Parent Stories

As women sometimes will, we were combining work and play, the three of us sitting at an unused dinner table, talking about which wines and cheeses to order for the coming week and telling parent stories.

Lindsey and I have, though there are just over thirty years between us, a great many common memories of tv shows, music, past events, and parental themes - Clean your plate, there are children starving in Europe, for example or Little pitchers have big ears. We both know the story of "The Black Dahlia", both have seen "The Wizard of Oz" more times than we can remember, both know who Billie Holiday, Clarence Darrow, and Audie Murphy were. We both know the story of "To Kill a Mockingbird" and who starred in the movie, all the theories of the JFK assassination, remember "Bandstand" with Dick Clark, have a working knowledge of the Civil War and past presidents. I have the Weeper Whineys who lived under the shoe shelf in my closet and she has monsters who came out of the dark and devoured children who didn't mind their parents.

Liv, being considerably younger and having been born and raised in a tiny, South Louisiana town built on grit, poverty, broken families and tamales, has ghosts and dire warnings. She remembers tales of "The Crying Woman", a lost and condemned spirit who killed her child and spent eternity stalking and kidnapping children who misbehaved. Parents who sold their children to creatures who wore rags, lived under bridges and were always hungry - hellfire was the reward for sassing grandma. Children who defied their parents could be snatched by ghosts and never returned, the penalty for a stolen piece of candy was being locked in a dark, airless closet with only your imagination and the monsters it could produce for company. Stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about was everyday language.

Be it cruel threats or a beating in the woodshed, emotional deprivation or ghost stories, we all survive our childhoods and carry scars. We overcome or give in, get past it or stay stuck to the memories. Either way, the parent tales we remember, whether good or bad, remain - to be shared and laughed over, wondered at or hurt by, but never to be completely dismissed.

A Simple Puzzle

Imagine your life being over in the 6th grade. In one brutal stroke, I was undone.

I trudged home slowly, intentionally stepping on every crack with well aimed and utter precision, dreading my mother's inevitable satisfaction and my daddy's disappointment, imagining the jeering and rejoicing of my brothers, anticipating that this was a failure I would never live down. I looked at the malicious and glaring "D" - printed in bright, bold red so as to call attention to itself and stand out from the other grades - and despaired. It wouldn't matter that this was the very first non-perfect grade in my short academic career, wouldn't matter a bit. My daddy, to whom mathematics was second nature, as clear and straightforward as a sunny day, would grieve over this. My mother, never content with the consistent straight A's I had always brought home and always ready with a nasty smile and nastier remark ( Nobody's that smart, you must have cheated.) would celebrate this failure. ( Jan, my daddy always protested without much enthusiasm, children don't cheat.)

Numbers had unexpectedly stopped making sense to me, stopped being logical and clear, stopped being a simple puzzle. I had no explanation for this phenomena and less of an idea how to fix it. I studied hard, tried to look at mathematics in different ways, paid strict attention in class, and still my tests and homework assignment results were dismal. I worried that this would become a pattern I would never escape and now in one report card, my worst fears had been confirmed. I was terror stricken at the prospect of making this public.

Things did not improve in junior high or even in high school. I failed Business Math, repeated it and passed, but failed Algebra. I repeated Algebra and passed only to fail Trig and so on. Looking at my senior year grades, my advisor suggested we not even bring Calculus into the realm of possibility and I graduated by the narrowest margin, mostly due to finally passing an Advanced Algebra course the second time around. The entire concept of mathematics had by then turned into incomprehensible nonsense. I was perfect in English, Fourth Year French, Biology, Sociology, and all four years of History but broken and tragically flawed by mathemathics, it might as well have been Arabic.

Now, a lifetime later and just a few years away from Medicare eligibility myself, the evil of mathematics - this time in the form of medical billing and the mechanics of health insurance - has returned to haunt me and complicate my life. Any rational foundation of numbers is hidden in a maze of allowables and percentages, fractions, and red tape inspired rules that serve only to protect the insurance companies and confound anyone foolish enough to try and decipher their methods. Each day I sit and try to un-jumble it, I'm reminded of my 6th grade report card, of that wretched, oversized "D" and the pattern I set for myself.

We are too soon old and too late smart.

Sweet Grass & Salt

Over one more hill and we'll be home, my grandmother announced with a lightness in her voice that I hadn't heard since leaving St. John 12 hours earlier, Just one more turn.

The ocean came into view first, a gorgeous stretch of green blue just a mile across with Tiverton on the other side and streaks of early afternoon sun flashing across the water. I could see the lighthouse and all the brightly painted houses, the church spire and the boats at rest. The ferry was on the far side and Nana pulled the old Lincoln to the side of the road to wait, rolling all the windows down and letting the salt air fill our noses. It could hardly have been a more perfect day.

It was late May, just after Memorial Day and we'd been on the road for three days, we were restless, anxious, cabin feverish and tired but the sight of the ocean and the village changed all that. We let the dogs out to run and stretch their legs and I leaned against the car, closed my eyes and let the sounds and the feel wash over me. I listened to the waves and heard the ferry's engine, smelled sweet grass and salt, sensed the change of pace and country and tried to breathe away the knots of excitement in my belly. Unaccountably I began to cry, the joy of coming home was overwhelming and nearly too much to comprehend. An entire summer was ahead of me, an entire summer in a place I loved better than anywhere on earth and still do.

I would grow up on this small island, would smoke my first cigarette, have my first taste of alcohol, go on my first date and fall in love for the first time. I would learn the true nature of my mother and grandmother's relationship, would see my first animal die, learn my phobic fear of reptiles, go to my first picture show, see the inside of my first dance hall. Each summer, I would slowly step further and further away from childhood, would pass the 8 o'clock bedtime in favor of staying out, sometimes half the night, sometimes with a boy. I would meet and come to love the island's eccentrics and bootleggers and even the flat out crazies, wild people living in worlds no one else could share. I would learn how to let my imagination run free and embrace the ocean and I would discover a life long love of books. I would see death and drunkenness given free rein, would come to realize the damage abuse and inbreeding could create, would confront inevitability, loss, pure joy and even magic. I would come to treasure solitude and the quiet.

I still dream of sweet grass and salt and a welcoming ocean.

Pretty on the Outside

Image, my friend Michael likes to tell people, is everything. He runs a modeling agency and it's his business to know. What may be pretty on the outside, however, does not always reflect the inner reality. This does not concern him in the slightest as he makes his living from superficiality and outward appearances - and more power to him - but for the rest of us, sometimes the underneath shoves it's way through and it can be ugly and evil tempered.

He had decided to take the Mercedes convertible out as it was a pretty day. He knew the tags were expired and the inspection sticker out of date and when he was pulled over, he was resigned to a stiff fine and a stern lecture. He had - in a rare display of good sense and diplomacy - decided against righteous indignation in favor of honesty and courtesy. He would take his medicine. He did not anticipate being arrested on the spot, They actually handcuffed me! he told me, horror stricken, and took me to jail! He was fingerprinted and photographed and put into a cell, treated like a criminal and forced to wait to be bailed out.

Bet you pulled him right off the golf course! the old hag matron cackled to the arresting officer. Nope, the cop told her, Just a traffic stop.
Well, then, she cackled some more, Bet it was a big ol' fancy Cad-de- lack!
Nope, the officer told her with a grin, Just a purty, lil' silver Mur-say-dees.

Some four hours later, bailed out and badly shaken by the experience, Michael returned home in a frenzy of fury and humiliation. Rubbing elbows with the great unwashed is not something he does willingly or well. It's a scam! he told me with heartfelt and sincere indignation, The city is cracking down because they need money! I was victimized!

You broke the law, I pointed out, what did you expect?
Not to be taken to jail! he wailed, Not for a traffic violation!

I couldn't help it, picturing him being handcuffed was bad enough, but as he described being fingerprinted and put unceremoniously into a cell to await his 'phone call, I began to laugh. The more he railed, the harder I laughed.
What in hell is funny about this? he demanded and I couldn't even begin to answer.

If image is everything, his had taken a distinct wrong turn.

No Harm Done

Undeterred by the loss of his wagon or his adventure in the sea, Willie Foot somehow persuaded Uncle Len to build him a scooter. It was primitive, just two boards, set at right angles, a handlebar and a pair of wheels. For a time, Willie set it in his front yard and decorated it with grass and roots. Then he painted it, crooked stripes of bright red and white and added a straw basket for collecting rocks. Inevitably, he walked the contraption to the top of the hill and began riding it down, landing first in the ditch and then the Sullivan's front yard and lastly, on a bright Monday morning as Nana was hanging clothes, careening down our steep gravel driveway at breakneck speed. Nana looked up and shouted a curse then began flailing her arms but Willie never noticed. He turned the handlebar and headed straight for the clothesline with my grandmother screeching in protest. In a matter of seconds, Nana, Willie and the scooter were all on the ground in a tangle of wet sheets and clothespins. The back door slammed and my mother appeared with a mixing bowl in her hands and a puzzled expression on her face then the dogs, roused by the commotion and not to be left out of the fun, came rushing around the corner and immediately dived headlong into the whole soggy, sorry mess. Nana's pristine white sheets were soon a muddy, grass stained mess and while my mother laughed so hard she dropped the mixing bowl, my grandmother emerged with a look of homicidal fury. Flinging aside sheets and pillow cases, she got to her feet, adjusted her glasses, smoothed out her apron, and began a methodical search for Willie who had managed to creep under the woodshed and was well on his way to a clean getaway, his more or less intact scooter clutched under one arm.

She stopped only long enough to snatch an ax from the woodbox then marched toward the back field. I'll have you and your damn scooter for firewood, Willie! I heard her threaten, That I will! She found him cowering just outside the playhouse, curled up in a ball in the tall grass and sobbing piteously, one arm around his scooter, the other wrapped in a pillow case, his bright green hair matted with mud and weeds. From the playhouse window, I watched her lower the ax, sigh deeply, and then awkwardly get to her knees beside him. Never mind, Willie, she told him resignedly, We'll just wash it all again. No harm done. He looked at her with a shaky smile, his crossed eyes filled with tears and his wild hair half covering his face. Like a child, he shyly offered up the ruined pillow case and then a pocketful of pennies, holding them in his grubby hand like treasure. Nana sighed heavily and took a deep breath.
You keep them, Willie, she said gruffly and struggled to her feet, Now, go home and get cleaned up. And she managed a smile. And Willie, she called after him as he skipped up the driveway, From now on, you ride your scooter in the cove! He nodded happily before carefully putting the scooter on the ground, saluting her smartly, and then detoured through the strawberry field, the remains of the scooter slung over one crooked shoulder.

My grandmother walked slowly to the clothesline to survey the damage to her morning's work. She looked to the sky as if for strength then gathered up the linens one by one and began again.

Cast Off

How far have we to go, sir? a seaman in the cast off boat asked wearily of Captain Bligh.
Don't let your mind dwell on that, lad, the captain replied almost kindly, think of how far we've come.

Being a cast off child means an endless search for acceptance and approval, a watchfulness for demons around each corner, a constant expectation of disappointment. It leads to making bad choices for desperate reasons, erecting walls to keep people at a distance, suspicion and an inability to trust. Painful, angry memories are always just below the surface, waiting to explode and shatter whatever good thing you may stumble onto. You look for and usually find the worst, forgetting that balance overcomes eventually and that the playing field will level out. You never quite learn how to forgive but you do learn how to confront the demons and put them in their place. It's a start.

Friends, in this case, my dear friend Tricia, point out that if I had had a mother who loved her children, I might've missed the amazing, strange, and wonderful people I knew as a child, might never have known the love of a place that has endured for over 60 years. In an intact family, there might've been stability and security, even safety but I might've missed the intimacy with my grandmother and all the characters she collected. I might never have discovered the strength and support of The Twelve Steps or learned true independence. I would never have been drawn to Lee, who became my surrogate mother and loved me through it all, would never have met her daughter whose friendship I treasure so dearly. Life with the love of a mother might've been easier but almost certainly it would've been less colorful and far less of an adventure.

Cast off and adrift, with not enough food or fresh water and motivated only by a need to survive and a thirst for revenge, Captain Bligh reached England. So shall I, by concentrating not on how far there is to go, but how far I have come.

Penny Candy

Aunt Flo's cousin, twice removed on her mother's side, ran a tiny candy store at the foot of the breakwater. It wasn't much more than a shack surrounding a half dozen or so cracked and dusty glass display cases that held penny candy - licorice whips, carmels, jawbreakers, root beer barrels, jelly beans. Around his neck, Uncle Bernie wore a miniature silver scoop on a long silver chain. A penny's worth of candy was one scoop and for an nickel you could open the battered, old red and white cooler and add a bottle of pop from the clear, icy water. It was a kids store and on Saturday afternoons in the summer, Uncle Bernie would sit just outside the door and read to us from The Brothers Grimm, fairy tales filled with blood and gore and unhappy endings, horrifying tales of ogres and dragons and trolls under bridges. Here we learned about witches who cast nasty spells and roasted children alive, about evil dwarves with pointy shoes and scruffy beards, about werewolves and vampires and haunted forests. Uncle Bernie read with enthusiasm and great energy, adding faces, gestures and sound effects to the stories and we were carried away by his imagination and imagery - we shivered with fear and screamed in delight and always begged for more.

Later on the stories became bloodier and more grotesque - Dracula was portrayed with a make believe cape to hide his eyes, an unnerving, cackling laugh and an improbable but completely convincing accent. The Frankenstein monster and Jack the Ripper came to life before our eyes as did Sweeny Todd, Lizzie Borden, The Phantom of the Rue Morgue, even a Lovecraft character or two. Fact or fiction, Uncle Bernie read and acted it all out, capturing us and our curiosity, encouraging us to read and discover the wonder for ourselves. He treasured books and authors and all things literary and wanted us to do the same.

For those who couldn't read - child and adult alike - he opened his home during the evenings and helped them to learn. When my grandmother and others questioned his choice of reading material, he waved them off. Literacy is a gift, he told them sagely, and it should be passed around just like penny candy, otherwise it goes stale. The stories continued without change, all the horror kept our attention until gradually our imaginations grew and we sought out our own stories. And it all began with penny candy and fairy tales.

The Pennygoods

After 67 years of marriage - the best time of his life, Mr. Pennygood told me, fighting back tears - his wife had passed on Saturday night. She had just turned 86 and had died at home in the bed they had shared for all of their married life, in the house they had lived in for the last 50 years.

I remembered her as being a slight, frail woman with gray hair tied in braids and wound around her head. She walked with effort, usually leaning on his arm while he leaned on his cane. They were a small couple, always smartly dressed and unfailingly polite. This day, Mr. Pennygood wore a blue tie with geometric shapes and a matching handkerchief tucked neatly into his breast pocket, his gold rimmed glasses sparkled. The best time of his life, he repeated with a wan smile, she had been an exceptional woman. The viewing would be tomorrow and they would lay her to rest the following day. He would preach his regular sermon on Sunday, given in her memory, and the entire congregation would attend. She had loved the choir, had sung in it for years, he said, and her voice would be much missed. It had comforted him to preach knowing she was always behind him, her sweet soprano raised in the singing of praises, her voice in harmony with God and life. It had not always been an easy life, he told me, even with her at his side, but it had always been a good one, filled with grace and sweetness, struggle and determination. They had risen above the name calling and racism of the south to build a small, sturdy church and a small, loyal congregation. They had rebuilt after the burning and the threats, had never given up on faith, had survived and continued to preach forgiveness and love even when shut out and despised. Years of nickels and dimes put away in coffee cans had paid to send their only daughter to teaching college and to make a down payment on a small house.

I listened to Mr. Pennygood with a sense of sadness at his loss and amazement at his acceptance. He told me he'd gotten the call just after they met and had given up his day laboring job to join the church. He began preaching with her full support although it meant living on next to nothing in a dogtrot house in a neglected and forgotten part of town.
She wrote his sermons out in longhand and never missed a Sunday service. In the years before their daughter was born, they lived on beans and rice, charity and hope. Mrs. Pennygood cleaned houses by day and office buildings by night so that he could spend his time doing the Lord's work. Never a word of complaint, never a doubt that it was the right thing to do, never a question about his devotion. She believed with her whole heart, he said, in him and the life he had chosen for her.

His daughter, now a teacher in Dallas, had suggested he come and live with her but he had refused. His work, he had told her firmly, was not finished and he would not leave the little house he had shared with her mother, not leave his congregation or his friends. She had protested that he shouldn't be alone, that it would be no trouble, that she wanted him to come, that he would love the city and would have a room all to his own, that his grandchildren needed to have time with him. It was all to no avail and Mr. Pennygood had hugged her and smiled, a preacher he was and a preacher he would stay until it was time to go. Mrs. Pennygood, he suspected, was watching and he would not disappoint her, not after 67 years.

Partners in Crime

Hank had worked for my grandfather even longer than my daddy.

In addition to being a licensed funeral director, he acted as limousine and hearse driver, pall bearer and casket carrier, all around handyman and jack of all trades. He supervised the interns, did small repairs, cleaned up the morgue and was on call around the clock. If the power went out, the walk needed shoveling or the windows washing, you called Hank. If a car wouldn't start, the water heater sprung a leak, or the pipe organ needed repairing, you called Hank. If you needed to find my daddy, wherever he was, or needed a ride home from school, you called Hank. If you needed a shoulder to cry on, you called Hank.

He was a huge, bulky man with a perpetual scowl, a taciturn nature and an untamed mane of thick, silver hair that would never stay in place. His collars were always too tight and his vest buttons seemed to strain at the seams as if they might pop off at any moment. He stood well over six feet and was an imposing if slightly sinister figure at wakes and services, standing motionless and watchfully overseeing the proceedings from the shadows, ready to intervene at the first breach of etiquette or the first awkwardness. He was, my daddy said, an extra pair of hands, always thinking three steps ahead and prepared to handle the unexpected with polished skill and such efficiency that it was barely noticeable. Since he so rarely smiled or displayed emotion, it was easy to think him distant, certainly intimidating, even forbidding, when just the opposite was true. Despite his size and football player build, despite his gruffness and one word answers, despite his overall bearish-ness, his heart was breakable and kind.
When he grew a silvery mustache, he looked all the world like a combination of mafia knee breaker and Santa Claus- elegant, well dressed and manicured, but with a faint scent of menace mixed with his Old Spice.

It was said that on his rare nights off, he prowled the Boston clubs and the Cambridge underground, a lavish blonde on each arm. It was said that he was on speaking terms with gangsters as far away as Providence and with detectives as far away as New York. All anyone knew for certain was that he often did not return until the following morning and after a quick shave and shower, would go immediately back to work. He spoke to no one of his off time, he was wife-less and childless, worked most holidays and could level anyone curious enough to ask about his personal life with a level but icy glare. My daddy would smile at the speculation and rumors but never denied or confirmed a word. He minds his business, he told me once, and expects you to mind your's.

His blind side turned out to be a surprising and remarkable lack of foresight in the simplest of things. He grew tired and exasperated at the habit of the interns pocketing the company keys to the two hearses and limousines.
He tried making extra sets of keys without success. He tried dismantling the door locks without success. He tried dire threats and docking their pay without success. And finally he hit upon a foolproof scheme and spent an entire morning welding the keys to a length of chain and the chain to the dashboard of each vehicle. As if by engraved invitation, all four cars were promptly stolen.

He hit the Cambridge streets in a black mood and within 24 hours each vehicle was back in it's place, no questions asked, no damage done, no police reports filed. Sometimes, my daddy told me, not knowing whether to be furious or admiring, it pays to have friends in low places.

Nary A Lamb Were Lost

No one would own up to leaving the gate open that warm summer day when the lambs got loose. All anyone was positive of was that a flock of sheep had come thundering down the coast from 'round The Point, turned the corner to the wharf and headed toward the open water at breakneck speed with Old Hat and her shotgun hot on their heels. The lambs reached the end of the breakwater where there was a mass collision and pile up, then the laws of physics and oncoming momentum took charge and over they went.

The ensuing commotion would've woken the dead, Nana claimed afterwards - twenty or thirty sheep sinking into the sea and Old Hat watching in a mad, helpless dance of passion and rage, screaming curses to the afternoon sky and firing at the gathering seagulls. From his front porch, Sparrow watched the growing chaos and sighing heavily, rose from his old rocking chair and trotted toward the disaster. He calmly disengaged the shotgun from the old crone's hands and in one smooth gesture tossed her scrawny body feet first into the ocean. By then, incoming fishermen were on the scene, netting the sheep into their boats and the factory women had left their places to wade into the water and drag the protesting lambs to land. Old Hat was rescued last and brought to shore, 90 pounds of kicking, screeching, clawing and ungrateful profanity, neatly tucked under John Sullivan's arm, kelp covered and spitting sea water. It were some sorry sight, Alice, John allowed to my grandmother later that day, Some comical, too, but nary a lamb were lost. That old scattergun though, well, that be a diff'rent tale.

To the dismay of no one save its owner, the old shotgun had mysteriously vanished in the fray. Sparrow claimed to have flung it into the waves and while no one confirmed this, no one contradicted it either. It was not found that day, not found for many days after and then it appeared to have washed up on the rocks in several useless pieces. The old hag gathered them carefully and buried them in the back garden under Sparrow's distant but one good eye. When she was done, she scattered ashes and barb wire over the ground, layered it with rocks, and spit. The scattergun was retired at long last and The Point became a quieter place. And nary a lamb had been lost.

The Good China

Being a product of terribly proper old Boston stock, my Aunt Helen was fairly appalled with her new husband's side of the family. Is it true, she asked my grandmother as she adjusted her dress to cover her knees, that you have cousins in......well, Worcester? And that Jan's husband comes from an exceptionally ...........well, shall we say, a rather distressingly prolific family?

My grandmother looked at her Beacon Hill born and bred sister in law and paused in her knitting. It is, she said calmly, but let me reassure you, Helen, it's hardly contaigious.

Helen gave a delicate shiver and pulled her sweater over her narrow shoulders. Good heavens, Alice, she said with a touch of starch in her tone, Worcester! They're foreigners! And ten children veritably shrieks of a lack of self control, not to mention other interests!

Nana sighed and tapped her knitting needles together sharply. Helen, she said, adding her own starch, Have you considered the possibility that your sensitive and proper breeding might have neglected the area of, dare I say, good manners?

Come now, Alice, Helen huffed, I certainly meant no offense.

You always mean to offend, old girl, my Uncle Eddie chimed in cheerfully from the archway, She can't help it, Alice,
that silver spoon has stuck in her craw since day one. Just ignore her.

Aunt Helen winced and turned her back, her dignity too assaulted to respond and her senses overcome by her husband's crude language. To make it worse, my grandmother winked at me and Uncle Eddie laughed outloud, sister and brother in league against the proper head mistress and her snooty, intolerable good breeding. We might have been kinder had she ever relented or shown any sign of imperfection, but all she had was her snobbery and she distanced herself from those below her at every opportunity. At the suggestion that we all help clear the dinner table, she raised her eyebrows in surprise and rallied. Have you no help for that sort of thing? she asked with a hint of distaste as we gathered dirty dishes and trekked to the kitchen. Nana paused at the swinging door, the not quite empty, silver gravy boat balanced in one hand as she judged the height of the candles and the distance to Helen's still occupied chair just beyond them. Uncle Eddie smoothly intervened and with one practiced move swept the gravy boat away and steered his sister through the door. I think it's cook's night off, dear, he told Aunt Helen with a tolerant smile, just before dodging a suddenly airborn coffee cup Nana had flung at him from the kitchen, Why don't you retire to the drawing room? Helen's face paled as a juice glass whizzed past his ear, followed by a barrage of black olives and celery and then an unexpected mix of cursing and laughter. She fled to the living room with Uncle Eddie loudly protesting, Not the good china, Alice!

Myrtle & Twice A Week Walter

My mother's friend, Myrtle, was a Cambridge shop girl.

She was in her thirties when I first met her - chubby and just over five feet tall with dark hair and a bright smile. She wore oversized, black rimmed glasses with rhinestones on the corners and always a touch of red - lipstick, scarf, shoes or purse. She tended to sparkle and she chattered non stop and mindlessly. She worked in an upscale department store in Cambridge, selling ladies wear or as she said with a giggle and slight blush, undergarments and foundations. She had a blatant crush on my daddy and took to batting her eyelashes and smiling shyly at him at every opportunity, cupping his hands in her's when he lit her cigarettes and gazing at him with a starcrossed and lost expression that we found endearing and slightly comical. For heaven's sake, Myrtle, my grandmother would snap at her, Act your age! And Myrtle would sigh and pout at the reprimand but she was never deterred.

Still single and aching for a home, a husband and children, Myrtle dated an intriguing variety of men. She found them through personal ads, lonely hearts clubs, church groups, blind dates and matchmaking friends. Each new man was cause for hope and celebration but there were rarely second dates - her eagerness to please was wearying, her chatter wore them out, her very nature and childlike innocence put them off. Be yourself, my grandmother told her with a scowl, Stop trying so hard! And tears would well up in Myrtle's eyes at this verbal slap, her hurt feelings spilling over with her tears. Nana immediately relented, drying her tears and chiding her gently for being overly sensitive and too tender hearted. Be patient, dear, she would say kindly, The right man will come along when you least expect him. And Myrtle would raise her head and wail with despair at the prospect of dying a virgin.

In a perfect world, the right man would've come along, met the shop girl and swept her off her feet in a daze of romance and flowers and candlelight dinners. Reality, however, is less kind and the right man never materialized for Myrtle. More and more time passed between first dates until they stopped altogether and little by little, Myrtle aged, saddened, and gradually came to accept that a shop girl she was and would always be. She hated being a realist and dreaded being alone and old but she kept her bitterness mostly to herself and concentrated on being the best shop girl she could be. When her mother became ill, she moved back home to be a caretaker in a small walkup apartment in Brighton, just over the Cambridge line. She barely noticed Twice A Week Walter, her mother's home health nurse who came each Tuesday and Friday, a chubby little man in white scrubs and hospital shoes with a perpetual smile and Paul Newman blue eyes. He looks a little like a Christmas elf, she confided to my grandmother, And sometimes he brings flowers. Nana raised an eyebrow and looked at Myrtle closely. For you? she asked casually and Myrtle shook her head, Oh, heavens no, for Mother. My grandmother paused and then asked, Are you sure? Myrtle gave her a startled look and laughed self consciously.

I think my grandmother may have been the only one who was not surprised when Myrtle and Twice A Week Walter eloped to Las Vegas the following year. The announcement was made with a flurry of postcards written in splashy, bright red ink. The shop girl found the right man as soon as she stopped desperately searching - all she had to do was get out of her own way.