“To stay here forever with you and Mommy,” I replied.
Margie bit her lip but said nothing. I don’t remember what presents I received but I loved being at home with Margie, who took the week off as vacation time. After a breakfast of French toast, we’d walk to the local park. Margie loved the seesaw and swings as much as I did. After a couple hours of play, we’d drag ourselves home for a grilled cheese sandwich and a bowl of Campbell’s tomato soup. Then I’d cuddle next to Margie on the couch while she read me a story. She’d tuck me in my bed for a nap and give me a little back rub to help me relax.
My mother was home during part of the Christmas break. I loved seeing her too, although I could never figure out why she got so mad at me. I wanted her to love me so she wouldn’t send me away again, but I couldn’t figure out how to make her love me. Too soon it was Sunday afternoon again. When my mother said it was time to get ready, I burst into tears.
“I don’t want to go back to Rosary!” I cried.
“You have to go. I don’t have a choice,” said my mother, firmly. She stood tall, hands on hips.
“But why can’t I just stay here?”
“Don’t be difficult, Anne. You have to go back to school. I can’t stay home with you. I have to work.”
“Margie could stay home with me.”
“Margie doesn’t want to stay with you. She’s not your mother. Now, go to your room and open up your suitcase so we can pack it.”
“Please don’t make me go.” I couldn’t stop the tears from welling up in my eyes and pouring down my cheeks.
“Oh for Christ’s sake, Anne, if you don’t stop this bawling I’ll really give you something to cry about.”
My mother didn’t wait long; before I could catch my breath, she swatted me across my face. Then she did it again and again until I stopped crying. I went to my room, opened my suitcase, and threw up into it. My mother rushed in, and after she saw what I’d just done, slapped me even harder. That made me sick again, but I still had to return to Rosary.
My mother and Margie never visited me at Rosary, even though they lived within a couple of miles of the school. Sister Mary Joseph helped me compose a weekly letter to my mother. I told her what I wanted to say, and she printed it on a piece of paper. Then, I copied it over carefully onto another piece of paper. She put it in an envelope, let me lick the envelope and stamp, and mailed it for me. I don’t remember receiving any letters from either my mother or aunt, but on Valentine’s Day my mother did send me a card printed on a puzzle. Sister Mary Joseph read the message: “To my daughter, please be my Valentine. Love, Mom.” I loved pulling the puzzle apart and putting it together, over and over again. I had the message memorized and pretended to read it every time I assembled the puzzle. It was as if I was trying to piece together my fractured family, attempting to make sense of my life.
One afternoon in May of 1958, I woke up on a couch in Mother Superior’s office. The sun streamed in the windows and hurt my eyes. My head throbbed the way your hand hurts after being caught in a drawer. I desperately wanted to sleep, but a nun shook me each time I nodded off. I wished she would just leave me alone. To my surprise, my mother’s voice appeared at the edge of my consciousness. Maybe I’m dreaming, I thought. One of my knee socks was bunched around my ankle. I wanted to pull it up but didn’t dare move.
“She’s hurt her head, Doctor,” I heard my mother say. She must have been using Mother Superior’s phone. “The nuns couldn’t wake her up for an hour.”
There was a pause, then she added, “I don’t know why they didn’t call you sooner. They called me first to come over. I had to wait for a taxi to pick me up at work.”
Then there was another pause until she said, “Okay, I’ll bring her right in.”
Slowly, my memory cleared like a cloud-filled sky making a slit for the sun to push through. I’d climbed the ladder to the top of Rosary’s playground slide. I’d sat down at the top of the slide and carefully arranged my wool skirt under my legs. I gave myself a gentle nudge down. The third grade girl behind me, impatient at my cautiousness, bore down on me without waiting. She body-slammed me a third of the way down the slide, sending me over the side, headfirst onto the concrete. No nuns patrolled the playground—perhaps they were at afternoon prayers. The next thing I knew I was flat on my back on Mother Superior’s couch with two nuns looking down at me as if I were a science lab specimen.
A yellow taxi took us to our doctor’s office in Brookline. The doctor asked me all sorts of silly-sounding questions: What is your name? Where are we? Who is this lady here (pointing to my mother)? How old are you?
I must have gotten the answers right because he smiled and patted my head. Then he examined me. My head still hurt, and I wanted to curl up and sleep. But I felt less groggy than I had in the Mother Superior’s office.
“How long has she been at Rosary?” he asked my mother.
“Since September,” she said.
“I saw her last August, when she was four.” He looked at his notes. “She weighed forty-five pounds then. Today she’s only thirty-five. What the hell have you been doing to her for nine months?”
“Nothing, doctor. She says she feels sick a lot.”
“Didn’t you notice that she’s lost weight? She looks like a goddamn concentration camp survivor.”
“It’s not my fault. I can’t help it if she doesn’t eat at Rosary.”
The doctor looked at her over his glasses.
“Is she at Rosary on the weekends?”
“No, we take her home on the weekends.”
“Does she eat at home then?”
“Yes, she seems to enjoy eating. Except on Sundays, when we have to get her ready to go back to Rosary. She’ll often throw up her Sunday dinner.”
“Jesus Christ, I’ve never seen such neglect. You need to take her out of Rosary immediately.”
“But what am I going to do? I can’t take care of her. I have to work.”
“I don’t know what you’re going to do. But, if you send her back to Rosary, I’ll have no choice but to call social services. I’ve a good mind to do that anyway. They could take her away from you, and you could get arrested for child neglect.”
My mother was sobbing now, but she agreed to follow the doctor’s instructions and took me out of the school. I never returned to Rosary. The doctor insisted on seeing me each week. Sometimes my mother or Margie brought me to his office, and sometimes he made a home visit. He always weighed me and asked what I was eating. He asked who was taking care of me and seemed satisfied when my mother told him about the various ladies who watched me during the day. After about a month, he started to smile when he read the numbers on the scale.
I could have died that year at Rosary, yet I had no medical problems
