Chapter One
March, 1957
I was sixteen years old when I killed my father. It all happened very quickly, without my even realizing what I'd done. The lights were out in the kitchen which is where he sat with a quarter full bottle of Jack Daniels on the table. He'd been hiding, obviously, but he'd forgotten how blue his eyes were: they were visible even in the shadows.
I told him that it was the night he'd promised to take me shopping for the spring dance. He'd promised to take me for two weeks solid and had put it off consistently every night.
"We'll go next week."
"We can't go next week, the dance is tomorrow night."
He thought for a minute before pouring himself a shot of whiskey. "It's just as well, I didn't want you going to that dance anyway."
Mind you, to a fifteen year old girl whose existence was entirely made up of insecurities, the news that she would no longer be attending the one event that meant more to her than anything else, was nothing short of devastating.
"I hate you," I said. "I'll hate you for as long as I live."
It was a typical adolescent response for a teenager that didn't get what they wanted. But it was especially vehement because the reason for my Father's reply was the fact that he spent all his money on those black and white labeled bottles of whisky. I was too stupid to understand the reasons behind his drinking… I simply didn't think to connect the word "depression" with my own father. But that's what it was and when I told him I hated him that night, I had no idea that the words had killed him.
But they had.
After that night, my father stopped living. He'd been slowing down for years, that much I was aware of. I was all of seven years old when Mom died from cancer, which left my father alone to raise myself and my sister Annie. Two years ago his boss at the Water Department gave him, and a dozen others like him, the pink slip and since then he'd worked into the late night at a steel factory just to keep our two bedroom apartment. He'd begun to let things go in general, like his appearance and his hygiene, and those black and white labeled bottles had been turning up quite regularly. That meant a lot of the time Annie and I simply had to make do with putting cardboard in the soles of our worn out shoes and lengthening the hems of our skirts that we were now too tall for; the money in the Delaney household found priority in filling Father's shot glasses.
And thanks to my declaration that I would hate him for the rest of my life, he next began to let his job go. Which was highly alarming since my sister and I were both convinced that his work was the most important thing in his life.
We would ask him why he was sitting up in the living room watching the morning news instead of going to work, and those eyes so vacant and aimless, would smile at us.
"Never you mind that," he said and then scolded us for being late for school.
Father's behavior only deteriorated as the days edged on and therefore my studies at school slipped severely. I had never been a great student, but even my teachers began to ask the awful 'is anything wrong at home' question. How they could believe the shaky 'no' I gave them is beyond me.
Things were indeed very wrong. When he was sober, Father had taken to laughing at things understood by him only and talked to us about things neither myself nor my sister Annie could make any sense of. When he wasn't sober it was even worse. We thought it best if we chose to ignore it, and did our best to keep the house orderly and to make sure that he ate his dinner because his weight had dropped drastically.
And of course there was always the business of trying to remain normal high school girls.
Public School 118 was about as impressive as its name. And I was probably the most unimpressive student there. I had no drive to succeed, I stuck to my sister like glue and I'd become quite comfortable with leading a life of quiet anonymity. If I didn't make dreams, I didn't have to worry about breaking them.
There was one person, though, he brightened things: Donna Shaw, the new girl on campus. We were both in the same Algebra class and she had been surprisingly friendly towards me. Surprising because I thought that popular, pretty girls like her didn't associate with Plain Janes like myself as a general rule. We lived in the same apartment building and she took to walking home with my sister and I.
But given Dad's unpredictability, Annie and I had taken to hurrying home to make sure that Dad, and the apartment, were both all right. We'd therefore snubbed Donna for a good week which she pointed out quite vocally as she caught up with us one chilly mid-March afternoon.
"I said Claire! Wait!"
I stopped. "Hiya, Donna."
"Don't 'hiya Donna' me! You've bolted off every day this week, avoiding me like the plague. What gives?"
"It' nothing personal," I said. "We've just got a lot of chores to do at home."
"Your apartment can't be much bigger than mine- with the way you two act you'd think you had to clean Buckingham Palace!" She swiped a stray strand of blonde hair from her face. "Say, listen. There's a bunch of kids meeting up at Tony's for a soda. You two have to come, everyone will be there!"
"Everyone?"
"Yeah, a couple guys on the football team, some girls from the cheer squad, me," she flashed a cheesy smile and laughed. "Who else do you need?"
I smiled, but the crowd she named was not the sort of crowd I felt comfortable with and I was certain the feeling was mutual.
"Sounds like fun," said Annie quietly.
I smiled at her hopeful blue eyes. Indeed, the thought of a malt… some French fries and a jukebox was music to her ears. At our age, that was like the end all of existence. But Annie didn't understand that the two of us couldn't afford even half of a malt if we put our funds together.
"No, we really should be getting home."
Donna did not look pleased to hear this. "Honestly, you two. You're like a couple of old Granny's." She put her arm through mine. "You're coming to that soda fountain even if I have to buy the drinks myself!"
Now that sounded like a deal!
Tony's was a small but popular little soda fountain on the nice side of town, not far from the chestnut trees and elegant brick brownstones of Brooklyn heights. Before Dad had gotten laid off from the water department, we'd come up there quite a bit to do shopping and get a nice meal. There were even the monthly trips across the bridge to Manhattan for a day in the parks. But that might as well have been a different life altogether…
My prejudices against the crowd of Prom Trotters softened once we stepped inside the black and white checkered sofa fountain where we were met with Edie Cochran's rocking Twenty Flight Rock. His creamy voice was like a cozy blanket to snuggle into and a smile surfaced on my face- it felt strange to smile and mean it, for I'd done so little of it.
"Hiya Bob! Three chocolate malts, please!" Donna was beaming and happily slid the soda jerk the seventy-five cents our indulgence cost. I wanted to tell her I'd pay her back, but thought the better of it because odds were I would not be able to.
"Well, well, if it isn't the Delaney Sisters. If you're looking for the Salvation Army, it's another mile down the street. I hear they're giving away their newest shipment of hand-me-downs."
Paige Murray. The richest and most popular girl on campus who simply loved to point out my un-shined shoes and out-dated clothes.
I hated her.
"That was pretty funny, Paige," I said. "Did it take all three of your brain cells to come up with it?
She chuckled lightly. "And Donna, really, I would have thought you would have chosen your associates more wisely."
"It's not really any of your business whom I choose as friends, now is it!"
"Suit yourself, of course. I'm only looking out for your best interest."
"I can do that just fine by myself, thanks."
Paige kept her superior smile before turning around. "Come on girls," she said to two other girls in near identical blue sweater sets, and they left the soda fountain with heads held high.
I turned back to Donna and touched her sleeve gently. "Thank you," I said. "That was really… well… thank you."
She waved her hand dismissively. "Please, as though I was going to let that pig headed Paige get away with that. Everyone knows she's something awful, and I just think people should treat her like it."
I laughed, and resigned myself to the chocolate malt in front of me and the contagiously hot beat of School Days (how appropriate for the occasion) began beating out from the jukebox.
"Better than Elvis," I heard the fella seated next to me say to his buddy. "Just listen to that beat."
I was inclined to agree. When Chuck Berry had released Maybelline, both Annie and I had agreed there was nothing like it to be heard anywhere. Not that we didn't like Elvis, of course, it was sacrilege not to. Especially with that handsome mug of his…
The guy next to me had started to hum and sing along, quite out of tune as well, to the lyrics.
Donna was loving it. "Don't quit your day job, boys."
The 'boys' turned out to be none other than Harry Eliot, quarterback, and his buddies from the football team. Donna introduced us, my insecurities surged, and I was dying inside as my hand trembled when he shook it. Annie, the wide-eyed cute little kid she was showered them with compliments and, to my shock, the quarterback told the soda jerk to give us all another round on him.
"He's awfully cute, isn't he," whispered Donna into my ear as she started in on her second malt.
Of course he was cute, he was Harry Eliot, a Rock Hudson look alike and the most well-liked fella on campus.
"Go on and talk to him," she said.
Talk to him? "You talk to him, you already know him!"
"Chicken," she said with a playful frown.
"I just wouldn't have anything interesting to say."
"You never know, you may surprise yourself."
But I wouldn't allow myself. Talking to him would take something I didn't even begin to possess: confidence.
Harry, however, didn't have problems being friendly and shook our hands again when he and his cronies got up to leave. The unthinkable happened when he stopped in the middle of shaking my hand. "That's it," he said. "We're in the same biology class, right?"
I smiled weakly.
"Yeah, I knew I recognized you. But you've changed your hair- I like it. See you ladies Monday!"
They left and Donna began to laugh at me, reveling in the fact that I was indeed blushing. I told her to mind her own business, but my smiled stubbornly remained the entire walk back home.
"Somebody's got a crush," she teased again, just before we climbed the steps to our apartment.
"Yeah," said Annie. "Bet she's already planning the wedding."
"Now you've got my sister at it too, thanks."
"Anytime." Donna yawned. "Like Harry said: see you kids Monday." She winked at me. "And I'd dress nice if I were you."
I found myself laughing at her playful teasing- it was really harmless. She must have known as well as I that a guy like Harry simply didn't go for girls like me.
**
That night, my dreams were of Harry Eliot's tan fingers playing with my black hair- a dream that was broken when I was startled out of sleep by a strange, distant laughter: my Father's. Annie and I slept in the same room and he was standing in between our beds, dressed in a cowboy hat, leather cowboy boots and absolutely nothing else.
His gaunt, naked body glowed white in the dark of our room, frightening me so that no sound was able to come. Adding to my confusion was the fact that there was a pile of clothes, my clothes, at the foot of my bed.
"Come on," he was saying. "Get up! Get packing!"
"P-packing…"
"Yes! Hurry! We're moving back to Portland tonight! Come on and get moving!"
Not only was it half past two in the morning, but our family had lived in Brooklyn since birth! The naked man in front of me was only someone who resembled my father- someone who had completely lost his mind.
"Annie," I whispered urgently. "Annie wake up…"
"I am," came a trembling voice from the opposite bed. "What do we do…"
"Just stay where you are," I whispered, although I could have shouted it loud and Father still wouldn't have understood: he was folding my clothes and singing Red, Red Robin.
"I'm just a kid again, doin' what I did again," he said, looking about as happy as I'd seen him in years. And I was paralyzed with fear.
"Are you girls going to help pack or not?"
"S-sure we are Dad," I said cautiously. I carefully slipped out of bed, terrified to make any sudden moves. "Just let us get… cleaned up."
"Okay," he said. "But hurry! I want to load up the car now so we don't hit traffic."
We don't even own a car…
I beckoned Annie to follow and once out of his sight in the safe shadows of the hallway, Annie broke into tears.
How could she cry? I was too scared to cry…
She was staring up at me, eyes red and wild. "He's really lost his mind, Claire. He really has! What are we supposed to do?"
"If I knew the answer to that, I'd be doing it!" I'd snapped when I hadn't meant to and Annie covered her face and sobbed into her hands.
But what could I do? My sister too hysterical to think, and my father unable to carry a coherent thought.
It was terrifying and what added to it was the only solution that I could think of: I had to call a doctor.
I was one of those things experienced from another dimension of reality: I was watching myself and Annie, removed from the physical. Perhaps because it was all so traumatic that my conscious refused to accept it.
I saw myself open the front door when the doctors, three of them, arrived. I watched myself agree to the doctors' suggestions and coaxed my father out of the room by telling him I'd called a taxi to take us to Portland. I watched myself hold a sobbing Annie against my chest on our ride to the hospital.
And I watched my hand sign my name on a consent form to the hospital… placing the final nail in my father's coffin that I helped to create.
Neither myself nor my sister could have guessed what that signature had meant. How could we, at fifteen and sixteen years old, realize that one, small, tiny movement- a name on a dotted line- could altogether change our destiny.
Forever.
Donna Shaw and her family had been very hospitable in letting my sister and I stay in their apartment both Saturday and Sunday nights. We'd assured the Shaw's that Dad had a very bad fever and therefore wasn't himself… which was as much a truth as it was a lie.
It was Monday morning when the results came in from the doctors. It was Monday afternoon when we'd been thoroughly educated on the definition of a "neurobehavioral disorder". And it was Monday evening when we were taken to a conference room in the hospital to be informed of our 'options' by one of the men from the administration of child services.
Father was to be transferred to the Kingsboro Psychiatric Center where he was to be closely watched for a period of thirty-days. At the end of the thirty days, if her proved to progress well enough, he'd be released and re-integrated back into society. If he did not show signs of improvement, he would remain at the Center.
As for Annie and I, we had precisely two options. We would come under the care of the State of New York for the thirty day period of Father's hospitalization. If, at the end of the thirty day period he had the hospital's approval to leave, we would go back into his custody. If he did not improve, and had to remain at the hospital, we would then remain in the care of the State of New York.
Or we had the option of living with a relative during that thirty day period. If he improved, we'd go back to him, and if not then we would stay with our relative. But, the man from the Office of Family Services said that if our relative could no longer support us at anytime, we would have to return to being 'wards of the state.'
'Wards of the state.' Such a nice way of saying 'orphan.'
I looked down at my watch as the man in the gray suit droned on. It was three six-fifteen- to think we'd be doing our homework and listening to the radio if… if only our life had been normal… if only…
"Miss Delaney?"
I looked back up at the man sitting across from us. "Do you understand what that would mean?"
There was no use pretending. "I'm sorry, what did you say?
The man's voice softened. "I know this is an awful thing for any child to have to go through and I don't want to do this anymore than you do. But this is important. You see, your late Mother was an only child, parents deceased, which means your only living relations are on your father's side…" he sighed. "The difficulty is that he is an only child whose Father is, as I understand-"
"Dad never talked to Grandpa," I said immediately. "When Grandma died, Grandpa got… difficult."
The man pulled out a piece of paper. "It appears as though your Grandfather suffers from a similar illness to your father's." He put the paper down and peered at us from over his glasses. "No fit state to raise two teenage girls."
At this, Annie let go of an unrestrained whimper. "Please Sir, I'm not going to a home! I can't! Claire, please think of something-"
"We're not going to a home," I said sternly- although I doubted every syllable of it.
"That's certainly my hope as well," said the man and he retrieved another paper from his briefcase. "We've been able to get in contact with your Grandmother's sister- your Father's Aunt. A Mrs. Eleanor Cummings."
Annie and I held each other's gaze.
"Who?"
"Eleanor Cummings. Your Great Aunt."
Our Grandmother who'd died when I was still in bloomers had a sister…
"I… didn't know we had a Great Aunt."
"That's understandable. Especially since she's lived in England her whole life."
"Where does she live now?" asked Annie.
He eyed us steadily and took a breath in hesitation. "She still lives there."
Uh oh…
"We spoke with her just this morning and I'm pleased to tell you that she would be more than happy to take the two of you in."
"In England?"
He nodded. "In the north, as it turns out, not far from the port city of Liverpool. She's a widower, has been for quite some time, and was most obliging when I spoke with her. Of course it is your decision. But I would strongly consider it." He leaned forward and stared us squarely in the eyes. "Take it from someone who spent six years in a boy's home. It can do awful things to a person's spirit." He smiled at us. "I didn't have a choice. You do."
He got up and left the room. Annie made a low moan as though she was going to faint.
I nearly did.
Our father had snapped, I'd signed him away to a hospital, and now we were either going to be wards of the state or live with a woman we'd never met in a place we'd never been.
We could stay in New York, live in an orphanage and whenever we felt like it we could visit our Father who would probably not even know who we were. Or we couple move across the Atlantic with a woman we'd never met to start a completely new life. The very idea was ridiculous…
But maybe I was too scared to stay in New York where Father was… especially since I was certain I was responsible for his state… I'd never be able to forget it, not as long as I lived there.
**
"Welcome to Manchester, ladies. Please watch your step- oh Miss, might I suggest pulling on your gloves as it is quite cold out."
The steward was understating the matter. It had been humid and sticky in New York when we flew out from La Guardia. Here we were met with murky brown clouds that skirted low and locked the entire world in their vacuum of bleak, cold claustrophobia.
Donna and her parents had accompanied us to the airport along with two of the men from social services department who were certainly there to make sure we actually boarded the plane. Donna had been in tears… amazing… she'd barely known us and only casually met my father, and yet she was in tears. And the horrible truth was that I still hadn't cried. Not really.
She'd given us her address, we'd given her our new one and we'd both promised to write each other. I told her that in thirty days, Dad would be fine and we'd all be back in Brooklyn. and Donna said that she'd be waiting.
And the piercing cold that slapped against our faces as my sister and I helped each other down the stairs from the plane made me think I might have to find a way back even sooner than that.
"Home," said Annie with the blandness so very appropriate given our surroundings. "Why couldn't she have lived in California?"
Prior to the last week, I wouldn't have been able to point out Manchester on an atlas. Yet there we were, walking through customs, numbed from having been seated thirteen hours- and numbed from the cruel ravages of reality.
Men and women, creating masses of black and brown suits, rushed past and (occasionally) into us. But none of their eyes met ours and we remained unnoticed and unimportant and… as the minutes accumulated into an hour… lost.
"Claire, what if she doesn't-"
"She'll be here," I said. "She has to be."
I set down on my suitcase, Annie following suit, and we waited… for our fate to catch up with us. Unless this was our fate… to be left and abandoned in a foreign country… with no money and no place to sleep… alone and homeless and…
"I say, er, Claire? And, er, Annie?"
Above us stood an old woman, drowning in a black coat much too large for her scant frame. We stood and even the tiny Annie matched her in height.
"Thank heavens you're here," she said. "I was frantic, I thought you hadn't shown! These modern airports are so confusing, someone finally told me I was in the domestic terminal and, oh enough of that. I'm Eleanor Cummings!"
I extended my hand but she reached forward and pulled me into a hug- surprising indeed for such a small old thing.
"Yes, you look just like Roger," she said to Annie. "Ginger hair and all. And you are just the image of your mother. I'd have known you anywhere. Is this all your luggage?"
"Yes, we-"
"My, my, how very impressive! I never travel with any less than two valises and here you have one each. I feel thoroughly immoral. Come then, what do you say to getting out of here?"
"Yeah, I think-"
"Such ghastly places, airports. The last time I was inside one was during the war…"
Annie's eyes were wide in amusement, as were mine. Eleanor Cummings may have looked like an old grandmother, but she was showing more spunk than even I possessed! Eleanor went on about how much simpler things were in her day as she led us outside to the parking lot. She'd scarcely taken a breath.
It seemed quite improbable that the small Eleanor Cummings could operate her massive black sedan she called her own. But she slid into the front seat and whipped the car out of the parking lot as though it was a toy.
"You ladies might as well get comfortable," she said as he merged onto the main road. "It's a good two hour drive until we get home. You'll like Liverpool… well… it's nothing special next to New York City, of course, but I can't help but like it. Rain, dirt and all. Do you mind if I play some music," she asked and reached down to turn it on without awaiting our reply.
Soft, vaguely familiar music began to fill the car, whispering gently through the speakers. It was so very melancholy, the notes seeming to reach for something, and stopping abruptly when they couldn't find it. They were the same songs that Mom had sung when she was alive- my only way of remembering her was that music… her voice filled my ears and I closed my eyes…
And then in the black of my mind were my father's sad blue eyes… cutting through the blackness and screaming at me for leaving him alone in that cold hospital…
I woke up with a start to hear Eleanor saying, "Look around girls! We're just coming into Liverpool!"
How long had I been asleep?
My eyes fought to remain open with fatigue pushing down on them and I craned my neck to get a good view of the city. It really wasn't too grand of a place- a bit grungy, actually. Granted, New York wasn't such a new city, but the buildings here hung and sagged in depression; surely they'd had their heyday long before New York was even born. They crowded in next to each other like sardines, and their frames looked ancient and unstable, hanging their heads in shame of their condition.
But the shop windows, despite their haggard appearance, held a simple charm thanks to the bright, dew kissed posies that hung in straw baskets over the stores. In fact, the more that I studied the images racing past the car window, I found little traces and momentary glimpses of elegance and aristocracy. The intricate iron fencing adorning homes, the stately Gothic stone churches and the half-timbered country homes all surfaced from under the grime of age.
It was becoming clear that this city which was so devoid of any glamour or romance, had at one point in its' life also been the center of attention. That it had once enjoyed the fame and spoil that New York had. It was no stranger to the taste of glory, pride and power; it was wise and experienced. A city in every sense.
"Having fun back there, are you Claire?"
I hardly even heard her. I was too busy drinking in this strange world around us.
"Yeah…"
"You'll get used to it," she said.
"Yeah."
But I was growing more anxious with every tree and telephone line that we passed, perfectly terrified of what lay beyond the outstretched road.
What were we doing here?
And what if Father never did get well… what if we'd landed here and were never to see home again?
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