12/13/14
The last sequential
date of this century
The Game of Life
For Ashley, on her 21st birthday
I awoke to the sound of kitchen cabinets, the slight tug
on the curved handle on the brass plate unsealing the Woodmode construction. It
was a usual alarm clock in our home, as Ma was always busy in the kitchen in
the morning. I had learned to judge the pace of the day based on the pace of
the kitchen cabinets opening and closing. These were days when most mothers
stayed home, so every day was a work day for Ma. But some mornings, the
distinct sound of the individual cabinets reminded me in my small bed that it
was Sunday. The slide of the glass door on the cabinet above the bar confirmed
my suspicion: Ma was getting down the real glasses. Not the crystal that was
ensconced in the china cupboard which I was certainly not allowed to open yet,
not the mismatched bunch of glass and plastic cups in the cabinet near the
fridge, but the real glasses. Heavy, with short, squat stems and with a textured
diamond pattern that made it hard to hold in my small hands. There were at
least 12 of these, all the same size, and they meant a family dinner.
Rolling over on my side, I reveled in the pace of this late-summer
Sunday morning. My older sister, Debbie, slept in the twin bed on the side of
the room with the window, and Sunday morning meant I could examine her 17 year
old face scrubbed and polished, her hair strewn across her pillow like mine.
Although we shared a room and she was my primary babysitter when my parents would
go to Happy Jack’s or Steckino’s every Friday night, everything about her was a
mystery to me. She had people to talk to on the phone, girlfriends who came in
and out like small maelstroms, a boyfriend who was nice to me because that made
her happy. She lived in a different world from me, and I loved when she stepped
out of it and saw me.
I sat up in my bed and leaned against the wooden
headboard, reaching for the small thick-plastic, yellow cup of water Ma always
brought me before I went to sleep. My brothers were up, meaning awake but not
out of bed yet. I could hear their muffled voices, and I knew without hearing
distinct words what they were talking about. School. Ray would be leaving soon
to return to Merrimack College where he did things even more mysterious to me
than my teenage sister. Ma had his bags open in his room, placing perfectly
folded tee shirts and boxer shorts in them as they came out of the laundry. Ray
felt this responsibility to encourage the rest of us academically. Our oldest
sister, Sue, was exempt as she had already started living her real life as an
adult. Debbie had perfected her eye-roll and could shut him out without any
additional movement. I would not start
school until next month. So, Johnny, at 12, bore the brunt of Ray’s advice.
Through the open window, I heard neighbors greeting each
other. Mr. Perrier, undoubtedly trimming hedges in his yard, called good
morning to someone walking by. Our side street did not have much traffic,
perfect for playing all sorts of games and using the manhole cover as home
base. Hearing a car at this time in the morning would mean a visitor, for us or
for a neighbor, either situation being exotic enough to bring the women of the
households to the front windows, surreptitiously pulling white sheer curtains
aside to get a good look. No cars today, just people walking to church. The
bells began ringing, luring the faithful from their homes to walk down our street,
past my window, another block to church. It was summer, and there had been
changes at our church that meant the priest no longer spoke in Latin (although
I still could not understand what he was saying), and we could go to Mass on
Saturday at 4 o’clock. Ma was not too fond of this idea, but it was convenient
when we were going to have a family dinner on Sunday.
Going downstairs, I paused in the dining room to count
plates. Sue would be coming. Since she didn’t live at home anymore, her visit
demanded the dining room. Otherwise, we would eat at the bar in the kitchen,
white laminate with gold and brown flecks, surrounded by tall wooden stools
chipped where we pushed them in too hard against the bar. Ma would go the extra
effort for Sue’s visit, opening the table and adding the panel that was kept in
the coat closet, wrapped in a sheet she had stitched to make a case. Years
later when I am a mother to grown children, I will reflect on these Sundays and
finally realize Ma’s simple joy of having the entire family around the table.
Rare. Complete.
By the time I had come from the bathroom, Ma had been
upstairs, made my bed, told everyone else it was time to get ready for the day,
and lay my clothes out. She was all business about this family dinner, no time
for lazing around. The morning rolled by, brothers and sister up, down, in,
out, all having something to do, somewhere to be. I sat in the TV room, with
Daddy. He and I apparently were the only ones who had nothing important to do,
no role in this day. He sat in his chair with the Sunday paper arranged across
the magazine rack on his right, his cigarette smoldering in the ashtray on his
left. I sat on the floor, with two piles of Little Golden books, on my left the
ones I had read, on my right the ones I hadn’t read, today. I always kept my
favorites to read last: Chicken Little, then Poky Little Puppy, and last, the
literary classic Three Little Kittens. I used my finger to follow the words,
like Ma had taught me. I was going to start school soon, and I would be one of
the few who already knew how to read, because that was part of Ma’s job. I read
the words out loud, and sometimes Daddy would correct my pronunciation. I made
mistakes on purpose because I loved how Daddy could instantly know the word
without ever looking away from his newspaper.
At the dining room table, Daddy would sit at the head of
the table, and I would get to sit immediately to his right. Ma was at the other
end of the table, where it was easier to get up from her seat and refill
glasses or get another fork. Family dinners meant Daddy helped me if I needed
to cut my meat or reach for a heavy dish. He did this without speaking about
it, never asking if I needed help. Just knowing.
After dinner, we all had our jobs. Ma would be at the sink,
Debbie and Sue taking their posts with dish towels to dry each piece and put it
away. Johnny and Ray would move chairs, pick crumbs from the floor, put the
table back to its decorative function. I would get to shake the table cloth,
carefully bundling it from the edges to the middle and carrying it to the porch
where I would release it with a great flourish into the wind, always worried my
small hands would drop the silky white fabric. My job was simple and easily
completed. Back in the kitchen, everyone was discussing what game we would
play. Playing games was not an option, it was what we did when we were
together. The only question was what game. They decided on Life. Ma retreated
to the parlor to rest, Dad to the TV room. They only joined the game if it was
cards, or maybe Yahtzee.
I loved The Game of Life. Unlike other board games, it
had dimension. Instead of dice, it had a colorful spinner with a white plastic
arm to point to the number. It had money, colorful and smaller than real money.
It had cards that had to be separated into decks. Best of all, it had tiny
plastic cars with tiny plastic pegs for people. I loved putting those pegs in
the car when I landed on the Get Married spot, or even better, deciding blue or
pink when I landed on Have a Baby. Sometimes I would play this game all by
myself, without the money or cards, just to spin the wheel and hear that
whirring clicking noise and move the cars around the board.
I climbed onto the wooden stool where I always sat for
dinner to join my brothers and sisters. Johnny looked at me dubiously, “You’re
not playing, are you?” I looked to the older siblings, the voices of true
authority, and realized I would not be in this game before anyone said another
word. “This is a hard game, but you can be my helper,” offered Sue. “She’s not
being the banker, it will take forever,” added Ray. “You’re just too little for
this game, but we’ll play something with you later,” coaxed Debbie. I was out.
Too young. Too little.
I returned to the TV room, where the newspaper still had
Daddy’s attention. I kicked the pile of Little Golden books and threw myself on
the couch. “Why aren’t you playing with your brothers and sisters,” asked
Daddy, not looking up from the paper. “They don’t want me to play with them
because they always treat me like a baby,” I sulked. This statement,
miraculously, lowered the paper revealing Daddy’s face to me. “Well, you’re the
youngest, so you are the baby.” He held my eyes with his, a smile creeping from
behind and lighting his face. “You should be damn glad you’re the baby, because
that’s the best in the whole family. I’m the baby in my family, you know.”
Daddy being the baby in his family was a hard concept to
grasp. I knew he had lots of brothers and sisters, so many that our drives to Massachusetts
to visit them would fill me with anxiety of not knowing all their names. “The baby is always special,” he continued.
“You always get to be the baby, the one everyone takes care of, the one who
makes everyone happy just by being in the room.” That was true. We all took
care of Daddy, and we were all happy when he was in the room.
We played cards, just Daddy and me. He taught me to play
Bataille and I loved the thrill of turning the card and seeing if I had won or
lost the hand. The cards were blue, and one of the jokers had Daddy’s
handwriting on it, an X over the joker and a 2 of clubs in the corner. Someone
had lost the 2 of clubs long ago and he had fixed it. The skin on his hands was
pinkish-gray and wrinkled and spotted because he was already getting old, even
though he said he was the baby, too. He had a large freckle at the base of his
right thumb and I touched it. “I have freckles like this on my face,” I said.
“That’s an age spot,” he laughed. “But yes, it looks like the freckles on your
face.” I could hear my brothers and sisters laughing, arguing, spinning and I
didn’t care. I had Daddy.
When our card game was over, Daddy suggested we take a
nap, since we were both babies. He turned on the TV and lay down on the couch
and I climbed up to sit on his belly, reading him a story before I lay down. I
felt the texture of the couch through the back of my shirt as I lay there,
trying to sleep and trying to stay awake at the same time. I didn’t want to
move and wake up Daddy or our time together as babies might be over. I rubbed
my cheek against his sweater, gray and not soft but somehow comforting. He
smelled of tobacco and coffee and English Leather aftershave. His right arm was
around me, and I tapped the age spot on his hand until I fell asleep.
-------------------------------------
Years later, I wake up in a hospital bed and wonder how
long I have been asleep. It is morning, early and quiet and beautiful with the
first snow of the season painting a white scene of peace over the town. One
week from today will be Christmas Eve, so it’s good that it’s snowing. I’m
ready for Christmas, as I knew I’d be bringing home my newborn to my three year
old. Early planning was essential. Ringing for the nurse, I think about how
many more Christmas seasons before I will want to complete our family with a
third child. Somewhere, at some time, I became convinced that three was the
magic number for children. Two was the standard, four was excessive. One was
clearly out of the question.
And then I am holding my second baby. Tiny. Fragile.
Alive. I am amazed at how this infant can be so tiny and still be real. We
expect small with our first baby, and then we get used to a growing child,
shocking us when we have our second child and return to this state of
unimaginable miniature size. She will be named Ashley Anne. She takes her
middle name from my brother’s wife, Anne, who helped delivered both our
daughters. Her first name comes from my family name, Lafreniere, which means
ash tree cutter in French. I have known her as Ashley for months now, ever
since the ultrasound confirmed the secret she and I shared that she is a girl.
Ashley wakes up. She is on the bed beside me and I reach
my right arm over to loosen her blanket and examine her tiny arms, hands,
fingers. Her eyes are huge, and they hold me in their gaze. Her little hand
clutches at the air, searching for its place and finds my right hand. Her
fingers are still too tiny to grab my hand, but she moves her tiny fingers up
and down at the base of my right thumb. My eyes notice for the first time the
age spot that is starting to appear there. And I know. A smile creeps from the
depth of my memory and lights my face. She is my youngest. She is my baby. The
youngest child of a youngest child of a youngest child. She will always get the
privilege of being the baby, the one we all want to take care of, the one who
makes us happy just by being in the room. This tiny baby has somehow totally
completed our family. My decision is made in this game of life, and this is the
last, most precious peg I will put in my little plastic car.
