Read Online The Tin Horse: A Novel by Janice Steinberg - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Janice Steinberg
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Shit! I thought I’d worked through this in therapy a few decades ago.”
“I had no idea it hit you that hard.”
“Elaine! She left when I was five, and after that everyone in the family … well, it created a few abandonment issues after everyone shut down in one way or another.”
“I didn’t mean … I just wish I’d known. I could have done something. I knew Audrey was having a lot of problems, but I thought of you as Little Mary Sunshine—you were cheerful no matter what.”
“I
was
cheerful. I’m cheerful by nature. Just like poor Audrey was always a bundle of nerves.”
Poor Audrey, indeed. Audrey struggled all her life with severe anxiety and eventually with a dependence on the Valium that used to be handed out like candy to jittery housewives. Still, even I know enough psychology to understand that while my family recognized Audrey’s fears and tried to soothe them—and acknowledged the particular distress I felt as Barbara’s twin—we shortchanged Harriet.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “For what it’s worth all these years later, I really am.”
She squeezes my hand. “Apology accepted. And I did work through a lot in therapy … But why did you ask about Barbara? Did you find something?”
“It’s just … going through all this stuff stirs up memories.” By thistime, I’ve Googled “Kay Devereaux” and gotten nothing. And I looked up the Broadmoor Hotel; it’s still there, a five-star resort whose website displays stately Italianate buildings with “purple mountain majesties” soaring behind them. The site offers the fascinating tidbit that the woman who composed “America the Beautiful” wrote it after visiting the area.
“Now, this book I remember.” She picks up one of Papa’s histories of Los Angeles, written by a grandson of Andrew Boyle. “We studied it in school.”
The Boyle book came out in the mid-1930s, when I was working at Uncle Leo’s bookstore, and I bought it at a discount for Papa’s birthday. I don’t recall actually reading the book, but I had already heard the exciting part of the story, about the founder of Boyle Heights, from Papa.
“It used to upset me,” I say, “hearing about Andrew Boyle’s father, who left his kids in Ireland and vanished.”
“Yeah, but Boyle found him eventually.”
“The father? No, he didn’t.”
“Lainie, I’m sure of it. I feel like I know exactly where to find it.” She starts paging through the book.
“I’ll bet you a ticket to the symphony that I’m right.” Just thinking about the forsaken brothers and sisters sparks a whisper of the uneasiness the story caused me as a child.
“You’re on.” She slows her flipping. “Ha! I win.” She reads aloud, “ ‘He’—Andrew Boyle—‘finally arrived in New Orleans and there found his father, the cause of the family migration to America.’ ”
I reach for the book and read the sentence for myself. Just that one sentence? And not a word more? I skim the next several pages; the long-lost father no sooner enters the narrative than he disappears again.
“Where’s the rest of the story? Finding his father, it’s like something out of a myth. What was the father doing all that time? And how did it happen? Did they just run into each other on the street in New Orleans?”
“That’s, as they say, all he wrote,” Harriet replies. “That’s why it stuck with me. Kids in my class asked the same questions as you, and the teacher gave us some lame answer, like the author didn’t go into detail because itwas a private family matter. Then she gave me one of
those
looks. Everyone knew about Barbara—certainly all the teachers did. Another subject that took hours of therapy.”
I had escaped that burden, being branded as a girl whose sister had run away and never come back. In our neighborhood or among childhood friends, yes, people saw me and thought of Barbara being gone—just as, all the time I was growing up, they knew me as her
“I had no idea it hit you that hard.”
“Elaine! She left when I was five, and after that everyone in the family … well, it created a few abandonment issues after everyone shut down in one way or another.”
“I didn’t mean … I just wish I’d known. I could have done something. I knew Audrey was having a lot of problems, but I thought of you as Little Mary Sunshine—you were cheerful no matter what.”
“I
was
cheerful. I’m cheerful by nature. Just like poor Audrey was always a bundle of nerves.”
Poor Audrey, indeed. Audrey struggled all her life with severe anxiety and eventually with a dependence on the Valium that used to be handed out like candy to jittery housewives. Still, even I know enough psychology to understand that while my family recognized Audrey’s fears and tried to soothe them—and acknowledged the particular distress I felt as Barbara’s twin—we shortchanged Harriet.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “For what it’s worth all these years later, I really am.”
She squeezes my hand. “Apology accepted. And I did work through a lot in therapy … But why did you ask about Barbara? Did you find something?”
“It’s just … going through all this stuff stirs up memories.” By thistime, I’ve Googled “Kay Devereaux” and gotten nothing. And I looked up the Broadmoor Hotel; it’s still there, a five-star resort whose website displays stately Italianate buildings with “purple mountain majesties” soaring behind them. The site offers the fascinating tidbit that the woman who composed “America the Beautiful” wrote it after visiting the area.
“Now, this book I remember.” She picks up one of Papa’s histories of Los Angeles, written by a grandson of Andrew Boyle. “We studied it in school.”
The Boyle book came out in the mid-1930s, when I was working at Uncle Leo’s bookstore, and I bought it at a discount for Papa’s birthday. I don’t recall actually reading the book, but I had already heard the exciting part of the story, about the founder of Boyle Heights, from Papa.
“It used to upset me,” I say, “hearing about Andrew Boyle’s father, who left his kids in Ireland and vanished.”
“Yeah, but Boyle found him eventually.”
“The father? No, he didn’t.”
“Lainie, I’m sure of it. I feel like I know exactly where to find it.” She starts paging through the book.
“I’ll bet you a ticket to the symphony that I’m right.” Just thinking about the forsaken brothers and sisters sparks a whisper of the uneasiness the story caused me as a child.
“You’re on.” She slows her flipping. “Ha! I win.” She reads aloud, “ ‘He’—Andrew Boyle—‘finally arrived in New Orleans and there found his father, the cause of the family migration to America.’ ”
I reach for the book and read the sentence for myself. Just that one sentence? And not a word more? I skim the next several pages; the long-lost father no sooner enters the narrative than he disappears again.
“Where’s the rest of the story? Finding his father, it’s like something out of a myth. What was the father doing all that time? And how did it happen? Did they just run into each other on the street in New Orleans?”
“That’s, as they say, all he wrote,” Harriet replies. “That’s why it stuck with me. Kids in my class asked the same questions as you, and the teacher gave us some lame answer, like the author didn’t go into detail because itwas a private family matter. Then she gave me one of
those
looks. Everyone knew about Barbara—certainly all the teachers did. Another subject that took hours of therapy.”
I had escaped that burden, being branded as a girl whose sister had run away and never come back. In our neighborhood or among childhood friends, yes, people saw me and thought of Barbara being gone—just as, all the time I was growing up, they knew me as her
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