Leaning out the upstairs window I could see Father Pierre striding up the walk in skinny black trousers and I felt a lurch in my stomach. He didn’t look anything like the balding, full-bellied monsignors we usually hosted. His blonde hair parted in a cut that reminded me of Steve McQueen. He wasn’t my idea of an African missionary priest. He looked like a movie star.
“Jeannie! He’s coming up the driveway!” Jeannie was changing from her pedal pushers to a summer shift dotted with large sunflowers. We were all trying to wear something that said Africa. I had painted all the faces of the Little Kids with native-looking orange and yellow stripes. Dominic had taken his shirt off and we went crazy painting his chest. I wore my dark green pedal pushers; I didn’t want to be one of the natives.
Kids from all corners stomped down the stairs, pounding on the hardwood. Even baby Jude, still trying to get out of the playpen, bounced up and down with “Ennnh ennnh ennh!” Bart threw open the front door and the little kids poured forth. Out of nowhere Dominic streaked by with native markings on his white chest, calling, “Aaaaaaahhhhh! Aaaaaahhh!” as if he were Tarzan, swinging from the vines. Then he disappeared. I looked down at him, flat on his chest where he’d accidentally belly flopped at Father Pierre’s feet. I waited for the knee-jerk whimper. But I saw in his expression that Dominic suddenly understood he had an audience; he screwed up his face in determination to stop his tears. The little kids came screeching to a halt, pressing themselves as close as they could to Father Pierre, who smiled as if genuinely pleased. Dominic pulled himself up, grabbed Father’s hand and dragged him towards the kitchen. I could tell this priest was a mark. It was going to be a good night.
Just then Clara came sashaying down the steps like she was balancing a book on her head. You could tell she was trying to impress the Padre. As the eldest girl in our family, she knew how to dress up like a lady. Usually she sat on a stool in the kitchen chattering while Mother made supper, in her blue plaid school uniform skirt and bobby socks, dusty from the day’s activities in the school yard, but that afternoon she put on nylons and a straight skirt with a soft green top that looked so tight it might have been a second skin. It had the effect of highlighting her curvy, bosomy shape so that even I had to stare. She wore a string of Mother’s pearls. She smelled of perfume and her nails were painted a coral color. She stepped gingerly down the steps in heels like she was a debutante in her big “ta da!” moment. I just stood back and sighed. With her long eyelashes and big green eyes, her short bubble hairdo and her soft skin, she looked so glamorous. Very Jackie Kennedy. A feeling of pride welled up in me: this was my sister. I had never seen the two things, glamour and bedlam, in the same room at the same time, but there they were as Clara entered the room, like a vision of heaven or Seventeen Magazine.
Just then, Mother pushed open the pantry door into the dining room, wiping her hands on her apron.
Father Pierre reluctantly shifted his gaze from Clara then pulled a hand-carved black statue from his pocket and offered it to Mother.
“Voila, the Madonna,” he said in a French accent as he held it up for her.
“The Blessed Mother of the Congo?” Mother asked, hopefully.
“Hand made by the natives.”
I was shocked. The Mother in the statue had huge boobs pointing straight out. She was pregnant, but she already had baby Jesus on her lap and her lips were enormous. Not sure how they were going to explain that in Catholic terms. Our mother put the little statue on the mantle next to the Sacred Heart.
“Do they serve Martinis in the Congo?” She eyed Dominic hanging from Father’s arm, the orange and yellow paint on his chest smudging Father’s sleeve.
“Mais, non, Madame Shea,” he said.
“Would you like one, Father?”
“Mais, oui, Madame Shea,” he replied, delight almost leaping out of his mouth. “May I help?”
“Why don’t you make yourself at home?” Mother turned back into the kitchen. Dominic swung from Father’s arm. Luke fired rubber bands from the couch; poison arrows from the African jungle. They whizzed by; Luke is a terrible shot.
Just then all the lights went out in the house. The dishwasher, splashing in the pantry, stopped. There was silence where the egg beater had been making a drilling noise. The record player, wound down on the chorus of an Andy Williams’ song: Can’t get used to loowsing yoouw. We all shut up, standing where we were, looking at each other, waiting for a diagnosis.
“Fuse!” yelled Paul (#1) from upstairs. He sounded annoyed “Turn off the fan! You’ve overloaded it again!”
•••
“All hands on deck!!” Mother announced. She yanked on the bell rope, Clang! Clang! Clang! As Daddy carried in a tray of steaming steaks, the smoky smell of burning meat and sizzling fat wafted into the room.
In the living room, Jude clung to the playpen, his stinking diaper still full and smelly. I looked around: Clara sat poised on the edge of the couch giggling shyly with Father Pierre. Madcap was nowhere to be seen, and Bartholomew never helped with the little kids anyway. I was next in line. Jeannie, who was fully capable, was probably in the kitchen, kissing up to Mother. I picked up Jude and carried him at arm’s length into the bedroom and deposited him in his bed while I warmed up the water and wet a washcloth.
“Hey, Jude! Jude-y Jude-y Jude-y! We’re gonna clean up your diaper!” You have to talk to babies like that, getting excited about things like pooping and getting into jammies. Tone of voice is everything.
As soon as I laid him on his back, his plump little legs kicked vigorously. With one hand, I unfastened the diaper pins and opened the diaper hamper. The unmistakable smell of steaming pee was unavoidable. I dropped the whole diaper into the diaper hamper and put the lid back on. Jude was not easy to help. I held him under the faucet, rinsing his little bottom and trying to soap it up. When the water hit his skin, he yowled. Everyone calls me Skinny Milink because I’m wiry, and wiry can be strong. But Jude was fat and heavy, almost propelling himself out of my arms. Finally I got him back on the bassinet, but it took all my strength to hold him there with one hand, as I pinned a dry diaper on him.
“Hey, settle down,” I said, like I was his best buddy. “We don’t want to miss out on the missionary from Africa!” A giddy delight lit up his face. He squealed and giggled, reaching up to me like I was his savior. I pulled him up and swung him onto my hip,one leg on either side.
We all stared at the heaping plates of steaks, a huge bowl of hot French fries and a plate of pale green beans in water. This was the best and worst part of supper. Best because of the anticipation, the mouth-watering food all stacked up. Worst because of the forced waiting while Daddy served everybody, in order of birth. First the priest, then Paul, Clara, John Madcap, Bart. Six people had to be served before me. I was starving.
Okay, not like the little black babies in Africa starving. America starving.
It was almost unbearable. Each plate passed from hand to hand around the table. Hey! He just served Jeannie! Surely Daddy was just testing me. When he sat down to his own full plate and asked Father Pierre to begin with the prayer, I caught Mother’s eye as tears spilled down my cheeks.
“You forgot Annie!” Mother announced, and all eyes focused on me, wallowing in self-pity at the end of the table. The more I tried to hold back my tears, the more they poured forth. Father Pierre glanced at me and a reluctant smile crept up on his face. Gaaaaa! Couldn’t I just once hide my feelings?
“It’s all gone!” Bart teased, “There’s none left for Annie!” he gloated. He leaned over, practically yelling in my ear. “You’re going to have to go to bed hungry.”
I picked up his elbow and smashed it on the table.
“No elbows on the table!” I announced. Instantly, he smacked me with the back of his hand across the face. I shrieked and burst into tears.
“Bartholomew!” Mother said sharply.
Father Pierre began the prayer over our meal. At the “Amen,” it was as if we had all been on th
e starting line and someone had just yelled, “Mark, set, go!” The clinking sound of knives and forks, of swallowing and gulping air between bites was pretty much all you could hear as we harked it back. A rare moment of relative silence, and then we came up for seconds.
“You forgot to say Eternal Rest!” Rosie blurted. As far as I knew we were the only family who recited a prayer for the dead as part of grace over meals. Normally this was another mortifying, unavoidable detail of living in a Catholic family of fifteen, but tonight we had an audience and he was a priest, so we felt proud. “May their souls and all the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.” Once again, our voices died down to silence.
John-the-Blimp punctuated the quiet with a deep, grumbly burp. Instead of being embarrassed, he sat there, satiated, like he was proud of his accomplishment. “It’s better to burp and be in shame, than not to burp and be in pain.”
“John!” Daddy said.
After the table was cleared, we had to say the rosary, so the Communists could be eradicated. Father Pierre knelt down in the middle of the living room. Mother came rushing in, having just put Jude in his crib in the back bedroom.
Then Daddy gave us the lecture about Communism. Again. Just last year there was some kind of showdown with Russia a few miles from the coast of Florida, and for a few nights we went to bed worried if we were going to get bombed to smithereens. Tonight Daddy was an expert on Our Lady of Fatima (who was really the Blessed Mother dressed up as Our Lady of Fatima). This version of The Blessed Mother appeared to three little kids while they were tending sheep. Their message: “Unless a certain number of people say the rosary, Russia will spread her errors around the world.”
As Daddy said this every night, I often asked myself, Who would these “certain number of people” be? We were the only family in the whole of North America doing this as far as I could tell. Not a single soul at our school did it. The nuns never admitted to doing it. The priests and Monsignor—if they were saying the rosary, we’d be getting “rosary this” and “rosary that” lectures. So then, the fifteen of us were holding off World War III? On the other hand, maybe it was working. I haven’t ever seen any Communists around Pasadena.
We started the rosary with Jude down the hall, still fussing. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. It was bad enough that Jude spent the whole afternoon with a poopy diaper, trying to get out of the playpen. Now Mother was putting him to bed early when we had a special guest. How fair is that? Suddenly Jude shrieked and burst into pitiful wailing. All faces turned towards Mother, but she had her head down as if she didn’t hear, fingering her rosary.
Daddy raised his voice trying to drown out Jude’s cries. We took our cue and went along. Our voices rose fervently, all of us reciting the Catholic Church’s loudest group Hail Mary, but Jude just got more desperate.
I glanced up at Father Pierre. Did he understand what was going on? We all knew the drill, our parents had done this with each of us, but tonight we were on display, the exceptional Catholic family. This wasn’t supposed to happen.
“Hail Mary, full of grace the Lord is with thee…” I couldn’t help but think: what would the Blessed Mother do if it were Jesus in there instead of Jude? “Blessed are thou among women.”
By the third decade of the rosary, Jude sounded scared. Maybe he thought no one could hear him, or worse, no one was there. How could Mother stand it? I was itchy to go back and calm him, but I knew I’d lose my place next to Father Pierre.
If someone didn’t go now, Jude would go to the next stage.
When babies go beyond rage and panic, the next level of crying is inconsolable. They go on for hours, in a trance. It finally stops when they wear themselves down. They start sucking in the air and whimpering and trailing off. They lie down, thumb in their mouth and fall asleep, exhausted. I couldn’t bear to listen to it anymore. Or however long it took until “he learned.” Besides, I knew there was another reason for his crying: his diaper was probably soaked with pee and his raw bottom was stinging him. I got up and started towards the back.
“No, Annie, let him go.” Daddy ordered me in his commander voice.
I could barely hear myself squeak. “I’ll read him a story until he falls asleep.”
“No, Annie. He’s stubborn, but he’ll learn.” I looked around, hoping for some solidarity. Every kid in this room had been through this first hand, whether or not they remembered it. I looked at Dominic, who was nine. When he was Jude’s age, he kicked so hard in his high chair that Mother tied his foot to the chair with a sock, then left him in the room by himself for hours, closing the double doors behind him. No one in the house escaped his rage that day.
“He’ll cry himself to sleep in a few minutes,” my father continued. “Just wait.”
I stood there, not daring to disobey him. Jude’s voice thickened; he wailed, a long, inconsolable sound. It was excruciating. Everyone was too cowed to do anything about it. Even Madcap, usually somewhat of a rebel, had her head down. And I could hardly believe this was the first time it occurred to me, but suddenly, it seemed all wrong.
I looked at Father Pierre straight in the eye. He wasn’t doing anything either. It just made me mad. Here we were, showing off how good we were, what perfect Catholics and we couldn’t even pick up a crying baby and comfort him.
“Do you let your little orphans cry themselves to sleep like that in Africa?” I blurted. He was certainly surprised, and I could hardly believe I had just said that. Everyone looked as stunned as I was, so I took advantage and ran out of the room. You just come and spank me! I didn’t dare say it, but I slammed the door and ran down to Jude’s room. The sight of me just made him scream louder. I picked him up and laid him on the bassinet anyway. His diaper was soaked and his bottom was raw.
Chapter 8
shea family motors
June 15 – Dear Jesus, I looked through the Bible today, calling to mind thy sufferings and death. I always enjoy looking over this part of Scripture. They really tortured you. Maybe that’s why the littlest always gets left in the crib to cry himself to sleep—Mother and Daddy are preparing us for when we’re going to be tortured. Last night, after dinner and the rosary, all the kids watched Walt Disney. The show was The Son of Flubber. I was not feeling well. I kept praying to you not to let me have the flu. But I guess it was your will that I suffer. I ran to the bathroom with that horrible feeling and spit up. You gave me this penance and I am offering it up for your glory. I already offered up some of it all over the bathroom. Usually it’s disgusting to even get near the toilet, but when you have the flu, it doesn’t seem so bad to have your mouth wide open right next to the bowl. Mother cleaned it up. I hate the flu. But it’s probably not as bad as getting crucified.
When the cardinals met at the Sistine Chapel in 1963 to elect a Pope, there were 83 of them, including Cardinal Stefanucci. It was the largest conclave ever, a fact I thought might be God’s clue to us that our favorite Cardinal would win. The Feeneys were still ahead of us in standing in the parish, they already had fourteen children and there was no sign of Mother having another baby, but if Cardinal Stefanucci became the Pope, Teresa Feeney would have to hold her tongue.
Almost two weeks after Pope John died, the day after school let out for summer, but before the white smoke went up to announce the decision of those 83 cardinals, a Soviet astronaut was launched into space and Daddy opened up his new business. We all went down to celebrate the Grand Opening of Shea Family Motors, a car dealership with one set of gas pumps.
The day before we spent the whole time after school blowing up balloons and baking cookies. In the kitchen Jeannie and Clara were in charge of making the dough and putting cookie sheets in the oven. The baking smell of warm sugar permeated the house. Even the little kids stayed up past their bedtime, decorating cookies with red, white, and blue sprinkles, to go with the color of the AMC logo. Mother let us listen to the radio and we heard the count down to the top ten best song
s for that week on the radio. We sang along with: “Do You Want to Know a Secret” and “Can’t Get Used to Losing You” (Gonna live my whole life through, dunh, dunh, lovin’ you”). On the Dunh! Dunh! everyone nodded their heads in unison like piano keys being plunked at the same time.
Madcap was in charge of painting the signs: “Grand Opening!” “Welcome!” “Under New Management” “Let’s Make a Deal!” I liked art, too, and I added small daisies to each sign to give them an artistic look. Daddy wrote out a list of what he wanted the signs to say and we used a real brush and red paint on white butcher paper. “Big Sale!” “Price Reduced!” “One owner!” There was always an exclamation point, because you had to generate excitement. Buying something big like a car can be a thrilling event in a life and people in a frenzied state are usually good impulse buyers, Daddy said. Bartholomew and John-the-Blimp took care of the balloons, piling them into a corner and stringing them together. Sometimes John popped a balloon and everyone jumped in surprise.
Mother gave the twins a job which highlighted their strengths. Namely that they were the cutest two little guys you could ever lay your eyes on, and when they were both dressed in shorts, knee socks, and small ties, everyone had to say “Awwww!” even if they didn’t say it out loud. So Mother asked me to put them at the entrance to the lot next to a table of doughnuts. They were going to soften up the customers. That night at bedtime, their little suits ready at the bottom of their beds, they fell asleep, repeating to themselves, “Welcome to Shea Motors. Would you like a doughnut?”
Dad got Paul, John, and Bartholomew company uniforms—short-sleeve shirts with buttons up the front and pointed collars with the logo of Texaco on the pocket. When the first batch of balloons was ready, Daddy took the three of them down to show the boys how to pump gas, clean off windshields, and check the oil.
A Theory of Expanded Love Page 5
