RIVERSIDE,
NEW YORK—
1959
T he first rumblings of a summer thunderstorm sounded in the distance as a brand-new 1959 Cadillac pulled to a stop outside our house. The car was so shiny and important-looking that I scooped up my baby sister from the tumbledown porch where we’d been sitting and raced into the house, hollering, “Mommy! Mommy, come quick!”
There was no answer. I quickly searched the bungalow’s two bedrooms, then ran outside to the backyard outhouse. The baby howled in my ear as I stood on tiptoe to peer through the crescent-moon window. “Mommy…? Are you in there?”
“What do you want now, Kathleen? Can’t you see I’m busy?” What I saw was my mother sitting on a broken kitchen chair, paging through the Montgomery Ward catalogue.
“Mommy, there’s a fancy black car stopping out in front of our house—”
“Chariots of the bourgeoisie,” she huffed in disgust. I had no idea what a “bourgeoisie” was, but from the tone of my mother’s voice, she might have been talking about a breed of rodents. “Tell whoever it is I’m not home.”
“You want me to lie, Mommy?”
“It’s not a lie. I’m not home—I’m out here. Does this look like my home? Now go find out what they want.”
Raindrops sprinkled my bare arms as I hurried back to the house, thunder grumbling in the distance. “Oh, shut up, Annie!” I told my wailing sister, “or I’ll give you something to cry about!” She had smelly pants again and a slimy face.
By the time I returned to the house, the slender, blond woman who’d driven the car had already picked her way across the littered yard and was rapping on our screen door, calling, “Hello? Is anyone home?”
My two brothers, dressed only in dingy underpants, stared back at her through the torn screen. The woman looked as though she’d walked right out of the Ward’s catalogue with her crisp, navy linen dress, high-heeled spectator pumps, and pillbox hat. I wished my mom was as pretty as she was. Mommy didn’t seem to care about her appearance at all. She dressed in baggy cotton housedresses that zipped up the front, and she pulled her dark brown hair back in a ponytail. I set Annie on the floor beside Poke and JT, then stepped hesitantly toward the door.
“My mom isn’t… here.” The words felt like a lie. I found it hard to say them. “She’s not here in the house with us, I mean.”
“I’m Cynthia Hayworth. Will your mother be back soon, dear?”
I shrugged. A shrug wasn’t a lie, was it? Besides, I really didn’t know how long my mom would stay locked in the outhouse—her sanctuary, as she sometimes called it. I had no idea why she spent so much time in there. I certainly would never choose to stay inside that cobweb-y, spiderfilled place one second longer than I had to—and even then only in an emergency, like when the indoor toilet was plugged.
“Well, I can just as easily leave the things with you, dear,” the woman said. “I—”
The loud clap of thunder made both of us jump. Out in the street, the car door suddenly flew open and a pudgy little girl about the same age as me bolted for the house, ran up the sagging porch steps, and clung to her mother like macaroni to cheese. She wore pink shorts and a perfectly matched pink-flowered blouse. Even the bows in her pale blond hair and the lace around her ankle socks were pink.
“Why, May Elizabeth! You needn’t be frightened,” the woman soothed. “That’s just the angels in heaven, rearranging their furniture again.”
I had never heard that explanation for thunder before, but I liked it. I couldn’t help smiling as I pictured white-robed angels with feathery wings, shoving sofas and chairs and TV sets across the bare wooden floors of heaven. Then my smile faded as the new little girl looked beyond me into the front room and said, “P-yew! What happened to your house?”
“Hush, May!” her mother chided.
“But it stinks, and the ceiling is all falling down, and—”
The woman touched her ruby-tipped fingers to May’s lips to silence her, then turned to me again with a kind smile. “I brought some clothes and things I thought your family could use. If you and your brothers would like to come out to the car and help us carry them, maybe we can get everything inside before it starts to pour.”
I couldn’t imagine who this stranger was or what she was bringing us or why, but I gave my brother Poke a nudge and pulled him to his feet. “Come on, she needs your help. JT, you stay here with Annie. Make sure she doesn’t crawl away.”
The hard-packed dirt felt hot beneath my feet as I followed Mrs. Hayworth across the yard to the Cadillac, towing a reluctant Poke behind me. The girl in pink kept pace with me, whispering in my ear so Mrs. Hayworth wouldn’t hear her.
“Did you just move into your house or something? Is that why you don’t have any curtains or rugs?”
“No,” I answered with a proud lift of my chin. “We just don’t want any, that’s all. We like our house the way it is.”
“Come on, girls. Quickly!” Mrs. Hayworth called. “Run between the drops!”
I looked at her in surprise, then glanced up into the darkening skies. “But… but how can I do that? I can’t see the raindrops coming.”
Mrs. Hayworth smiled, tilting her head to one side as if she were watching a puppy. “Of course you can’t, dear. It’s just an expression.” She opened the trunk of her car and handed me a paper grocery sack. “Here are some clothes that May Elizabeth has outgrown. You look as though you might be a size or two smaller than she is.” She reached inside for another bag and handed it to Poke. “And here are some toys that my son, Ronnie, doesn’t play with anymore. Do you think you can carry them, honey?”
Poke nodded solemnly as he accepted the bag, but I saw a sparkle of excitement in his eyes as he glimpsed a bright red fire truck sticking out of the top. He trotted across the lawn with the bag, his bare bottom peeking from his sagging underpants.
We all followed him, carrying more grocery sacks, but the car’s huge trunk held still more treasures. I saw garden produce, boys’corduroy pants, and striped T-shirts, colorful sweaters and winter jackets, and a Barbie doll in a black-and-white bathing suit, with tiny high heels to match.
“Why can’t I wait in the car?” May Elizabeth grumbled as we returned to the Cadillac for another load. “I’m getting wet!”
“No, dear. You won’t melt,” Mrs. Hayworth said.
I looked at May Elizabeth in horror, recalling the melting wicked witch in The Wizard of Oz. “What do you mean?” I asked. “Why would she melt?”
“What I mean,” Mrs. Hayworth explained, “is that even though she’s as sweet as sugar, she won’t melt in water the way sugar does.”
I loved the way this beautiful woman talked: “Angels moving furniture… running between the drops… sweet enough to melt like sugar.” I couldn’t imagine Mrs. Hayworth ever shouting things like “I’ve had about all I can take,” the way my own mother did, or spending hours at a time seeking “sanctuary” in the outhouse.
Mrs. Hayworth handed her daughter a bag with tomatoes on top, then gave me the bag with the Barbie doll. Poke hadn’t returned to help us. I could hear him in the house making siren noises as Annie shrieked and JT shouted, “Let me see it, let me see it!”
By the time we’d carried the last bag to the porch, the storm was nearly upon us. May Elizabeth sprinted back to the car, leaped in, and slammed the door closed. Mrs. Hayworth pulled a leaflet from her purse and handed it to me. There was a picture on it of the church we always passed when I walked with my brothers to the village park to play.
“Will you give this to your mother, please, dear? Tell her you’re all welcome to visit Park Street Church any time. And we have Sunday school classes for you and your brothers, too. Would you like to attend with May Elizabeth some time?”
“Okay,” I said. But I was pretty sure that my mother would never allow it.
“Well, I’d better run!” Mrs. Hayworth said as a flash of lightning lit the street. “Bye, bye, dear.” She didn’t really run, though. Instead, she glided back to her Cadillac like a movie star walking down a red carpet.
I dragged all the bags into the living room, then sat cross-legged on the floor to examine the clothes May Elizabeth had outgrown. I pulled out pretty plaid dresses for school with matching knee socks; shorts and blouse sets that matched; and even a blue-flowered nightgown, all carefully ironed and neatly folded. Everything had a sweet, flowery scent. I didn’t realize I was crying until Poke suddenly asked, “What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”
I didn’t know why. I longed to run into my bedroom and try on all those beautiful new clothes—yet I hated myself for wanting them. I’d seen the way Mrs. Hayworth had looked at Poke and JT in their raggedy underwear, and I was old enough to recognize that look for what it was—pity.
I stood, suddenly angry, and scooped the clothing back into the bag. “Nothing’s wrong!” I kicked the bag with my bare foot, knocking it over, then ran into the bedroom to hide my tears.