Hole in the Floorboard

May 14, 2023

Michigan winters, being long and cold, are followed by two months of gray skies and filthy, half-melted snow. Some call that “spring,” but really it’s just an extended winter that at some point slips, surprisingly and without transition, into the glory of summer. After months of being trapped indoors, Michiganders worship every day of this warmth and sunshine, partaking in just about any activity that requires being outside.

And there we were, on this bright, clear June morning, packing up our house. Typically this sort of day was meant for riding our bikes around the block a hundred times, or rounding up frogs by the river, or for sucking the nectar out of the lilacs on the side of the house. My favorite activity was gathering up all the neighborhood kids at the Guerra’s vacant lot for hide and seek, made even more exciting when the teenagers told us the “gypsies” were in town. But such as it was, bigger things were planned for that day.

My brother and I excitedly filled the Rambler with toys and the vinyl play suitcases from grandma. My father labored to fill up the orange U-Haul with chairs, the kitchen table, mattresses, bed parts, and boxes of canned National Guard rations. His final effort was in single-handedly clunking a heavy, musty Victorian couch down the steps and across the yard, leaving deep tracks across the moist, mostly-clover lawn while also coating two of the couch legs with a thick layer of mud. In the falsely animated voice he always used to coax us into doing a thing we dreaded, my father described the trip ahead: we were going on a long ride to Missouri and would stop at the Dixie Trucker’s Home for dinner. And yes, we could have pie. Even at five years of age, I sensed disappointment was in store, plus many miles of being carsick and bored.

Through all the flurry of filling the trailer, my mother sat limply on the porch behind dark screens, barely visible. Thin and exhausted, skinny legs tucked up to her chin, she pulled herself deeply into a ball, her hopeless expression following us on each trip from house to car. Though roughly dressed in cutoff denim shorts and a weathered men’s button-down, my mother was exquisitely beautiful. Sadness added depth to a portrait of high cheekbones and soft brown eyes behind thick, dark lashes. Even her off-kilter pixie cut (which she had given herself) contributed to this effect. Near black hair, severely short around her face, framed a natural beauty that defied the poverty in which we lived.

As endless rounds of stuff and things were crammed into the trailer, the house became an empty shell, devoid of all that had made it feel like our home. Footsteps reverberated loudly as my brother and I ran about, revisiting every room. Had we really eaten blueberry pancakes in this kitchen and slept in those big empty bedrooms? And look how tiny Ben’s crayon scribblings on the wall under the living room windows. The punishment he’d received for this artistic expression portended irreversible damage had been done. Yet in the unfiltered light of curtainless windows, Ben’s scribblings appeared delicate and translucent, a reminder that someone small, armed only with a burnt sienna Crayola crayon, had been tiptoeing around like a fairy, while the giants slept upstairs.

The house took on an odd mystique without curtains. Revealed were thick wooden window frames finished in an oddly dark stain, supporting wavy, handblown glass. And without fabric ornamentation, there was an unobstructed view of our wildly verdant backyard and of the neighbor’s house. You could see straight through into their living room, the titles on their bookshelf readable. I never realized how closely our house butted up to theirs. Gone was the couch with the springs poking through and the old TV with a tinfoil antenna, where we watched Batman and Mr. Magoo. Only bare wood floors remained where there had been a huge braided rug. That was our spot for playing Barrel of Monkeys and acting out dramas between the GI Joes and Barbies. The front closet door was wide open, void of all the fishing gear and our yellow rain coats with the black buckles. And someone had taken down the laundry line from the house to the garage.

In his zeal to leave, clear out or whatever it was we were doing, my father left nothing behind, minus a damp half box of Tide, a roll of toilet paper in the upstairs bathroom and a leaky bottle of Old Spice. Curious, I had inspected every room, closet and drawer and there was not a speck of food, not a plate or glass, no blankets or pillows. And there was no longer any power, as I discovered when we ventured to the basement. There was a thoroughness to the emptiness, which was unsettling.

After heeding our father’s warning to go to the bathroom before the long trip, we ran out to the car and piled into the backseat, our mother remaining on the porch. As we situated ourselves, my father grabbed a few blankets and pillows from the trailer and set them between us on the seat, then dropped a wood box of toys on the flakey, rusted floorboard, covering a large hole which typically afforded us a view of the road rushing below the car when it was moving. This secret hole was great for eliminating the crust from our toast on the way to the babysitter’s and also for sending plastic toy soldiers flying down the highway.

With finality, my father slammed shut the doors on the back of the U-Haul and fiddled with the heavy padlock. He then collapsed onto the back end of the car, sweaty, hands on hips, staring through smeared horn-rimmed glasses up to the porch. My mother rose slowly from the one remaining spindly chair, which belonged to the house, and made a slow shuffle down the steps to the car, two small boxes in one hand, a paper lunch bag in the other. With half-shut eyes, her gaze averted and mouth clenched, she avoided my father’s strained smile and made a beeline for the open door at the back seats. As she leaned in, her gaze softened. She set aside the lunch bag, then handed each of us a box, gently explaining it was a little something for us to enjoy on the long ride. She then opened the paper bag to show us there were sandwiches and Nilla wafers. The bologna sandwiches were neatly wrapped in tinfoil and smelled of yellow mustard, which made my mouth water. They were my favorite. She then slid in next to me, extending her arm as far as she could to embrace both of our small bodies at once, giving us long kisses on the forehead and stroking our hair. My brother squirmed out of her grasp, too busy with his new toy to be bothered with all that affection. I continued to cling to her, laying my head on her sharp collarbone. Her thin hands were cold and there was an unexplained finality to her caressing of my bare arm. She pulled me deeply into her well of sadness.

Instinctively, a wave of grief and burden washed over me. At that moment, I knew it would be up to me to hold things together; the message was clear. No one, of course, expressed this out loud because of how ridiculous that might have sounded, considering my age. My mother then backed out of the car, gently shutting the door as she turned toward my father. Silently, he reached for his wallet, then pulled out a small wad of bills. Without stepping forward, he stiffly extended the money out to her, forcing her to move a few steps forward to meet his hand. She glanced briefly at the money, muttered “$30,” shaking her head, tears welling up in her eyes.

She then stepped aside and onto the grass to let my father pass to get to the driver’s seat. And pass he did, without touching her or kissing her, without a goodbye. No words were spoken, and my mother’s eyes grew desperate. Then, as my father slid resolutely into the driver’s seat, he slammed the door with a violence that seemed to crush my mother’s small frame, though no contact had been made. She stepped back stiffly, trying not to slip out of her shabby flip-flops. As he started up the engine, she walked to the end of the driveway where she stood next to the only remaining item of substance left on the property: a faded yellow VW Bug, which sat on cinderblocks in lieu of wheels. This was her car. Unusable.

Then she turned to face us, eyes staring darkly at something far beyond. Beyond us, beyond the car, beyond the driveway. It was hard to imagine what exactly she saw. Her expression vacillated from pointed black hatred to soft, disengaged, endless grief. It’s hard to explain this subtlety so many years later, but at the tender age of five, and with an acuity that comes from eyes not yet jaded by deceit and the repeated disappointments of life, I absorbed every last detail of the day. The rusty color of the porch screens and my brother’s slight urine smell, the sharp edges of the Lego boxes, and the smothering texture of my worn, pilled-up blanky. I meticulously stowed these details away for the day when I would have the wherewithal to know what they meant. At that moment,t all I could think of was how hungry I felt.

As my father fiddled obliviously with his prescription sunglasses and the dials on the radio, out of the front window, we watched our mother fall apart. Suddenly, she burst into tears, her face contorted beyond recognition. She leaned against the VW as if to keep from collapsing. We’d never seen her like this. She tried waving to us, at the same time attempting, without success, to hide this unhinged expression of grief with the other hand. Ben stood bolt upright on the seat, watching her and crying for his mama. In response, my father offered only silence.

I couldn’t get the thought out of my mind: we were leaving our mother behind. And we were taking everything and driving away from her. It was unfathomable to me how she would manage when we were pulling our entire household behind us in the trailer. She was left with only an empty house and a broken car. The sadness and worry overwhelmed me. I covered my face with my blanky, breathing in its familiar and comforting smell. And with all of this going on, my father’s reaction was to turn up the radio, filling the car with what would become the soundtrack of my childhood, 500 Miles: “If you miss the train I’m on, you will know that I am gone, you can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles.”

My father then angled his gaze toward the rearview mirror and cautiously backed out of the driveway. As the trailer and car met the road, we turned away from the house and from my mother, both disappearing from view. First, she was hidden by the trailer, then we were separated by many blocks and buildings, and then eventually by miles and miles of highway. No matter how I tried, at some point I could not keep track of every curve and turn, and it became clear that I would not be able to find my way back to her should I decide to return on foot. We would never see her again. I knew it. And we left her there with nothing. She could not survive this. “Not a shirt on my back, not a penny to my name, Lord, I can’t go a-home this a-way.”

Gradually, the gentle rhythm of the bricked city streets morphed into the whirr of radial tires on freeway asphalt as we traversed between Battle Creek and Kalamazoo. As beautiful sunshine flooded the backseat, accompanied by a late afternoon breeze, Ben and I succumbed to emotional exhaustion, falling into a long, deep sleep. Ben’s flushed and sweaty face lay in my lap as he stretched out. He looked so small. Being careful not to wake him, I gingerly stretched across the seat to dump out the toys in the box, then turned it upside down. I propped myself up in the corner with both of our pillows and put my feet up on the improvised footstool. We would not wake up until sundown when we arrived at the Dixie Trucker’s Home.

What had been hyped as the highlight of our journey was a lackluster dinner of Salisbury steak, smothered in greasy gravy with a side of grayish canned peas. Regardless, we were so hungry that even dog food would probably have tasted great. And this entrée did have that texture. Then there was apple pie with vanilla ice cream for dessert. One promise kept. Our pitstop ended with a quick run to the men’s bathroom, which I was forced to use as well, as there was no mother to accompany me to the ladies’ room. I held my nose and wouldn’t sit on the toilet. It was hard to make pee when all you could think about was getting out of there without getting sticky yellow stuff on your shoes or dress. I hoped we would never have to visit this place again.

We’d already done the better part of a day on the road, but my father was determined to keep going, likely not having the funds to put us up at a hotel. Since we’d slept the whole afternoon, Ben and I were now wide awake, and sadly, it was too dark to play car bingo or any of the other games we’d packed. So, we settled on scissors, rocks, paper, a game that typically ended with my brother pinching me. A few minutes of that and we were left to listen to country western music fading in and out on the radio. Then, what seemed like hours later, my father announced we were crossing the border into Missouri. Wasn’t that a good sign, he said.

Though it was the middle of the night, the bridge carrying us across the Mississippi and into St. Louis was lit up like a party, reminding me of my favorite song, “Downtown,” by Petula Clark. The concept of a “downtown” was exotic and exciting to a kid who’d mostly known small-town living. Sturgis and Grayling had one-block “downtowns” with most everything darkened by 6:00 p.m. The cheerful lyrics of the song played out in my mind as we descended into St. Louis: “The lights are much brighter there, you can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares, so go downtown, things will be great when you’re downtown, no finer place for sure, downtown, everything’s waiting for you…” Then my Petula Clark fantasy was abruptly interrupted. My father announced we would be driving straight through St. Louis without stopping (not even for the bathroom), as we were just a couple of hours from Columbia. That wasn’t very far, we were told. Soon, the city lights were behind us, and all became dark. I fell asleep.

The next thing I remember is waking to an acrid smell, the absence of the road rhythm, and darkness. It took me a few minutes to get my bearings… we were on a trip, we were almost to Columbia. But no, we were here, wherever that was, and surely this was not Colombia. Our car was motionless, and my father was leaning up against the driver’s side door, softly snoring. I could see we were pulled off to the side of the road, and there appeared to be a black void to our right. For a few minutes, I said nothing, but then quietly asked what was happening. My father grumbled to go back to sleep, but any chance of falling asleep was shredded by the whizz and bright lights of passing cars, followed by an accompanying thrust of air that made the car rock back and forth. The boredom was endless. Then, I really needed to pee.

Reluctantly, my father woke up, very cross and with a cramped neck from sleeping upright. He instructed me to get out of the side of the car away from traffic, and from the glove compartment, he pulled out a small Kleenex box. He met me around the side. Half asleep, he tried to explain how to relieve myself by squatting close to the ground with my feet spread out. I was mortally embarrassed at the thought that passersby might see me doing my business, and for a while, I couldn’t go. Eventually, the need overcame my embarrassment, but my technique was off. Urine ran down my legs and onto my socks and into my shoes. No one was happy about this. My father angrily took off my shoes and socks, tossing the socks into the high grass and then wiping out the insides of my Mary Janes with Kleenex while I stood barefoot on the cold gravel. Just as I was climbing into the backseat, a pickup truck slowed down and pulled up behind us, headlights blazing, illuminating everything around us. The driver then turned on his low beams, turned off the engine, and got out. He was much taller and older than my father, dressed roughly in overalls and big work boots. He headed toward my father, who was zipping his fly and still near the field. The man seemed friendly. He smiled broadly and asked my father if everything was OK and introduced himself as Reverend so-and-so. Though his name escaped me, his title did not, because even at age five, I knew what a reverend was, though I’d never seen one in overalls.

With car windows rolled down, I could hear all that transpired. The reverend was wondering if we were having car trouble and if we needed some help. Someone had come by his house and woken him up after noticing our car on the side of the road. It turned out our minister friend owned the only filling station in the area, and he had a tow truck. My father described the car’s final chugging, followed by dark smoke emanating from the engine, at which point everything stopped, and fortunately, that didn’t happen until after he’d coasted off the road. The minister briefly looked under the hood with a big flashlight, muttered a few words that I’m pretty sure were against the Ten Commandments, then declared the engine unrepairable. My father didn’t seem surprised, just distressed. The reverend suggested the lot of us come stay at his house for the remainder of the night while he figured out a workaround at the station.

At the house, the minister’s wife poured us glasses of milk, then set up sleeping bags and pillows on the living room floor. The room was softly lit and neat as a pin, and the house smelled of coffee and recently made sugar cookies. I recognized that smell from my own grandma’s house. No matter how cozy, the unfamiliar surroundings prevented us from falling asleep, so Ben and I quietly leafed through the issues of Reader’s Digest on the coffee table as we waited for our father’s return. Just as the sun was rising, we could hear the crunch of tires on the entrance road to the farm. It was the men returning, my father driving a car similar to our Rambler, but in a nice shade of blue. We rushed out the front door to take a look. This new-to-us car looked so clean. There were no rusty holes at the bottom of the doors, and inside were like-new leather seats. And all else was the same… our toys and blankets were on the backseat, and behind the car was our U-Haul. We were ready to hit the road, as my dad would say.

Everyone headed back into the house to get ready for our departure. The reverend invited my father to use the shower, if he wished, which was just upstairs, straight ahead at the landing. My father seemed more than happy to take advantage. The reverend’s wife invited the rest of us to sit down to breakfast. She had made fried eggs, buttered toast triangles, and crispy bacon with tiny glasses of fresh-squeezed orange juice at each place setting. Coffee for the adults, of course. The kitchen table was just like the one at my grandma’s cottage in Graying. It had a marbled green Formica top with chrome legs and six similarly colored green vinyl chairs. On one wall of the dining area was an expanse of sliding glass doors that looked out onto a large, fenced-in vegetable garden, everything in tidy rows. Beyond that were golden, grassy fields for as far as the eye could see. A warm breeze was delivered to the room via an oversized box fan, which threatened to blow the napkins off the table were they not held down with a fork and knife. Ben and I were starving and plopped down at the two places at the table that had boxes of Barnum’s Animals crackers.

And what a sight we must have been! Scruffy and starving, we scarfed down our food as if we’d not eaten in weeks. We were still sporting the clothes we had been sweating in for the last two days and had oily, unkempt hair and fuzzy teeth, not to mention dirty fingernails. Though this mattered not to us, the reverend and his wife gave us the once-over with curiously sympathetic eyes. Then my father bounded into the kitchen to join us, looking refreshed from his shower. His wet hair was neatly combed back and styled with something that smelled like pine trees, and he’d shaved. He’d obviously fished his suitcase out from the U-Haul, because there he was in a clean pair of tan Bermuda shorts and a short-sleeved button-down, the no-iron variety. He looked dressed for work.

As everyone finished eating and had put back their last cup of coffee, my father stood up and stretched his arm across the wide table toward the reverend, trying to elicit a handshake. Half-heartedly, the reverend’s hand met my father’s. Then my father began thanking the reverend exaggeratedly, opining incredulously about the new car, saying how kind it was to give it to us in exchange for the Rambler that both of them knew would never run again. After catching the gist of this effusive speech and with an air of irritation, the reverend cut him off. He was not interested in hearing any more of this and could no longer hold back what sounded like disgust. How dare my father take his children on that long road trip in a vehicle he knew to be dangerous and with no money. What if he’d gotten stranded in the Ozarks?! Did he not know the kind of people he might run across? He wasn’t shouting, but his message was delivered with intensity and without ambivalence. My father's eyes blackened with anger. As I silently sat next to him, I blushed with the shame he should have been feeling. It burned through my cheeks like fire.

Then, with a somber countenance, the reverend came around the table and stood resolutely in front of my father. He pulled out a large roll of rubber-banded bills from the pocket of his overalls and extended it in my father’s direction. The roll was so large that my father could barely wrap his hand around it. The reverend let my father know that the whole Methodist congregation had contributed and had met early that morning to collect money for us. Then, expressing some trepidation, he wished my father well and gave Ben and me each a reassuring squeeze on the shoulders. Don’t try to repay it, he said. The right thing to do was to help someone else down the line. He looked me in the eyes as he said this.

The reverend then waved his hand toward the front door, and we filed out, little Ben leading the way. Parting words were that while the reverend appreciated my father’s ambitions, his children should come first, and that he hoped this was a lesson learned. No one had ever talked to my father this way, and I was glad that someone finally did. My father had done a wrong thing. This, I knew this at age five. With that, we piled into the car and off we went. As luck would have it, our destination was just a short drive away. We’d been so close, we might have walked.

Our first morning in Columbia was spent finding our way around the sprawling campus, then checking in at married student housing. The university buildings on the quad resembled pictures I’d seen in a National Geographic magazine. There had been an article about ancient Rome with colorful images of a Roman city that spread out over accordion-folded pages. The artist’s rendering showed how the ruins might have looked when they were intact, full of purposeful activity and surrounded by gardens and trees. The campus looked very much like those pictures, the difference being the absence of livestock wandering about and the citizens of the campus city sporting Levi’s instead of togas.

The excitement of the day seemed to transport my father to a better place. He became happy and full of energy, with superpowers that gave him the ability to single-handedly lug an entire household of belongings up three flights of stairs in one afternoon. But from that day forward, my father did not speak of our mother. Any mention of her drew a threatening look that said all we needed to know. We were handed a new script, and my mother was not one of the characters. To all of our new acquaintances, my father pretended this was his family, as it was. He offered no explanation as to his single-parent status and made no excuses as to why our mother was absent. And although it was the late 60s, and folks were quite laid back, it was still odd to see a single man trying to make it alone with kids. Nonetheless, the couples in married student housing welcomed us into their apartments and invited us to join their kids on the playground. They would stop by our patio to share barbecue or a casserole, drink some beers, and discuss degree programs and politics. Loads of kids scattered about the apartment complex, playing on the jungle gym and popping into respective apartments to check out each other’s toys.

The novelty of the college setting and the excitement at having so many new friends took the edge off our motherless nights and the repetitive meals of canned tuna and ration crackers. As my father waited for his degree program and National Guard service to begin (and thus his much-needed funding), we lived on very little. We stayed put, we ate frugal meals at home, we did not buy new clothes or shoes (not even for the start of school), and certainly no new toys were forthcoming. And we rarely went to the grocery store. When we did, it was for only a few items: milk, eggs, margarine, hot dog,s and an occasional loaf of bread. The majority of our nutrition came from the boxes of National Guard canned rations.

I often wondered what happened to that big roll of cash from the reverend. I imagine most of it went toward rent, books, and tuition, as none of it seemed to go toward food. Our cupboards and refrigerator that summer were mostly bare. There was never fresh fruit or vegetables, no cheese, no bologna, no navy bean soup, or canned spinach or any of our other favorites. There was, however, usually some milk, but it was to be saved for our morning cereal. A big treat was getting a loaf of Sun-Maid Raisin Bread. It tasted so good toasted, even when we didn’t have margarine. On a particularly memorable evening, my father splurged on a box of frozen strawberries and a tub of Cool Whip. I had never tasted anything so delicious in my life.

Then, one morning, out of the blue, our father told us our mother would be coming on the train to stay with us in Missouri, and soon. He genuinely seemed excited. Ben was elated and ran about the apartment tossing his Matchbook cars into the air. I felt a rush of relief. Perhaps our lives would return to normal.

When the big day arrived, my father woke us up early and plopped us together into a tub of hot water. He scrubbed us with a new bar of Dial soap and washed our hair with the same, then clipped our nails and put fresh bandages on our many scrapes. He then put us in our best clothes, all of which were rather tight-fitting, as we had grown over the last few months. Sadly, I could no longer squeeze into my Mary Janes. Having no other shoes to wear, I resorted to the only other footwear I had, my galoshes. I worried that people would stare, as this was August, with not a drop of rain or snow in sight. After a quick breakfast of toast and grape jam, we set off.

The station was not far away, and as we sat in the car waiting for the train to arrive, my dad traded off-color jokes with his friend, Tony, whom he’d brought along for moral support. Right on schedule, the train announced its arrival with squealing metal-on-metal brakes, followed by a huge, smelly puff of smoke. As it jerked to a stop, all of the doors opened simultaneously, and passengers began disembarking, clunking their luggage down the steps on their way to meet family and friends on the platform. We stayed in the car, but had a good view of everyone coming off the train. We waited and waited until even the elderly folks who needed assistance had exited. One by one, every passenger left the station by car or taxi until the wide cement platform was empty. My mother was nowhere to be seen.

Through all of this, my father expressed no surprise or upset. He hadn’t even gone through the motions of getting out of the car to check on her whereabouts, like everyone else had done with their loved ones. Once it was clear not a single passenger remained, he started the engine, backed the car up abruptly and with irritation, and said nothing. During this jarring departure, my brother collapsed on the backseat into a gut-wrenching howl, the weight of which piled onto my own feelings of grief. From the front seat, and with friend Tony chiming in, my father coldly explained that our mother had clearly missed the train, offering nothing in the way of explanation or comfort. The two men made light of the whole situation, Tony joking about my brother’s theatrics, and offering sympathy to my father for having to deal with us “brats,” my dad making cruel comments about our mother. Within 10 minutes, we were back at the apartment, motherless.

Arriving back at married student housing was like being on stage, the whole family drama playing out in front of neighbors as my father carried my flailing brother up three flights of stairs with me bringing up the rear, sobbing uncontrollably. Once in the apartment, my father angrily dumped my brother onto his bed and shut the door. I sat curled up on the living room couch. Tony, who had remained on the patio, stoked up the grill. He then came inside to grab some hot dogs and beer, sneering at me as he passed, as if seeing me red-faced and tearful disgusted him. The two men then sat out on the patio chatting and drinking beer for the remainder of the evening. My brother never did come out of his room, not even to eat. And shortly after my dinner of cold hot dogs (which I ate straight out of the fridge), I retreated to the bedroom and unleashed my pent-up grief into my grubby pillow. Ben and I lay in our beds that night wearing our best clothes, and Ben still in his Buster Brown shoes, laces double knotted. We reminisced about our mother giving us Eskimo kisses and pulling the covers up to our chins. And with those thoughts, we drifted off to sleep. We didn’t see our father again until after lunchtime the next day, this after we had already spent hours on the playground and polished off an entire box of Captain Crunch. He’d not even tucked us in the previous night.

For the next few weeks, my brother spent most of his time in his room, playing by himself. He made elaborate cities with his blocks and Legos with multi-story parking garages for his Matchbox cars. At lunch, when we sat at the table by the front window, Ben would stare blankly at his buddies playing on the jungle gym. He showed no interest in joining them. And Ben began to grow fussier and fussier about what he’d eat. He’d nibble on the edges of whatever was on his plate, and when my father went into the kitchen, would hide the rest of his food in the drawer at the end of the table. Saddest of all, every night Ben would crawl into my bed after our father had put us down. He could not sleep without me. And he seemed to be getting smaller. He felt so tiny, and this upset me terribly.

Over the next month, my father retreated more and more from his parental responsibilities, and it felt as if Ben and I had only each other in this world. Each night, I lay awake imagining how I might take care of him if our father were to leave. I thought of where we could sleep and tried to figure out how I could carry everything: our blankets, food, clothes, books, and toys. I carefully planned how I would pack things, and during the day, as I played with friends in the park, I would pretend to camp and cook, practicing the skills I imagined I would need if we had no parents. I even tried to envision what we would do if it started snowing and how we could stay warm. I also wondered how I might call grandma, as surely she would help us if only we could talk to her. But I didn’t know grandma’s phone number, nor did I know how to use the phone.

To our father, we became invisible. Our schedule revolved around when he was hungry or wanted to do a thing. When he had exams, we spent long days at the babysitters. And our father let no moss grow under his feet. Within a month of the train scenario, he started bringing his “friend” Karen to our apartment to spend the weekend, the two of them often organizing friends for dinner on the patio (while Ben and I were relegated to our bedroom for the evening). And nothing was too good for Karen. Gone were the cans of tuna, bring on hamburgers and steaks for the grill. In contrast to our mother, Karen was a perky redhead with expensive taste in clothes, a spiffy new Buick Wildcat, and she was doing a master’s in journalism. It felt like she one-upped my mother on every level. I didn’t like her one bit. And Ben and I were no competition for Karen’s showy figure and endless banter. What little we had of our father’s attention and time vaporized when she was around.

By the time I was a month into kindergarten (four short months after we’d arrived), Karen had all but moved in. Thanks to her, some of our conditions improved, namely the quality of our food and the cleanliness of the apartment. But Karen was resentful of being asked to babysit and smacked us about when we were left alone with her, and while my father was in class. In mid-October, our mother caught wind of the situation and in her final phone call and in no uncertain terms made it clear to my father that she would never be making the trek to Missouri and that it was time to file for a divorce. It was at that time and in Karen’s presence that my father made his final proclamation about our mother: she did not want to be with us, and we would never see her again.

Thenceforth, Karen and my father became a united front, with neither being a parent to us, nor to baby Elsie, who was born a year later (no doubt to seal the deal on a quickly executed marriage). After our return to Battle Creek, and while Karen was busy decorating our new house, I was left to care for little Elsie most of the time and to do the lion’s share of the housework and laundry. Despite the weight of these responsibilities at such a young age, I credit Elsie for saving my life. She pulled me out of the grief of losing my mother and father. I loved her dearly, and taking care of her was what made me want to get out of bed every morning. Sadly, my brother did not enjoy these same feelings, having been too damaged emotionally to bond with her. The loss of his mother was something from which Ben never recovered, and added to that was his role as whipping boy to our endlessly hostile stepmother. Over the years, Ben became more and more emotionally distant, always struggling in school and failing socially. Depression and dysfunction haunted his adult life.

Many years later, when I was in my early 20s, my auntie shared the story of my mother’s move to Soho. It was on a beautiful July evening in northern Michigan, the sky full of pulsing northern lights. We stretched out on the chaise lounges on the deck, looking up at the stars. After a few glasses of bourbon, Joni felt sure this was the right time to share this tale, imagining I would find commonality, as I was an artist and musician in my own right. She described how in September of 1967, just three months after we had left Battle Creek, my mother, her art school friends, and some of their professors left Michigan State University and had packed up their things and headed to New York City. Collectively, they had decided to abandon their work at the university to join the burgeoning art scene in Soho. This trip was to be the adventure of a lifetime for my mother, as after landing in New York, she would be rubbing elbows with many prominent artists. As my aunt shared this story, she imagined it would resonate with me, but all I could think of was this… September 6, 1967, was the day I started kindergarten. I knew this because that date was printed on all my school photos. As I thought about that first day of school, I remembered this: my father arriving to the school late, then sending me into building alone with no lunch, my bangs cut raggedly with a pair of craft scissors, being dressed in an ill-fitting jumper my mother had sewn for me over a year prior, and my outfit paired with those shamefully inappropriate galoshes that were now my only shoes. And I thought about the fact that while I was struggling through these indignities, my mother had been caravanning to New York City with her friends, friends I didn’t even know, stopping along the way to camp and party. I thought about this for many years.

Two decades later, and upon my mother’s death, I was contacted by her long-time physician and friend, Michael. Michael, having gotten my phone number from my aunt, was wondering if I might want some of her things, namely her personal effects and some of her paintings. I said yes. Michael’s wife carefully packaged all that was left of my mother’s estate, if you could call it that, and mailed it to me in California. The paintings were large and shipped in wooden crates. They filled almost all of the storage space in my garage. A few days later, all that remained of my mother’s personal effects arrived in a small box. Inside the box were stacks of Polaroids from her trip to New York, along with diaries and pencil sketches she had done during her months in the TB ward at Bellevue Hospital. Missing from the box were any photos of me and Ben.

The next morning, I looked through the Polaroids from her trip to New York. My face and chest grew flushed, and I found myself holding my breath. There was my mother, happy and beautiful. She was dressed in colorful clothing and wore stylish sunglasses. A very handsome man had his arm draped possessively over her shoulder as she leaned in with a huge smile. Everyone, especially my mother, was having a great time, drinking beer and eating pizza, large unfinished art canvases propped up against VW vans in the background. She wasn’t sad.

I sat on this fact all day as I distractedly pulled my daughter around the block in her wagon and played whiffle ball with my son in the backyard. And then that evening, as we sat at the dinner table and the taste of our delicious meal eluded me, I decided I would not spend one more minute thinking of her. Never again would thoughts of her distract me from my children.

That same evening, as I snuggled with my children on my big queen bed, we read Robert Frost’s “Snowy Woods,” an edition with beautiful woodcuts: “The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep…” And when my Daniel asked if we could all sleep together, I said, of course. I gave both kids Eskimo kisses and pulled the covers up to their chins. I then watched them slowly drift off to sleep, and for just a few minutes, I enjoyed the warmth of their little bodies and smelled their smells.

Then quietly, I retreated from the cozy nest, grabbing grandma’s crocheted quilt as I backed out of the room. I headed out to the backyard and threw the quilt across my favorite Adirondack chair next to the fire pit. An exhilarating ocean breeze filled the evening air. With a renewed sense of purpose, I grabbed the lighter from the grill, bent down to pick up kindling from under our massive walnut tree, then stoked up a fire for the ages. As the fire grew, I gathered up my mother’s paintings from the garage and leaned them against the tree. Then one by one, I fed the canvases to the fire, watching the colors change and the edges curl as I sat wrapped in my grandma’s quilt. It was a perfect fall night.