Authors: Paige Farmer
“I’m telling!” was all she could muster before bursting into tears and running off to find her mother.
Elsie was in the kitchen cracking an egg when Nan stormed in. In her distress, Nan didn’t notice the circles under her mother’s eyes or the slight tremble in her lip.
“What’s the matter?” Elsie asked. “Are you hurt?”
“Arthur and John said there was a fire!” Nan cried, indignation creeping into her voice. “They scared the daylights outta’ me! I…I think they mighta’ gave me a heart attack,” she said clasping the box of paper dolls to her heaving chest.
Elsie sighed and pressed her lips. She smoothed her apron with flour covered hands and Nan thought her mother was going to get the wooden spoon. Elsie never hit them hard with it, but deliberate enough to let them know that she could make it hurt if she wanted to. Most of the time she just waved it around for effect, but every once in awhile the paddle found its target. Good, Nan thought. I hope they both get it
for real
. But Elsie didn’t reach for the spoon.
“Boys!” she shouted instead. “Come in here,
now
!”
John and Arthur skulked slowly into the kitchen, eyes glued to the floor and identical cowlicks bobbing.
“Yes ma’am?”
“What on earth were you thinking scaring your sister like that?”
“C’mon ma,” John said. “It’s April Fools Day. We were just havin’ a little fun.”
“This is what you call a little fun?” Elsie said, gesturing toward Nan’s wet cheeks. “Well your
fun
could very well cost Nan her life someday.”
Neither of the boys said a word. At first, Nan had been mostly glad her brothers were in trouble, but a niggling worry started to blossom. This situation had payback potential written all over it. No matter that her brothers started it, if their mother came down on them too hard, Nan would most definitely pay for it later.
“I’m okay now mama,” she interrupted. “They were just being stupid. See? Look, my heart’s just fine now,” Nan said, tapping her chest.
“Nan,” Elsie replied, her stare still fixed on the boys. “What your brothers did was beyond irresponsible. What if there really is a fire someday and you don’t listen to them because you think it’s a joke? What if you
die
because of it?”
Uh-oh, she thought.
“Okay you two,” Elsie said, dropping the hammer. “I think that a month in your room will give you plenty of time to think about just how careless your behavior was. Thirty days, beginning right now.”
“But…but…but…,” Arthur sputtered. “It was just a joke! It’s…It’s…It’s April Fools Day!”
“A month? Ma, you gotta’ be kidding!” John chimed in. “Baseball starts in a couple of weeks!”
“Mama,” Nan said, moving in to defend her brothers in earnest. Self preservation was still a motive, but she also didn’t think her mother needed to go bananas. Even a quick whack with the wooden spoon would have ended it right then and there, but a whole month and missing preseason was over the top.
Elsie smirked.
“April…Fools,” she said dryly.
It took a minute before Nan realized her mother was kidding.
“Holy smokes ma,” John said. “Whew, a month…that was a good one, that’s for sure,” he said, laughing unsteadily.
“You better believe it, my boy,” Elsie replied. “Now get out of my kitchen and behave yourselves. Go upstairs and tell Buddy breakfast will be ready soon.”
The boys ran off and Elsie turned to Nan looking serious.
“You know Nan,” she started. “Gullibility is a woman’s worst enemy. For goodness sake, use your senses and don’t run off half cocked without knowing your situation. If you had spent one second taking stock this morning, you would have realized that there was no smoke, and where there’s no smoke, there’s no fire. And if there had been a fire, your rash behavior could have led you right into the middle of it. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes,” Nan replied, a bit unconvinced. She didn’t think she’d been overly gullible. If she couldn’t trust her brothers, who
could
she trust? How could her mother not see that she was not at fault here? But it was clear Elsie wasn’t interested in debating the finer points so Nan stayed quiet.
“Good,” Elsie said going back to her cooking.
She began ladling thick batter into her black iron fry pan and the smell of pancakes filled the small room. It beat the heck out of their usual breakfast of cooked oats the consistency of wallpaper paste. That said, Nan was thankful they had anything to eat at all since their father, as she’d overheard time and again, wasn’t much of a provider.
Nan’s stomach gurgled as she sat down at the kitchen table, deliberately choosing the one chair without a split in the plastic seat. No matter how careful she was, the cracks in the others always pinched her thighs when she moved to stand up. Like most of the battered furnishings they owned, the life span of the chairs could be one more day or one more year. No matter how long they might last, they were best approached gingerly.
Frost on the window told her that it was cold outside, maybe even cold enough to snow. Spring in New England was a tricky bitch, Nan’s father said often. Snow in the morning and seventy degrees by afternoon or vice versa if Mother Nature was in one of her moods. Nan began to absentmindedly stamp footprints in the glaze on the panes. A thump with the side of her closed fist left an imprint of the ball and heel. Five dots with her fingertip became toes. She’d made three or four when she remembered it was Saturday and a whole weekend stretched luxuriously in front of her. Her teacher had loaned her a new Nancy Drew book and she thought curling back up in her bed with it sounded like the perfect way to while away the morning.
But Elsie had other plans.
“After breakfast, I want you to go out and play with your brothers.”
“Why?” Nan asked with a whine. The boys were meeting friends at the ball field and she had no desire to go sit in the cold and watch them. Even though there was a playground, the thought of putting her butt on the icy slide made the chair pinch seem mild in comparison.
“I have things to do and I don’t need you underfoot all morning,” Elsie responded without turning around from the stove.
Nan wondered if the reason her mother wanted to get rid of her had anything to do with the fight between her parents the night before. She pushed the thought out of her mind, not wanting to think about the ugliness she’d overheard between Elsie and Sam.
“I won’t be underfoot. I just want to go to my room and read,” Nan said, keeping her tone as grown up as she could. If she begged and pleaded her mother would think she was being a pest and her case would be dead in the water.
“Nancy Elaine Bower there is no reason on earth why you can’t go out and play. All you ever do is stay in the house with your nose in a book. The fresh air will do you good.”
“Mama, it’s
cold
,” Nan said, as if that explained everything.
“So you can wear your long underwear,” Elsie replied. “You are going with your brothers and that’s that.”
Oh great, Nan thought. Now, I’ll not only be cold, I’ll be itchy to boot. But her mother’s tone informed her she was licked. In a small measure of defiance, the only kind she dared attempt, she stuck her tongue out at Elsie’s back.
John and Arthur tripped back into the kitchen arguing at the top of their lungs, with a sullen and tired looking Buddy trailing behind them.
“I’m playing shortstop,” John insisted.
“No you’re not,” Arthur replied. “You played shortstop last time.”
“That’s because you stink,” John retorted.
“That’s enough. Sit down and eat,” their mother interjected, doling out plates like a black jack dealer.
“Hey Buddy, mama says you have to take me with you to the park,” Nan said, handing the syrup to him. She secretly hoped he’d resist the idea and perhaps sway their mother in a way she could not.
“What?” Buddy groaned. “Ma, c’mon, I wanna’ play ball! If I gotta’ babysit Nan, I can’t concentrate.”
Despite her optimism that Buddy could change Elsie’s mind, Nan was offended at Buddy’s use of the word
babysit
.
“Hey!” Nan exclaimed. “I’m not a baby and I can take care of myself. Probably better than you could.”
“Listen to me Robert,” Elsie said, putting the kibosh on the simmering argument. “Nan is old enough to play on the playground by herself. She’s almost nine, for heaven sake. But Nan,” her mother said turning in her direction. “Your brother is responsible for getting you to and from the playground and
he
has the last word when it comes to that. Got it?”
“Yes mama,” Nan surrendered.
“Sheesh,” Buddy grumbled, casting Nan a sideways glance. She knew the look meant ‘don’t cause me trouble’, but she also knew that for all his bravado, he would never harm a hair on her head. John and Arthur thought nothing of smacking her sideways, but Buddy was five years older than Nan and drew the line at getting physical with her. This didn’t mean he didn’t have other ways of getting under her skin, like the time he told some of his friends she still sucked her thumb after she informed their mother she saw him kiss a girl. Nan smiled at Buddy, trying to make nice and prevent future embarrassment, but he just rolled his eyes.
After finishing breakfast, the four children went to dress. Nan layered on two pairs of wool socks and her long underwear beneath her overalls. Few things screamed
baby
like overalls and despite her frequent begging for her mother to sew her some regular pants, Elsie wouldn’t replace them unless they were no longer wearable. Nan thought about ripping out one of the knees, but knew that there wasn’t any money for material and if she wrecked the overalls she could end up back in last school year’s frilly dresses.
That
would undoubtedly be worse than the hand-me-down Osh Kosh’s.
At the door, Nan’s mother helped her with her hat and mittens, then wrapped a red scarf around her neck. Her brothers hopped around as they put on their boots, elbowing and kicking each other in the process. Finally, after slinging their cleats over their shoulders and grabbing their mitts, Nan and the boys were ready to go. As they opened the door, Elsie tugged Buddy’s shoulder.
“The rest of you wait on the porch. I need to talk with Buddy for a minute,” she said, shooing Nan and the other two kids out.
“Poor Buddy,” Nan said miserably once outside.
“Yeah,” John agreed. “It’s not fair.”
“I thought ma was gonna’ kill him for sure,” piped in Arthur, referring not to their brother, but their father.
Fights between Sam and Elsie were not new. On the contrary, they were nearly as regular and remarkable as thunderstorms in July. But they were getting worse and the one from the night before had been almost apocalyptic. Nan hoped that the screaming intensity had diffused some of the pressure building in their house, much as popping the cap on a shaken up Coca-Cola would. But her mother’s face as she called Buddy back told her that things were still mighty unsettled.
Buddy came bursting through the door, eyes dark and jaw set.
“Let’s go,” he barked and stalked off the porch.
As Nan reached in to pull the door closed, her mother stepped into the foyer, a single fat tear rolling down her cheek.
“Mama?” Nan asked softly.
Standing there in her faded housedress, bun disheveled and eyes wet, Elsie looked completely used up. Nan wanted to run and throw her arms around her, tell her everything would be okay. Remind her that Bowers knew how to fight and knew how to win. Before she could though, Buddy yelled.
“C’mon! Let’s
go
!”
Nan looked away quickly and shut the door. Their mother
never
cried. The sight was so unnerving that she almost missed the top step and went tumbling down to the walkway. She tried to catch Buddy’s eye, but he focused on the road in front of them and charged ahead.
Reflecting their mood, the sky was sharp blue and the wind even sharper. It felt more like late November than early April and though she’d never admit it to her mother, Nan was glad she had her long-johns on. She just wished the underwear had the power to warm the cold fear deep inside that her mother’s tear produced.
As soon as they turned a corner and were out of sight of the house, Buddy pulled a pack of Marlboro reds from his back pocket and matches from his front. Nan’s eyes grew wide as she watched her brother expertly light it despite the blustery wind. Obviously this wasn’t his first time.
“What are you
doing
?” she asked.
Seeing Buddy smoke cigarettes was only a small part of her surprise, although that was certainly weird. What really alarmed her was that she was pretty sure he’d stolen the pack from Sam.
“What if dad catches you?” Arthur asked in a worried voice.
Their mother was the disciplinarian of the house, but there had been a marked change in their father’s demeanor over the past year. He was drinking more and more and hiding it less and less. His perpetual five-o-clock shadow had evolved into an unkempt, sometimes stinky beard, and the far off look in his eyes was now constantly framed by a starburst of broken red blood vessels.
There was something else too. A quickness in his temper that hadn’t been there before. Up until the last six months or so, even with Sam’s ever present coffee cup filled with whiskey and ice, there’d been a song in his voice as he tooled around the house. Despite the regular go ‘rounds with Elsie, he had always been easy with the kids. And even when Nan’s parents were fighting, there had been a line Sam wouldn’t cross. But something was different and now Nan’s father seemed to volley between silent and violent rage. Mostly Sam took his anger out on the shabby furniture, like the night right after Christmas when he sent their coffee table crashing into a wall at Elsie’s proclamation that he was a bum. The sight of the splintered and broken wood had frightened Nan as she was introduced to her father’s strength and fury.