haircut and striped turtleneck, her fingers curled
on the spoon full of canned peas, and tried to unriddle her. Her eyes were dark brown, like Teresa’s, but smaller and polished-looking,
like rocks at the bottom of a fish tank. Her face was a hard little nut, showing no hint of a flinch when Mrs. Clapp barked
at her for spilling milk on the tablecloth.
I wasn’t certain Becky was even afraid of Mrs. Clapp. When a new rule came down, Becky was blank about it, blinking a slow
okay — even the No Water After Five rule, which Mrs. Clapp began enforcing after she learned my sisters and I had a bedwetting
problem. She tried yelling at us and not yelling at us, making us go several times before bed, whether we thought we had to
or not, but nothing worked. Finally, she devised that if she gave us nothing to drink, there wouldn’t be anything to pee out.
A good theory, but even that failed. We were bed-wetters, plain and simple, and now we were bed-wetters who thought about
nothing so much as water, personal and plenty: magically refilling wells, Dixie cups that grew as rapidly as Jack’s beanstalk
until they could support a shoreline and tide, shells roaring with the world’s earliest noises. And drowning dreams were better
than flying dreams.
M ONDAYS AT THE C LAPPS’ meant sitting on the dinette stool with my eyes pinched while Mrs. Clapp brushed and yanked my thick hair into blue yarn
ribbons. Teresa waited her turn at the periphery. Even when I couldn’t see her, I knew she was holding her hands to her cheeks,
pulling until her eyes were Chinaman slits. This was how I looked. When it was Teresa’s turn to sit under the brush, Penny
did the Chinaman, and it was funny every time.
Sunday was bath night, then an hour of
The Lawrence Welk Show
before bed. On Saturdays, we stretched out on the cool tile next to the kitchen sink while Mrs. Clapp washed our hair with
the yellow baby shampoo in its tear-shaped bottle. Fridays we shopped for groceries at Mayfair Market. We held on to the cart
while Mrs. Clapp steered and stopped and ticked items off her list with a purple pen. If we each stayed tethered, resisting
the glossy wall of Apple Jacks boxes, racks of coloring books and Fruit Stripe gum, we got McDonald’s on the way home. A hamburger
and a Coke, no fries, which Mrs. Clapp swore they burned on purpose. When handed my bag, I put my face to the neck, inhaling
ketchup, pickles, the sweet reconstituted onions.
Every day was named and numbered and certain — but sometimes a Monday was also Columbus Day or a Thursday was Halloween. On
Valentine’s Day 1972, rain fell so hard and fast that the water had nowhere to go. When Mrs. Clapp came to school to pick
us up, we ran to the car through water as deep as the top of our rubber boots. The sack of valentines I held was as soggy
as a strawberry, my name unreadable on the scalloped paper heart glued to the bag. Just as we got to the Cadillac, the sky
started to drop hail like frozen BBs. Mrs. Clapp sat behind the wheel in her lavender rabbit-fur coat, her dry fingers toying
with the door lock as though it were a chess piece, deciding whether she would let us into the car. We’d ruin it, we would.
Valentine’s Day meant we’d been at the Clapps’ for almost a year. That’s longer than we stayed with Granny or Aunt Bonnie,
longer than our mom and dad ever lived in the same house together without one of them running off. Did that mean we belonged
with the Clapps more than with Aunt Bonnie or the Spinozas? Would we stay another week or year, or leave as suddenly as Becky
Bodette, who one day climbed into her social worker’s car and was never heard from again?
Mrs. Clapp explained that Becky had gone to live with her dad and his new wife, and that we should be happy for her. We knew
about the father. Once a month or so, we would go with Mrs. Clapp when she took Becky to visit him. His apartment was at the
top of a
on the spoon full of canned peas, and tried to unriddle her. Her eyes were dark brown, like Teresa’s, but smaller and polished-looking,
like rocks at the bottom of a fish tank. Her face was a hard little nut, showing no hint of a flinch when Mrs. Clapp barked
at her for spilling milk on the tablecloth.
I wasn’t certain Becky was even afraid of Mrs. Clapp. When a new rule came down, Becky was blank about it, blinking a slow
okay — even the No Water After Five rule, which Mrs. Clapp began enforcing after she learned my sisters and I had a bedwetting
problem. She tried yelling at us and not yelling at us, making us go several times before bed, whether we thought we had to
or not, but nothing worked. Finally, she devised that if she gave us nothing to drink, there wouldn’t be anything to pee out.
A good theory, but even that failed. We were bed-wetters, plain and simple, and now we were bed-wetters who thought about
nothing so much as water, personal and plenty: magically refilling wells, Dixie cups that grew as rapidly as Jack’s beanstalk
until they could support a shoreline and tide, shells roaring with the world’s earliest noises. And drowning dreams were better
than flying dreams.
M ONDAYS AT THE C LAPPS’ meant sitting on the dinette stool with my eyes pinched while Mrs. Clapp brushed and yanked my thick hair into blue yarn
ribbons. Teresa waited her turn at the periphery. Even when I couldn’t see her, I knew she was holding her hands to her cheeks,
pulling until her eyes were Chinaman slits. This was how I looked. When it was Teresa’s turn to sit under the brush, Penny
did the Chinaman, and it was funny every time.
Sunday was bath night, then an hour of
The Lawrence Welk Show
before bed. On Saturdays, we stretched out on the cool tile next to the kitchen sink while Mrs. Clapp washed our hair with
the yellow baby shampoo in its tear-shaped bottle. Fridays we shopped for groceries at Mayfair Market. We held on to the cart
while Mrs. Clapp steered and stopped and ticked items off her list with a purple pen. If we each stayed tethered, resisting
the glossy wall of Apple Jacks boxes, racks of coloring books and Fruit Stripe gum, we got McDonald’s on the way home. A hamburger
and a Coke, no fries, which Mrs. Clapp swore they burned on purpose. When handed my bag, I put my face to the neck, inhaling
ketchup, pickles, the sweet reconstituted onions.
Every day was named and numbered and certain — but sometimes a Monday was also Columbus Day or a Thursday was Halloween. On
Valentine’s Day 1972, rain fell so hard and fast that the water had nowhere to go. When Mrs. Clapp came to school to pick
us up, we ran to the car through water as deep as the top of our rubber boots. The sack of valentines I held was as soggy
as a strawberry, my name unreadable on the scalloped paper heart glued to the bag. Just as we got to the Cadillac, the sky
started to drop hail like frozen BBs. Mrs. Clapp sat behind the wheel in her lavender rabbit-fur coat, her dry fingers toying
with the door lock as though it were a chess piece, deciding whether she would let us into the car. We’d ruin it, we would.
Valentine’s Day meant we’d been at the Clapps’ for almost a year. That’s longer than we stayed with Granny or Aunt Bonnie,
longer than our mom and dad ever lived in the same house together without one of them running off. Did that mean we belonged
with the Clapps more than with Aunt Bonnie or the Spinozas? Would we stay another week or year, or leave as suddenly as Becky
Bodette, who one day climbed into her social worker’s car and was never heard from again?
Mrs. Clapp explained that Becky had gone to live with her dad and his new wife, and that we should be happy for her. We knew
about the father. Once a month or so, we would go with Mrs. Clapp when she took Becky to visit him. His apartment was at the
top of a
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