Baby Bottle Debacle
My earliest childhood memory is of my mother
hovering over me with a look of consternation on her face. She was picking
glass shards of a smashed baby bottle out of my hair. We were at a rented summer bungalow in Warwick, New York,
known as a “kochalayn” amongst the Jewish families that rented them. I
remember being in a screened-in porch, seated on a wooden bench or in a high
chair, with an exterior wall behind me. I don’t know how the bottle broke. Did
my two or three-year-old self swing it at the wall or my head in
overexcitement or flail it as part of a temper tantrum? I would like to think
it was the former, but given my temper, it was probably the latter. I know I
was quiet as my mother cautiously pulled the glass pieces away from my tender
skin. The calm after the storm? The knowledge that I was being cared for? I do
know that the incident did not curb my temper. That fiery side of me was
quenched over the decades but never entirely extinguished. I still let at it,
even if I am yelling at myself—or I should say, especially if I am yelling at
myself.
Ice Cream Truck
The first ice-cream truck of the season
broadcasts its melody and predicts the oncoming balminess of spring and summer.
It belies the high fevers and tortured breaths served up by the Corona virus
at our doorsteps. For one brief moment the relief of normalcy, the remembrance
of youthful excitement, courses through my veins. My little feet run with
abandon, a dollar bill clutched in a clammy, expectant hand held high in the
air, anticipation of the first crunch followed by the burst of ice-cold,
creamy ice cream. I long for that sweet weightlessness of youth, without this
brutish stink of pandemic pressing down on my shoulders. As my childhood has
vanished, so will this contagion. What comes after, I do not know. I hunger for
that transformation, but feel cautious about taking the first bite.
The Drink
Frank, Sydney and my father, Henry, were
standing together at the engagement party, their heads thrown back in laughter.
They all had a drink of some honey colored liquid in their
hands, and Frank and Sydney probably had a cigar in their other hand. I think
my father had stopped smoking cigarettes by then. It was a busy room, with all
the women dressed up and the men in suits and ties. So many full skirts and
shiny fabrics, so many pant legs. I was waist
high to cocktail dress and had become unattached from my family. I wanted a
soda, but had no one to get it for me. I was uneasy
with only strangers around me.
Then I saw a familiar hand holding a glass of
liquid. There was that familiar laugh, those twinkling eyes, that short, but
strong physique. My Daddy. Next to Daddy was my safe place. I ran up and hugged
his legs, looked up and told him I was thirsty. Could I have a drink of his
Ginger Ale? The men exchanged looks and hesitated. Frank said to my father
“Sure, give her a drink.” Another few seconds, and then my father did. Only it
wasn’t Ginger Ale. It was probably Seven & 7 or some other hard liquor with
soda. I greedily gulped it down, as children tend to
do. The taste strangled me. My hands went to my throat. My eyes widened and my
tears flowed.
Years later, at an ad agency party, a co-worker
offered to get me a drink. I asked for a diet soda. His over-the-top laughter
and leers, as he handed me the drink, set off loud, primal alarms. I refused the
drink and turned abruptly away. At the time, neither he nor I understood my
strong reaction. In hindsight I know the reason. I had been fooled once when I was a child, and I wasn’t
about to be fooled again. There I was, thirty-something, and still the little
girl whose trust had been betrayed by her Daddy, her hero.
Marsha H.
May 2, 2020
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