At least let me stand.” He stood there shivering as I quickly washed him off. At Joey’s expense we learned the water didn’t automatically come out of the faucet warm, especially if there was no hot water heater.
In addition to the luxury of a bathroom, I had a room of my own with a closet. I no longer had to share space with my brother and sister; I could keep things in order and my room always tidy. I delighted seeing only my clothes neatly hanging, not packed tightly with Barbara’s and Joey’s.
After school one day as I skipped along the sidewalk leading to our porch, whistling a little tune and feeling happy from a good day at school, I found my father sitting in the porch swing. I never knew when he would be home or when he would have to leave. He usually came home when he had passed from the manic stage into the quiet depressive stage. My mother could handle him when he was quiet because he spent most of the day in his chair, saying almost nothing to anyone, although he would give short answers to questions. Trying to understand how he felt about his situation, once I asked him directly what he felt when he changed personalities. He could give me no answer; he just smiled his sweet smile, reminiscent of his old self, which hurt me deeply when I saw it. I missed so the father I used to have.
His episodes gradually began lasting longer than they had at first, each stage being several weeks long. After sitting for days, rarely bathing or shaving, he would get up one morning and be perfectly normal – the man we used to know. It would be so wonderful to have him back.
But after experiencing several of these episodes, we knew there would be only a short period when he would be relatively lucid before the manic stage took over. However, it was so good to have our precious father back, if only for a short time. As always, however, the sleepless nights and restless days would begin again. In this stage of his illness he would often roam around town, sometimes even get picked up by the police. Then he would be taken back to the hospital, where he would stay for several months until he once again changed to the depressive state.
It was so hard for all of us to understand how someone could make such a complete change, even physically. In the manic stage he looked heavier, his face fuller and his eyes wild. As he sat in the depressive stage, he seemed to shrink in size, his face was relaxed, and he slept a great deal. Eventually my mother began to leave him in the hospital even in his quiet periods, as the personality changes were just too much for her to cope with, in addition to working and taking care of us children. She never knew what he might do in his wild state, and it became something she wanted to avoid if at all possible.
With my mother working everyday I found that more and more responsibility was placed on my shoulders. I helped her make decisions about the family and became someone on whom she could lean in lieu of a husband. My mother was the type of person who should have had a strong husband to take care of her and make all of the decisions. Instead, she had suddenly become totally responsible for the support and care of three children and herself and had to deal with my father’s illness as well.
I didn’t mind that my mother found it necessary to depend on me for help in raising the family, I was proud she had confidence in me. Often she would give me money and ask me to go uptown to pay bills. As I strolled up the sidewalk on an errand, I felt as though I was the mother of the family, and this responsibility gave me self-confidence. Without realizing it, I was becoming older than my twelve years, and by the time I was of high school age, I felt I was a capable, mature young lady.
When it was time for me to go to high school, I worried about my sister and brother having to trudge the eight blocks to school without me to protect them from barking dogs and guide them across busy streets. However, I had to leave them to fend for themselves; we no longer would be going to the same school. I was now fourteen and had entered the age of adolescence, a time of hormonal changes and emotional upheavals and was embarking on a new phase in my life. In my innocence I was unaware of the joys and pains that awaited me as adulthood loomed in the distance.
PART II
YOUNG LOVE
CHAPTER 4
Autumn was in the air as I sat in the front porch swing listening to the sounds of the night–little chirping noises made by the few remaining crickets rubbing their legs together, an occasional twitter of a bird snugging into a comfortable position on a branch. A street light glowed through winding trumpet vines as they strove to reach the top of a trellis enclosing one end of the porch. Leaves of the vine danced in the breeze, creating a pattern of shadows flittering on the porch wall. The strong fragrance of chrysanthemums flourishing near the porch drifted toward me. Turning my head toward the source of the fragrance, I noticed the silhouette of someone striding briskly down the sidewalk. Something about the figure was familiar when, with a bouncy gate, it turned into my walk and approached the porch. I recognized Brian O’Connor, a boy from my class at school, who had gone to a Soapbox Derby the day before with his girlfriend along with me and a boy I occasionally dated. After the Derby we stopped at a Miniature Golf Course to try our hand at putting the little white ball into holes placed in various places on the course. How it happened, I am not sure, but Brian and I ended several holes behind his girlfriend and my date. We laughed and kidded around and had a great time back there by ourselves. There was some kind of current between us, but after the game we got in the car to go home, he and his girlfriend in the back, me and my date in the front, and we had no further contact. However, I found myself thinking about Brian all the way home, even after I had gone to bed.
I stepped out from the shadows of the vines just as Brian reached the steps of the porch. “Hi, Brian. What are you doing down this way tonight?”
“Oh, I was up at the pool hall shooting pool with some of the guys, and I kept thinking that the same sidewalk that runs in front of the pool hall probably runs in front of your house. On the spur of the moment, I laid down my pool cue and came to make sure it was true,” Brian chuckled, as he ambled up the walk, silhouetted by the glowing streetlight behind him.
“Well, you proved yourself right. I’m glad you decided to investigate.”
“What have you been doing, Marcie? Are you home alone tonight?”
“Yes, I’m alone. I was just sitting here in the swing thinking about yesterday.” I could have added ‘and you,’ but I didn’t. “That was a lot of fun, wasn’t it?”
“It sure was. I didn’t know you were such a great golfer.”
“Oh, yes, I’m really good. Is that why I had the lowest score of the group and why we brought up the rear all the time? It took me forever to get the ball in that clown’s mouth on the last hole. Some of the other holes were pretty difficult as well. You weren’t exactly tearing up the course either, if I remember correctly. We must have been five holes behind the others.”
“Oh, I felt sorry for you back there all alone, so I deliberately missed some holes so I could stay back and keep you company.”
“Sure you did,” I laughed, wondering if there was any truth to Brian’s statement.
“Do you want to walk uptown to the Snack Shop? It’s a beautiful night, and we could count the stars in the sky on our way.” Brian looked up at the sky to see if the stars were visible.
“We can’t see the stars, Brian. There are too many street lights on this street.”
“I’ll throw rocks at them and break the bulbs so you cansee the stars.” Brian swung his arm and threw an imaginary rock into the air.
“It looks like you have a pretty good throwing arm. You just might be able to hit those street lights. Let me feel that muscle.” I put my hand on his arm and rubbed it a little bit. As I did so, a warm sensation shot through me. We looked at each other; both were reluctant to look away. Basking in the warmth that my touch had stirred within us, we stood there a moment.
Walking along in silence the rest of the way, the lighter mood that existed earlier was replaced by a strange yet pleasant feeling of closeness between us.
How can this be?I asked myself silently. Brian has