Ed hurried along the sidewalk to his house. The Chicago day was bitter cold with a strong wind blowing against his back, pushing him along a little faster than he could walk. He stayed late at the school library and was rushing to get home before his father arrived for dinner. Being late for dinner was not tolerated under any circumstances.
The sun, not visible the entire day, had already set and what little daylight there had been on that bleak day was receding fast. The shutters and drapes on the windows of the houses Ed rushed by were already closed in an attempt to keep some of the howling wind from penetrating into the warm living and dining rooms of his neighbors.
He turned into the stone path that led to the home he shared with his parents, Charles and Margaret, and his siblings, Jack and Dorothy. He opened the unlocked front door and felt a welcome rush of warm air. Ed was puzzled to see Jack and Dorothy at the living room coat closet removing their jackets. They should have come home from school hours ago so why were they just now taking off their coats? His chest tightened as he saw the barren table in the dining room - the same table that should have already been set with silverware and plates for dinner. Then, he caught a glimpse of his mother in the kitchen unpacking groceries, still clad in her heavy brown winter coat with a light blue wool scarf wrapped around her neck and a white and blue knitted cap on her head. “Oh, no,” he thought with a sigh, “Not again.” Ed laid the school books he was carrying on the small table by the door, then took off his coat and hung it up in the coat closet as his brother and sister settled on the living room sofa.
“Mom, you haven’t started dinner? Dad will be home any minute,” Ed exclaimed as he hurried into the kitchen and began helping her with the groceries.
“I know, I know,” she sighed, “But I needed a few things.”
With exasperation in his voice, Ed replied, “You were home all day. Why didn’t you shop earlier? Why do you shop so late and make Dad angry?” It was an old argument that made Ed feel tired and annoyed.
Margaret ignored Ed’s comment. She pulled off her coat, scarf and hat as she wandered through the dining room to the living room. Then she pulled open the coat closet where she hung up the coat, wrapped the scarf around the hanger and set her hat on the shelf above.
“I know, I know,” she said again as she walked back to the kitchen, “I just don’t think about shopping until it’s time to start dinner.”
Ed tried to calm his anger before he said, “We all suffer when he gets mad about dinner being late. Why do you do that to us? Why can’t you just have dinner ready when he walks in the door like he wants?”
“Well, you would think he could wait a few minutes, wouldn’t you?” Margaret relied testily.
“He won’t!” Ed yelled. “You know he hates to wait. Why do you do this?”
Ed saw his mother’s eyes begin to fill with tears and he felt a pang of regret for yelling at her, but he just could not understand why she continually provoked his father’s anger.
With a slightly softer, but still annoyed tone, Ed said, “Here, let me help.” Then he called out to Jack and Dorothy and asked them to set the table.
There was a flurry of activity as the two younger children prepared the dining table and Ed and his mother quickly started preparing the evening meal. Ed peeled potatoes and put them in a pot of water to boil. Then he grabbed some carrots from the vegetable bin, peeled and sliced them and added them to the pot of potatoes that was starting to bubble. Margaret sliced an onion, heated a skillet and started frying some fatty pieces of pork, adding the onion slices to the sizzling meat.
Once the table was ready, Ed ordered Jack and Dorothy to slice the bakery bread their mother had brought home and to start a kettle on the stove for tea. Everyone worked silently so that when the front door creaked open there was an audible sound from the sharp intact of breath as the kitchen workers realized their hurried efforts were not enough to get the meal on the table before the arrival of Charles.
It took only seconds for the bellowing to begin. “What the hell?” Charles screamed, his face red with unnecessary furor. “Where is dinner? Where the hell is my dinner? I have to wait again. AGAIN!”
Charles did not even stop to remove his jacket. He walked swiftly with stomping feet through the dining room and into the crowded kitchen. Jack and Dorothy bent over nearly double in an attempt to make themselves invisible and slid past their father who was standing just inside the kitchen door. Ed stood with his back straight, but did not look directly at his father. Margaret kept stirring the meat in the skillet, never once looking in Charles’ direction.
“Are you deaf?” Charles yelled as he grabbed Margaret’s shoulder with his left hand and swirled her to face him. With his right hand he reached out and slapped her with full force against her left cheek. Immediately her skin turned blotchy red. She held her head down, still not daring to look at him.
“What on God’s green earth is wrong with you, Margaret? Are you stupid? Are you a total idiot? I come home the same time every day and I want dinner on the table!” Charles continued screaming. “And, you,” he said pointing at Ed, “Why are you helping her? Are you a woman? Get the hell out of the kitchen!”
Ed briefly glanced at his mother, but she was still staring down at the floor. As he walked past his father, Charles punched him hard on the arm and said, “Men don’t belong in kitchens and it is her job to prepare dinner, not yours!”
Once Ed had left the kitchen, he heard his father close the door and then the sound of more yelling and another slap. As much as Ed hated the way his father treated his mother, he also hated the way she seemed to purposefully aggravate his father, over and over again.
The other children had disappeared. Ed rubbed his sore arm as he gathered his books from the table by the door and wearily climbed the stairs to the second floor. He opened his sister’s bedroom door and found her curled up on her bed crying. He quietly closed the door and went to the room he shared with his brother. The door was ajar and he could see Jack lying on his bed reading, seemingly unaffected by what had occurred downstairs.
Ed and Jack were only two years apart in age, but had little in common and, honestly, they did not like each other very much. Ed ignored his brother as he crossed the room to the wooden desk they shared. He sat down with a sigh, setting his books down with a thud. He opened one and started studying, trying to forget the all too common scene from the kitchen confrontation.
Twenty minutes later Margaret's voice timidly floated up the stairs from the living room, "Children, dinner is ready."
Jack sprang from the bed and rushed into the hall and down the stairs. Ed closed his algebra book and reluctantly followed in his brother's path. As he passed Dorothy's door he opened it and told her to come to dinner. Dorothy was nearly asleep, but she slowly rose from the bed, her eyes pink and swollen from crying. She walked down the stairs ahead of Ed.
Charles was already seated at the head of the table as Margaret brought more dishes from the kitchen and sat them gently on the table. Both of her cheeks glowed an angry red color and a small bruise was visible near her left eye. She did not glance at anyone, just walked back and forth from one room to the other. Each child took a seat and waited until all the food was on the table. Margaret settled into the chair at the other end of the table opposite her husband.
Charles picked up each serving dish and added generous portions of food to his plate. He passed the dishes to Ed on his right. Ed, Jack and Margaret took pieces of fatty pork with crisp onions, potatoes and carrots and pickled beets, but Margaret just sat with her empty plate, slowly stirring her cup of tea. Charles and Jack tackled their food vigorously, Dorothy pushed the food around in a circle on her plate, taking a bite every now and then.
Ed looked with trepidation at his plate. The potatoes, carrots and beets looked appetizing, but the fatty meat turned his stomach. He reached for a slice of bread and buttered it generously. Slowly he consumed the vegetables and bread, purposely ignoring the meat that consisted of a tiny piece of pork circled with a thick ring of greasy, slimy fat. He glanced over to his father who was chewing one of the stomach-turning pieces of meat; the shimmer of fat was on his lips and even dribbled slightly down the corners of his mouth. Ed turned away in disgust.
Ed finished everything on his plate but the meat. He stared at it. His mind was blank except for the thought that the meat was completely unappetizing. Time and time again he had been forced to eat fatty, greasy meat, but, for some reason, on that cold, stressful evening he just could not bare to put even the smallest piece in his mouth. He stared at his half-empty plate for several minutes.
"Eat it!," his father yelled, "Eat the damn meat."
Ed's mind felt red hot and he said firmly, "No. It's gross. I will not, I cannot eat it."
His father's hand hit his face as quick as the strike of a rattlesnake. The strike on his face was so sudden, so intense, that Ed flew from his chair, his body banging against Jack before it hit the floor. "You will eat everything at this table! Don't you know there is a depression? People are going hungry every day and you think you can refuse the food that I work hard to put on your plate!" his father screamed as he stood up and towered over Ed's body on the floor. "You will eat and you will appreciate every bite of food or I will put you on the streets where you can starve with everyone else, you little bastard."
Ed rose slowly from the floor, his body sore from the fall. He silently returned to his seat and slowly, very slowly, starting eating the disgusting, greasy, fatty meat. With great effort he tried not to vomit as each piece slid down his throat. As he struggled with the last of his meal, everyone else ate quietly, not a word was spoken. But, Ed felt a hot rage filling his belly, rising to his chest. He wanted to yell back at his father, he wanted to throw a fatty hunk of pork in this father's face, he wanted to walk out the front door and never return. But, instead he swallowed the last piece of nauseating meat and wiped the grease from his tightly pursed lips.
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When I was a child there was a television show called “My Three Sons” that starred Fred MacMurray as the Steve Douglas, the widowed father of three sons who was raising them with the help of his “Uncle Charlie”. Fred MacMurray was the epitome of the fictional American father image of the 1950's and 1960's. Always patient, always wise, Mr. Douglas solved problems with a fair measure of concern, understanding and humor. My father was also a widower, who was raising three daughters rather than three sons, but he was no Steve Douglas.
I always wondered who my father would have been had my mother lived. He was not a horrible father, but a very demanding, unforgiving one. And, he became more difficult with age. I used to imagine he would be a softer person had his life unfolded differently, but with time and after hearing stories of his youth, I came to realize he was probably always much like the man who raised me. My mother’s presence would have influenced how we were raised, no doubt, but it would have been a matter of her ability to “win”, especially in matters of child-raising, than my father being greatly different than who he was after her death. Our home would have been softer, gentler, kinder, but only because of her being there.
Ed was a better father than his his own father. He never hit us, but he did have a bad temper displayed by his yelling and his silent treatments. He woke up each morning at 4 am and if anything was amiss - a glass left in the sink, a napkin on the floor, clothes left in the dryer, school books on the dining table - he would start raging as he banged on my bedroom door or my sister Sharry's bedroom door. One or both of us would stumble from bed and go to correct whatever trivial item had set him off. Mistakes were not tolerated. Even as a very young child, I knew that a spilled glass of milk, a broken anything, an unfinished chore, or a misplaced item could turn a good day into a day from hell. After the yelling, my father would continue punishment by not talking to the guilty party - sometimes for weeks. We did everything possible to appease him and to cover up our mistakes.
Bunk beds were in my childhood bedroom. One December my sister Sharry and my nine-year-old self sat on the top bed and made Christmas wreaths from holly we had collected in the woods near our house. Once our project was complete, we began cleaning up. Sharry could not find the hand-held whisk broom, so she brought the regular floor broom into our makeshift craft area and tried to sweep up the bits and pieces of holly that were scattered across the top bunk bed. The long broom handle hit the light globe hanging from the ceiling, shattering the globe and light bulb and sending pieces of glass cascading to the floor below. We both stopped breathing and just stared at the pieces of glass. Immediately we knew that this mess needed to be covered up and rectified as soon as possible because Ed did not accept or tolerate accidents. Should he find out about the broken light fixture, we would be assaulted by hours of his ranting and then our Christmas holidays would be ruined by his brooding silence. We cleaned up all the pieces, wrapped them in newspaper and pushed them deep into the outside garbage can. We replaced the broken light bulb and then rearranged my room, hoping that the relocation of furniture might distract my father's attention from the missing light globe. Fortunately, my father rarely entered my room so we were hopeful that our accident would not be discovered. Sharry called the store in a town several miles away where my father had purchased all our house light fixtures and was relieved to learn that they still had that particular globe in stock. The following Saturday, Sharry made arrangements with an understanding neighbor to drive her to the store to purchase the globe. She and I pooled our skimpy allowances to pay for the globe but still came up a couple of dollars short. Our sympathetic neighbor, having run up against my father's temper herself, made up the difference.
I stood below the ladder as Sharry climbed up and screwed the globe into place. We looked at the finished job with great relief. Somehow we had pulled it off. Once during the week, I left my room to retrieve a book from the living room and forgot to close the door. I was startled and worried when I returned to find my father standing in my bedroom door. "Rearranged your room, hey?" Ed said as he looked about. I held my breath and prayed that he would not look up and see the bare light bulb. "Yeah, Sharry helped me," I said as casually as possible, "I have more space this way." Without another word he walked away and I slumped against the door jamb in relief.
Sharry and I grinned at each other. There was no need to speak. We were silently congratulating ourselves and each other for avoiding another confrontation with Ed. We were not always so lucky, but, on that December day, luck was with us and our accident was a secret of the past. Christmas might be fairly pleasant after all.
The sun, not visible the entire day, had already set and what little daylight there had been on that bleak day was receding fast. The shutters and drapes on the windows of the houses Ed rushed by were already closed in an attempt to keep some of the howling wind from penetrating into the warm living and dining rooms of his neighbors.
He turned into the stone path that led to the home he shared with his parents, Charles and Margaret, and his siblings, Jack and Dorothy. He opened the unlocked front door and felt a welcome rush of warm air. Ed was puzzled to see Jack and Dorothy at the living room coat closet removing their jackets. They should have come home from school hours ago so why were they just now taking off their coats? His chest tightened as he saw the barren table in the dining room - the same table that should have already been set with silverware and plates for dinner. Then, he caught a glimpse of his mother in the kitchen unpacking groceries, still clad in her heavy brown winter coat with a light blue wool scarf wrapped around her neck and a white and blue knitted cap on her head. “Oh, no,” he thought with a sigh, “Not again.” Ed laid the school books he was carrying on the small table by the door, then took off his coat and hung it up in the coat closet as his brother and sister settled on the living room sofa.
“Mom, you haven’t started dinner? Dad will be home any minute,” Ed exclaimed as he hurried into the kitchen and began helping her with the groceries.
“I know, I know,” she sighed, “But I needed a few things.”
With exasperation in his voice, Ed replied, “You were home all day. Why didn’t you shop earlier? Why do you shop so late and make Dad angry?” It was an old argument that made Ed feel tired and annoyed.
Margaret ignored Ed’s comment. She pulled off her coat, scarf and hat as she wandered through the dining room to the living room. Then she pulled open the coat closet where she hung up the coat, wrapped the scarf around the hanger and set her hat on the shelf above.
“I know, I know,” she said again as she walked back to the kitchen, “I just don’t think about shopping until it’s time to start dinner.”
Ed tried to calm his anger before he said, “We all suffer when he gets mad about dinner being late. Why do you do that to us? Why can’t you just have dinner ready when he walks in the door like he wants?”
“Well, you would think he could wait a few minutes, wouldn’t you?” Margaret relied testily.
“He won’t!” Ed yelled. “You know he hates to wait. Why do you do this?”
Ed saw his mother’s eyes begin to fill with tears and he felt a pang of regret for yelling at her, but he just could not understand why she continually provoked his father’s anger.
With a slightly softer, but still annoyed tone, Ed said, “Here, let me help.” Then he called out to Jack and Dorothy and asked them to set the table.
There was a flurry of activity as the two younger children prepared the dining table and Ed and his mother quickly started preparing the evening meal. Ed peeled potatoes and put them in a pot of water to boil. Then he grabbed some carrots from the vegetable bin, peeled and sliced them and added them to the pot of potatoes that was starting to bubble. Margaret sliced an onion, heated a skillet and started frying some fatty pieces of pork, adding the onion slices to the sizzling meat.
Once the table was ready, Ed ordered Jack and Dorothy to slice the bakery bread their mother had brought home and to start a kettle on the stove for tea. Everyone worked silently so that when the front door creaked open there was an audible sound from the sharp intact of breath as the kitchen workers realized their hurried efforts were not enough to get the meal on the table before the arrival of Charles.
It took only seconds for the bellowing to begin. “What the hell?” Charles screamed, his face red with unnecessary furor. “Where is dinner? Where the hell is my dinner? I have to wait again. AGAIN!”
Charles did not even stop to remove his jacket. He walked swiftly with stomping feet through the dining room and into the crowded kitchen. Jack and Dorothy bent over nearly double in an attempt to make themselves invisible and slid past their father who was standing just inside the kitchen door. Ed stood with his back straight, but did not look directly at his father. Margaret kept stirring the meat in the skillet, never once looking in Charles’ direction.
“Are you deaf?” Charles yelled as he grabbed Margaret’s shoulder with his left hand and swirled her to face him. With his right hand he reached out and slapped her with full force against her left cheek. Immediately her skin turned blotchy red. She held her head down, still not daring to look at him.
“What on God’s green earth is wrong with you, Margaret? Are you stupid? Are you a total idiot? I come home the same time every day and I want dinner on the table!” Charles continued screaming. “And, you,” he said pointing at Ed, “Why are you helping her? Are you a woman? Get the hell out of the kitchen!”
Ed briefly glanced at his mother, but she was still staring down at the floor. As he walked past his father, Charles punched him hard on the arm and said, “Men don’t belong in kitchens and it is her job to prepare dinner, not yours!”
Once Ed had left the kitchen, he heard his father close the door and then the sound of more yelling and another slap. As much as Ed hated the way his father treated his mother, he also hated the way she seemed to purposefully aggravate his father, over and over again.
The other children had disappeared. Ed rubbed his sore arm as he gathered his books from the table by the door and wearily climbed the stairs to the second floor. He opened his sister’s bedroom door and found her curled up on her bed crying. He quietly closed the door and went to the room he shared with his brother. The door was ajar and he could see Jack lying on his bed reading, seemingly unaffected by what had occurred downstairs.
Ed and Jack were only two years apart in age, but had little in common and, honestly, they did not like each other very much. Ed ignored his brother as he crossed the room to the wooden desk they shared. He sat down with a sigh, setting his books down with a thud. He opened one and started studying, trying to forget the all too common scene from the kitchen confrontation.
Twenty minutes later Margaret's voice timidly floated up the stairs from the living room, "Children, dinner is ready."
Jack sprang from the bed and rushed into the hall and down the stairs. Ed closed his algebra book and reluctantly followed in his brother's path. As he passed Dorothy's door he opened it and told her to come to dinner. Dorothy was nearly asleep, but she slowly rose from the bed, her eyes pink and swollen from crying. She walked down the stairs ahead of Ed.
Charles was already seated at the head of the table as Margaret brought more dishes from the kitchen and sat them gently on the table. Both of her cheeks glowed an angry red color and a small bruise was visible near her left eye. She did not glance at anyone, just walked back and forth from one room to the other. Each child took a seat and waited until all the food was on the table. Margaret settled into the chair at the other end of the table opposite her husband.
Charles picked up each serving dish and added generous portions of food to his plate. He passed the dishes to Ed on his right. Ed, Jack and Margaret took pieces of fatty pork with crisp onions, potatoes and carrots and pickled beets, but Margaret just sat with her empty plate, slowly stirring her cup of tea. Charles and Jack tackled their food vigorously, Dorothy pushed the food around in a circle on her plate, taking a bite every now and then.
Ed looked with trepidation at his plate. The potatoes, carrots and beets looked appetizing, but the fatty meat turned his stomach. He reached for a slice of bread and buttered it generously. Slowly he consumed the vegetables and bread, purposely ignoring the meat that consisted of a tiny piece of pork circled with a thick ring of greasy, slimy fat. He glanced over to his father who was chewing one of the stomach-turning pieces of meat; the shimmer of fat was on his lips and even dribbled slightly down the corners of his mouth. Ed turned away in disgust.
Ed finished everything on his plate but the meat. He stared at it. His mind was blank except for the thought that the meat was completely unappetizing. Time and time again he had been forced to eat fatty, greasy meat, but, for some reason, on that cold, stressful evening he just could not bare to put even the smallest piece in his mouth. He stared at his half-empty plate for several minutes.
"Eat it!," his father yelled, "Eat the damn meat."
Ed's mind felt red hot and he said firmly, "No. It's gross. I will not, I cannot eat it."
His father's hand hit his face as quick as the strike of a rattlesnake. The strike on his face was so sudden, so intense, that Ed flew from his chair, his body banging against Jack before it hit the floor. "You will eat everything at this table! Don't you know there is a depression? People are going hungry every day and you think you can refuse the food that I work hard to put on your plate!" his father screamed as he stood up and towered over Ed's body on the floor. "You will eat and you will appreciate every bite of food or I will put you on the streets where you can starve with everyone else, you little bastard."
Ed rose slowly from the floor, his body sore from the fall. He silently returned to his seat and slowly, very slowly, starting eating the disgusting, greasy, fatty meat. With great effort he tried not to vomit as each piece slid down his throat. As he struggled with the last of his meal, everyone else ate quietly, not a word was spoken. But, Ed felt a hot rage filling his belly, rising to his chest. He wanted to yell back at his father, he wanted to throw a fatty hunk of pork in this father's face, he wanted to walk out the front door and never return. But, instead he swallowed the last piece of nauseating meat and wiped the grease from his tightly pursed lips.
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When I was a child there was a television show called “My Three Sons” that starred Fred MacMurray as the Steve Douglas, the widowed father of three sons who was raising them with the help of his “Uncle Charlie”. Fred MacMurray was the epitome of the fictional American father image of the 1950's and 1960's. Always patient, always wise, Mr. Douglas solved problems with a fair measure of concern, understanding and humor. My father was also a widower, who was raising three daughters rather than three sons, but he was no Steve Douglas.
I always wondered who my father would have been had my mother lived. He was not a horrible father, but a very demanding, unforgiving one. And, he became more difficult with age. I used to imagine he would be a softer person had his life unfolded differently, but with time and after hearing stories of his youth, I came to realize he was probably always much like the man who raised me. My mother’s presence would have influenced how we were raised, no doubt, but it would have been a matter of her ability to “win”, especially in matters of child-raising, than my father being greatly different than who he was after her death. Our home would have been softer, gentler, kinder, but only because of her being there.
Ed was a better father than his his own father. He never hit us, but he did have a bad temper displayed by his yelling and his silent treatments. He woke up each morning at 4 am and if anything was amiss - a glass left in the sink, a napkin on the floor, clothes left in the dryer, school books on the dining table - he would start raging as he banged on my bedroom door or my sister Sharry's bedroom door. One or both of us would stumble from bed and go to correct whatever trivial item had set him off. Mistakes were not tolerated. Even as a very young child, I knew that a spilled glass of milk, a broken anything, an unfinished chore, or a misplaced item could turn a good day into a day from hell. After the yelling, my father would continue punishment by not talking to the guilty party - sometimes for weeks. We did everything possible to appease him and to cover up our mistakes.
Bunk beds were in my childhood bedroom. One December my sister Sharry and my nine-year-old self sat on the top bed and made Christmas wreaths from holly we had collected in the woods near our house. Once our project was complete, we began cleaning up. Sharry could not find the hand-held whisk broom, so she brought the regular floor broom into our makeshift craft area and tried to sweep up the bits and pieces of holly that were scattered across the top bunk bed. The long broom handle hit the light globe hanging from the ceiling, shattering the globe and light bulb and sending pieces of glass cascading to the floor below. We both stopped breathing and just stared at the pieces of glass. Immediately we knew that this mess needed to be covered up and rectified as soon as possible because Ed did not accept or tolerate accidents. Should he find out about the broken light fixture, we would be assaulted by hours of his ranting and then our Christmas holidays would be ruined by his brooding silence. We cleaned up all the pieces, wrapped them in newspaper and pushed them deep into the outside garbage can. We replaced the broken light bulb and then rearranged my room, hoping that the relocation of furniture might distract my father's attention from the missing light globe. Fortunately, my father rarely entered my room so we were hopeful that our accident would not be discovered. Sharry called the store in a town several miles away where my father had purchased all our house light fixtures and was relieved to learn that they still had that particular globe in stock. The following Saturday, Sharry made arrangements with an understanding neighbor to drive her to the store to purchase the globe. She and I pooled our skimpy allowances to pay for the globe but still came up a couple of dollars short. Our sympathetic neighbor, having run up against my father's temper herself, made up the difference.
I stood below the ladder as Sharry climbed up and screwed the globe into place. We looked at the finished job with great relief. Somehow we had pulled it off. Once during the week, I left my room to retrieve a book from the living room and forgot to close the door. I was startled and worried when I returned to find my father standing in my bedroom door. "Rearranged your room, hey?" Ed said as he looked about. I held my breath and prayed that he would not look up and see the bare light bulb. "Yeah, Sharry helped me," I said as casually as possible, "I have more space this way." Without another word he walked away and I slumped against the door jamb in relief.
Sharry and I grinned at each other. There was no need to speak. We were silently congratulating ourselves and each other for avoiding another confrontation with Ed. We were not always so lucky, but, on that December day, luck was with us and our accident was a secret of the past. Christmas might be fairly pleasant after all.
You have an incredible gift! Thank you for sharing it with us...can't wait for the book to come out! <3
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