The Smell of Home

Mom was coming home, again. She had been in and out of the mental hospital weeks at a time; only this time she had been away for several months. At first dad tried to get by giving us weekly chores to keep the house clean. I had to clean the bathrooms, Mark had to take care of the yard and Cindy had to do the cooking and some cleaning. We all took turns taking out the trash, and washing dishes. Teresa, well she was a charmer, and her charms were not lost on my father, who frequently let Teresa out of her chores on any given week. All she had to do was look cute and coy (which for her was not hard at all; for me would have taken an act of God to affect that look). She would bat those deep blue Elizabeth Taylor eyes, and wiggle her head just enough to make those ringlets wobble, and my dad would relent. She was his baby.

Most of our chores would be done on Saturdays. It was the only day we had to sleep in, but for some reason, dad insisted that we start our chores at the crack of dawn. For me, that was never really a problem, since my eyes popped open every day at 6:00 in the morning whether I wanted them to or not. To this day, I have never been able to break that pesky little habit. If we were not awake by 7:00, my father would march into our bedrooms (no knocking for him; it never seemed to bother him whether we were dressed or not. Since I slept naked, I made sure that never happened) and shake us awake. It worked pretty well for Mark and Teresa, but Cindy was a tougher nut to crack. Cindy LOVED to sleep in. Given the opportunity, she'd sleep until noon.

One Saturday morning, as I was cleaning the bathrooms, I was trying to empty the bathroom trash into the larger kitchen trash, which of course was overflowing. My father, standing in the kitchen, with his arms crossed in the manner of a drill Sargent (a role which he frequently assumed through the years)asked "Whose job was it to take out the trash this week?" He knew it was Cindy, and he knew I knew it was Cindy, but I didn't want to say it because I knew what was coming and I dreaded what he would make me do. He made me go upstairs and wake her up, or some facsimile thereof. Waking Cindy up was not an event; it was a process. She resisted the effort, however great or frequent to rouse her from slumber. She was like a bear who was woken up too soon from hibernation. If you got to close, she'd hit you. Only Cindy had a special way of punching that was hard to forget. She'd punch you in the arm with the knuckles of her fingers pushed out so it would hurt down to the bone.

On the first try, I just opened the door and yelled at her from a distance, then ran back downstairs to finish my chores. Of course, when 15 minutes had gone by, and no sign of Cindy was apparent, dad made me go back for another try. This time I would tip toe in, shake her and then run (or practically fall) downstairs so she wouldn't hurt me. This would go on for some time until my father would finally go up, open the door and rip the covers off of her bed. That usually worked pretty well.

On subsequent Saturday mornings, my dad adopted a different tactic. When he realized that Cindy was still sleeping and everyone else was working, he told me to pick up the kitchen trash and follow him. When we got upstairs, he took the trash can from me, marched in Cindy's room, yanked the covers off her and dumped the trash right on top of her. The stinky,smelly, wet, gross trash from all the food we had eaten that week. Cindy came off the bed so fast you'd think she'd had a catapult hidden underneath. I, of course would be halfway down the stairs in the blink of an eye (anything to avoid that punch). But my dad would stand his ground, arms crossed with a slight smile and tell her to take out the trash.

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After that, my dad decided to hire a woman named Jean, to do the housecleaning and the cooking. She would come in early in the mornings, make breakfast and send us off to school. And she would be there when we got home, with the house clean, laundry done, and linens changed. The house always smelled slightly like Pine Sol, and I loved it.

Jean believed that children should play after school, before doing their homework, "No sense in wasting good sunlight" she'd say, "You've been cooped up in that classroom all day". So as soon as we'd get home, she'd send us right back out again to play until dinner. But she insisted that we'd have to get all our homework done after dinner. Otherwise she'd make us do it the minute we got home from school the next day. Before sending us out to play, she'd look at me and say "Don't disappoint me". I made sure to get all my homework done, even if it meant doing it under the covers of my bed with a flashlight; which was known to happen on occasion. Sometimes, I would also do the next days assignments just in case.

While we were at school, Jean would always bake a batch of cookies, a pie or some kind of dessert for that night's dinner. But almost always she'd have fresh baked cookies somewhere around. When we'd ask for cookies before going outside, she'd shake her head no and counter "No one's going to say I was the one to spoil your appetite for dinner" and shoo us outside. But when I'd go back inside later to use the bathroom, she'd always have a couple of cookies set out on a plate at the kitchen bar for me with a glass of milk. With a wink, she'd tell me "You'd better not let me find out you were too full to eat your dinner". Most often Greg would come over after school, and he would get cookies and milk too. For some reason, Jean liked me (and Greg) and cut us a lot of slack, where she didn't with Mark, Cindy or even Teresa. Neither of my parents drank coffee. But Jim did, Nana and Papa did and so did Jean. Jean worked hard; in fact, I rarely saw her off her feet. But in the afternoons, I would find Jean with a cup of coffee, resting for a few minutes before working on dinner. The smell of coffee and fresh baked cookies smelled like Nana's house, and now, for the first time, it came to smell like home.

I loved Jean. She made the most interesting meals. Her cooking was special. Even ordinary food like meatloaf was an adventure. Her meatloaf had a perfectly round cooked egg in the center of her loaf. I asked her how she did that, but she told me "How stupid do I look? If I gave you all my secrets, you wouldn't need me anymore". I puzzled over the meatloaf mystery for a long time until I realized that she started out with a hard boiled egg! Even her cookies were different. She made the usual chocolate chip, peanut butter, and oatmeal raisin cookies. But there was always some special ingredient that made them taste different, better even.

The longer Jean was employed with us, the more time I wanted to spend with her. I started asking if I could watch her cook after school instead of going out to play. She's always send me outside with the admonition that "It's not right for a child to be cooped up all day". But I learned that if I snuck back in, she'd pretend that she didn't see me. After a while, I was staying inside with her until dinner, watching her cook, sometimes helping her cook, and always with a plate of cookies, baked just for me. Greg would come over after school, and she'd let him help in the kitchen as well.

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Mom came home and everything changed. She would sleep all day in her bedroom, with the shades pulled down and the curtains closed, and we would have to be quiet. When she awoke later in the afternoon, she'd come downstairs in her housecoat and mule slippers and stand in the hallway looking into the kitchen. Frequently she had been crying and was still sniffling when she appeared in the hallway. I'd be standing by the stove next to Jean. Her words would be all slurry, and her eyes at half mast, like she was still asleep. I was mad that she slept all day while Jean did all the work. "You sleep too much" I told her in an unkind voice. "It's not sleeping that's the problem" Jean muttered, too softly for mom to hear. Mom told me "Come give me a hug". Only, it wasn't the kind of "Come give me a hug because I love you so much" statement; it was more like the "Come give me a hug and prove that you love me" kind of statement. I didn't want to go near her. But I would feel Jean's hand in the small of my back pushing me towards mom. When I gave her the hug, she would say to me" Why can't you love me so I can get well? Why do you have to be so difficult?". Truth was, I didn't love her. I secretly despised her for being so weak and pathetic. I wanted her to be a mom. I didn't want to have to be the one to make her normal again. I wanted her to be like Jean, or Nana, or just someone I could respect, and who loved me back, and didn't blame me for everything. I was 11 years old. Was that too much to ask of my mom?

Jean would have dinner ready to be served when as soon as dad got home. Then she would leave. Once I asked Jean why she didn't eat with us, and she said "I have my own family to eat dinner with". I wanted her to stay. Dinner was not pleasant anymore with mom there, and I couldn't wait for it to be over. Mom complained about everything. Jean didn't clean the kitchen right, she didn't use the right cleaning agents in the bathroom, the laundry wasn't folded correctly. And worst of all, mom didn't like Jean's cooking. I kept asking Jean several times to stay and eat with us, and she would always decline. One Friday I asked if I could go home with her and eat dinner at her house; I could ride my bike home afterward so I wouldn't be any trouble and I'd even clean up all the dishes so she could rest. She looked at me long and hard with her hands on her hips. I was surprised then, when her eyes got wet (Jean was never the sentimental sort), she pulled me to her and gave me a short but hard hug. She immediately pushed me back and said "You have your own family to eat with" and turned away from me. But I heard her mumble "as hard as that is, God help you". I didn't ask her again.

Jean only lasted a couple of weeks after mom came home. Mom insisted that dad fire her. Jean did nothing right in mom's estimation. But mostly, I think she was jealous. So one day, when I got home from school, there was no Jean. There was no smell of coffee or fresh baked cookies or even Pine Sol. There was no smell at all. Mom was in bed, but would soon be up wandering the house in that half dopey, half drugged trance she perpetually stayed in these days.

Greg and I sat outside on the front porch, head in hands, wondering out loud where our next batch of cookies would come from; but silently wondering what home would look like from now on. And the thought scared us both.

Third Grade

My childhood seemed to enter the twilight zone sometime between the second and third grade. It was during this time that I first noticed my mother starting to act peculiar. And it was right after the third grade that I remember Greg and I first using the word crazy when talking about my mother.

My mother was always a nervous person, even in the best of times. I was always told that the reason she was so nervous was because of my heart condition. Amd when I got sick, she seemed to decompensate. If my brother or sisters got sick, I was sent off to Nana’s so I wouldn’t catch whatever bug they had. And if I did get sick, I was sent off to Nana’s to recuperate. For most of my early childhood, it seemed like I was always either in the hospital or at Nana’s. I would get pneumonia at the drop of a hat. It would start out as a simple cold. But every night, my mother would wake me up in the middle of the night, and bring me down to the dark kitchen. The only light on in the house would be the one over the stove. She would have put a pot of boiling water on the kitchen counter, into which she dropped several heaping tablespoons of Vicks vapor rub. She stood over me and held my head over the pot and covered it with a towel. The fumes were so strong that my eyes would burn and water and my lungs felt like they were on fire until I thought they would explode. It wasn’t until I coughed so violently that I gagged that she would let my head up. I could only go to bed after she rubbed enough vapor rub on my chest to cover a small army of children. I always felt worse after each treatment and dreaded the next night. I begged my mother not to use the Vicks again, but each night, after everyone was asleep, she would get me up and the cycle would begin again.

After several nights of this, I could barely breathe. My mother would become hysterical, wake my father and my parents would end up driving me to the hospital in the middle of the night where I was admitted with pneumonia. The pediatric ward at Huntington memorial hospital knew me and my parents well. We were there almost every other month for years. My cardiologist would have called ahead and the nurses would have an oxygen tent already set up for me. I would spend the next 2 weeks or so alone in that tent, save for the company of nurses. I became so close to one of the nurses that I missed her terribly when I went home. And I would feel guilty for sometimes secretly wishing that she were my mother.

And so it went, for years, in and out of hospitals with pneumonia. The doctors and nurses explained that my lungs were weak and probably always would be. After each admission, when I was ready to go home, I was sent to my grandparents to recover. I was told that my illness made my mother “too nervous” or I was just “too sick” to come home.

Sometime during the beginning of third grade, I had already been admitted several times with pneumonia, when I needed to have another cardiac catheterization to reassess my heart. After that, my parents decided to keep me out of school for the rest of the year. To most kids, that probably would have seemed like heaven. To me, it was like a prison sentence. I loved school. I loved my teachers, I loved the homework. I loved just the act of walking to school and the freedom it gave me. I was a total school nerd, before nerd was even a word. My parents hired a tutor, who came most days of the week. And I liked her very much, but it wasn’t the same.

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One day, on a weekday, my mother sent me out to the backyard to play. Everybody else was in school and my tutor wasn’t coming that day. Since most 7 year olds don’t plan bathroom breaks, I suddenly realized I had to go right then. So I ran to the back door and started to open it when my mother came to the door and shut it before I could get it open.

“Let me in, I have to go” I pleaded in a decibel range I hoped no one else would hear.

“No. I don’t want you in here” She yelled back at me in a tone I had never heard her use. “I need the rest”. I heard the lock click shut.

“No, let me in please. I have to go, real bad” Panic had now crept into my voice.

“Go away. I’m not letting you in until your father gets home” She spat back. It was late in the morning, no one else was around and my father wasn’t coming home until dinner. I promptly ran to the front door, only to find that locked as well. I ran back to the back door and pounded and yelled hoping she would let me in. I could see her through the window walking away.

I was confused, and horrified that I was being locked out of my own house, and I desperately had to pee. And the running back and forth didn’t help. So I did two things I had never done before. I wet my pants, and I started to cry. I sat down on the back porch steps and cried out of humiliation and anger and fear. I didn’t understand why my mother was acting like that.

There was a chain link fence between our house and Greg’s next door, and our back doors were directly opposite each other. Elaine from next door had seen the exchange and came out onto her back porch and asked me if I was alright. I was too embarrassed to stand up or turn around. I didn’t want her to see that I had soiled myself, or that I was crying.

But even in her drunken haze, she knew something was wrong. She came over to my yard, and grabbing my hand she staggered back to her house, me in tow. She made me take off my pants and underwear, and gave me Greg’s robe to wear while she washed my clothes. No one else was home, and I was grateful. Elaine was not an affectionate mother by any means. But for all her dysfunctions, she put her arms around me and tried reassuring me that nothing was my fault that day. But it sure felt like it was.

Later that day, when my father pulled up in the driveway, Elaine went out to talk with him. She had been waiting, and she was hopping mad. I didn’t hear all that was said, but pretty soon, my father came into Elaine’s house and told me to come home. As soon as I walked in, he ordered me up into my bedroom, and the yelling between my parents began, again.

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My mother really wanted another baby. My father told me later that she would begin to lose interest in us when we started walking and talking. My parents fought over it frequently, but after my younger sister, Teresa was born, my father was insistent. No more kids. And so even though she kept begging, he would dig his heels in, and all the while the arguing and screaming continued.

When my mother realized she wasn’t going to get pregnant anytime soon, she decided she wanted new furniture. Again, the arguing and screaming went on over new furniture. My mother was insistent that she wanted it but my father was just as insistent that there was nothing wrong with our furniture. My mother was relentless, and my father was just as stubborn. No furniture.

One day, just my mother and I were at home. I was sitting on the white leather couch doing my homework, when a man came to the house. My mother let him in and spoke to him as she gave him a tour of the house. I thought at first he was a friend, until he started loading up all our furniture onto the truck. My mother had decided the best way to get new furniture was to sell the old. Lock, stock and barrel. Everything went, including the drapes. By the end of the day, we had no beds, no tables, no chairs. The only thing left was that white leather couch. My mother collected the money, and the man drove away with all our furniture neatly loaded onto his truck.

When my father came home from work, the screaming began again. Only this time it was a conflagration. I had never seen him so mad. They yelled at each other long into the night, and for many nights thereafter. My mother argued that we needed new furniture, only this time she was right. We did in fact need furniture as now we had none. My father was so mad, he refused to buy any. Not even a bed. So for a while, we all slept on the floor, until my father gave in (or probably his back gave out) and bought us all mattresses. But that was it for a long time. My mother put up sheets over the windows and we somehow made due with no furniture. I pretended that I was a hippie, and that’s why I only had a mattress. But from that moment on, I never wanted to bring friends over to my house. I didn’t want to have to explain how my mother just up and sold our furniture one day, and why my father would let us live like that. As time went on, my mother’s mood became more erratic. One minute she would be dancing to music and the next suddenly fly into a rage over some unknown slight. Because I never knew which mood she would be in, from that time on when I walked home from school, I always did it alone.

My best friend Greg from next door would come over frequently, but since his mother was an alcoholic and his father, the reverend, was sleeping with his secretary, he understood better than anyone. His mother was almost always drunk and when his father was home they were constantly fighting. Greg and I were like brother and sister, united in a common bond…crazy mothers and distant or absent fathers. Our mothers were lost in their own illnesses and our fathers escaped (mine through work and his through his mistress), leaving us essentially orphaned and raising each other. It was like the blind leading the blind.

Because I missed almost an entire year of school, I had to test into the fourth grade before I was allowed back to school in the fall. I tested at sixth grade level. For the second time in my life, the school recommended that I skip a grade. I was ecstatic, because I had worked hard that year to show everyone that I wouldn’t “fall behind” as my mother was convinced I would. And yet again, my parents refused, ostensibly because they were afraid I “couldn’t handle the pressure”. I was outwardly angry with my parents because I thought it showed a lack of faith in my abilities. My only consolation was that I was happy to be back with my friends that I had known since kindergarten. As it turned out, my friends were my salvation in the years to come.

Somewhere in the fourth grade, I became sick again, only this time I had tonsillitis. I was admitted and had surgery several days later. From that point on, I don’t remember ever getting sick again with colds. The Vicks treatments stopped and I never went back to the hospital with pneumonia.

As an adult, I learned that I was actually quite allergic to Vicks. Each time I used it I began to wheeze and cough. Looking back, I have to wonder whether my mother used the Vicks intentionally as a way to get me into the hospital, so she wouldn’t have to deal with me. I know now, as a Physician Assistant this is called Munchausen by Proxy; a psychiatric disorder where a parent intentionally makes a child sick or fakes an illness in her child for secondary gain. By making me sick enough to require hospitalization it created the drama that my mother craved; and it gave her the excuse to get rid of me, eliminating the stress of having to care for me. I was the problem causing all her stress. If I had been a normal child, maybe she wouldn’t have acted so crazy. At least that was the message I got. Of all the lessons I learned during my third grade year, this lesson was what shaped my perception of myself and the world around me.