By Maureen M. Welch
Before catapulting into teen years, I loved spending Saturday afternoons as a young girl with my family…not interacting, just absorbing the pleasure of proximity. It was, and remains, my favorite time of the week.
When weekly chores were done mid-day, my parents, brothers, and I use to gravitate to the dining room table. Pop sat in his head chair, devouring our town’s morning and evening newspapers while nibbling Velveeta cheese and saltines. My brothers played War. I usually read a book or wrote in my diary. Mom sat within reach of a corner telephone table chatting with her favorite sister-in-law, catching up on gossip in the world of cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. Usually, Pop turned the radio to the station of elegant music. When that happened, I started drawing in my diary, often closing my eyes to enjoy the rustle of newspapers, the flap of playing cards, against Mom’s chatter and gentle laughter.
A dining room was a distinctive upgrade from our former three-room duplex rental. As babies came, Pop took a leap of faith on his firefighter’s savings, salary, and likely advancement, and bought a house to fit us. Great Aunt Mayme, widowed and moving out of her place, insisted we take all her dining room furniture. Though our new house was a bungalow, we squeezed in the dining room: a sideboard, a china closet, a dining table, and eight beautifully wrought chairs. The path from there to the kitchen and upstairs was close, and some part of one’s body always grazed a handsome piece of mahogany. The room became the center of all hub-bub with the table serving as our activity center: Mom gave home-permanents there to friends and neighbors, Pop typed his columns on an old Corona for the union newspaper, we kids did our homework there; it was the center for meals and family business meetings. And Saturdays, it was the cozy place we gathered in silence, not interacting, just being together.
On that fateful Saturday in January, long after Epiphany party was over and Christmas decorations were put away, tranquility exploded. We were in our customary Saturday afternoon places, planning the next big family event: the June wedding of my favorite cousin Kate. I remember dancing around the living room, holding lilac gloves up to the light. Dreaming of a matching dress to wear to the wedding, maybe as a junior bridesmaid. A loud drop of the phone receiver stopped me in mid-swirl. Action around the dining table froze as Mom looked at Pop.
“The wedding is off! Aunt Nan said Kate’s fiancé is not good enough, not the proper class.”
“Can they do that?” baby brother asks.
I shout in protest, “But they are in love; Tony asked everyone’s permission. He sold his motorcycle to buy her ring. He proposed on bended knee.”
Through the beveled glass of our front door I imagine seeing Kate crumpled on the floor of her room like the ballerina in Death of a Swan. She flutters in the swan’s death pose, her wedding dress billowing around. The music drowns out her sobs. I need to help her. I want to stop this.
Pop appears inches from my face, disrupting my daydream.
“We’re going for a drive,” he says, unusually stern.
Yes! I think to myself. We are going to save cousin Kate and vanquish Aunt Nan.
My brothers clear a path for me as Pop is already out the door. Mom wraps me in her winter coat while I stuff the lilac gloves in its pockets. I rush out in the January cold to the warmed-up 1955 Chevrolet. I am thrilled that my eloquent father is going to confront Aunt Nan. A bold feat.
His sister’s home, in the newer section of town, is only nine miles away. We ride in silence. I know he is planning what he is going to say to his older sister while I plan what I am going to say to my older cousin (also, slightly hoping to secure my place as a junior bridesmaid.)
When we reach the ridge’s main street leading to their house, Pop turns in the opposite direction. Soon we are riding on a bridge over the churning white caps of the Ohio River leading to Kentucky. It looks like we might be heading to our summer camp.
Camp. The sacred place for generations of our family, tracing its builders back to our great-grandparents, immigrants from Ireland. Camp. As other members joined our summer place, more cottages were raised around a playing field. More families gathered in the dance hall for weddings, graduations, reunions, and funeral wakes.
Utilities at camp are closed now, cottages are boarded up, canoes are stacked against flooding. Questions I have after arriving there must wait, as Pop is out of the car, walking at a brisk pace, gesturing and speaking with gusto. Two hawks cock their heads as they look down from leafless maple trees. Pop is speeding so I run to keep up. I put the gloves on and wrap Mom’s coat tight, wishing I had worn socks. I listen as Pop quotes Aristotle, Eleanor Roosevelt, Don Marquis, John L. Lewis, and Gerard Manley Hopkins. Though freezing, I am warmed by his elocution and by the fact that I am his only audience.
I listen with my heart as we circle our way around the playing field, baseball diamond, fallow community garden, and dance hall now storing picnic tables. Pop praises my responsibility in caring for my brothers, but says I am at a threshold where I must apply responsibility toward myself and my future.
We arrive at our own cottage in front of its green shuttered door. A scattered snow is falling in large flakes, the kind that dally but do not stay. I sit on the top wooden step in front of the door. Pop, seeming to summon the spirits of this place, meets me at eye level.
“Darling daughter, you are at a juncture in life where choices will rush you. Though Mother and I support you; the college you choose, your field of study, are yours to decide. Though you are gifted in writing and speech contests, and though Mother and I will always be in the audience, your career and path in life must be what you want.”
The snow continues but the air seems warmer. Water fills my eyes, which I know is not because of weather. Pop shifts his weight, looks at the empty tree limbs above us, then continues in measured, louder words.
“I do not care if you choose to marry or choose the nunnery: I do not care if you choose a spouse of a different race, or someone handicapped, or someone not wealthy. That most important life decision must be yours alone!
“Lastly, society today may say you have an assigned role as a woman. Not true. Your ‘place’ is wherever you go. You can do anything. Eleanor Roosevelt showed courage despite being maligned for creating her own arena. You are already creating your arena, daughter.”
His face softens, his voice drops, he hesitates then slowly turns, brushing snow from his overcoat. I hop up and button its two top buttons and turn up his collar. The day’s early worries and its snow seem to be melting. We slowly head to the parking lot. He pauses to check for ice on the hand pump, studies that the round house wiring is secure. He pats the catalpa tree as we exit. I adore this man.
Decades of June days have come and gone. The lilac gloves long lost. Kate married someone else, and left us for an Evangelical community, remaining estranged from most of her family until her death. I was never a bridesmaid and avoided most of Tchaikovsky and dying swan ballets. Once my husband, children, and I finish chores and start games before the fireplace on Saturday afternoons, I sneak off to the bedroom, turn on soft classical music, and call each of my brothers long distance. We laugh and joke as we revisit the fun and foibles of our life with our now-gone parents.
What vividly stays alive from that precious past is a winter walk with my father that gifted me the freedom, peace and joy to pursue the unconventional life I chose.