Chapter 5

The soup pot looked clean enough to hang back over the stove. Posie's snout was covered in tomato soup orange/red when I picked her up and pulled her away from it. I got a paper towel and wiped off as much of the mess as I could. She made it difficult, wriggling and trying to get to my face to lick me the whole time.

John said to me, "Is Billy going to be all right in the tub by himself?"

"Shoot! I didn't even think about him having his own bathroom." I put Posie down and hurried upstairs. All I could think about was Billy floating upside down in the bathtub.

I ran down the hall and tried the outside door to his bathroom. Locked. I ran through his bedroom and into his bathroom only to find it empty. I frantically unlocked the door to the hallway and searched for the girls' bathroom door until it dawned on me that there wasn't a door on the hallway. As Laurie said, it was 'hidden.' I finally went through Annette's room and into the girls' bath. I was moving quite fast, something I'd cautioned my two about doing countless times.

The first thing I saw was a bathtub full of bubbles with three kids in it, apparently having the time of their lives. Then I noticed the floor had a layer of water and bubbles on it. Just about the time I saw that, my feet started moving forward faster than the rest of my body and I lost control of them.

Time seemed to slow down. I saw my feet slowly move forward, then up. The right foot was entangled with a towel that had been next to the tub. I reached out with both arms in an attempt to find something, anything, to hold onto and prevent or diminish my fall, like some cartoon character who walked off a cliff, flapping his arms to save himself. My left hand came in contact with the shower curtain and I grabbed onto it. I felt it give, then I heard a "pocketa, pocketa, pocketa" sound as the shower curtain separated from the rings that held it on the shower rod. I felt the whole thing move, then the back part of the rod gave way and the whole thing fell down, part between me and the tub, another part falling on my now outstretched legs. My right hand was the first part of my upper body to make contact with the bathroom floor, taking the majority of my weight for the instant before my butt smacked into the floor.

As if we'd rehearsed it, Posie ran into the bathroom from Laurie's room, jumped onto my outstretched thighs and then leaped into the tub, much to the delight of the three children. I felt the curtain rod dig into my shin as she pushed off.

Billy and Laurie were giggling and clapping. Billy shouted, "Again!" Only Annette had a look on her face to indicate she thought something might be wrong and this wasn't some trick I'd come up with for their bath time entertainment.

I heard John say, "That was quite a fall. Are you OK?" and turned to the right. He was coming through the door from Laurie's room, following Posie's path.

"I'm sure I'll be just ... Ooompppppph" I felt a sharp pain in my wrist as I tried to push up using my right hand, the one that took the brunt of my fall. I let go and fell onto my right side as the arm no longer supported my body. I felt a twinge of pain in my butt as my body twisted, just about the same time my funny bone hit the floor and I felt that combination of pain and shock move up and down my right arm. I rolled over onto my shoulder, rubbing my right arm with my left hand.

"I guess maybe I'm not as good as I thought I was."

In an instant he was down on one knee next to me. "Try and stay still. Where does it hurt?"

We took inventory of my pains. First, John gathered the curtain and wrapped it around the pole, standing the whole thing in a corner. Then he had me move my feet and then my legs; had me twist my back. I winced when he moved my right hand and felt the pain in my wrist. He had me move my fingers, something I could do but not without pain.

"Your butt's got plenty of padding so I don't think there's any permanent damage. You'll probably have a nice bruise there tomorrow."

"Thanks a lot."

"Oh, don't go fishing for any phony complements. Your butt has 40 or 50 times the padding as that elbow you smashed into the floor. And if you broke anything down there, you wouldn't be able to lift your legs or twist your back. I don't know about this wrist, though. It could be a light break or a bad sprain. I want to have it looked at."

"What do you mean, 'Looked at'?"

"We're going to the hospital. Let me get you out of here so I can take care of the kids."

"That's my job."

"Not tonight. Doctor's orders."

He got behind me and reached under my arms, lifting me up to my feet. Most of my weight was on my butt at one point and it hurt. It wasn't a stab of pain like something was broken, it was more of an ache.

"You go get out of those wet clothes. I suggest that you put on some sweat pants. You know they're going to want to examine your backside so you might as well make it easy on yourself."

"Maybe I should wear a sweatshirt, too."

"Just make sure the arms aren't too tight They might want to put a cast or a splint on that wrist and they'll just cut off the sleeve if it's in their way. If you have any trouble getting dressed, call me and I'll help you. Don't be a fool and damage yourself more out of some idea of propriety. I deliver babies for a living so you haven't got anything I haven't seen hundreds of times.

As I walked down to my room, I thought about what he said. He may have seen hundreds of women but there was no way I was going to let him see me. I've lived 23 years without a man seeing me naked and that wasn't about to change.

My folks had some very fundamentalist ideas about the human body. When God created it, it was good. But once that thing happened in the garden with the serpent and the apple, it became a tool of the devil; something to keep hidden as Adam and Eve did with the fig leaves.

We were taught that it was sinful to be seen by other than a female doctor and even that could be abused. And sex. My mother took pride that she had only allowed herself to be defiled that way twice in her life, one time each for me and my sister. It was a duty that was part of the marriage vows but indulging in it for fun or even enjoying it were right up there with Satan worship in the sin department.

I've always been a large girl. I wouldn't call myself fat but I was never beauty contest material. I've been described as chunky and big boned. And that's by people who claimed they were standing up for me such as my parents and our minister. I didn't have many friends growing up and never a boy.

I met the kids' father at church. I was in my senior year, Jerry had graduated the year before. He loved cars and had been working as a car mechanic since he finished school. He had his own car, money in his pocket and he noticed me. He was the first person of the opposite sex to make an effort to get to know me. The first time was after church when everyone stood around with their Styrofoam cups of coffee, talking about the weather or the sermon or the crops. For the first ten minutes or so, I couldn't do anything but nod. He kept at it, telling me about his work or things that had happened while he was still in school and I was able to loosen up a bit, first responding, then coming up with my own things to talk about.

Jerry had gotten in trouble a few times for drinking but one event stood out above the rest. One August afternoon after he finished high school, he and a couple of his buddies defaced all the mailboxes along a five mile stretch of Route 50 on the outskirts of town. It started out as a dare between Jerry and his best friend Al and soon grew into a bet. Nobody remembered who started it and who escalated it but soon their buddy Walter, who was a couple of years older and had his own pickup truck, was hurtling them down the road, their metal Rocinante weaving from side to side. As they drove east, Al played the part of Sancho Panza in the front seat while Jerry was the Don Quixote character in the bed of the pickup. The two switched roles on the trip west.

All three of them had taken remedial English in their senior year and had seen the film "Man of La Mancha" in lieu of reading "Don Quixote". Since there were no windmills to speak of, their quest was the mailboxes along the shoulder of the road. Instead of a lance, their weapon was a can of red paint and a four inch wide paint brush they swiped from some neighbor's barn. The rules were simple. The man in the back of the pickup held the paint can in his left hand, the brush in his right. As they passed a mailbox, he took one swipe at it with the paint brush. He earned from one to five points, depending upon how red the box was after he was done. Hitting the box more than once cost two penalty points, missing it completely cost five. Falling in the truck was five points while falling out cost ten.

They got pulled over by the sheriff before they finished the return run so they never did get an accurate total. Jerry was fairly sure he won, though no money ever changed hands. Al and Walter had continued the drinking party while heading east with Jerry in the back, almost finishing another two six packs between them. The driving on the way back wasn't quite as smooth and there were several mailboxes that ended up with little or no paint because of Walter's inability to drive in a straight line. The sheriff was able to sneak up right behind them and the combination of the siren and lights caused Walter to swerve into the next mailbox which in turn caused Jerry to spill beer all over himself and the cab of the truck. Al fell back, ended up with a goose egg on the back of his head and red paint all over his front, from about his belt to the top of his head.

Al's face was still red when they stood in front of the judge the following Monday. The three of them were sentenced to paint all the mailboxes on both sides of Route 50 for that five mile stretch, whether or not they'd gotten red paint on them. They also had to paint the posts and put new names and street numbers on all of the boxes after they dried. If they gave out awards for the street with the best looking mailboxes, that stretch of Route 50 would have been in the running after they were done. Walter's pickup had blood-red splatters all over the side and a red outline of a body in the bed until he sold it to buy his pregnant girlfriend an engagement ring a couple of years later.

That Sunday, the sermon was about the irresponsibility of youth and how alcohol was one of the devil's favorite tools. Even though it was several months later when Jerry came up to me and introduced himself after church, my parents were convinced he was no good and tried to keep us apart.

For years, I was convinced that my parents didn't like me. Not that I've changed my mind. It just doesn't seem important enough now to matter one way or the other. I know I'll never be their equal, I'll always be the one who doesn't know anything, the one who must be guided every step of the way and the one to keep in her place with comments that ridicule, disparage and flat out humiliate. My sister, who's a year and a half younger than I am, is treated as if she shit golden turds.

I have to say that Eileen, my sister, does have a figure that gets lots of looks from men, though she's not quite beauty contest material. She also got As and Bs all through school without cracking a book, near as I can tell. I spent hours and hours studying every night, only to get Cs and Bs. My sister and I get along fine despite our parents and now that she's grown up and married, she too has nothing to do with them.

The only thing I can come up with that would make my parents treat me the way they do is that I was conceived out of wedlock and they were forced to get married. I suppose it would be easy enough to find out if I was really interested, but I'm not. What am I going to do? Get some proof and then confront them? It would just make things worse and make them really turn on the hypocrisy.

I shouldered the 'why can't you be like your sister, Chunky Girl' comments for close to 18 years. When Jerry showed some honest interest in me and they tried to keep me from seeing him, I rebelled. Annette was conceived on a blanket near a stream one Sunday a month and a half after we started seeing each other when Jerry had downed the best part of a six pack. It wasn't rape but he was intoxicated enough to push through my feeble attempts to stop him. Somehow we managed to do the whole thing with me still in my dress with my panties moved to the side. I know for a fact that he got me pregnant that day because I got a case of the guilties and kept him away from me. I have to admit it was almost a relief to find I was pregnant after all the years of having sex for fun being a sin drilled into me.

I was shocked when my father told me to get rid of it. His exact words: get rid of it. I was even more shocked when he slapped me and told me to get out when I told him it was a gift from God and I wouldn't.

Jerry's family wasn't a whole lot better. His drinking had convinced them that he would never amount to anything and they made it clear that this baby was just one more incident to prove that.

We threw our belongings in Jerry's car and headed west. After a stop in Reno to get married, we kept going until we hit the ocean. Jerry looked at me and said, "Think we're far enough away yet?"

"All we can do is hope," I answered. That got us both laughing and hugging each other.

Jerry had almost three thousand dollars saved up when we left home. We stayed in a motel and ate at a restaurant the first night and realized that our money wouldn't last very long if we kept that up. We found rest areas every night but one when we had to stop off a two lane highway next to a cornfield for the night. Two of the rest areas had showers. We pretty much lived off store bought cookies and sandwiches until we got to Reno and got a room with a double bed and actually went out for dinner and breakfast the next day.