Chapter 20
I knew how much he loved tennis and thought it would impress him if I was good at it too.
Unable to afford balls, I would hunt down those that had sailed over the chain-link fence.
It happened a lot, and most players rarely bothered slogging through the snaky brambles or wading into the creek to retrieve what they lost. But I made a habit of it, finders keepers.
Later when playing tournaments, I’d have to adjust to balls that weren’t flat.
I’d watch Billie Jean King on TV, never imagining that one day we’d be friends and she’d give me a pointer or two.
I’d hang out in her box at the U.S. Open and in the players’ lounge at Wimbledon.
She and her partner, Ilana Kloss, often stay with Staci and me on Cape Cod.
Had anybody told me that when I was banging dead balls against the backboard, I wouldn’t have believed it.
Once again, the public schools closed when the first snowstorms struck.
My brothers and I were outside sledding and having snowball fights.
We were hungry and squabbling constantly, tracking dirt in and out of the house while Mom cleaned up after us.
It seemed a rerun of what had happened when I was in the fourth grade.
Cassi was eight weeks old and high maintenance.
Her long white silky fur required intense grooming several times each day.
She wasn’t housebroken or suited for the cold, and I knew it would be me taking care of her.
On Christmas Day a nor’easter deposited more than a foot of snow on top of what was already there. Mom couldn’t drive anywhere.
She’d sit in front of the fire reading her Bible, paying little attention to our new dog.
The second week of January, Jim returned to Ben Lippen while John and I remained snowbound at home.
Mom was acting alarmingly again, and I’d been aware of it for a while.
In recent weeks she’d begun talking to her psychiatrist, Dr. Bill, on the phone.
She told him she was pregnant with the baby Jesus.
I doubt it’s a coincidence that several months earlier my father’s second child, Rona, was born.
He had a beautiful son and daughter, his life with Rita happy, his law practice going well.
Not long after buying Cassi, my mother called Lenore Saunders on a Sunday morning.
“I’m hungry,” Mom announced.
She explained she’d been in touch with Dr. Bill, and it was apparent from her bizarre ramblings that she needed to be hospitalized again.
Arrangements were made with Appalachian Hall, and Manford showed up in the same black Buick from four years earlier.
I was in disbelief that this was happening again.
Manford helped carry our suitcases while Cassi shredded newspaper and barked shrilly.
I sensed that she was going to be a problem and told Manford we couldn’t leave her.
She weighed two pounds and wouldn’t survive.
He said that bringing her was fine with him.
But he couldn’t guarantee how Lenore would feel about a puppy in the house.
I knew he’d have no say about it as we gathered some of Cassi’s food.
I carried her out the door as she shivered, burrowing her head under my arm.
Mom climbed into the front seat, and I held Cassi in the back, trying to quiet her.
When we reached the Saunders’ house, I knew right away that Lenore had no use for our dog and was annoyed that we had one.
I’d never gotten the impression that she liked animals except for the dead ones on the living room wall.
My first job was to tether Cassi on newspaper near the front door as instructed.
I said the location was a bad idea. She was going to be lonely and most of all cold because of the draft.
I explained what the pet store clerk said about her having no undercoat, her skin pink and sensitive.
Maybe she should stay in my room, but it was out of the question.
That night we ate roast beef that Manford carved with an electric knife, new technology I’d never seen before. Mom was quiet at the table I’d set. By now I knew where everything went. She stayed upstairs that night, reporting the next morning that the canopy bed was like sleeping under a cloud.
Manford drove her to Appalachian Hall while I frantically cleaned up after Cassi, trying to get her to stop barking and shivering.
“Shhhh! Quiet, Cassi!” I’d whisper while Lenore menaced. “Stop please! SHHH…!”
Cassi would last at the Saunders’ maybe three days before the boom dropped.
“Your mother should never have bought her! Maltese dogs are expensive and you’re poor!” Lenore declared, and that much was true.
But the expense wasn’t the problem. Cassi was noisy and a nuisance. I knew what was coming.
No, no, no!
“The dog can’t stay here! I have enough to deal with!” Lenore glared at Cassi as if the poor creature were an invasive species.
Manford and I were tasked with returning her to my family’s house, and I begged him to let her stay as we drove away.
But it wasn’t up to him, and the decision was final.
He tied Cassi to a pole in the basement, and I couldn’t stand thinking of her alone and cold in the dark.
It was so horrible leaving her there, I’ve blocked it out.
I was allowed to feed her and change her papers once a day, usually doing this late afternoon before sunset.
It was forbidden that I lingered, and Lenore made sure of it by timing me.
If I wasn’t back in less than forty-five minutes, there would be serious trouble.
I assumed she did this to be cruel, but that probably wasn’t the only reason.
We had three telephones in our house, one of them in the basement.
Looking back, I suspect Lenore worried that while there I’d call my father.
He knew Mom was in the hospital again. I haven’t a clue how he found out.
Possibly someone reached out to him about Mom’s hospital expenses that he would refuse to pay yet again.
But he was aware, and last time that happened he tried to put my brothers and me in foster homes.
When that was foiled, he stopped sending money, as he would again this time.
Had it not been for my aunt Dolores and uncle Bill in Chicago, our bills wouldn’t have been paid, including the mortgage of $167 monthly. We could have lost our home.
I don’t know any rational reason for my father stopping the payments while Mom was in the hospital.
One might think he would have done the opposite, making sure we had needed resources, even moral support.
As unbalanced as my mother might sound when she accused him of trying to destroy her, it seemed she was right.
He wanted her to lose everything and did his best to bring it about. Maybe if she went haywire and did something unthinkable, it would be the validation he needed. She was the sick one and not him.
Every afternoon, out the door I’d go, running down Virginia Road, careful not to slip on ice, my breath rapid and smoky, my heart hammering.
I’d race past the Barkers’ house, the sign in front displaying the names of their children on strips of wood attached to each other by hooks.
It was easy to add another strip after the birth of the next baby, and they would have eight.
Climbing over a stone wall, I’d take a shortcut through the woods, my boots trudging through deep snow along a path that only I followed.
A stream ran behind our house, and Jim had built a bridge from saplings he cut down and lashed together. It looked like something from the Daniel Boone TV show. The bridge was thick with snow, and I was careful crossing, not wishing to fall into the frigid water. If nothing else, I’d be punished.
I followed my footprints through the snow-covered gravel backyard. Recently, Mom had bought a preowned gold Impala with a black vinyl roof. It was cocooned in white on the driveway. I can still remember the brass house key turning in the lock as I opened the outside door that led into the basement.
I’d walk into the chilled gloom as Cassi barked and whimpered desperately. Pitifully.
“It’s okay, Cassi! I’m coming…!”
Winter light seeping through dirty shallow windows dimly illuminated our bicycles and sleds. I could make out the shapes of firewood stacked against a wall, the wicker basket of sports equipment, our tennis racquets in their wooden presses.
“It’s okay, Cassi…!”
I’d hurry past the big boxy furnace, the water heater, and under the stairs painted dark red.
Cassi was tied up on squares of newspaper between the beds and the Ping-Pong table.
I don’t think I turned on the overhead fluorescent lights.
It was probably better not to see but so much.
Hearing was bad enough, Cassi’s fear and distress mirroring my own.
Most of what would happen after that is gone from my memory.
I have few images of those visits and how upsetting they must have been.
The temperature wasn’t above fifty, and I remember taking the box of painting rags from Mom’s art studio.
I made a bed for Cassi while trying not to be dismantled by her shivering and crying.
“I’ll be back soon. Don’t worry…” As I was dying inside.
When Mom finally came home some three months later, Cassi’s fur was so matted she had to be shaved.
She was a neurotic wreck, fearful, and died less than two years later.
I can forgive Lenore Saunders’s unkind and oft-times sadistic behavior toward me.
It stands to reason that I might not have been as objective as I believed at the time.
Chances are my interpretations weren’t always accurate.