extolled Edith as “our free spirit of the desert.” She did indeed cross America solo at least once a year in her battered station wagon—journeys that made her mythical reputation as vast as the distances she traveled and as enigmatic as the places we could only imagine.
“Ach, my little Danusia.” Aunt Mamie hugged me close to her ample bosom and smoothed back wisps of hair from my damp forehead. I savored how her skin smelled of Ivory Soap. When I pressed my face deep into the folds of her cotton apron, I inhaled scents of Polish ham and dill pickles. “Your mama Hania never talks about how Edith eloped with Carl. So gifted violinist, only nineteen years old when she meet Carl, no-talent baseball player but so-good dancer.” Before anyone could stop the “wildness,” Carl snatched Edith away to get hitched. “Hania never forgive.” Aunt Mamie shook her head at the memory, her blonde braids quivering. “Your mama calls him good-for-nothing Carl.”
Aunt Mamie patted my hands as they rose and fell on top of her tummy with the rhythm of her breath. I drew comfort from her warmth and gentle affection. Unlike Mother, Aunt Mamie never yelled or hurt me.
“Edith had so bad sinus trouble,” she continued. “Doctors say she must live in hot dry climate. They pack everything in Carl’s old junk car and drive thousands miles from rain-and-snow Hartford to who-knows-where Arizona.” Aunt Mamie’s Slavic complexion glowed with perspiration. It was real hot in that back room, and her plump figure was double-wrapped in a long, crisp white apron that touched her ankles, leaving only a hint of pastel blue dress peeking out at the hem. Aunt Mamie’s blue eyes darkened as she returned to her story. “If only they no stop by side of the road. Why Carl go outside somewhere and Edith stay in car? Maybe driver of big truck was crazy drunk when he crash into their car. Edith’s body go through the front window. Glass all over, some in her eyes, many broken bones in her shoulders and arms.”
A chill ran up my arms. I shuddered at the thought of how much that accident must have hurt Edith. Aunt Mamie lifted up my chin, and her eyes met mine. “You know how her face looks now?” she asked.
I nodded. Edith’s face and neck were pockmarked with tiny, indented scars. Even in hot weather, her clothes covered her arms and came right up to her neck. Bright light bothered her eyes so much she wore pink tinted glasses day and night.
“Edith take so long to recover.” Aunt Mamie sighed. “Her dreams to be concert violinist shatter like broken glass.”
Edith and Carl had a daughter named Reggie. She and I were exactly the same age. My mother was old enough to be my grandmother, Edith was old enough to be my mother, and despite my tender age, I was technically Reggie’s aunt. According to family gossip, these were strange flukes and coincidences.
“Where was Reggie born?” I asked.
Aunt Mamie tensed with nervousness and strained to lift herself out of the leather chair. “All I know is they adopt her,” she said, avoiding eye contact with me. “Customers waiting.” The conversation was over. Aunt Mamie took my small hand in her rough one, and we walked to the front of the store.
That day, I’d learned something only Aunt Mamie would tell me: Reggie was adopted. Edith never talked about anything private. And even though I was young, I knew that there was something forbidden about this conversation—and the word adoption. Mother and Dad avoided it like a curse word. During my childhood anything related to adoption was kept dark and secret.
Hunched over my childhood desk under the kitchen window, I retreated into an imaginary world where everything was perfect. In one of the drawers, I kept my treasure chest made from a cigar box, its lid covered with pictures of fashion models torn out of glossy magazines. Inside was my collection of my hand-drawn paper dolls. “Dress like me! Look like me!” they compelled. Every one of my dolls was a fantasy image of me. The cardboard box was so overstuffed with my treasures that I had to patch it together with layers of Scotch tape. None of my paper dolls ever felt lonely or ugly. None of them suffered verbal or physical abuse from an angry mother. In that ideal world, I had a mother who assured me every day, “You are beautiful! You are smart! You are talented!”
Mother, Dad, Edith, and babies Reggie (L) and Danusia (R), 1944
I grabbed my box of colored pencils and began to sketch something to make myself feel wonderful—like a pink cashmere sweater with satin bows and pearl buttons.
“Danusia, now!” Mother shouted from the hallway. “Get apples from tree for Ciotka Clarcha.”
We never visited Aunt Clara without Mother’s idea of a gift, especially if she planned to leave me for an overnight with my cousin Theresa. Aunt Clara was my aunt by marriage; she was married to Dad’s cousin Eddy. Although we were several years apart, Theresa and I were as close and complicated as sisters, brought up in very different households, yet Polish customs and relatives linked us together. Throughout our adult years, Theresa and I would forge through family sagas, love and jealousy, laughter and tears. No matter what and where, we were always there for each other.
I scrambled outside to the backyard covered by a bumpy carpet of fallen apples. Furiously, I stuffed oozing, over-ripe fruit complete with stems and leaves into a bulging canvas sack. Mother waited at the wheel of the Packard—motor running, fingers tapping, glaring at me as I ran breathless to the car.
Shoving the bag of apples onto the car floor, I scrambled into the back seat. I had only mere seconds to draw my last calm breath and inhale the smell of rich leather. With a mighty groan, the Packard lurched forward. As a five-year-old vigilante, I knelt at the rear window to report any sightings of highway police. Commando Mother up front braced muscles and quite a bit of fat as she leaned into each swerve of the four-ton Packard careening like a military tank across Hartford traffic. Hapless pedestrians be warned: driver of vehicle does not follow speed limits or roadside warnings! Driver-warrior Mother pushed luck to the limit.
Forty-five tense minutes later, the Packard roared into the driveway of 88 Burlington Avenue in Bristol. Yet again, we’d evaded our enemy, the Connecticut State Highway Patrol. Aunt Clara’s white two-story house was my safe harbor after the storm. Its black shutters framed streak-free windows that glistened in the sunlight. Shaky with tension but grateful that we’d arrived, I crawled out of the Packard that seemed to perspire gasoline and ran for the side door to Aunt Clara’s kitchen. Mother hoisted the sack of apples onto her shoulder, cradled a large crockery bowl filled with greasy leftovers from last night’s dinner in her hands, and puffed along behind.
My Aunt Clara, Connecticut, 1950s
Before I could reach up for the knob, the door swung open. There stood Aunt Clara, stretching welcoming arms toward me. Tall and slim in a pastel pink cotton dress protected by a floral apron, she was the perfect image of the 1950’s Polish-American housewife. “Danusia, moya kohana,” she said. I loved how she called me her “sweet dear.” Pressing my short, plump body into her embrace, I breathed in an intoxicating blend of Coty’s Lily of the Valley perfume—and Polish apricot bars.
“Hania, again you bring gifts.” Aunt Clara rushed to relieve Mother of the heavy burlap sack of apples and placed it upon the polished kitchen counter. She turned to take the crockery bowl from Mother’s calloused palms. “Hania, you work too hard,” Aunt Clara said gently. “I must rub your dry hands with Jergen’s Lotion.”
Mother beamed, a young-girl smile on her aging face. Aunt Clara carried the bowl of spoiling contents to the big Frigidaire, opened the door, and cleared a space on the bottom shelf. As she turned her back to
