Aunty Lily Read online

  There was only one problem to this solution. The bedroom window of our next door neighbor’s house directly faced ours. Unlike the Lutherans across the way, these neighbors didn’t seem to be of a religious nature, but I still didn’t want to shock or cause offense. The husband, however, did work nights, and as a result, I had never seen the bedroom blinds in any other position than closed. In the interest of tough nipples, I decided the risk was worth it.

  One day as I was enjoying the toughening effects of a particularly boisterous breeze, the bedroom blinds next door shot up. Instead of ducking out of the way, which would have been the sensible thing to do, I froze. The husband looked across the narrow divide that separated our two houses and his eyes, not surprisingly, went immediately to my bare breasts. He slowly lifted his head and our eyes met. I waited for a look of shock, or horror, or at least surprise to contort his features. To my relief, none was forthcoming. Instead, he looked totally bewildered as if trying to figure out exactly what he was seeing. I seized the moment and waved in what I hoped was a rather jolly manner. A jolly wave, I determined, was not the sort of wave a bare-breasted young woman might give. It worked! He waved back distractedly, as if still trying to work out what it was I might or might not be wearing. Then, I experienced a moment of sheer inspiration. I reached for a tissue from my bedside table and began conscientiously to dust the window frame. Eventually, still looking hopelessly bewildered, he gave a shrug of defeat and slowly lowered the blinds.

  In the interest of maintaining friendly relations with my neighbors, I decided my nipples were tough enough for the ordeal ahead, and I kept them away from the window ledge for the few remaining weeks of my pregnancy.

  In due time, contractions began. The suitcase had long since been packed and we set off for the hospital. I feel I should mention the contents of the suitcase at this point. I had read in a magazine that one should avoid taking a maternity outfit to the hospital for the trip home with the new baby. After all, they reasoned, everyone by this time is thoroughly sick and tired of maternity clothes. No, they said take a nice, non-maternity but comfortable outfit. “It will lift your spirits,” they assured the hapless reader. I packed a pant outfit which had an elasticized waist and zipper and would, I felt sure, be roomy enough to accommodate my non-pregnant girth.

  When it came time to get dressed to go home after delivering the baby, I looked down at the large wad of red-streaked flesh that had once been my perfectly, flat, smooth stomach. I was able to pull it out, fold it over, and then force-feed it into the hopelessly narrow opening of the pants. Needless to say, there was nothing remotely uplifting about this experience. My spirits—along with the folded-flap of flesh—were securely and painfully wedged behind the straining teeth of the zipper.

  But I digress. Contractions began, and we set off for the hospital. When we arrived, we signed in and a nurse escorted us to our room. We had no sooner settled in when my water broke. I think I do not exaggerate when I say cascades of water shot into the room and wouldn’t stop. “Bring buckets!” the excited nurse shrieked. I half expected the baby to come shooting out right then and there singing, “I’m riding along on the crest of a wave and the sun is in the sky!”12 But no such luck! Two buckets and many towels later, contractions began in earnest and it wasn’t long before I decided to forego the “natural” part of this birth. My husband, the coach, encouraged me by modeling various breathing techniques and suggested I try some of them. I told him in no uncertain terms exactly where he could stuff his breathing techniques, grabbed hold of his hospital gown, and hissed, “Get . . . the . . . nurse!

  A perky young thing arrived and looked at me indulgently. “Oh, I’m sure we’ve got a long way to go yet, Mrs. Munro—but let’s have a peek and see how we’re doing.” The nurse’s head disappeared and then quickly popped up between my knees. “Oh, the baby’s head has crowned. That was quick! Too quick was the inference and I felt immediately guilty. “Dr. Ryan isn’t here yet.” Then, she allowed herself a small smile. “Don’t push!” Not pushing is akin to holding back twenty wild horses all intent on galloping in the same direction. But being the earnest young woman I was, I gamely took hold of the reins while the nurses and my husband galloped with me into the delivery room.

  After what seemed like an eternity, the doctor arrived and gave me permission to push. Yee hah! I let go of the reins. I pushed, I strained, I groaned.

  At length, the doctor peered at me over his hospital mask. “Three more good pushes, Jen, and you’re done.”

  I felt as if I would somehow fail the course if I took more than the prescribed three pushes, so I put everything I had into them. Muscles strained, blood vessels in my eye balls exploded, and the baby shot out so fast, the doctor had to catch him like a football. I could see it took considerable restraint for him not to dash the baby to the ground and shout, “Touchdown!”

  The baby was then placed on my stomach. He was not crying, but was making these odd little panting sounds. “Is he all right?” I demanded. I looked up to find that the doctor, too, was making the same odd little panting sounds.

  “Don’t worry,” he explained breathlessly, “It always happens when they arrive so quickly,” but whether he meant himself or the baby was not entirely clear.

  When Eric had finished cutting the umbilical cord, he then gave the baby his Leboyer bath. “He’s doing the backstroke, Jen,” he announced proudly.

  Then, I nursed the baby on my suitably tough nipples and stared earnestly at my son. He was red, wrinkled, and perfect. I had done it. I had produced the perfect baby. I gazed down at him, filled with an overwhelming love that poured down my cheeks in a river of tears. So what if my stomach had the consistency of gelatin and texture of orange peel, at least I was able to comfort myself with the certain knowledge that after all the reading I had done, raising Ben would be a piece of cake!

  * * *

  12. From Riding on the Crest of the Wave by Ralph Reader. Reproduced with permission.

  Read My Lips

  I HAD JUST GIVEN BIRTH TO OUR FIRST CHILD, a boy. My husband, Eric, leaned toward me and took hold of my face gently. An engineer by trade, he was not given to emotive endearments, but I knew this time must be different. Pulling his face mask down, he peered at me intently, and whispered tenderly, “Read my lips, Jen. No pets!”

  Now, before we were married, we had not even discussed whether or not we wanted children, let alone whether those phantom children would be allowed to have pets. In my chaotic household growing up, we had always had pets: there was Sammy, the gold fish, which we had for years, until he died mysteriously while we were away on vacation. Mrs. Hyman, our neighbor, had taken care of him while we were gone and on his death had replaced him with a look-alike substitute, but my mother knew immediately that this was an impostor. Whenever, she had spoken to the original model, our Sammy had hovered at the front of the bowl, listening intently to every word she said.

  Then, there was the blue rubber ball—a substitute for a dog, which at the time, we could ill afford. My dad had drilled a hole right through the middle of the ball, and inserted a string so that we could take “Spot” for walks. Our greatest delight was to bounce it, yank on the leash, and shout “Come!” Immediately, Spot would leap into our open arms, a model of canine obedience.

  By comparison, Sooty, our real dog, who arrived years later, was a disappointing substitute that doggedly refused to heed even the simplest of commands. Should anyone leave the door open, he shot out of the house and disappeared for days at a time—only to return smelling of dog turds and sporting an obscene grin.

  Tommy the tortoise was my favorite—if we waited long enough, he would actually come when we called him. We did have a rabbit for a while, but since dire straits forced us to eat it, I don’t think it really counts.

  Anyway, the point is that children and pets, at least in my mind, were inextricably linked. Negotiating this fundamental philosophical difference between my husband and me, would require great diplomacy
on my part.

  To this end, we started off with a brightly colored ceramic parrot in a macramé cage that I hung in the kitchen. By this time, we had two boys, five and two, who fed it peanuts while I kept up a constant chorus of “Pretty Polly,” “Finish your breakfast,” “Don’t hit your brother,” and a whole host of other useful parental directives which—because they came from the parrot—were religiously obeyed. Of course, the willing suspension of disbelief and the boys’ fleeting obedience gradually disappeared at the same rate the uneaten peanuts accumulated in the bottom of the cage. It was obvious that a real pet was required.

  A goldfish seemed a simple way to begin—and Eric, though not thrilled, agreed, failing to recognize this as the thin end of a mighty wedge. Nancy Bell, so named after Ben’s first love in kindergarten, was installed in the penthouse of fish bowls, which was replete with plastic seaweed and a Davy Jones’s locker. At the request of the boys, it was ensconced on the top of the dresser in their bedroom—a mistake I now realize.

  In order to gaze at Nancy Bell together—a feat that could not be achieved by using the chair I had provided for their individual viewing pleasure—Andrew pulled out the dresser drawers into a series of steps, which they both proceeded to climb. The force of the dresser falling on top of the boys catapulted Nancy Bell and her glass bowl into the air. Hitting the wall with a massive crash, the glass shattered and Nancy Bell fell to the floor where she floundered, gasping for breath in a fast disappearing puddle of water.

  Alerted by the bloodcurdling screams, I dashed upstairs and, I think this establishes beyond any reasonable doubt the suspect quality of my parenting capabilities, took one look at Nancy Bell as she flopped around in a desperate attempt to come to terms with this capricious turn of events, and promptly saved her rather than my children. Only when she was swimming happily in a saucepan of water in the kitchen, did I return to rescue the boys. They gave a somewhat feeble cheer when I told them Nancy Bell lived.

  Though they loved Nancy Bell, they pointed out to their father the limitations of having a goldfish as a pet and—by contrast—the enormous benefits of furry ones. And so when they asked for a hamster and gerbil respectively, Eric, relieved that they hadn’t asked for a dog, caved in. The hamster and gerbil did indeed fill that deep-seated need all children have to nurture a small, defenseless creature—until one day when they were in the utility room cleaning the animals’ cages. Andrew’s gerbil escaped and disappeared behind the washer and dryer, and I was summoned to help retrieve it. “Right, you stand by the washer, Ben. Andrew, you stand by the dryer. When I bang on the washer, both of you get ready to catch it when it shoots out! Right?”

  “We’ll need our baseball mitts,” they decided and ran to get them. On their return, they crouched into position like seasoned players.

  “One, two, three!” I pounded on the side of the washer probably a little too enthusiastically and a black missile shot out from under the machine. Ben let out a startled cry of alarm and leaped into the air. Defying the law of gravity, he hung suspended for a moment. Only when Blackie was directly beneath him, did Ben begin his inevitable, deadly descent. We closed our eyes and waited until we heard the anticipated crunch.

  Andrew let out a wail of despair, ran into the garage, and locked himself in his dad’s car. Ben, sobbing, ran upstairs and locked himself in his bedroom. Meanwhile, the gerbil, caught in the throes of death, lay on its back with its legs flailing, blood pouring from its mouth. Now, whether from the horror of the situation or from feeling totally inadequate to the task, I was suddenly gripped by an uncontrollable fit of laughter, and I collapsed in a heap upon the dryer—another testament to my pathetic parenting skills. By the time I recovered, the gerbil lay dead upon the floor. Rallying at last, I found a suitable box and managed to coax both boys from their respective hiding places.

  The ritual of a funeral seemed to calm everyone. Ben and Andrew retrieved green plastic grass from the Easter decorations and used it to line the “coffin.” Together, they dug a hole under the apple tree and placed the box inside. They replaced the dirt and sod, erected a Popsicle stick cross on the grave, and Andrew gave a short eulogy: “I still love you, Gunga Din, and want you to know that Ben didn’t do it on purpose. Amen.” The boys gave one another one of their rare hugs. Harmony was restored.

  Without Gunga Din as a companion, Hercules, the hamster, expired a short time later and once more the boys were back on the “we need a pet” trail. To Eric’s dismay, the local children’s farm where Ben and Andrew belonged to the 4-H Club was looking for a good home for a little Dutch rabbit. “And it comes with a cage and everything,” said Andrew, as if this sealed the deal.

  Eric groaned and the rabbit moved in. We called her Minnehaha. A little under two weeks later she gave birth to six babies. “We should have called her Minnewhorewhore,” Eric muttered under his breath when he heard the news.

  We now had seven rabbits and to make matters worse, when we attended the local 4-H fair the following week, Andrew asked if he could buy raffle tickets. I said, “Sure!” The prizes were stereos, a small TV and such—but Andrew didn’t buy tickets for that raffle. He bought tickets where the prizes were a lop-eared dwarf rabbit, a guinea pig, and assorted hamsters. When I learned the truth, I knew without any shadow of a doubt that we held one of the winning tickets. In fact, we held two. That’s how we ended up with another rabbit and a guinea pig. “Close your eyes,” I said to Eric when we got home.

  As a side note, as Flopsy, the adorable lop-eared dwarf rabbit, grew, she started to growl and look menacing whenever the boys cleaned out her cage. Eventually, they were too frightened to clean it, and so the job fell to me. I must admit, I, too, was terrified, but asking Eric to do it was out of the question. One day, when I reached into Flopsy’s cage, not only did she growl, but she crouched down low and then attacked. With a yelp, I withdrew my hand only to find that she had sunk her teeth into the soft flesh of my palm. I tried to shake her free but the pain was excruciating.

  I let out a blood curdling yell and Eric and the boys flew down the basement stairs. The children stopped in their tracks and stared in a sort of fascinated horror. “Do something, Dad,” they cried from their vantage point of safety.

  To his credit, Eric looked around and found a suitable weapon. Rolling up an old newspaper, he batted valiantly at the furry extension to my hand. “I’m not really sure,” he screamed as he smacked at Flopsy, “exactly what the boys are supposed to learn from all this, Jen, or am I missing the obvious?” At last, Flopsy released her grip, fell onto the tattered basement carpet, and hopped away. Quickly, we all scrambled up the stairs to the kitchen and slammed the door.

  Eric washed my hand and wrapped it in a towel. “What do we do now,” he asked in his most sardonic voice, “use a chair and a whip to subdue her?”

  I gave him a withering glance and called the breeder, who was most scornful when she learned that we had lacked the moral fiber necessary to establish ourselves as the alpha bunny. But she did agree to take away the marauding beast, along with Miniwhorewhore’s offspring. All in all, Eric thought it had been rather a good day.

  Now that most of the rabbits had disappeared, the house seemed woefully empty with just Mini and the guinea pig, and it wasn’t long before the boys were bemoaning their fate.

  “What they really want is a dog,” Eric said one evening. “Perhaps if we get a dog,” he reasoned, “they’ll stop wanting more animals.” I didn’t like to point out the fallacy of his argument, but a dog would be nice, I agreed. Sherlock, a beagle puppy, moved in a few weeks later. The boys were thrilled but instead of stemming their desire, perversely, it took our animal husbandry to a whole new level.

  Ben began to volunteer his time at the Little Red School House, a nature center close to our home. There then followed a range of refugee animals from the wild and a whole host of reptiles which took up residence in the basement: a hawk recovering from an injury to its wing, four baby sparrow hawks, various turtles, a
number of snakes, and, following a visit to a reptile show, an iguana. I personally loved the iguana—by submerging her in a bath of warm water, we could make her poop. Since iguanas poop only once every five days or so, this meant she could roam the house freely, which she thoroughly enjoyed. Not so much Eric and Sherlock. Terrified, they clung to one another for moral support. It was the first time Eric had ever bonded with an animal.

  But then, the local mouse population must have heard we were a boarding house of sorts. Mice flocked to our door like homing pigeons. Legions of mice moved in! I knew I had a real problem when I discovered that the bag of birdseed, which we kept in the utility room, was emptying at an alarming rate. In the crawl space, the mice were busy packing our suitcases with it—their insurance policy against a future famine. I couldn’t help admiring their preparedness.

  Conveniently, Eric had organized an extended business trip at the time, so I was left to deal with the problem alone. The plague delighted the boys who had created a log book and were diligently noting their sightings. At first, I set up non-lethal traps, “humane” affairs at which the mice scoffed. They felt so much at home that one afternoon as I watching an episode of Nature, I looked around and there was a grizzled old mouse sitting up on its haunches on the arm of the chair, watching the show with avid interest! I got up slowly but he didn’t move—and I went into the kitchen for a paper towel. I came back and scooped him up. Taking him outside, I released him onto the lawn, when suddenly, a hawk swooped down and flew off with him. I’m ashamed to say I experienced a quiver of satisfaction.

  When a mouse ran over me in bed on night, I finally drew the line. I considered the invasion of my bedroom an act of war. It never occurred to me to call Terminix®—this was personal. I purchased two dozen mouse traps, the old fashioned kind with the spring loader. That night I sat at the kitchen table rolling whole wheat bread and peanut butter into solid balls. I was humming to myself. Every now and then let out a low chuckle—there was something vaguely manic about my manner. Ben and Andrew gave me a wide berth.