Part 1 / Chapter Four ⥈ New Baby

 

“when the journey is broken, no one is on the right road”, Pentti Saarikoski

    We always had music on in our house, especially before we got our first TV. Johnny Mathis, Frank Sinatra, The Ink Spots, Ella Fitzgerald belted out songs from mom’s large collection of 78’s. Mom’s favourite singer was Peggy Lee and I can still see mom and dad dancing to “Fever” in our living room, on a Saturday evening. The way they moved to the music ignited my first awareness of them being more than my parents. Still very young, I didn’t know what is was called, but I sensed a mysterious feeling, an intense love connection was expressed in that dance.

    Mom and my brother usually met me at the edge of the school field after morning kindergarten ended. The weather was changing from winter to spring and it was the first day I was allowed to wear only my shoes to school, without galloshes over top. My feet felt so light. We still had our warm coats on, but Mom was wearing her spring coat, and it was unbuttoned. We were walking home, and I noticed mom’s rounded belly. 
I turned to her, “Why is your belly poking out?” 

    “There’s a baby growing in there.” I looked up to her eyes, to see whether she really meant that or was she teasing me. 
    “A baby? In your tummy?”
    “Yes,” she said. “That’s where babies grow until they are ready to be born. Do you remember coming to the hospital with daddy to meet your brother after he was born?”
 I kind of remembered his squinchy face and how tightly he held my finger. I also remembered that he drank milk from mom’s boobies. Later, after lunch, my brother, mom and I were snuggling on the couch with our blankies for quiet time when a bump suddenly stuck out on one side of her belly. Both my brother and I watched with fascination as the bump went away and then poked out again. Mom said it was the baby kicking.

    Every day around 3:00 pm mom had to put the mail in the mail boxes for all the people who lived in our building. It was dropped off by the mailman in two or three large canvas sacs. Mom had a special key that opened all the boxes at once and she’d take the envelopes out of the sacs, sorting them and putting them in the cubbyholes. We had moved to a different apartment building without a balcony and she and dad were the building caretakers. Sometimes she cleaned the windows or the brass railings on the staircases. 

    As we walked by the apartment across the hall from ours, we heard a baby crying. “That baby cries so much,” mom said. I’d heard it many times, too. 
My brother and I played in the building lobby as mom worked. She was just finishing the last sac when a pretty young women in a smart, short dress came in. She had blond hair and lots of make-up on. 
    “Iss dere any mail vor me?”the young woman asked mom. Mom looked in her cubby and as she was about to hand her the letter, she stopped, a few inches from the young woman’s hand. 

    “Who is watching over your baby right now?” 

    The woman was startled, “Ohh, she’s goed. I vass only gone vor a view minutes to buy zigarette.”
    Mom said, “Your baby is alone?”
    “Yah, she’s halfing her nap.”
    “She’s been crying,” mom said. The woman looked uncomfortable and put her hand out to take the letter. “Babies should not be left alone”, mom admonished. She gave her the blue airmail envelope. Those were the same kind of letters we got from dad’s family.

    The next morning I found mom listening at our apartment door. She watched through the peephole and I heard her mutter, “I thought as much,” as the door to the apartment across the hall banged shut. She turned to me, “Honey, I’m not going to walk you to school today, because I’m going to call the police. I think the couple across the hall with the baby are leaving their baby alone while they go to work.”

Mom and my brother were at the edge of the school field when kindergarten finished later that morning. In front of mom was my brother’s old baby pram and sitting in it’s harness, was a baby with blond hair. “We have to walk home quickly today” mom told me. “A lady is coming to our apartment to talk about the baby.”

    Angelika stayed with us until the school year for kindergarten ended. My teacher, Mrs. Sharpe was the best teacher. Kind, patient, soft-spoken but firm and full of delightful surprises. She even smelled wonderful, reminding me, just a little, of grandma. Kindergarten was fun and I learned to spell my name, tie my shoes and count forwards and backwards to twenty! I especially loved the newsprint comic workbooks we received every Wednesday, with the stories of Spot, Dick and Jane. I graduated with a special flat paper hat that had a tassle on the side. My mom and brother and Angelika came to watch on the last day as my whole class paraded around our room. Each of us stopped at our teacher’s chair and were given a little rolled up paper certificate with our name printed on it. The ribbon that tied it had a red lollipop attached.

    Once in awhile the lady who’d talked to mom about the baby would come and take Angelika. Mom told us that the lady was taking her to visit her mom and dad. Mom seemed quite sad about this and I heard her telling dad one night that Angelika’s parents didn’t want her. Then one morning mom packed a little bag and the lady came again, this time to take Angelika to the airport. She was going to fly to Germany to live with her grandma. Mom cried on and off all day. 

    But, in the afternoon after quiet time she told us we were going on a picnic and she dressed my brother and I in new, matching summer t-shirts. We had to take a bus! I sat on a seat beside the green and brown woven wood-strip picnic basket and my brother sat on a seat beside mom, as her belly was too big now, for either of us to sit on her lap. Once at the park, mom pulled out a brand new beach ball and blew it up. My brother and I ran around chasing it. Just as we were about to eat, we were surprised when dad showed up. 

    Our new baby was born the day before my brother’s third birthday. Dad had holidays from work and so after mom came home from the hospital, he took us to a cabin in the woods for a few days. We wore our new, matching summer t-shirts. 
    “Mom and your sister need some extra sleep,” dad told us. Even though it was a few days late, we sang happy birthday to my brother and ate ice cream. I laughed as the candle dad had stuck in the ice cream lolled to the side as my brother frothily blew on it. He was enthralled with his large new orange Tonka tow truck and kept attaching everything he could find to the tow hook - my shoe, dad’s empty coffee cup, a small box filled with stones. Good thing for that truck, though, as unfortunately it rained every day so we were stuck mostly inside. Dad taught me to play checkers and I’d brought my favourite game of pick-up sticks. There was a fire place in the cabin and at night dad built a fire with some logs. We snuggled into the large bed together as he told us a story. I remember feeling so cozy there, listening to the rain hammering on the tin roof, enveloped in the warmth of dad and my brother under the bed covers in the glow of the fire. At home, we were never allowed in our parents’ bedroom, so this was very special.

    Our new baby was a lot of work. She didn’t sleep easily, and cried through the night. Mom was tired much of the time and I had to help. I started getting my brother’s cereal in the mornings and helped him get dressed. I brought diapers out of the laundry basket to mom and dunked the poopy diapers in the toilet before putting them in the diaper pail. If the baby did fall asleep, mom tried to rest and told us to go outside for a while, but I had to watch my brother. One day some older boys surrounded him and pushed him down under one of the apartment balcony's, kneeling on him as they filled his mouth with dirt and worms. I screamed at them to let him go, but they threw rocks at me, so I ran to get my mother. She had just strapped my sister into her baby seat, in her playpen. 

    For some unknown reason, Mom grabbed her rifle out of her bedroom closet and ran outside, yelling at the boys to let my brother go as she pointed the gun at them. They screeched in shock and ran off, leaving a sobbing, filthy brother lying in the dirt. Just before dad got home that night, there was a loud rap at our door. When mom opened it, two large, sombre policemen came into our apartment. They questioned mom about what happened and asked for mom’s rifle. It sounded like she was in trouble. After the policemen left, my brother and I both got spankings and were sent to our room. We had to sit on our beds and not move and not talk, mom told us. 

    I learned quickly to watch mom carefully from then on. I don’t know if my brother and I were naughtier, or whether mom was just angrier. She could explode in a moment. This morning dad had gone with a work friend to find our car. He’d lent it to a young fellow who’d put new tires on, but then took it for a drive and never brought it back. Mom told dad that young fellow was bad news. They were both mad about the missing car. I’d snuck my brother behind the couch and we were snaked underneath, watching mom’s foot-steps going back and forth. He knew my signal when I put my finger on my mouth, meant to be absolutely quiet. Barely breathe, even. We could tell by the way she walked that it was still dangerous to come out. 

    My sister was sleeping better at night. Mom had some special medicine she gave her and it was kept high up, in the cupboard above the fridge. She’d put a spoonful in a baby bottle with some milk and give it to my sister, who would hold the bottle all by herself and drink it while mom read us our bedtime story. But even though we’d also found our car, mom’s moods did not improve. I was home from school one day and got mad at my brother for drawing with a ballpoint pen all over my doll’s face. He said he was making her pretty, but it looked like scribbling to me. Suddenly, Mom loomed over us, grabbing one of our ears each and she pulled us into our bedroom. As she shouted how we were driving her crazy, she picked me up and threw me across the room, where I hit the wall with my back and slid down on my shoulder and head. Then she took the wooden spoon to my brother’s backside and hit him so hard, the spoon broke. She left, and slammed our door shut, leaving us on the floor in two small heaps of weeping bewilderment, misery and fear. 

    Later that night, while mom was settling the baby for bed, dad got us ready. I put my own pajamas on, but as he was helping my brother, he stopped, looking at the welts on his bottom. He didn’t say anything, but told us to come and give him a snuggle and he’d tell us a story. Dad made the best adventures up, without a book. Tonight he told us about a girl and a boy who were on a sailboat when a storm came up and even when the boat was tossed from side to side in the huge waves, the children hung on tightly. They were brave and smart and knew what to do to sail that boat right through the storm. 

    By the time grade one ended for the summer, my baby sister was walking, running in fact, quick as lightening. She also had the best baby laugh I’d ever heard, and my brother and I started having laughing contests just to get her going. It was the funniest thing ever. We’d be bent over double, laughing so hard at her laughing, which made the three of us laugh even more. Even mom and dad cracked up. 

    At the breakfast table one morning, mom sat down with us, her coffee cup beside me. I always loved the smell of her coffee. She said to me, “Honey, next week you are going to start day camp. It’s a really fun summer place for kids. There will be swimming, running games and they even have a trampoline. In the mornings a small bus will come by here and pick you up. At the end of the day, the bus will bring you home. I’ll have to pack a lunch for you, so here is your new lunch kit.” She handed me a metal lunch box with a handle on it and two special metal buckles. There was a picture of Lady and the Tramp on it, from my favourite book and movie. I grinned at her, but not exactly looking her in the eye. 

    “Can I try a sip of your coffee, mom?” 
    “Sure.” she said. Usually she told me ‘no, you’re too young’, but today I must have been a bit older.

    I loved summer day camp. Our counsellor’s name was David and he had no hair. No hair on his head, where his eyebrows should be, or even eyelashes. The other kids in my group and I soon forgot about this, however, as his genuine enthusiasm was catchy and his love for kids heartfelt. At camp I felt carefree and unworried, but when the bus dropped me off at the end of the day, as I entered our apartment I always wanted to find my brother and sister right away. 

    After a good summer, grade two began.  Overall, I quite liked school, and was reading well by now. Our school, however, had a divided school yard. At break times the boys played in one half and the girls played in the other. Various skipping games us girls played were lively and required coordination, which I looked forward to. But I had also started collecting hockey cards. The boys’ ‘knock-down’ card-throwing games were fantastic and I was good at it, sometimes winning all the cards. However, the rules of my school were that girls were not allowed on the boys’ playground and boys were not allowed on the girls’ playground. This was both completely unfair and silly in my view. Why divide our free playtime into girls vs boys? I just wanted to be a kid. So, I would sneak over and get in on the boys’ card games. The playground monitor who caught me, served me a detention note, which I not very shamefacedly gave to my teacher upon returning to the classroom. 

    The names of the day’s detainees were read over the school PA at the end of school, just before the dismissal bell, so everyone knew who the bad kids were that day. I actually didn’t really care, as the thrill I felt from the card games outweighed the punishment of detention. My teacher had me wash the blackboards and run a shammy over them. Being only seven, I had to climb a ladder to reach. To this day all I remember from grade two is my teacher’s black-framed cateye glasses and her particular shade of red lipstick on an indistinct face. My memory is similar to how Charles Schultz depicted the adults in his Charlie Brown cartoons. I don’t remember her name, her voice, or any other distinguishing characteristics.
I don’t know if my mother knew why I was late home from school sometimes. If she did, she never talked to me about it. After one such detention, I opened our apartment door to find my brother and sister, unusually, watching afternoon cartoons. Our dad was strict about TV watching and it was never on for us during the weekdays. My brother was snuggled on the couch with his blanket and his stuffed teddy bear with the poked-out eyes. Something about the original eyes bugged him, but he also always wanted to know how things were made. My sister was in her playpen. She hated her crib and climbed out all the time, by now. Oddly, although she could have easily climbed out, my sister loved her playpen and was content to lie on the floor in there with her blankie and poofy, over-stuffed bunny. She murmured baby-talk to the bunny.

    I called out “Hi, mom! I’m home”, as children do. She was one of those mom’s who believed in after-school snacks, so I headed to the kitchen. No mom. But I heard a groan, more like a long moan, from the bathroom. The door was ajar and I pushed it open to the sight of my mother wedged between the toliet and the bathtub, and gobs of blood everywhere. Her eyes were mostly closed and her face gleamed with sweat and looked grey. “Mom!” I called out. She moaned again, but didn’t respond otherwise to me. I thought she must be dieing. There was so much blood. 

    After that I don’t remember, but I have been told many times that I must have run to the phone. We had a list of emergency numbers there and I dialed the doctor. I do remember Dr. Wood arriving at our apartment in his unbuttoned overecoat, white shirt and tie and brown suit pants. He carried a large black leather bag. He told me to go and wait with my brother and sister. Eventually Dr. Wood put mom to bed and we were told not to disturb her; she needed to sleep. After the doctor was gone, I tip-toed to my parents’ room and stealthily peeked in at her. I watched until I saw her chest rising and falling. Later, I was told she had been five months pregnant and that we lost a baby brother that day. Apparently, I had saved my mother’s life.