Laura:
Childhood
Eleven Days in June
June 2, 1986. Dionne Warwick and Stevie Wonder were singing “That’s What Friends Are For” on the radio as Mom finished pinning up the white dress I’d be wearing for graduation from Bronx PS 191 and the after party celebrating my acceptance into Hunter College High School. “There you go, Laura. I’ll hem it after dinner.” She pulled the dress over my head, smoothed my hair, and wiped her eyes. “This song makes mecry.”
“Mom, it’s a happysong.”
“Oh, sweetie.” She hugged me tight and her voice got shaky, “I love you somuch.”
“I know. I love youtoo.”
“Always,” she said, “we’ll always love each other. Won’twe?”
“For sure,Mom.”
She closed her sewing basket and gazed out the window. Sometimes the sad way she stared into space worried me, but not that day. The excitement of the coming weeks filled every bit of space in my head. I remembered Dad’s words, “It’s just the way your mother is, a sweet mystery.” He was right. I knew that before long she’d have a happy thought and her laughter would sound like bellsringing.
The next afternoon, five days before my spring piano recital and a week and a half before sixth grade graduation, our family fell apart. No one would tell me the whole story. All I knew was that it had to do with sex and disappointment, and that Dad had ordered Mom to leave ourhouse.
When she told me she was going to stay a night or two with Aunt Doreen, her best friend since their first day at Little Flower Elementary School, then move all the way down to Brooklyn and live with a guy named Manny, I laid my head in her lap and wept. “Do you loveManny?”
“Not really,” she said, “but I likehim.”
“Do you still loveDad?”
“I do. We love eachother.”
“Then why is he making youleave?”
She leaned down to kiss the side of my forehead. “Laura, it’s my fault. Don’t blameDaddy.”
I sat up and faced her. “It’s the sex, isn’t it? Can’t you just promise him it’ll never happenagain?”
“I did that once before, and then I broke my promise. He doesn’t trustme.”
“Oh Mom, my heart is broken. And whether you and Dad know it or not, yours will betoo.”
“You’re right. All our hearts are broken, but we’ll keep loving each other, and someday we’ll be fine. You take care ofDaddy.”
Though I passed the
