on

Sunday nights when Mr. Keene, Tracer of Lost Persons was on. How he enjoyed taking

me to the LAFF movie theater on West 42nd Street. How calmly and patiently he had

accepted his illness. My mother always felt better after Uncle Charlie’s visits.

“He’s a good man, too” she’d say about Uncle Charlie, “just like Daddy. I don’t

know what I’d do without him.” Five years later, Uncle Charlie died from lung cancer.

Mom fainted as she entered the funeral parlor where he was being waked. It was

only then that I realized that she had fallen in love with him.

Dad contracted TB soon after I was born. Mom believed it was because he gave

blood for the transfusion she needed when I were born, and that weakened him.

She said this with the utmost certainty, contradicting several doctors’ opinions that

one thing had nothing to do with the other. Dad spent the first two years of my life

recuperating at Sea View, a sanitarium on Staten Island.

I have an old photo showing Mom with me in her arms, visiting him on the

manicured grounds of the facility. She’d removed her eyeglasses for the camera

and was smiling. With shoulder-length brown wavy hair, and in a light print

dress and heels, she looked pretty. I, no more than a year old, am wearing a short

white dress; a barrette holds my curly hair in place. Dad was smiling, too. We

looked like any young family having their picture taken, until you noticed that

Dad was wearing a pair of pressed pajamas provided by the hospital for visitation

days.

A year later, Dad came home, but not for long. Eight months later, he had a

relapse and had to return to the hospital. In fact, Dad’s unfortunate fate over the next

dozen years was to go in and out of the hospital, for one or two years at a time.

“It’s not fair,” Mom said. “He’s so young. Why has God let this happen?” Uncle Charlie was always there to reassure her. “Don’t worry, Tillie; I’ll help you and JohnJoe get through this.”

On Sunday afternoons, he took Mom to see Dad in the hospital. I was too young to visit. On holidays, he drove us to visit relatives onLong Island; on hot summer weekends, we went to Coney Island or Rockaway Beach. He drove me to the ER in the middle of the night when I had strep throat, and took Mom to the same ER, again in the middle of another night, when she had an allergic reaction to medication.

Even when Dad was home between hospital stays, he wasn’t physically able to

hold a full time job so Mom cleaned other people’s houses to support us. Even so, her

meager income wasn’t enough to make ends meet, so we had to go on welfare.

Every month two social workers from the Church, always men, came to our apartment and asked questions about our personal affairs. It was always a nerve-wracking occasion. Right before their visits, Dad would remind Mom and me to be quiet and let him do the talking.

One day, when I was around eight years old, they noticed that we had a new seven inch TV in the living room. It was the first we’d ever had and a gift from Uncle Charlie and Aunt Alice.

“Where’d you get that?” they asked.

Dad told them that his brother had bought it for us.

“You must give it back,” they ordered. “It’s not a necessity.”

I still remember crying and shouting at them; Mom was, too. Dad didn’t say

anything but this time he didn’t tell me or Mom to keep quiet. The next day Uncle

Charlie took the TV back to the store. Dad took me to the movies, but nothing could

make up for the loss of the TV and the embarrassment I felt when friends asked what

had happened to it. Soon after that, Dad told me that Mom had to go away for a while.

“I want to go with her,” I cried. “I don’t want her to go away.”

“Your mother needs a rest,” Dad said. “It’s her nerves.”

Dad was home then with a part-time job. He thought it best that I live full-time

with my aunt and uncle; he promised to come over for supper every night. “I don’t want to live with them,” I shouted. I want to live with you.”I’d missed Dad while he was in the sanitarium; it was so great having him home. Why couldn’t he take me to school every day and meet my teacher and friends? Why couldn’t he do what Mom had done?

“I’m glad to be home with you, too” Dad said, “but I’m not well enough yet to

work and take care of you. Aunt Alice can do a much better job and I will see you

every day.”

Aunt Alice oversaw her family in a loving but casual way, always having room

for one more, and never poking into anyone else’s business if it didn’t involve her.

She had lots of spirit and loads of energy, and as long as the Brooklyn Dodgers were

winning, life was good. Her kids—my cousins Jenny, Muriel and Charlie—ranged in

age from five to ten years older than me. Jenny, 18 and the oldest, was my godmother and she shared her room with me. Like her father, she always enjoyed looking after others. Muriel, 16, was more self-involved and had her mother’s independent ways. Charlie, 15, was the “fair haired baby” and came and went as he pleased.

There was always something fun going on at their house—card games, Scrabble

competitions, baseball games on TV, wrestling on the living room rug, and suppers of

franks, burgers, or fried chicken. Once in a while, it was possible to forget that I was

an only child with sick parents and I enjoyed being part of a healthy, active family.

On Saturday afternoons, my cousins and I would go to the movies, a block away.

25 cents covered admission and the purchase of two candy bars. There was always

a double feature. When we walked out, we’d have to squint our eyes to adjust to the

brilliant sun. On the corner was Dumbarton Oaks, a bar where my father and uncle

had a beer or two every Saturday afternoon while Aunt Alice made supper for all of us.

My cousins and I would peer in the window to see if our fathers were at the

bar; most likely they were, and we’d go in for cokes and pretzels and play some

shuffleboard. To this day, I enjoy going to a bar, even on my own.

Jenny mothered me, taught me jigsaw puzzles, and introduced me to Nancy

Drew. Muriel tolerated me, except when I wanted to see what she did in her room

when her boyfriend was there. Sometimes she’d let me in, and I’d watch while they did

some mild petting. Other times, they locked the door. I’d peek through the keyhole and

couldn’t see very much, but I heard a lot of fast breathing and movement on the bed.

Charlie ignored me and was out most of the time playing basketball with his friends. He

was the tall, quiet, distant type—and I had quite a crush on him, my first on an “older”

man.

Still, I missed my mother very much. She sent photos showing the rest home in

upstate New York —a large, multi-winged Tudor mansion set in a valley with rolling

hills in the background. She always was smiling and looked happy. She didn’t look

sick at all. When I looked at the photos, I felt angry and abandoned and thought the

year would never end.

When Mom finally came home, my anger had subsided but I hadn’t forgiven

her. And even though it was wonderful to see her again, I had mixed feelings about

going back home. Our small apartment felt quiet and lonely compared to my cousin’s busy and boisterous house. Mom needed a few hours of rest every day, and Dad came home

from work needing a nap before dinner. Their needs dictated my life. I couldn’t invite

my friends over to play after school for fear that one of my parents would have a

relapse and leave me again.

When I was 11, Uncle Charlie invited my father to drive with him to Nova

Scotia, their birthplace, and where they still had friends and relatives they hadn’t

seen since they came to New York in their 20’s. Dad hadn’t had a vacation in years.

Neither had my mother, but for some reason this trip was for guys only. She wasn’t

happy about it, and I can’t imagine what they must have said to sweet-talk her into

letting Dad go.

They were away for two weeks and, on the drive back, my father caught a cold.

By the time he got home, it had turned into the flu. The infection spread straight to

his lungs and, once again, he became tubercular.

Mom had had it.

“JohnJoe,” she implored, “Why didn’t you take better care of yourself?”

And to Uncle Charlie: “How could you let this happen? He was just getting

better again!” There were no good answers. Dad had to return to the sanitarium, this time for almost two years.

During Dad’s hospitalizations, Mom and I shared the bedroom. It was adjacent to

the living room, separated by a swinging door that never shut fully. There was always

a sliver of light and sound coming from the living room, which meant that while I was

in bed, I could hear what was going on in the living room. On Saturday nights, it was

typical for some friends and relatives, all who had left Nova Scotia for New York as

young adults, to come over for my mother’s homemade bread, baked beans, and ham.

They enjoyed their own company, being with people they knew and trusted.

After dinner, they sat in the living room and relaxed, speaking to one another

in their native French, sipping another bottle or two of beer. I loved listening to the

them, especially when they thought I was asleep. The women reminisced about the

old days and gossiped about friends and neighbors. The men, now on to their fourth

or fifth bottle of beer, told raunchy stories of when they were young. The more they

drank, the more they bragged about their sexual prowess.

“I remember when it took only 10 minutes.”

“I used to be able to do it in 5.”

“Those days are long gone!”

By ten or eleven o’clock, they all left, except for Uncle Charlie. He always stayed

another while, keeping my mother company on the couch. This is when I listened

most intently. Their voices would get lower, my uncle doing most of the talking, and

they would speak in their native French Canadian.

“Vous avez des belles cloches. Laissez-moi.” (“You have beautiful breasts; let me

touch them.”)

Silence.

Then, “Non, non. C’est assez” (“No, no. That’s enough.”) I imagined her pushing

his hand away.

My uncle ventured on. “Je l’aime tes jambes aussi.” (“I like your legs, too.”) I

imagined his hand on her thigh. He’d always end by saying “Alice ne l’aime plus ca.”

(“Alice doesn’t enjoy this anymore.)”

She always protested, “Arrete, Arrete!” (“Stop, stop”)—but always in a coy,

unconvincing voice. Whether he stopped or not, I don’t know. By that time, I had fallen

sleep with my sexual fantasies, all of which were in French and included Uncle

Charlie. I’d wake up the next morning not quite believing that Mom had let Uncle

Charlie whisper bon mots in her ear and fondle her breasts and thighs. This didn’t

sound like the mother I knew—a devout Catholic, forever trying to please the

Church. The sight or mention of anything sexual always seemed to embarrass her. A

passionate kiss in a TV movie would be enough to make her leave the room until it

was over.

Around that time, I started to bloom. Almost 13, I had just started menstruating

and had bought my first bra. I began to notice Uncle Charlie’s eyes on me, silently

looking at how my body was maturing. It made me nervous but to tell the truth, it

excited me a bit, too.

One day, driving back from visiting an old friend in a nursing

home, Uncle Charlie gave me a driving lesson. Suddenly I felt his left hand on my

right thigh. He noticed that my body tightened. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I just want to touch your leg a little. It feels so good.” Within a few seconds, he took his hand away. A light touch on the thigh or the breast happened whenever my uncle and I were alone. Should I tell my mother? Would she believe me? Would she be jealous? Would she tell him what I had said? I decided to say nothing, and found that having a secret could be very exciting.

I kept replaying their sexual scenarios and Uncle Charlie's advances to me every night after getting into bed.Then early one morning at his house, I was in my uncle’s house, reading Amboy Dukes, a book highly popular with teenagers at the time that included lots of tantalizing scenes—men putting their hands up their girlfriends’ tee shirts, men rubbing their

penises up against the backsides of women as the women washed the dishes. I was in

the living room, directly adjacent to their bedroom and separated by a French door with

panes of clear glass. I could see him getting out of bed. He had an erection. I sat still,

hoping he wouldn’t see me. I watched him, or rather “it,” as he got dressed. Then I ran to the bathroom and started touching myself. I had masturbated a few

times, but had never allowed myself to fully enjoy it. My mother’s face kept looming in

front of me, reminding me that this was a sin. But this time I couldn’t stop myself.

When Uncle Charlie died, following a six-month battle with lung cancer, Mom

took his death very hard. She refused to go to his funeral.

“But everyone will ask where you are! What’ll I tell Aunt Alice?”

“Tell her I’m sick; tell her it’s my nerves.”

“No way, Mom; she came to Dad’s funeral. You’ve got to go.”

Mom hung onto my arm as we walked up the stairs to the funeral home.

Inside, her grasp tightened as we approached the room where Uncle was being

waked. At the doorway, we could see the open coffin at the other end of the room.

Suddenly, Mom let go and fell to the floor. I managed to pull her up, but she was too

shaky to make it up to the coffin. We took a seat in the back of the room.

For months afterwards, she’d sit at the kitchen table, alone with a cup of tea,

and say to no one in particular:

“He didn’t have much to say, but he thought about things a lot.”

“He’d do anything for anybody.”

“He never complained; always had a smile for everyone.”

“I wonder if Aunt Alice really loved him.”

Though I never said it aloud, I always wondered how much Aunt Alice knew.

She and Mom seemed to get along, though it was no secret that Mom envied Aunt

Alice’s positive outlook on life and that she had a healthy husband who could

support the family. “All this, and she doesn’t even go to church!,” Mom would say.

Other than that, I don’t recall any animosity between them. If there was any envy or

resentment on Aunt Alice‘s side, she never said a word. Mom never talked about her

feelings for Uncle Charlie, not with me nor anyone else as far as I know.

Mom remained friends with Aunt Alice as if nothing had happened, and her

love for Uncle Charlie became just another secret that I kept to myself.

12.My Mother’s Nerves

From the time I was a little girl until I got married at 21, I believed that my mother’s

wellbeing was in my hands. She often praised me to friends and neighbors, saying

“I don’t know what I’d do without her. As long as I have Lorraine, I’ll be fine.”

Each time she said it, I’d look up and smile, but I felt as I’d just been given a

life sentence.

As an only child, whose father contracted tuberculosis shortly after my birth

and was hospitalized for many of my adolescent years, I lived in fear that one day

my mother would have to go away, too. And that’s what happened.

When I was seven, Mom had a nervous breakdown and had to spend six

months in a rest home in upstate New York. I didn’t understand what was wrong;

she looked fine to me, but as Dad explained, “your Mom worries too much about

everything; she’s tired and needs a rest.”

Her departure was very sudden: The three of us went to Penn Station and boarded a train. I though we all were going somewhere together, but when the conductor signaled that the train was about to leave, Dad pulled me away from Mom and told me to say goodbye to her. Mom started crying. I kicked and screamed and tried to wiggle out of Dad’s arms. On the platform, I kept looking back as the train left the station, not understanding where

Mom was going, and wondering why I wasn’t going with her.

Though Dad was home then, he was working part-time and unable to take

care of me. Fortunately, I was able to live with my aunt and uncle, and three cousins,

who lived in the house right next door. Dad picked me up from school every

afternoon. I kept asking, “What’s wrong with Mom?” I kept thinking it was my

fault that she was sent away. “It’s not your fault,” he kept assuring me. “It’s Mom’s

nerves.”

When Mom came home, she looked better than I’d ever seen her. She seem

happy and it was wonderful to have her back. She kept hugging and kissing me, but it

seemed that everything I did made her nervous. If I didn’t listen to what Mom said, it

was bad for her nerves. If I balked about going to church on Sunday, or studying my

catechism lessons, it was bad for her nerves. If the radio was on too loud? Bad for her

nerves.

To calm her nerves, Mom went to our family doctor for barbiturates on a

weekly basis. By the time I was 16, the barbs had given way to lithium and then

Valium. Over the years, the doctor had kept increasing the dosage. Afraid of

becoming addicted, she would decrease the intake when she felt strong and increase

the dosage when she felt she needed it. Over time, she gradually became addicted

and I took her to several drug specialists to help wean her off them. But they

hesitated to admit her into a rehab program with hard-core addicts, and she resisted

their out-patient recommendations. Mom, a devout Catholic, wanted nothing to do

with them because “they don’t understand me.” I was 18 before I finally found a Catholic social worker, a nun at our church, who Mom, a devout Catholic, agreed to see. Surely they’d be able to relate to one another. But after just one meeting, Sister Quirk (I’m not making that up) told me,“Your mom’s a religious fanatic." (I'm not making that either!) "She believes that all she has to do is pray to God and make a few novenas to get through the day.”

I wondered how, after so many years of praying with so little result, Mom still

had faith in God’s ability to answer her prayers. But I wasn’t about to tinker with

that. If she lost her faith in God, I was the only person left to help her. Dr. Green, our family doctor, assured me that my mother’s nervous condition had nothing to do with me. It began way before I was born.

“Don’t feel guilty,” he said. “It’s not your fault.” He sounded like Dad, and I didn’t believe either of them. Frannie, one of our best boarders and Mom’s closest friend in the house, did her best to reassure me about Mom’s going away. “She needs a good rest,” Frannie said. “Your Mom worries a lot about your Dad. She wants him to be well. She worries

about you, too; she wants you to be happy. But sometimes your mom worries too

much.”

Finally, Aunt Victoria, Mom’s oldest sister, assured me that my mother had

been nervous ever since she was a little girl. “Your mother’s had bad nerves as long

as I can remember,” she told me. “I think she was born that way.” Aunt Victoria also

told me that my Aunt Rose, the youngest sister in the family, had suffered from

nerves. She, too, had spent several months in a hospital and even had had electric

shock treatment, but she was home and on the mend. “Just keep loving your mom

but remember to lead your own life,” she advised. Easier said than done. Mom expected so much from me. She kept telling me that she hoped I’d always stay with her, always take care of her. I’d come home from school and find her sitting in the basement saying the rosary. I didn’t have to ask what she was praying for. I knew.

After so many years of being on anti-depressives and eventually becoming

a “soft core addict,” Mom began to become unglued. She spent more time alone,

praying in her basement; whenever she left the house, her rosary beads were in her

hands. On the way back from church, she’d sit on the curb in front of the house, not

wanting to inside. She often had hallucinations that Satan was waiting for her in

the living room; a boarder or neighbor would find her and help her back into the

house. Or on her way back from the supermarket, she’d call me from a public phone

booth, forgetting where she was, and plead for me to come get her—in the voice she

reserved just for me.

Mom and I lived together until I was 21, which is when I got married. It was

the only way I could leave without feeling that I was abandoning her. Though Mom

said she was happy for me, she spent the next year wearing black and lighting

candles in church, mourning as if I had died.

By that time, I had a nervous condition of my own, a tic in my throat that appeared

involuntarily from time to time. No way had I wanted to grow up with a nervous

condition, but it happened, somewhere between the ages of 8 and 10. 1 don’t remember

any man in my family complaining of nerves; they seemed to affect only the women.

I never understood why.

(Below is a picture of my father and mother in front of the boarding house, circa 1945.)