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.