the perspective of years, I now know that Margie needed the magic of Christmas. In many ways, she remained the twelve-year-old girl who lost her mother to an untimely death from stomach cancer. Margie then lived alone with her belligerent, alcoholic father for six years until she could escape. She wanted a Santa, a loving father figure who never yelled, never belittled, never threatened. And she wanted me to remain a little girl so that I could keep the childlike spirit of Christmas alive in our home.
My mother, on the other hand, was in a hurry for me to grow up. The older I became, the less work and responsibility she would have until finally I’d be of an age when I could take care of her. Plus there would be less immediate work: no filling stockings with Santa presents, no setting out cookies and milk, and no toys to lay under the tree. Although Margie did most of these duties, my mother didn’t particularly like the special attention I received as recipient of Santa-largesse. She preferred to have the most and best gifts under the Christmas tree.
I wanted to please both of them, always thinking that if I was a good girl they wouldn’t send me away again. My dilemma was in choosing whether to grow up quickly, as my mother wanted, or stay childlike for my aunt. I chose the former. My mother had greater power over me and could decide on a whim to have me committed to an institution. I would become an adult in a little girl’s body.
I discovered the piano that winter. I stayed late after school one day to help my teacher clean blackboards, aiming for teacher’s pet status. The sound of music drifted from the end of a darkened hallway. I tiptoed over the black and white tiled floor until I was a few feet from the source. A girl, another second grader, was playing an immense upright piano. This girl was very popular—all the girls wanted to hold her hand as we stood in one of the many lines going into and out of our classes. Maybe the kids would all love me too, I thought, if I could play piano. The girl’s brown penny loafers swung in the air beneath her, her green gabardine uniform shiny from many years of hand-me-down wear. She stopped playing and quickly looked around. Maybe I had made a noise of appreciation.
“What are you doing?” She frowned.
“Just listening,” I said. “It sounded nice.”
She smiled quickly at this. “I take lessons every week with Sister Frances. She lets me use this piano. I have to practice every day.”
It sounded wonderful to me. I wanted to be able to play piano, to make lovely sounds like this.
“How much are the lessons?” Even at seven years of age, I knew that cost could be a major barrier.
“A dollar a lesson.”
I thought through the math. My mother gave me five cents a day for milk at recess. Another dollar a week would be a lot of money to ask for.
That night, after my mother paid the teenage girl who babysat me after school, I broached the topic.
“Ma, can I take piano lessons?”
“Where did this come from?” she asked. “We don’t even have a piano.”
“Please, Ma,” I said. “Sister Frances lets the kids practice on one at school.”
“Well, I can’t afford it.”
“It’s only a dollar a lesson,” I told her.
“The answer is no.”
When Margie arrived home, I heard her ask my mother why I was crying.
“She wants to take piano lessons. I can’t even afford my half of the food we put on the table. How can I pay for the lessons?”
“How much are they?” Margie asked.
“A dollar each.”
“Wouldn’t she need a piano to practice on?”
“Anne said that she can use one at school.”
“Well, maybe I can help with the cost,” Margie said. “I always wished I could play piano, but it’s too late for me.”
At supper that night, my mother surprised me with the news that I could indeed take lessons. I ran over to her and gave her a hug.
“Thanks, Ma. I promise I’ll practice really hard.”
Soon after this, I overheard my mother talking with Margie about hiring a new babysitter. The current one had quit suddenly, and my mother didn’t know who else to ask. She sounded desperate. I walked over to the kitchen table. Cigarette smoke and coffee steam mingled a foot above its surface.
“I don’t need a babysitter,” I announced.
“Yes you do,” said my mother. “You’re only seven years old.”
“But Babs never did anything,” I said. “She just sat on the couch and did her homework. I did all the chores, I made my own snacks, and I did my homework by myself. She never even talked to me.” Unfortunately this was all true.
“I’ll think about it.”
The next day my mother said I could stay by myself after school. I’d have to call her every afternoon when I got home. The landlady, Mrs. Johnson, would usually be upstairs if I needed anything. I’d have to keep my key with me at all times and couldn’t lose it.
“Don’t worry, Ma,” I said. “I’ll be fine.”
I even believed this myself.
And that’s how I solved the problem of money for the piano lessons. The babysitter had cost my mother ten dollars a week, so with my initiative my mother was coming out significantly ahead. At age seven, I became a latchkey kid, long before I even knew the term or what it meant.
To say I adored the lessons, the tedium of scales, the details of reading music, would be an understatement. Who knew a wooden box with strings and hammers could give a seven-year-old girl such pleasure, boost her self-confidence if only a smidgeon, and provide a means of connecting with a good teacher? Sister Frances told me I played my pieces beautifully. Each week she placed gold stars on my music book pages. I could have kissed the hem of Sister Frances’s habit for each of those little stars.
My passion would eventually drive me to provoke my mother’s anger by lobbying for my own piano. We bought a huge, used upright for thirty-five dollars from an old lady whose arthritic fingers could no longer play. Perhaps she hated the daily reminder of what she could no longer do, so she let it go for a song.
Music became my refuge. I’d play when I’d had a frustrating day at school. Maybe a girl snubbed me, or a boy called me fatso. Maybe I felt lonely walking home alone. But when I sat at the piano, I was the queen. When my mother wasn’t home I could bang on the instrument as loud as I wanted. Take that, Kathy Murphy! Take that, Tommy McDonald!
My mother’s patience for my musical education was short-lived, and she soon found other things for me to do when I sat down to practice. It came to a head one evening when she came home from work with a scowl on her face.
I had just climbed onto the wide, dark mahogany bench. Maybe she won’t notice that I’m not in the kitchen, I thought. Maybe
