Chapter one
Spring, 1958
“Ireally don’t wanna go.” Utensils clattered against the plate as Robbie gave up eating his breakfast halfway through a bite of toast and eggs. “I don’t feel good!”
Thelma abandoned her slab of Wonder Bread and mayonnaise, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel as she approached the Formica table. “Let’s see.” Sighing, she held the back of her hand against her son’s forehead. Robbie slumped against his chair, feet swinging back and forth beneath the table as he tacitly accepted his mother’s touch. Yet the reality was on his reddened cheeks before Thelma announced, “I don’t feel any fever. You’re going to school.”
He kicked up a fuss as she turned back around to finish making lunch for her family. Thelma ignored him. The more Robbie threw his little fits, the faster he burned himself out. Yet every time he smacked his feet against the bottom of the Formica table, Thelma slapped her butter knife against another piece of white bread. Soon, it became a musical game to take her mind off her motherly instincts that told her,“Oh, just lethim stay home today. Let him watchCaptain KangarooandThePrice is Rightwith you.”But this wouldn’t be Robbie’s first time playing up some malady to get out of second grade. He and his teacher, Miss Whitaker, had been at odds since the start of the school year.
Besides…Thelma gazed out the kitchen window, looking past the backyard, the fence, and the neighbor’s house as she remembered what she wanted to do that day. She needed both kids out of the house. All. Day.Sandy’s coming over.
“Mama!” Her daughter, Debbie, screeched from her chair at the table. “He’s loud!”
Thelma had to abandon her chore again to tend to Debbie, who had no patience for her big brother’s tantrums. Robbie continued to make his whiny case that he wanted to stay home. Between both kids, it would be a miracle if everyone got out of the door on time.
“What’s all this commotion?” Footsteps thundered down the stairs as Bill magically hustled through the kitchen while tying his tie. He stopped in front of the fridge to grab the milk. Much to his wife’s chagrin, he poured the last of it into a large glass and took it with him to the table.I was going to use that!The milkman had been sick the day before, with no replacement to substitute at the last minute. This left most of Hemlock Street without their daily bottles of milk. Thelma had poured a careful amount for both of her children, foregoing any for herself. By the looks of it, the milk still wasn’t at the door that day. “Don’t you kids do anything but gripe?”
Debbie always laughed at anything her daddy said, but Robbie wasn’t sharing any smiles today. Thelma approached with a cup of fresh coffee for her husband, but Bill was already halfway through his giant glass of milk. Thelma took the coffee back to the counter and drank it while putting together Robbie’s lunch.
“He keeps saying he doesn’t feel well and doesn’t want to go to school.” Thelma projected her voice so she could be heard over the rabble at the table. “He doesn’t have a fever!”
“What’s this about not going to school? How else do you learn how to read?”
“I can already read,” Robbie mumbled when everyone else quieted down. “I’m the best reader in my class.”
Thelma grinned. “At least that’s true. It’s the one nice thing Miss Whitaker said at your last conference.”
“Dare I ask what else she said, then?”
We’ve been over this a dozen times.Yet Bill was a busy man who left most of the rearing and scheduling at school to the homemaker. As long as the kids behaved enough to stay out of disciplinary action and got good enough grades, he left them in his wife’s care. That had been the deal when Thelma first gave birth nine months after the honeymoon, and when she was twenty, it had made her feel like she was in control of her children’s destinies.
Then she got Robbie. And Debbie. The more her kids showed her their personalities, the more she realized how little control she truly had.
“You know it by now.” Thelma dexterously wrapped up the sandwiches before shoving them into their respective bags. “Too hyperactive. Doesn’t listen or follow instructions.” She glanced over her shoulder, meeting her son’s gaze that claimed Thelma was a regular Benedict Arnold. “Is quite smart, but doesn’t apply himself enough. Easily distracted.”
“I was told the same thing when I was his age.” Bill gestured to his breakfast as he dug in. “He’ll be fine. I turned out fine.”
Thelma had a feeling that their son’s issues at school manifested differently from what Bill went through in the ‘30s.For one thing, they could beat your rear, Bill.While corporal punishment wasn’t unheard of in Robbie’s school, the principalhad sent home an announcement at the start of the school year that it was only used in “extreme” circumstances. Not like when Thelma and Bill were in school. Thelma still had an invisible scar on her hand from when rulers rapped her knuckles.
She changed her butter knife from her left hand to her right just from thinking about it.Being ambidextrous is a sign of intelligence.She had heard that onThe Today Showand kept it to heart ever since.
Someone knocked at exactly 7:50. As Helen Reynolds helped herself through the unlocked door, the kids erupted in protests that they now had to go to school. Bill said hello to Helen, who in turn said her polite pleasantries while waiting for Thelma to acknowledge the neighborhood school pickup. Helen’s boy James was on the porch, swinging his bag in circles and pretending to be a fighter pilot he must have seen on television.
“Here.” Thelma thrust the bagged lunch into Robbie’s arms as he reluctantly got up from the table. “Make sure you eat all of it this time. Otherwise, it will be your dinner.”
He shrugged.
“Did you hear me, Robert? We don’t waste food in this house.”
“Listen to your mother,” Bill unhelpfully said. “She works hard on making that food. Be appreciative.”
“Yes…” Robbie muttered.
“What was that, son?”
He lifted his head, sniffing. “Yes, sir.”
Thelma handed off the bagged lunch. Before Robbie ran off to wait with James on the porch, though, she ruffled her son’s hair and said, “If you eat your lunch, I’ll make Sloppy Joes for dinner. Okay?”
