You run home and enter the house yelling. Daddy! Daddy! Linda was mean! What? I’m sure she didn’t mean to be, come tell me about it. I told her the daddy makes dinner and she said that ain’t right. Isn’t right, he says. Isn’t right, you say; you’re prone to picking up poor grammar habits, he’s prone to nipping that in the bud. Well, pumpkin, we are doing it just a little differently than some people do it right now, he says. What do you mean? When I was growing up, he says, more often than not, mommies stayed home and daddies went to work. That’s how my folks did it, although my mother was a schoolteacher briefly before she married my father. Waaaay back before I was born, if women worked, it was usually before they got married, or it was in very specific fields: schoolteachers, nurses, like that. Now things are changing, and some mommies are also going to work. It might seem different to Linda. But that doesn’t make it wrong. It’s not wrong. When he says these last two sentences, you’re not fully convinced that he’s fully convinced. You’re a perceptive kid, but you’re four, not in any position to challenge him. Fred’s changing with the times, semi-reluctantly. He has the sense that when you grow up, you might be able to do whatever you might like to do, and he wants this for you, though he misses me and wishes I didn’t have to be away quite so much. C’mon, your father says, let’s bake some sugar cookies. I got a couple of new cookie cutters — a horse, a dog, and a house, and I got us some blue sprinkles. Okay! you say. Can we get a real horse and a real dog too? Umm, I think you’re going to have to make do with baking and eating them for now. Fine.
— Did that really happen?
— Didn’t you just finish saying you specifically wanted things that didn’t happen?
— I did.
— So I’m doing it your way.
— Well, it seems believable.
— What does that mean? You think I can’t guess?
— I think maybe you could guess but you wouldn’t want to.
— All right. That’s fair enough. It may have been true once, but things are different now, Betsy.
— Huh.
— Look, if I only tell you what I know for sure, your part of the story is going to be very short and possibly not as interesting as mine. You kept a lot of things to yourself, Betsy.
— That’s true. You could have kept more things to yourself.
— You’d be surprised.
— Or not.
New York City, 1967
Your father and I sit you down and explain what divorce means, that he and I have grown apart, that we both love you very much but that we are not going to live together anymore, that he has accepted a teaching job in Iowa, and that you will visit him there, but you will come with me to New York City, where there are opportunities for me that don’t exist in Iowa. I can see your little brain wheels speeding up, that you are imagining that his work in Iowa is only temporary, just like when I was away working when we lived in Louisiana, but you don’t ask any questions, so at first I assume you’re fine, that you understand. We tell you to just keep being the brave and strong little girl we know you are, and things will be fine, almost like they always were. Your father helps me pack up our things for the move, though after everything is divided up neither of us seems to have much, and when we get to the apartment it suddenly feels rather big: it’s only a two-bedroom, but we don’t have much more than a single bed for each bedroom, four Victorian parlor chairs, and a love seat for the living room.
In the weeks after our arrival, from your height of forty-two inches, you begin to store away vast files of information about our new city. It’s hard to tell exactly what conclusions you draw, only that your eyes are always wide open, that you’re aware of your surroundings and that you have not yet made sense of them for yourself, because I get asked a lot of questions I don’t have good answers for. Where are all the houses? People don’t really live in houses here. Why not? Maybe because it’s such a small island? It’s an island? Where is the beach? There is no beach. I thought islands had a beach. Not this one. Why aren’t there more trees? There are more trees in the park. Why is there so much trash in the street? I don’t know. What is that man doing with his pants down? I don’t know. Don’t look at that. Why is that lady’s skirt up so high? Because she’s trampy. What’s trampy? Never mind. Why is everyone a different color here? Because everyone doesn’t hate people who are different colors here. What? Never mind. What does pendejo mean? I don’t know. What does fuck mean? Never mind. How could that guy fall asleep in the middle of Broadway? He might not have another place to sleep. Why not? Maybe he doesn’t have a job. Why not? He’s probably lazy. Why is that lady shouting at nobody? That lady’s just crazy. It seems like there are a lot of crazy people here. There are. Why is it so loud in the subway? They’re trains — trains are loud. Why is it so loud here, everywhere? Because millions of people live here. Why do those cigarettes smell so bad? All cigarettes smell bad. What’s that smell? I don’t know. What’s that smell? I don’t know. What’s that other smell? I don’t know. Why is everything so smelly? Why is there writing on everything? Is it okay to write on things here? I thought it wasn’t okay to write on things. What are those people doing? What are those people doing?
Your reserve of questions is endless, and eventually I give up and tell you I don’t know everything, which happens on the first day of first grade. On the walk to school, you say Daddy knows everything, let’s ask Daddy, at which time I say We’ll talk about it after school, and you look up at your new school, which does not look like your old school, it looks to be covered in a hundred years of filth, dark and dirty and massive, like if you go in you will very obviously not come out, it looks like a big giant haunted house from a scary movie, not like your kindergarten in Louisiana, which was painted white and had a flower garden in front. Where are the flowers? Well, there might not be flowers at this school. Where is the playground? It’s right here, honey, I say, pointing to some girls doing double dutch. That’s an alley, Mommy, that’s not a playground, but it is a playground, it’s clearly connected to the school, and even if it is a crummy one, it’s definitely a playground, and you pull on me, trying to go back toward home, away from the doors of the school, you say I don’t want to go to this school, and I say You don’t get to pick, this is your school, come on, it’ll be great, you love school, and you say No, I don’t, this school looks like jail. You start crying for your father, Where’s Daddy, where’s Daddy, I want Daddy, I want Daddy, ceaselessly loud, gulping, inconsolable crying for your father. Daddy lives in Iowa now. What? Whyyyy? Remember, we told you before we came here, Daddy and Mommy don’t live together anymore? No you didn’t tell me that! Yes, honey, we did, you and I live here now, it’s your first day of school! No! I don’t remember anything! Sweetheart, you’ll make new friends, you’ll learn all kinds of new things. No! I don’t want new friends! I want Daddy! Come on, remember how much you love school? No! I don’t! I only love Daddy! I want to go back! I want Daddy! I remind you, again, that we explained about where Daddy was, and that you’d see him as soon as he sent us money. We don’t have money? Not enough. Why won’t he send it? He says he doesn’t have any more to send, but that isn’t true, his parents have plenty. Why won’t they send it? Because your grandmother isn’t a very nice person and she hates me, now come on, honey, let me walk you to your cubby. Noooo! It’s all I can do to get you to take off your jacket and hang it up. Honey, you have to stop crying. I can’t! I will never stop crying! You cry when the teacher gently takes your hand. Don’t goooo! It is reported to me later that you have cried all day. We go through this the next day and the next day, until I become sure you’ll never stop, and you don’t stop until around Thanksgiving, I suspect mostly because you’re finally exhausted.