Read Online Girl Called Karen by Karen McConnell, Eileen Brand - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Karen McConnell, Eileen Brand
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weigh heavily.
The marriage was so painful that after several months, I loaded up a few possessions in my rattletrap car and left Dick and drove to Florida, where I visited a friend who gave me a parakeet in a cage. The parakeet and I went to live with Aunt Eileen and Grace and David. I got a job and considered going back to college. But I missed Dick, and I missed Doris, my surrogate mother, and I missed my hometown.
So after a few months, I gassed up the rattletrap car and drove back home to Dick, leaving the parakeet with Aunt Eileen. Other people kept giving her more birds. Eventually she became known as the Bird Woman of Seventh Terrace.
My absence had not been a wake-up call for Dick. Sharon was still a factor, and, in some ways, the hardest part was Dick’s playing at being unencumbered. Then there was his obsession withspeed and fast driving and racing cars, enlivened by alcoholic encounters and police at the door at least once.
He ran the roost and earned a living. I took in ironing to add to our income. When my son, Rick, was six months old, Dick vanished for three days, leaving me without a car or a telephone. After a thorough discussion of that episode, we got a phone, and he never disappeared quite that long again.
I wanted desperately to own a home, and I struggled to save money so we could buy a house, but it was an uphill fight because my husband spent every spare penny for fast cars and accessories.
We had a cheap apartment above Tribe’s Tavern in Toledo, and our living-room floor was strewn month after month with auto parts. I took in other people’s ironing, and I babysat.
When Rick, my first baby, was two years old, a neighbor hired me to take care of her three preschoolers, aged five, three, and two. All four children were breakfasting in the kitchen one day when I got a phone call from a girlfriend and stepped a couple of feet outside the kitchen so I could hear. It became ominously quiet in the next room. The five-year- old neighbor had discovered a new skill and somehow managed to open the refrigerator door. My little Rick grabbed an egg carton and systematically broke twelve whole raw eggs all over the kitchen table and the floor. Anyone who has ever tried to mop upone raw egg can imagine what a job I had cleaning the floor and four egg-bedecked little kids. Today it sounds like a funny scene. It wasn’t then.
I pestered Dick until we bought a rundown little dump in a blue-collar neighborhood. The first night in our new home, I put my boys to bed (at that time there were two) and worked for hours to set my home in order. Then I sat and wept.
As long as we were in an apartment and just starting out, I could delude myself as to what my life was about. Now I had to consider that this was it. Somehow, I thought, I belonged in this house in this neighborhood in this world. Get used to it.
I was faced with the reality of marriage, motherhood, and a decrepit little old house that was eleven hundred square feet of shoddy construction. Downstairs, I could sit in one spot and survey the entire floor plan, which consisted of a small living room and a kitchen with eating area. Upstairs my little family slept in the two bedrooms, both of which had sloping ceilings making it impossible to stand erect anywhere but in the middle of the room. There was a small landing at the top of the stairway, which ultimately became another sleeping area under the eaves. Between the house and the garage was an attached, enclosed, unheated breezeway, which would serve as a playroom. The space between the unpainted walls and the floorboards provided an unobstructed view into the crawl space, as well as some interesting drafts.
I didn’t know it that night, but six months later, the cranky old furnace would catch fire. The fire did not cause extensive damage beyond destroying the furnace, but the firemen created a number of new holes throughout the house. I will never forget the young firefighter who yelled at me to
The marriage was so painful that after several months, I loaded up a few possessions in my rattletrap car and left Dick and drove to Florida, where I visited a friend who gave me a parakeet in a cage. The parakeet and I went to live with Aunt Eileen and Grace and David. I got a job and considered going back to college. But I missed Dick, and I missed Doris, my surrogate mother, and I missed my hometown.
So after a few months, I gassed up the rattletrap car and drove back home to Dick, leaving the parakeet with Aunt Eileen. Other people kept giving her more birds. Eventually she became known as the Bird Woman of Seventh Terrace.
My absence had not been a wake-up call for Dick. Sharon was still a factor, and, in some ways, the hardest part was Dick’s playing at being unencumbered. Then there was his obsession withspeed and fast driving and racing cars, enlivened by alcoholic encounters and police at the door at least once.
He ran the roost and earned a living. I took in ironing to add to our income. When my son, Rick, was six months old, Dick vanished for three days, leaving me without a car or a telephone. After a thorough discussion of that episode, we got a phone, and he never disappeared quite that long again.
I wanted desperately to own a home, and I struggled to save money so we could buy a house, but it was an uphill fight because my husband spent every spare penny for fast cars and accessories.
We had a cheap apartment above Tribe’s Tavern in Toledo, and our living-room floor was strewn month after month with auto parts. I took in other people’s ironing, and I babysat.
When Rick, my first baby, was two years old, a neighbor hired me to take care of her three preschoolers, aged five, three, and two. All four children were breakfasting in the kitchen one day when I got a phone call from a girlfriend and stepped a couple of feet outside the kitchen so I could hear. It became ominously quiet in the next room. The five-year- old neighbor had discovered a new skill and somehow managed to open the refrigerator door. My little Rick grabbed an egg carton and systematically broke twelve whole raw eggs all over the kitchen table and the floor. Anyone who has ever tried to mop upone raw egg can imagine what a job I had cleaning the floor and four egg-bedecked little kids. Today it sounds like a funny scene. It wasn’t then.
I pestered Dick until we bought a rundown little dump in a blue-collar neighborhood. The first night in our new home, I put my boys to bed (at that time there were two) and worked for hours to set my home in order. Then I sat and wept.
As long as we were in an apartment and just starting out, I could delude myself as to what my life was about. Now I had to consider that this was it. Somehow, I thought, I belonged in this house in this neighborhood in this world. Get used to it.
I was faced with the reality of marriage, motherhood, and a decrepit little old house that was eleven hundred square feet of shoddy construction. Downstairs, I could sit in one spot and survey the entire floor plan, which consisted of a small living room and a kitchen with eating area. Upstairs my little family slept in the two bedrooms, both of which had sloping ceilings making it impossible to stand erect anywhere but in the middle of the room. There was a small landing at the top of the stairway, which ultimately became another sleeping area under the eaves. Between the house and the garage was an attached, enclosed, unheated breezeway, which would serve as a playroom. The space between the unpainted walls and the floorboards provided an unobstructed view into the crawl space, as well as some interesting drafts.
I didn’t know it that night, but six months later, the cranky old furnace would catch fire. The fire did not cause extensive damage beyond destroying the furnace, but the firemen created a number of new holes throughout the house. I will never forget the young firefighter who yelled at me to
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