My mother returned from the sanatorium six weeks later, having made a beautiful dress for me for my First Holy Communion the following Sunday. She floated in on a cloud of white organza trailing a satin sash like nothing had happened. No inkling of my river of tears or sleepless nights wondering when she would return and if I would have the dress she promised in time for the event I had worked so hard for.
I had spent more time in the house and less in the neighborhood while my mother was gone. When I wasn't at school, I helped out giving Tommy his bottles and playing with Danny. It was clear by then that Tommy too, was retarded. Not only did he remind me of Joey in lots of ways, but he was almost completely blind which seemed to add to his agitation. When I sang to him, it calmed him down. But I knew he'd be gone soon, so I turned my attentions to Danny.
Danny seemed normal to me. Sweet and sensitive and still too young to play in the neighborhood, we became pals and liked being together even though he was 4 years younger. It was safe for me and I thought maybe I could make him happy instead. Even at two, Danny wore glasses which made him seem more fragile. All of my siblings had something wrong with their eyes and each had surgery and came home with an eye patch one by one. Something about a muscle weakness that made their eyes cross. Another narrow escape for me.
I was the only brown-eyed brunette in the family like my father. All of the others were blue-eyed towheads like mom. This was helpful for me in seeing myself as separate from the sadness and the fate that befell my siblings. I wasn't sure I was different, but decided my new strategy was to fool everyone into believing I was. The fact that I looked different was clearly in my favor.
As predicted, Tommy was sent away. My mother just seemed in a daze, and the prescription drug bottles in the bathroom might have had something to do with it. We started to pack up each weekend and drive to the Central Wisconsin Colony for the Mentally Retarded in Madison about an hour and a half away to visit. Joey and Tommy didn't seem especially aware that we were there but Susie, even as she ate her favorite pumpkin pie with whipped cream we brought her, asked over and over again when she could go home to her blue room.
My mom sobbed all the way home as my dad tried to change the mood, always the cheerful counterpoint. Mary and Danny just stared out the window. My silent stream of tears washed away any delusions of having regained control over my body's reactions to the events of my life. That terrified me more than anything. It was the fatal flaw that could expose me as weak, retarded. Especially after seeing the cold, lifeless place my brothers and sister had been sent to, I had even greater resolve never to let that happen to me.
By then, Mary and I were pretty separate, and she resented having to walk me to and from school every day. At 8 she was too big to be bothered with her little sister. Especially the crying embarrassed her no end. Mary was a good student herself and was allowed to skip the second grade because of it. Even though only a year and five months older, she was a full two grades ahead and that became an abyss that was never bridged in our lives until many years later.
Plus, our strategies became completely different. Siblings each vying for available resources. In our case, it was the love and attention of our parents and there didn't seem to be enough to go around even with only three of us left. Mary continued to do well in school, but her major focus became her popularity. Turning her attentions away from our home, her friends became her family. I on the other hand, pretty much isolated myself and continued working hard to make the grade.
Somewhere along the line, mom's sadness turned to anger. We stopped going to visit the retarded kids and she was given to fits of rage that often resulted in humiliating pants-down spankings that felt like punishment, a purging rather than discipline. My feelings of compassion morphed into fear and rather than trying to please her, I turned my attentions to protecting myself and Danny. I started to think maybe she was the cause of all of this. A malevolent force giving birth and then destroying her offspring one after the other.
I trusted no one, least of all my mother. And friends were a luxury I couldn't afford. No more tears, but rather a steely resolve towards subterfuge, the only possible strategy to evade being seen too clearly, to avoid being found out. I slipped in and out of the spaces of my life unnoticed and found my power in imagining I was chosen rather than a victim. I had been spared and given gifts for survival. I embarked on a crusade with Danny and poured all of my love needs into making sure he survived too.
And always I sought solace in my body. Riding fast or climbing to high places where I felt untouchable. Those were the times I felt free and whole, away from the scrutiny, perfect just the way I was. I often rode down to the creek in the woods. Sitting on a high branch I imagined I was a bird, liberated and unfettered. That I could fly away and never look back at the hopelessness, the not knowing. To a place where there were no retards and no people who carelessly named others as such. But then the darkness came and I always went back home again.
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