Dear Charlotte,
My mother married a nice
guy who came home from the war, ruined. That’s why she had so many kids. She
was building an army to help defend her from him.
Maybe because I was the
oldest girl, she confided in me. And she made me promise to keep her secrets
but how could I? How could I not tell my older brothers and sister what Dad was
doing to her? So I told them. So we were all keeping secrets; we were a family
divided.
One day, when someone
famous died, she showed me his obituary in the paper. In it, it said: “He
picked up the lemons that Fate had sent him and started a lemonade stand.” And she said she wished she could make
lemonade out of her situation. It broke my heart, Charlotte. And all I could
say was: “Wear something nice; you’ll feel better.”
How lame is that? I felt
awful that I wasn’t smart enough to give my mother better council. But she was
so kind. She said it was an excellent idea and that we could make her a dress
together. I said it should be yellow, like lemonade. But she said she wanted it
to be blue, like her bruises and bluebloods — people who, she said, hid
horrible secrets behind spectacular clothes.
She wanted a spectacular blue dress. Then, when all
of us were at the zoo one day, we heard a peacock calling and Mom said she had
her idea — the peacock’s . ear-splitting cry was the opposite of us keeping our
secrets.
And that June, when my
sister Gay got married, was when mother’s peacock dress — and my new mother — made their debuts.
Dad, of course, got drunk
and started getting nasty but instead of getting all embarrassed and ashamed
like she’d always done before, she had my brothers take him into the living
room and keep him there and then she, my sister Pam and I packed all his things
into suitcases.
My brother took Dad to a
hotel downtown. Mom paid for his room there for a week. She kept our car. She carried
on at the wedding as if nothing had happened. Gay knew nothing until the next
day. That’s how good Mother was. Dad came back home for a while but then he
left for good. He couldn’t stand that Mom had become the leader of our family.
I can’t tell you how proud
of her I was, Charlotte. And so were my brothers and sisters — but they
wouldn’t have been if they hadn’t known mother’s secrets. So I felt good about
telling them. And Mom told me that all her strength came from her dress — her dress
that was my idea. I felt so, so proud, Charlotte.
Over a decade later, after
I was married and a mother myself, I got breast cancer. And when I was in
treatment there was a breast cancer fundraiser in a downtown hotel and Mom
called and said she’d bought two tickets so we could go.
I definitely did not want to go and I told her so. In fact, I told
her off for being so insensitive. I couldn’t believe she’d expect a bald very
unhappy woman would want to go to a party. But she showed up with the dress. “Its time for blue lemonade again,” she said.
That dress worked its
wonder a second time. I had a ball at the ball.
Love,
Barbara.
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