LITMIR.BIZ

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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 she’ll be thinking so hard about peeling the potatoes and she’ll forget about me. I craned my head to look at the brand new music book, Grade 2 Exercises, I’d bought from Sister Frances. Slowly, I opened to the piece Sister Frances had assigned me that week. I pressed the book open with the flat of my right hand. I hovered my hands palm down over the piano keys. Sister Frances told me to always start in this position. I concentrated on the music in front of me, and I began to play. I’m not sure why I was so careful not to make noise with the page turning, given that I was about to play this monster upright that echoed through our apartment. Maybe I thought my mother wouldn’t stop me after I’d started playing. She’d enjoy hearing the music so much that it would calm and soothe her, and she wouldn’t want to interfere with the beautiful flow of notes.

      “Anne,” I heard her call. My heart sank.

      “What?” I asked.

      “Come out here. I need you to help me.”

      “But I’m playing piano,” I said. “Sister said I have to practice every day.”

      “Come out here now.”

      With cheeks burning, I slid off the bench and walked out through the dining room and stopped in the kitchen doorway.

      “Wipe that sullen look off your face,” my mother demanded.

      There was nothing I could do to stop the anger flashing out of my eyes. Before I knew it my mother crossed the kitchen to where I stood. The sting jolted me as the palm of her hand hit my left cheek. Slimy potato water dripped down my face. The back of her hand connected with the right side of my head as her arm swung back. I felt a scratch from her diamond cocktail ring, the one she’d had made from her engagement ring and that of her mother-in-law. I held my breath. I knew if I stood very still and didn’t look at her, she might only hit my face a couple of times. Stepping back would anger her more. Then the hitting would get harder and faster, and she’d start screaming. I think I hated the screaming almost as much as the hitting. Then, she did something worse.

      “I wish I’d put you up for adoption when I had the chance,” she blurted.

      Oh, I really wish she had, I thought. She must have read my mind, or maybe she wanted me to say that I was happy she kept me. But she seemed to get angrier at my lack of reaction.

      “Well, maybe I should just send you away right now. I’m sick of the sight of you.”

      This had her desired effect and made me cry. My greatest fear continued to be my mother sending me away again.

      It was almost six o’clock, and Margie would be home from work soon. She’d step off her bus at the end of Brooks Street at 5:51 P.M. and slowly walk home, feet sore from being squeezed into black high-heeled pumps all day. At 5:59 P.M., her keys would jingle in the back door lock; I’d be safe if I could just hold out for a few more minutes. When my mother hit me while Margie was at home, she rarely gave me more than one quick slap to the cheek. Maybe Margie could talk my mother out of sending me away. After all, I’d been allowed to live with them for the past two years, so Margie must have been having some influence on my mother.

      When Margie was away, my face became a target, my cheeks like dual bull’s-eyes as my mother’s hand aimed and struck. Injuries to the middle of my face were collateral damage as my mother slapped my face from side to side—palm to one cheek, back of hand to the other. The physical injuries—cuts and scratches and small bruises—came from her nails or her jewelry. The logic skills I used to solve tricky math word problems at school failed me with my mother. I usually couldn’t figure out what I’d done to precipitate a beating. So I sought refuge. Margie was my best shelter; she shielded me from my mother like a seawall protecting against storm damage. She couldn’t

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