Retard (1)

It's like it was yesterday. Me wide-eyed in that big barkcloth easy chair, giant silver palm fronds on a maroon ground. Wearing red and white polka dot pajamas, like some little rhesus monkey with dark spring curls peering back at the world. Mostly they paid me no mind; an occasional glance from my mother, flying by in a blur of color and desperation. Once in a while sister Mary would come close by with a toy or a smooch and then scurry on. She never let mom out of her sight for too long.

There was a lot of chasing. And loud noises, screeching and screaming. And frustrated whispers. And singing, especially a religious hymn I only learned later, “Mother Dear Oh Pray For Me…”. I remember how it all felt, confusing and somewhat dangerous. I have no memory of climbing down from that chair and joining in. But I do remember watching, and the instinct to keep it all at a distance.

I still have vivid sense memories from then. Maybe I was one, Mary then was three, Susie five. Mom was pregnant with Joey. I remember the smell of camphor from the winter storage cabinet and baby shampoo in my hair. The chartreuse walls in the living room and red chenille bedspreads with trains and tracks on them. I can still feel my fingers reading the world like braille and the way it smelled when I sucked my thumb.

It was the Midwest in 1953. My parents, both from Illinois, got married at 19 after the war ended. My father went to Iowa State for a degree in Electrical Engineering after a brief stint in the Navy Air Corps. My mother, having miscarried a set of twins in 1948, was already pregnant with Susie the same year and worked as a telephone switchboard operator to pay the bills. She was fond of telling the story of being 8 months pregnant, sitting on the toilet when she bolted off the throne only to find a rat splashing in the bowl. Modest digs to say the least.

We were born one after the other, six in under 9 years (7 pregnancies if you count the twins). First Susie, then Mary, then me, Francie, followed by the three boys. My first and most enduring memory of my mother was of her forever big belly bent over the toilet washing out diapers. Always two or three of us pre-potty training in those early days. Piles of cloth diapers with big pins and rubber pants, mustard baby poop winning out in the end.

Not much time alone with our mom, except when we were nursing as she called it, which I have no personal recollection of. But once that was over we were pretty much on our own, she spent her down time feeding the next in line. Other than that she was running, washing, singing through clenched teeth and saying godknowswhat under her breath.

It seemed to be all about Susie, the chaos and the craziness. I knew she was different,. She never really looked anyone in the eyes or answered a question without repeating what was asked. She was a little odd, but I just thought she was really fun, especially when she ran naked down the street laughing maniacally, my mom chasing after as fast as she could.

My parents rarely went out, but once in a while when we got a little older, Mary was probably 5 and I was 3, they got a babysitter and those were the best times ever. Joey was a baby and a pretty good sleeper but after we were put to bed we’d egg Susie on to go down and sneak us some cookies. Like a Laurel and Hardy movie; poor young girl trying to chase Susie back upstairs as she ran wildly all over the house. We laughed until our stomachs hurt.

After my dad graduated, he got a job with a big electrical manufacturing firm and we moved to the suburbs of Milwaukee. He went to work every day just like the other dads in the neighborhood. But evenings and weekends he was home. Dad was always fun, cooking hamburgers and hot dogs on the charcoal grill in the backyard, then ice cream at Dairy Queen. Weekend mornings he made us pancakes and grilled peanut butter and pickle sandwiches for lunch. I adored my father and tried my best to be just like him. As Mary grew into the role as our mom’s little soldier, so I did with my dad.

Around that same time, everything changed. Mary and I were dropped off at St. Joan Antida nursery school each morning. Scary at three to be put in the arms of a hooded woman in black who smelled of lye soap. Maybe I adjusted at some point, but my only memory was of the first rainy morning in that cold, damp stone building. My mother disappeared with Susie and the baby and they took Mary away to be with the older kids. No amount of alphabet soup and peanut butter sandwiches could assuage my misery. I cried until it was time to go home.

Sometime after that-- I learned later it was about two years when Susie was nine-- my oldest sister disappeared altogether. Nothing said. She was just gone from the blue bedroom the girls shared. One day there were three of us, the next two. I started to piece together a story. Susie had been the bad one, the trouble-maker and she was punished by being banished from her home and family. I decided then and there this would never happen to me. From there on out, I would be perfect.

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