Life on Eagle Street, when viewed by strangers on the outside, must have looked perfect. Our family's top layer had the appearance of any other middle class family. Dad had a good job, Mom stayed at home with the children. The neighborhood was safe. We went to Catholic school. All of those things were true. But we were like a nice shiny apple that looked pretty on the outside but was hiding a mealy, rotten, wormy interior.
I learned fairly early in life that reality can be twisted, changed, and even blotted out, if that is what Mom wanted. The first lie that I became aware of concerned my older brothers. Two of them were always in trouble--they committed crimes, took drugs, dropped out of school, and ran away from home constantly. They continually caused distress and anguish to Mom and Dad. I knew that because I heard the late night arguments and crying coming from my parent's bedroom. I also heard them talking about the payments that needed to be made to the County Juvenile Services to cover the detention expenses.
I remember a teacher from the Catholic high school paying a visit to our house one evening in an effort to rein one of my brothers in before it was too late. And I remember Mom yelling at the teacher, blaming him for her son's delinquent behavior: "Don't tell me I have a problem! If the student hasn't learned, the teacher hasn't taught."
There was nothing that these two boys did during the 60s that made our family proud. The stress was so pronounced that even a little kid like me could sense it. I was relieved when they were gone for weeks or months at a time. But their periodic absences brought questions from neighbors and friends.
Mom was afraid I would tell family secrets to outsiders. I knew lots of things about my older brothers that I wasn't supposed to share with anyone: One of them wet the bed every night whenever he was home. One had to get a whipping from dad almost every day because of the evil things he did. One of them flushed a big wad of grassy-looking stuff down our toilet and caused the gross flood in our only bathroom. And the cops came to our house looking for them quite often.
I was coached to answer any questions about my brothers with as few words as possible. When asked by nosy people about my siblings, these were a few approved replies that I could give: "They are not home right now. They are fine. They moved out." Or simply, "I don't know."
By the time I was about eight years old, Mom changed the family story about Skippy altogether. He was no longer the son she gave birth to. He was the son of her first husband and his previous wife. This story morphed over the months, until the final new truth tossed her first five children under the bus.
As Mom made new friends, her family narrative changed to suit her needs. I would sit quietly and listen to her as she spun her tale to a sympathetic and shocked audience:
Mom: I was young, too young to be a mother to so many children. But my husband, who was so much older than I, was widowed and had five children. So even though I was only 18, I took on a husband and five children and raised them as my own, out of the goodness of my heart. My husband was crazy and beat and raped me every day. Then he killed himself and I was left with his crazy, ungrateful kids. I loved them as my own, and look at how I am treated by them! I don't know what I ever did to deserve the treatment I am getting from them!
This new "truth" served Mom in a few ways:
First, she was able to knock many years off of her true age.
Second, she was able to wash her hands of any responsibility for her children's actions, because they were not her kids to begin with.
Third, and maybe the most important, this narrative gave Mom victim status. To her newer friends and associates, Mom was a self-sacrificing saint and deserving of their respect.
Listening to Mom recreate the past over and over did not convince me that it was true. It did, however, teach me how to develop a poker face that would serve me well over the course of my life.
