The day after my 10th birthday, I was out on the patio looking around our back yard, appreciating the lazy summer day and the heady smells of yard and garden harvest, grateful to be unburdened by school. A tingle of anxiety nipped at the edges of my moment, though. Fifth grade would be starting in a three weeks. The battle of school clothes shopping would begin again. New desk supplies would be obtained, but would I be able to wrangle a Trapper Keeper or have to make do with Pee-Chees? Would I score the amazing new Eraser Mate pens or be stuck with old fashioned Bics?
I thought to myself, “So, I’m 10. Double digits, finally. I’ve spent a dime of the dollar of my life... and what do I have to show for it? Who am I going to be? Will this year be any different? Will I be popular? Will the boys I’m into like me back? Will I do better on my report card?”
I considered my likely life from that perspective and thought, I can be a spy and a detective and an inventor like I’d read about in the boy genius books by Clifford B. Hicks in the 4th grade. I’ll solve mysteries and catch bad guys and amaze my friends with cool inventions. I will notice things and have special knowledge that others do not. I will know exotic poems like, “Kubla Khan” that I read in The Boyhood of Grace Jones. My life will be exciting. I will have adventurous moments and thrilling discoveries.
The day was muggy and overcast, still hot though, rendering my step-mom useless in the living room in front of the television and air conditioner. I could do experiments in the back yard, build a contraption, maybe even escape out the side gate a bit. But first, I needed a reason to do something. I needed a story to live.
What if I could solve the mystery of the house around the corner! I’d never seen the house behind ours. Although we lived in a subdivision, there was one house tucked away from the street and hidden within tall, dense pine trees. It was as if this one lone hold out refused to participate in the cookie-cutter neighborhood that was built around it. I’d never seen anyone come or go, but from our backyard, I could just see the beginning of the drive way.
I went back inside and headed to my room to plan the reconnaissance. I opened my drawer full of odds and ends that I’d collected for such a mission. Pocket knife. Just the lens of a small magnifying glass. A little plastic compass. Clothes pins. A packet of sugar. Several agates. Random screws, nuts and bolts. A watch that only worked for about an hour after it was wound. Popsicle sticks. Thumbtacks. Paper clips. Plastic ruler. Other odds and ends. Lots of bread ties...
An inventory was needed, so I dumped it all on the carpeted floor, prepared to make a list. That’s when she yelled, “ROBYN!!!” I pretended that I didn’t hear.
“ROBYN!!!!!”
“Yeah?” I hollered back.
“Don’t ‘Yeah?’ me. GET IN HERE!”
I walked into the living room and looked at her expectantly. “Get me some water. And put lots of ice in it.”
It was all of 10 feet to the kitchen, but I was standing and she was on the floor in front of the sofa engrossed in a solo game of Yahtzee at the coffee table. I took her glass to the kitchen and filled it with ice and then water, as I was taught to. After I brought it back, assuming there would be more requests, because again, I was standing and she was not, I waited for the next demand. She didn’t disappoint.
“Hand me my purse.” Purse handed. “Hey, grab my Tylenol, I think it’s in the kitchen.” It was. Tylenol delivered. “Did you run the dishwasher?”
“Not yet, it’s not full.”
“Let Tuffy out for a little bit.”
“Okay.” I went back into the kitchen to the patio screen door and let our little black and white mutt out into the back yard. Looking at the snack cupboard, I felt a pang. “Can I have a cookie?”
“No. It’s almost time for dinner. Maybe later.” It was 3:30 PM. “Come play a game of backgammon with me.”
“Do I have to? I was playing in my room.”
“Oh, well, excuse me your highness. I didn’t realize you were doing something so important.”
“Well, it’s not that important. I was gonna try to make a periscope like I saw in my book.”
“What for?”
“To see over stuff like hedges and fences!”
“That's dumb. It probably won’t even work. Come play backgammon with me. You can have a cookie if you play with me.”
“It’s not dumb. I have a diagram...”
“What did you just say to me?”
“Nothing.”
“Sit your ass down and play with me. You can forget about the cookie though cuz of your smart mouth. You need to learn when to be quiet.”
Quietly, “Okay.”
We sat on the floor at the low table, playing backgammon and Yahtzee until my dad got home.
Dinner that night was fried round steak and lumpy mashed potatoes, with greasy gravy and joyless green beans. I ate everything on my plate except a gob of gristle and fat that had been attached to the meat. I asked to be excused.
“Doesn't look like you're finished.”
“But, it’s fat,” I whined.
“Eat it.”
“But, it’s hard to chew and it’s gross,” I grimaced.
“You can eat it now or later but you’re not leaving this table until it’s gone.”
I hung my head and tried to figure out how to get out of the situation, while one by one my dad, step-mom and brother ate every speck of food on their plates and left their dirty dishes in the sink.
I was alone in the dining room for about 10 minutes before Tuffy came wandering in, wagging her flamboyant tail and looking at me like, duh, I’ll eat it!
I listened intently to the sounds of my family in the next room, laughing and talking while they watched TV. The coast seemed clear enough, so I put the hunk of gristle on the floor and the dog chomped away for a moment then swallowed it whole.
“I’m done! Can I be excused?”
“About time.” A minute later, “I think it’s time for ice cream. Who wants sundaes?”
My four-year-old brother screamed, “I do!!!”
My step-mom pushed herself up off the floor and lumbered into the kitchen. She got out four bowls and pulled the box of generic vanilla ice cream out of the freezer. Was I dreaming? My eyes locked on her every movement as she pulled the can of Hershey’s syrup from the cupboard and even got out the bag of shelled Spanish peanuts.
Holy Christ almighty, we were going to have Peanut Buster Parfaits. It had all been worth it. My ultimate favorite dessert justified every indignity I’d endured that day.
I watched and waited as she dished out the ice cream, syrup and nuts. She gave one to my brother and took one to my dad who was parked horizontally in the recliner in front of the TV, “Thanks honey.”
She rounded the corner back to the remaining portions for her and I. As she picked up both bowls and extended her hand to bequeath my reward, Tuffy coughed, gagged and hacked up my secret right next to her foot.
She looked at it, then at me, narrowing her eyes and seething, “There’s nothing worse than a liar,” before walking back into the living room with no-longer-my dessert, announcing, “Robyn isn’t having any ice cream tonight, who wants hers?”
My four-year-old brother screamed, “I do!!!” My dad remained transfixed by Barney Miller.
She glared back at me as she began wedging her rotund mass between the sofa and the coffee table and dismissed me with, “Run the dishwasher.”
After I finished putting the dinner dishes in the dishwasher, I filled the soap compartment and started the wash cycle. Walking down the hall to my room, I almost made it but heard as I took my last few steps, “I want you to go in there and think about what you’ve done.”
Back in my room, I closed the door and looked at the mess on the floor. I knelt into it to start sorting but then remembered her derision, “That’s stupid. It probably won’t even work.” A shame-filled ache welled inside my chest and throat and my nose began to run. I laid down right there amongst the useless pieces, wondering what was wrong with me and why was I so stupid and why couldn’t I do things the right way.
Quiet tears pooled in my eyes and streamed down into my ears. I wouldn’t let them hear me cry, but I wanted them to know how much pain I was in. And I wanted them to be sorry.
I started thinking about my life math again, “I’m 10 years old. Three years until I’m a teenager. Eight years until I can move out. I’ll be 31 in the year 2000. My real mom and my step-mom are both 27. My dad is 29. This means my dad and mom were teenagers when I was born. They weren’t married at first, that means I was conceived in sin. I wasn’t even meant to be here. I was a mistake. I don’t belong here. That’s why everything sucks. That’s why I’m so dumb. I’m an accident. I should never have been born. They wish I didn’t exist. Well, I’ll show them, I’ll pretend to be dead here on the floor and they’ll come in here and find me and then they’ll be sorry. They’ll freak out and I’ll pretend to be dead and they will cry and panic and call an ambulance. Then they’ll realize how sorry they are. They’ll tell me how much they love me and treasure every moment with me because they almost lost me...”
I laid on the floor in the shape of a murder scene outline from a movie for almost an hour. Should my eyes be open or closed? Could I hold my breath long enough to make it believable? Should I get a bottle of aspirin and put the pills on the floor next to me?
They never opened the door. Eventually I got bored and uncomfortable, so I got up, put on my nightgown, and went to the bathroom. I brushed my teeth and had a pee. When I stepped out into the hallway and said, “Goodnight,” my dad was softly snoring in the chair, my brother was glued to the TV, and my step-mom heard but ignored me while she theatrically lit a cigarette and pretended I didn’t exist.
I went to bed and did soothing, easy math in my head until I fell asleep. Two plus two is four. Four plus four is eight. Eight and eight is sixteen. Sixteen and sixteen is thirty-two. Thirty-two plus thirty-two equals sixty-four. Sixty-four times two equals one hundred and twenty-eight. One hundred and twenty-eight times two is...