Daddy

At the end of Easter month, I turned four years old and contracted scarlet fever. The doctor came to the house and put a yellow quarantine sign on our front door so everyone would know not to enter for any reason. He then moved Pop into my bed in the room with my brother and moved me into the double bed with Grandmother. An agreement was made: Pop and Grandmother would not see each other until I was well. Pop would keep working and drop Jerry off at child care on the way to work, and pick him up later and be his caretaker. After they had left the house, my grandmother could leave the room and make breakfast for us and care for me. She had to stay home from work and see no one but me. 

I was very sick. I expect I was delirious much of the time. In between, Grandmother told me stories of how she had nursed her mother and some of her sisters. Always when the person got well, Grandmother bought them an expensive gift. In time, I too got well; the doctor took down the quarantine sign, and life could resume. Grandmother asked me what I wanted for my gift, and I said I wanted a pink dress with brown polka dots. I had actually never seen nor heard of brown polka dots, but I could visualize them. Grandmother shopped her entire first day out of the house and came back with a pretty pink dress for me, a pink dress with brown polka dots. Even in retrospect, I’m astonished that she managed to do that.

Thankfully, my heart took no damage, but lying in bed for weeks had left me too weak to walk. Pop carried me to the sofa that first evening. It was good to be out of the bedroom, even if all I could do was lie there with my head on Grandmother’s lap. 

Mother came home that night, all glowing and unrepentant. She was married. She brought in with her a huge man, about six feet tall and 20 or 30 pounds over 200. “This is Lucky, your new daddy,” she told me. “Get up and give him a kiss.” Grandmother protested that I was unable to stand; I had just recovered from scarlet fever and had needed to be carried to the sofa. 

Lucky puffed up and started removing his belt. “By God, she’ll get up and kiss me or I’ll tan her hide.”

Pop became my forever hero. He stood up out of his easy chair and planted his body between Lucky and me and said, “You’ll touch that child over my dead body.” Lucky backed off and turned his attention to Jerry, who was crawling on the floor. Mother picked him up and put his face against Lucky’s. Maybe Jerry kissed him.

They left without ever sitting down.

Two weeks later, they were back with a policeman in uniform. “We want the kids, and we’re going to take them with us now.”

All four of us protested. The policeman pulled his gun. It was a scene worthy of a soap opera: Grandmother shouting and hanging on to me and Jerry as hard as she could and being dragged right up to the door, me screaming and crying as Lucky pulled me away, Pop swearing helplessly as he looked into the barrel of the cop’s gun, and Jerry bawling, arms wrapped around Grandmother’s neck, as Mother, outside, grabbed his feet and tugged. I still have in my mind the image of my little brother stretched horizontally between the two warring women. When we reached the police car, for some reason, Jerry and I had to stay on the floor of the back seat and be perfectly quiet, or else.

We ended up in a hotel room in downtown Los Angeles. “Daddy” tried to make nice. “Look at the presents we bought you.”

I was given a Raggedy Anne Doll, a cheap imitation of a real one—painted face and shoes, sparse yarn hair, and a cheap fabric dress. Grandmother had ensured that I knew good quality when I saw it, and this was not it. I realized that this doll meant that I was poor now and had better try to love it and be grateful for it, because there wouldn’t be another.

Jerry was given a stamped metal toy with a wire sticking out the middle, with a cross wire that held a tiny airplane. When one wound the key, the airplane made circles over the town painted below. Lucky said, “I can set it on fire without burning it! Want to see?”

Jerry said, “No.” Lucky repeated his boast, and Jerry said, “No” again. Jerry, meanwhile, had wound it up and was watching the plane fly round and round. Lucky snatched it away from him, poured lighter fluid over it, and lit it. A fire flared up and quickly died as it ran out of fuel. All the paint of the town was burned off. Jerry cried.

“You’re just being emotional,” Mother said.

“I’ll give you something to cry about,” Lucky said, and yanked Jerry over his knees and began beating him with his hand. Jerry had never been treated that way before. He was my little, two-year-old, blue-eyed, curly-blonde-haired brother, full of smiles and fun and mischief, who had been loved and cuddled his whole life. I couldn’t stand it.

“Stop that! You’re the one who destroyed his toy. Of course, he’s crying. You should be the one getting beaten, not Jerry.”

Lucky put Jerry down and picked me up. He beat me instead. Mother stood smiling at her adored, new husband, who was establishing himself as “Daddy,” the man of the family, the authority figure.

Our new life had begun.