Breeding Like Rabbits Page 18

  On the whole, camping had been a lot of fun, but it was time to give it up, not only because of Daniel but because other activities were starting to fill the children’s lives.

  The children were developing their own characters, their own personalities, with no duplicates. Britt had often wished that they would have come with instructions, maybe a guidebook. But they grew so fast! She probably wouldn’t have had time to read a guidebook on each one anyway. She had trouble keeping up with their baby books, presents given by Grandma Anderson after the birth of each one.

  A fine day in 1971, school was out for the summer, and Britt sat at the kitchen table, enjoying an extra cup of breakfast coffee in peaceful solitude. The others had left the house—Andy for the barber shop and the children for park board summer activities. The sun shone down on Britt, and the birds sang to her—“God’s in His heaven; all’s right with the world.” She took another sip of coffee, luxuriating.

  The back door banged shut, and Sara burst into the kitchen. “Mom, I’m a Treasurette!” She ran over and hugged her mother, beaming with pleasure.

  Britt looked at her. She’s glowing—I can’t believe she’s so grown up … already taller than I. Boys had crushes on her—they couldn’t resist her dark brown eyes and long dark hair, which she often ironed so it would be straight and not curly. At sixteen, she could date, but she wasn’t much interested. Just three years ago she was dancing on the coffee table to Beatles’ songs. Three Dog Night was her favorite rock band, and she had dreams of becoming a veterinarian someday. “What’s a Treasurette?”

  “We’re the group that wears short skirts, carry pom-poms, except me—I carry a drum. I’m the drummer.”

  “When does this happen?”

  “Halftime at football games and in the gym at pep rallies—whenever the school wants us to. We practice in the summer.”

  “I see. What about your paper route?” Sara had taken a paper route, joining her brothers in this endeavor two years ago. She wanted to earn money to buy a miniature dachshund from her uncle Luke, whose female dachshund had regular litters.

  “I’m only doing the Sunday paper from now on. Mr. Swanson said it’s okay if I cut down. And I told him that I was quitting at the end of this summer.” She tossed her head—a defiant gesture … for me or for Mr. Swanson?

  Daniel, fifteen, was into Boy Scouts. He also had a paper route and dreamed of becoming either a fireman or a policeman—or maybe a priest? He and Tony both liked the television show Combat, a one-hour WWII drama series. It featured American infantrymen engaging in violent battles across war-torn Europe. Britt caught one of the dramas, decided that it was too violent, and wouldn’t let them watch it anymore. That stirred up a battle in their Cherry Street house, but Britt stuck to her guns. One of Daniel’s favorite songs at this time was SSGT Barry Sadler’s “Ballad of the Green Berets.”

  Daniel liked Sister Karen, his ninth-grade teacher. It proved to be a boon to the family. He found out that she liked chocolate cake, so he baked her one. He also found out that he liked “mixing things up” in the kitchen, and he went on to do more cooking and baking. In a pinch, he could rustle up some grub for the family when Britt had to be late getting home. He was also the one who gathered up the dirty clothes for his mother to sort and wash.

  Tony’s all-consuming interest was sports, just like his father, a true chip off the old block. He also, like his father, could talk to anyone. The winter he was four, he strapped on a pair of skates and took off over the ice. (Hockey would become his favorite sport, eventually earning him a college scholarship.) When he was five, he was playing tee ball and hitting it way out there. (Later he would go on to play third base on Rillstead High’s baseball team.) When it came to athletics, he was a natural.

  He was no slouch at the clever comeback. One day Britt was scolding him for forgetting to take out the garbage, again. She went on and on. Tony looked at her and said, “Shut up,” and, looking down at the floor where Sara’s little dog stood, looking up at them, said, “Minnie.” (The dog was a miniature dachshund; hence the name “Minnie.”) Britt’s mouth opened, her eyebrows went up, but she was speechless—she feared she’d start laughing.

  Amy cared for people. Her emotional IQ was off the charts. She babysat to earn spending money; she had a way with little ones. With a smile to warm your heart, she seemed happy and easygoing, but she had a boiling point. I was up on a ladder in the kitchen, changing the circular fluorescent light; Amy, two years old, sat on the floor to the left of the ladder. She started crying, but I ignored her—I wanted to get the light changed now. Fear of heights made me dread another trip up the ladder. She began to get really angry—or was she scared by seeing me at the top of the ladder, near the ceiling? Anyway, she was red-faced and screaming before I got the lamp plugged in. I climbed down and picked her up—her diaper was soaked. It took a long time to get her quieted down again. Britt was glad to see that she was not only smiles and giggles—she had an iron will and would, even as early as age two, express it. She would not let the world crush her.

  If they had had a gymnastic program when she was in school, she would have become an outstanding gymnast. Her flexibility was amazing. She would use her athletic gifts in high school as head cheerleader of the Rillstead hockey team.

  Laura, the baby, was taught by everybody, especially her sister Amy. Maybe that’s why she was so smart; she picked things up quickly. She broke her elbow falling off a horse when she was nine and in the sixth grade. Time for the cast to come off, and she had a left arm that she could draw into her body, but she could not straighten it out past a ninety-degree angle. All were disappointed, but Laura was devastated. She spent at least an hour every day after school, with Britt beside her, trying to get her elbow to let her forearm bend down. They had to do more. Britt knew the swim coach at the college and, with Laura in tow, “Exhibit A,” went to speak to him.

  “Coach Wilson, my daughter broke her elbow falling off a horse. It’s healed, but it won’t straighten. Laura, show him your arm.” Laura, wordless but with her large brown eyes speaking volumes, looked up at Coach Wilson and showed him her bent left arm.

  He put his large hand around her elbow. “Does it hurt?”

  Laura shook her head, not taking her eyes off the coach.

  Britt, watching, swallowed hard and said, “Would there be any time after school when we could use your swimming pool for a little while?” She almost folded her hands in prayer, waiting for him to answer.

  He looked at the swimming schedule. “I see there is a spot—six to six forty-five. Would that do?” He looked up, pen poised to write.

  “We’ll make it do. Oh, thank you so much.”

  She watched as he wrote Laura’s name in the time slot and smiled with relief and gratitude.

  The swimming really did work wonders. So what if dinner had to be a heated-up Hamburger Helper casserole? Failing that, Daniel could throw something together. The arm straightened out after a couple of months or so, and that was the main thing. It not only straightened; it became her strongest arm.

  The advantage to having five children close in age is that no one child can get away with anything that he or she shouldn’t do. For example, when Tony saw smoke coming out of Sara’s window, he reacted.

  “Mom, Sara is smoking and blowing it out of her bedroom window!”

  Tony had been a major factor—the other being the cost of cigarettes—in convincing his dad to quit smoking. Andy would light up a cigarette, and Tony, then four years old, would see or smell it and run in, his eyes big and worried. “Daddy, I don’t want you to die.” Andy decided smoking wasn’t worth the worry it caused his little boy.

  When the miniskirt came in, Sara wanted to wear hers too short, in her mom’s opinion. Before Sara left for school, Britt would check her out to see that her skirt was no more than two inches above her knee.

  “Mom, Sara rolls her skirt
band up when she gets to school.” This time it was Daniel reporting.

  And so it went—eyes alert for infractions.

  The Cherry Street house wasn’t the same either. The fixer-upper was fixed up and then some. Two incomes made a big difference. The monster furnace in the basement had been removed and replaced with an up-to-date, natural gas furnace complete with new ductwork. Though smaller than the old monster, it put out more heat for less money, and in a place where winter temperatures can dip to negative thirty degrees and more, this mattered. The room where the fuel tank had been was now Britt’s sewing room. When they purchased new kitchen cabinets, the old ones made their way into the sewing room, so she had plenty of storage down there for her sewing supplies and books. A screened-in patio had been added to the backyard—a place for rainy day play and relaxation.

  Yes, things always change. Britt thought she’d be relieved when all the children were out of diapers and were people she could talk to, but now she wasn’t too sure. One of these days, they’d all be on their own. She and Andy would be alone. Change was a certainty, but it was also an unknown, and unknowns are scary.

  CHAPTER

  22

  With all the activity—children’s sports, Camp Fire Girls, Boy Scouts, and for her, cooking and housekeeping for a family of seven—Britt didn’t have time to put her finger on who or what was causing her feeling, best expressed by Peggy Lee as she sang “Is That All There Is?” She felt restless, unfulfilled, and lonely. She also felt resentment.

  Resentment festered, but resentment for what? For the fifteen loads of clothes she had to wash each week? For garbage that was supposed to be taken out but wasn’t? Perhaps it was resentment against Andy, who had time for softball and golfing in the summer, and ice fishing and card playing in the winter. One friend had an icehouse he’d pull onto a frozen lake. It had a little stove, and they’d fish, eat hot dogs cooked in a coffee can on the stove, watch their fish lines hanging down the holes drilled with an auger, and play cards. Always he could fit in some card playing—a life to envy.

  Yes, Britt envied him, and she resented his freedom. She also missed him. It was no wonder that they were growing apart. She wasn’t a person who liked to have people around all the time. In fact, she needed alone time and had relished it in the past, but this was ridiculous. It put her in mind of another popular song, “Isn’t It Lonely Together?” And it was. She missed talking to her best friend. But had she ever really had that?

  Her first-ever date with a boy was a disaster. She had such a crush on that guy! He’d come into study hall, and her hand would shake so much she’d have to quit writing. The day of the date, she was a nervous wreck, worrying about what to talk about. She even read the newspaper to find interesting, discussable subjects. Came the big date, and every subject she brought up fell flat and sounded dumb. In desperation, she told him even dumber stuff, such as what she ate for breakfast (oatmeal). He never asked her out again. And she knew it was because she was boring.

  When Andy asked her out, she determined not to make that mistake. She’d talk as little as possible. She and Andy double dated with Hannah and her boyfriend—he had a car, Andy didn’t. When she talked, it was usually to Hannah—pretty rude, she now realized. She and Andy did a lot of hugging and kissing, making out. He didn’t seem to mind the lack of conversation, for he kept dating her. They never went too far. How could they? Her sister was in the front seat, and besides, Britt never got carried away. She was doing what she thought would keep Andy interested but not too interested. Britt really liked him. She didn’t fear him as she did other boys, but now she knew they should have talked—should have gotten to know more about each other than just the physical.

  Would they have continued dating if she’d insisted on talking? But she wouldn’t do that—she was afraid to talk. Afraid that she’d say dumb things. But just suppose they had talked and all he wanted to talk about was sports, about which she knew next to nothing, and she wanted to talk about the latest book she read, and he didn’t like to read books. He liked western music, she now knew, while she liked classical. They both liked soft rock, though. They both liked movies, but he wanted violence, action, in his movies. She liked more dialogue and little if any violence. A little romance was good too, but too much embarrassed her. He liked crowds of people and noise, while she liked small groups or, better yet, one-on-one. She liked being alone to read and think. He hated dancing; she loved it. Britt could go on and on about all they found out after they were married.

  But they shared the same values. Family came first. Children had to be cared for and loved. Vows made were vows kept. Don’t lie, cheat, or steal. As both were Depression babies, they learned from their parents to be frugal—don’t spend money you don’t have. Their values were almost identical.

  Values shared but not their worlds. Britt’s world was child care and housework. When she did have some spare time, she read books. Andy spent most of his time in his barbershop, often not coming home until around seven in the evening. Their worlds overlapped only when they were with their children. Almost everything Andy and Britt did was for their children—to support them, encourage them, feed and clothe them. They never seemed to have any free time together.

  In order to have some time with other adults, Britt learned to play Bridge but dropped it because she didn’t like going out at night; she lost too much sleep over the game. When she got home after a night of Bridge, she’d go to bed and replay her hands, wondering what would have happened if she played each hand a different way. A night without much sleep made for a difficult day.

  When Andy had any time to spare, he turned to sports, either watching or participating. Sports were it for him. This was something Britt didn’t understand. She’d been brought up to believe that sports were frivolous. We were put on this earth to work; that was our purpose and the way we got our exercise. Work and worship ruled. It wasn’t that Britt believed all that her parents believed. When Andy played softball, she and the children went to his games. When their boys played hockey, Andy and Britt went to their games. Britt even learned the rules of the game and enjoyed watching but not entirely. There was always a fear tickling the back of her mind—the possibility that they might get hurt, but she also knew that the game was good for them. Excellent exercise for a healthy body, it kept them occupied and out of trouble.

  Andy felt their separation too. He admitted as much to Britt one day when out of the blue he said, “I wish we could communicate better.” This surprised Britt. He was missing her too, and maybe wondering what he could do to bridge the gulf between them. He began to be more affectionate; perhaps he thought all that was needed was more sex—the usual male answer to whatever was making a woman moody: “Oh, her? All she needs is to get laid.”

  Andy’s barbershop had a loft above it. To get away from the children and let them spend some private time, get some peace and quiet, Andy would take her up there to make love when he felt the need, and it was also part of his plan to get back to their former closeness. If they couldn’t talk, maybe their bodies could. What we’re doing is not making love; it’s just sex. “Never say no to your husband,” said my mother in her short birds and bees talk. I don’t, Mother, but these loft sessions serve only to raise my level of resentment—just another thing to fit into my busy schedule, and I’m always so tired! If he worked as hard as I did, he wouldn’t be so needy so often. Andy couldn’t figure out why she was so tired. He made the evening meal for her on Mondays, and that was supposed to be his day off.

  His idea that more sex would bring them closer together was doomed from the start. No matter how often they had sex, Britt was still lonely. She and Andy thought of sex in different ways.

  Growing up on a farm, Britt knew what sex was. It was a barnyard thing—something animals did to have babies. The babies were needed to increase the wealth of the farm. Sex was a necessity for animals, and it was also a necessity for humans.

&nbs
p; The church Britt went to as a child, established by her paternal grandfather, did not allow for any kind of birth control. America was a big country with lots of land. People were needed to work this land to make it profitable, and children were assets. Her grandfather did his best by siring fifteen children, two of whom died in infancy. The more children, the more land her grandfather bought. Her grandmother objected to both more children and more land, but she was overruled.

  Sex is a sin if it was sex because of lust. Lust made it dirty and disgusting—an animal act. Britt’s Grandma Solvig, her father’s mother, was a stern, mean woman. Britt will never forget what happened when she was about seven years old and her grandmother was babysitting at her house. “Gramma, there’s two dogs in the front yard, and they’re stuck together.”

  Her grandmother, who’d put the big kettle on the stove so she’d have lots of hot water to boil stains out of some white clothes, went to the door, opened it, and looked out. She then marched to the stove, picked up the steaming kettle, and poured the hot water on the dogs. The dogs yelped, pulled apart, and ran away.

  Britt started to cry. “Granma, you hurt them—you hurt them!”

  “Those dirty dogs! They deserved it. Stop your crying right now or I’ll give you something to cry about.”

  Britt quit crying, but she hated her grandmother at that moment—hated yet feared her too. Now when she and Andy had sex, she wanted it to end as fast as possible. If she felt the least ripple of excitement, of desire, in her stomach or lower down, she shut it down. Lust is wrong—it’s dirty. Logic told her that was foolish, but she couldn’t get the image of those poor dogs with her grandmother pouring hot water on them out of her head whenever she began to feel—lusty? Logic did not trump emotion. Come to think of it, Andy must have learned too that there was something shameful about sex.