Chapter 1
My brothers and sisters piled into the house before me, our silence broken. Anthony was singing a snippet of a pop song and Darren was joining in making up alternative words, which were making Joy giggle. They trooped through the kitchen and through the dining room leaving a trail of coats, gloves and scarves behind them. Only Neil had not travelled through the house, instead, he was stood by the kitchen door, where we kept the kettle, preparing a tray to make us all hot drinks.
Coming in from the porch I squeezed his hand and he turned to smile at me. I smiled back and travelled on through the house deftly collecting my siblings' winter wear and piling it into the cupboard under the stairs. With six people living in the house things had to be put away straight away, otherwise the house soon looked a mess.
Back before the bad times this house had been plenty big enough. My parents bought it when Rachael and I were ten and Joy was only a baby. Neil was already at university and the other two boys were away at boarding school. Rachael and I would also be going away in a few years time, that's why my parents had chosen to move to a smaller house; tuition fees for six children were going to cost my parents a lot. My mother and father had the largest bedroom, with me and Rachael sharing and Joy in a small box room. There always seemed to be enough room back then but now there was never enough.
Joy had now moved into mine and Rachael's room, along with us, and the three boys shared my parent's old room most of the time. Originally the box room had been reserved for our father but his time in the house had got less and less frequent, until now we hadn't seen him in over six months. Neil slept in there nearly all the time now. It was strange but even back when our father was there a lot and the boys were just moving back home, we never thought about how we would, or could, reshuffle when Mama came back home. I suppose we all knew she wasn't, at least not anytime soon.
Signs of my mother's illness had always been there, but they had been ignored, or else none us had noticed, mother always having been strange. Every week for as long as I could remember she would visit a psychiatrist twice a week. During school holidays she would take us girls and we would sit in the waiting room, Rachael engrossed in a novel, and me keeping the baby happy. My mother would leave those sessions refreshed and smiling. "See," she would say, taking the baby from my arms and grabbing my hand, "It wasn't too boring waiting for me now was it?"
"No, Mama," I would say smiling back at her eagerly wanting her happiness to last forever. Rachael would reluctantly return from whatever fictional world she had entered and absently shake her head.
"Then lets go have some fun!" she would respond.
Giggling like she was our age, Mama would take us into town where we would run round shops trying on outlandish outfits and striking model poses. Sometimes Rachael would join in as well, but more often than not, she would stand by the changing room door with her nose stuck back in her book. Even baby Joy would sit in her pushchair and giggle her appreciation. It was only after Mama's sessions that Rachael got away with standing and reading in public. One normal day in the supermarket Rachael had been absently reading a library book she had just checked out as she was pushing the cart. I had been pointing things out to Joy trying to make her chuckle her deep baby laugh when I heard a scream.
"How many times have I told you not to read when you're meant to be doing something else?" shouted Mama.
"I'm sorry," Rachael said, "I didn't know you were going to stop. I didn't mean to bang into you."
"Sorry?" Mama screamed, "Sorry?" with that she began to reach for whatever was on the shelves and began throwing them at Rachael. Most of them missed and the majority were soft packages, but all of a sudden Mama took a tin of beans from a shelf and aimed them at Rachael's head.
With an awful thud they made contact and Mama seemed to come out of her rage. Rachael was crying silently a hand held up to a gash on her forehead trying to stop the blood that was rushing out. I ran over to her and tried to help her but she shrugged me off, and continued staring at Mama.
Everything was silent. Cahiers, shelf stackers and regular customers were stood stock still in the aisles watching us. Joy began to cry
"I'm sorry," Mama almost whispered, "Oh, Rachael, I'm so sorry" Mama reached out her arms to Rachael but she ignored them. I could here the people around us start to whisper. Mama started crying.
"Come on, Mama," I said, "Lets go"
I held my hand out to her and she took it. I supported her as she wept her way out of the store. Rachael followed, pushing Joy and trying to stop her tears.
"You still love me don't you?" Mama pleaded.
"Yes, Mama" I dutifully said. Eventually we made it home. My father was away on business so Rachael reluctantly let Mama tend to her wound.
My mother took to her bed and stayed there for two days crying on and off. She wouldn't leave the house and wouldn't let us leave either. She locked all the doors and hid the keys under her pillow. "In case," she explained to me, "In case you're lying and you don't love and you go and tell them all how bad I am." My father came home two days later. It was fortunate he did. We never bought the groceries and we were running out of food and formula. Rachael had been talking about breaking a window but they were all double glazed. My Mama had had the sense to cut the phone wires as well.
On days after Mama's sessions it was Ok for Rachael to read while Mama and I were silly. Huddled in the changing room after our dress up sessions Mama would let me choose a small thing I liked to keep. Smiling at me she would remove the tag and let me wear it under my clothes, "We don't want Rachael to see you got something so pretty do we?" Mama explained when I once asked why I couldn't wear the necklace I selected outside my shirt so everyone could see. I didn't see how Rachael would care. She wasn't interested in clothes or jewellery, and anyway sometimes there were gifts for her too, like on the days we went to the bookstore we would often find the book Rachael had been looking at hidden amongst the piles of library books we always took home. I didn't argue though. It was best not to argue with Mama, because sometimes, but only if we pushed her too far, Mama would hurt you, like she had Rachael in the supermarket. It was easier to agree.
I always tried to do what Mama wanted. Sometimes she would find me sat reading, which I loved to do almost as much as Rachael did, and would tell me not to. "You don't want to read do you?" she would ask mockingly, "Come over here and tell Mama how much you love, then maybe she'll tell you a story better than one in any book"
So I did and she did. She would tell me wonderful stories about a princess who met a prince at a ball and fell in love with him, but how it all went tragically wrong, because the princess was already married to a wicked King who would never let her go, and because the prince had an ogre for a mother who forbade the prince from rescuing his princess, even though she gave birth to his two beautiful twin daughters. "That's you, honey," she would say. "I named you Faith because I would always have faith that he would love and come rescue me sometime, and I called Rachael, Rachael after a lady in the bible who didn't have a baby until she was real old and then only had it because her husband had great faith in God, and so do I."
Then she would cross her eyes at me to make me giggle and say "And I called her Rachael because I bet she wont have babies until she's real old because she's ugly and men only want pretty girls like you and me." I would laugh with her but feel bad for Rachael at the same time. She was pretty, she just didn't always agree with everything Mama said and that was why Mama picked on her so much. I was glad when Daddy was around. Then she didn't pick on her too much.
Soon though Mama stopped being fun any of the time. She wouldn't tell me about the beautiful princess anymore, and her weekly sessions stopped. She would lie in bed all day and not do anything. We would come home from school each day to hear Joy crying from down the drive. When we entered the house, whatever mess we had left that morning was still there. Rachael would begin to tidy up and to make some sort of dinner. After a few days we had got used to this new routine.
I would run upstairs as fast as I could to find Joy still in her crib. Her own waste would be smeared everywhere and she would be crying from hunger, discomfort and boredom. I would bathe and dress the baby and then strip down her crib, washing all the soiled sheets. As soon as they were done I would wash mine and Rachael's school clothes. Every morning I would beg Mama to get up and care for baby Joy, "I will" she promised every day but never did.
After five whole school days of this Rachael and I decided we couldn't leave Joy on her own anymore. It was clear Mama was never getting out of bed and wouldn't look after herself, let alone a baby. She was refusing any food we sent to her and she was always just lying, staring at the ceiling. It was me who discovered what she was doing about going to the toilet. I had gone in on the second morning to plead with her about Joy when my toe stubbed against something by the bed.
"What's this?" I asked pulling a bucket full of her waste towards me. "Oh, Mama!" I cried. After that it was my duty to clean and replace the bucket every day.
Our plan for caring for Joy was simple. Come Monday I wouldn't go to school. I would stay home and Rachael would tell them I was sick. I would do this everyday for a week and then the following week Rachael would stay home and I would tell everybody Rachael had come down with my illness. We thought this would buy us time until Daddy got back. We weren't sure exactly when he was due home but he had been gone an awful long time so two weeks should be about right.
All we knew was that we could never, ever let anyone else find out, not even our brothers when they called once a week. We would chat inanely to them and tell them Mama was resting, or out, or seeing to Joy. We just knew if we could keep things going for just a little while longer Daddy would be able to make Mama better when he came home.
It was me who decided all it would take for Mama to get better was Daddy coming home. On the first day of my vigil I went in to see Mama while Joy took her morning nap.
"Mama, why are you sick?" I asked
"I'm not sick," Mama replied.
"Then why wont you leave your bed?"
Mama finally dragged her eyes from the ceiling and looked at me. "I can tell you," she said, "But you can't tell anybody else. It's magic and magic only works if it's a secret. You can know though because you're his beautiful girl who looks so much like him. Promise not to tell?"
"I promise, Mama," I said puzzled
"I know why the prince I told you about hasn't come. Its because I was running around with Joy. He's cross because Joy's not his baby. He doesn't mind me playing with you and sometimes Rachael, though he likes you best, but he hates me playing with Joy. I should never have had her. So if I stay here and don't move and don't even play with you he will know it's him I love best and will come for me."
"That's crazy, Mama," I said, "There is no prince, that's just a story you made up."
"I was wrong to tell you," she started to cry, "I thought you loved me and you'd understand but you don't. You don't love me."
She ripped her eyes from me and turned back to the ceiling. "I do love you, Mama," I said, "I do." But it was too late she was lost to me now.
I waited all day for Rachael to come home trying to decide whether or not to tell her what Mama had said. She had said it was magic, but her story was so crazy. I was so excited though I had it all worked out.
"Don't you see," I told Rachael, "Those stories she told me were true and Daddy's her prince. All we have to do is wait for Daddy to come home and then she'll be better."
"That's stupid," Rachael said "We said we'd keep it secret until Daddy comes home because we don't know what's making her sick but Daddy coming home wont cure it. She needs a doctor and maybe that man she used to do see. I thought you knew that."
But I was adamant. I knew my mother. If she said she had a prince then she did. Mama would never lie to me.
"Yes she would," Rachael protested, "She steals and she lies and she's horrible."
"You're wrong!" I screamed, "Mama would never steal or lie."
"Oh yeah, then how come she never pays for the books she gives me or the stuff you take home from clothes stores?"
"That's not stealing!" I yelled.
"Then what is it? And if yours and Mama's crazy story is true then who's baby is Joy?"
"You're awful I screamed at her, awful!"
I picked up the baby and left the room tears pouring down my face. At first as I sat there playing with Joy I thought about how Mama was right telling me not to tell Rachael. Rachael was ugly and lived in her stupid book world. What did she know about things being real anyway? I hoped I hadn't ruined the magic by telling that awful pig.
Later in bed that night I began to think properly about the things Rachael had said. Maybe some of it was a little bit true. Not all of it though, and I was sure Mama didn't mean to steal things. She probably didn't know, just like I hadn't until now.
The next morning Rachael and I acted like nothing had happened and Rachael headed for school while I washed Joy. And still we waited for Daddy.
On the first Monday of Rachael's time at home, we were sat eating frozen pizza at the dining room table. The Saturday before, we had taken some money from Mum's purse and Rachael had gone to the supermarket. I had stayed at home with Joy because one ten year old shopping alone would cause less interest than two of us and a baby.
"I think we should tell someone," Rachael said through a mouth full of cheese. I knew that the only reason Rachael wanted to tell anyone was that staying at home with the baby wasn't as much fun as she thought it would be. She had thought she could sit all day reading but Joy was demanding. Plus there were other things to do such as emptying Mama's bucket or doing simple household chores.
"No," I said, "we just have to wait for Daddy."
"We cant," she said, "Not anymore. We've used all Mama's money and plus.And plus I'm scared."
I knew how much it had cost Rachael to admit she was scared.
"Me too," I said, "But who can we tell?"
"I don't know. How about one of the boys?"
"It would have to be Neil." Rachael pulled a face at my suggestion. Neil was the eldest of our three brothers, in fact the eldest of us all, and I idolised him. Neil was everything I wanted in a man when I grew older. Even at ten I thought a lot about love and romance and getting married. These were the only kind of books Mama would let me read and then she only let me read those so she had someone to talk about the books with. Rachael would pass her books on to me and I would devour them in secret, but somehow the tales of happily ever after resided best in my mind.
Neil was everything those storybook hero's were to me. He was handsome and clever and always had time to talk to me. He knew the names of all my friends, the results of all my tests and the words to all my favourite songs. I only had to tell Neil something once and he would remember it forever. When he pulled me close to him for a hug I could smell the pure maleness of him. It was a smell Daddy didn't seem to have; a mixture of cigarette smoke, deodorant sweat and for some reason, fresh baked bread. Neil was bigger than Daddy, so when he put his arms around you, or sat you on his lap, then you felt like nothing in the world would ever hurt you again.
Rachael didn't like him, but I don't think it was because he was mean to her, or picked on her like Mama did. Instead it was because she was jealous. Mama was mine and Daddy was hers, yet Daddy was so proud of his big grown up son. He would stand and tell his friends about how Neil was doing at university, about all the parties he was invited to and the girls he dated. Somewhere in the conversation he would forget to mention Rachael and every time I would see her eyes glaze over with pain. Rachael would never be able to compete with him. He had eight years on her, and he was a boy. Plus there had been a full four years where Neil had had Daddy all to himself, without a brood of others to compete with.
"Why him?" she asked pulling a face.
"Because if we tell the others, they'll tell their schools. Plus there's nothing they can do from school."
Rachael considered this in silence before nodding her consent and then she dropped her eyes back to the open book and began to read again whilst taking bites of her pizza. I was tired of her reading. I wanted her to talk to me.
"Rachael?" I said, waiting for her to look up before I continued with what I was saying, "Don't you think its weird that the boys ring us every week, but Daddy doesn't ring us while he's away, not ever?"
Rachael though about it for a while. "No," was her response, "I wouldn't ring home either. Not if it meant having to listen to Mama's nonsense. I bet it drives him mad when he's at home. Maybe that's why he goes away so often, so he doesn't have to see her."
I opened my mouth ready to stick up for Mama when I heard footsteps in the kitchen. I looked in shock at Rachael waiting for to do something. She was the brave one.
"Where's my girls?" came a voice from the kitchen.
"Daddy!" I gasped and left my food lying on the plate as we ran into the kitchen to see him.
Rachael sat on Daddy's knee in the dining room telling him what had been happening. I was stood in the kitchen washing the dishes from our dinner and trying to keep Joy happy at the same time. Occasionally snatches of the conversation would come through but I tried to block it out. Now that Daddy was home I would never have to think about this sort of thing again.
They were just finishing as I walked back into the dining room. "I'm proud of you both," Daddy said pulling me and Joy to him with the arm that wasn't around Rachael. "Now I have a favour to ask you. I wouldn't normally ask you to do this on your own in the evening, but you've shown me how grown up you can both be. I need to sort some things out with your Mama so I'm going to give you some money. Do you think you girls could go to the movies and make your way home afterwards?"
"Of Course," said Rachael scornfully, "But only if we get to leave the baby here."
Daddy chuckled at her.
We made our way slowly to the movies. Rachael laughed at me as I skipped along in front of her. "Why are you so happy?" She yelled after me, but she knew why and as she said it she grinned so I knew that she was feeling as carefree as I was.
"Because when we get home Daddy will have made Mama all better," I yelled slowing down to wait for her.
Rachael began to look sad. "You're so stupid," she said catching up to me, "Mama wont be well for a long time." She put her arm around me though to soften the blow. She had no need to though because I didn't believe her anyway. Daddy was going to make Mama well. He was.
The film finished and we made our way home. I burst into the house expecting to see Mama in the kitchen preparing a meal, smiling, ready to greet us with hugs and kisses and tell us how sorry she was for scaring us and telling us how much she loved us.
The house was eerily quiet when we entered. Almost instinctively Rachael and I stopped chattering. "Mama?" I almost whispered.
There was no response. I looked at Rachael for my cue on what to do next. I could see from her face that even though she had told me I was been stupid expecting Mama to be fine when we returned that she must have held some hope as well.
"Come on," she said, taking my hand and pulling me into the house.
We wandered through the dining room and into the living room. Daddy was sat on the sofa his head in his hands. He looked up when we entered. "Hey girls," he greeted us trying to smile. "Where's Mama?" I asked, "Is she OK now?"
"Come sit with me" Daddy said making room next to him so that we could sit either side of him. "You see the doctor came to see your mother and it turns out she's very ill. In fact they've had to take her to hospital."
Rachael and I stared at him. Finally Rachael found her voice and asked, "What's wrong with her?"
"Well no one's really sure. Its something inside her making her sick, its not a disease like flu or measles, its something inside her mind that's making her ill. The doctors need to see her and talk to her to find out what that something is so they can start to fix it."
"How long will she be in hospital?" I asked.
"I don't know, but probably for a long, long time. I'm going to need your help with Joy." He replied.
"That's OK," Rachael said, "Faith's real good with her."
"Good," Daddy said. "I was wondering who had been taking such good care of you girls."
"That was Faith," Rachael said, "I'm no good at stuff like that."
That was true. On the days that Rachael had been home I had had to redo some of the chores when I got home and I had had to make dinner every night.
"Well done, honey," Daddy said smiling softly at me. "Maybe," he continued, looking quickly at Rachael as if seeking her approval, then turning back to me, "You could stay home tomorrow and the next day to keep things going until Neil comes back on Friday."
Rachael hadn't looked too bothered about my staying home to deal with things. Rachael loved school so she wouldn't be jealous and she hated it when I was in her class like I was in fifth Grade.
I wasn't too keen on school. I found it incredibly boring. The work was so easy a lot of the time I was sat bored and restless. Most of the time I was done so quickly I sat chatting with other people around me until the teacher sent me off to do other things. Occasionally, if we were doing something incredibly simple, my teacher would send me out to the sixth grade class to take part in their lessons. This didn't happen very often though because their work was just as easy as the stuff that we did. Now I had to go out of lessons two afternoons to work with a lady called Miss Cooper.
Miss Cooper worked on harder things with me but she still didn't stimulate me at all. Once she had explained to me about how to work out what x equalled in an equation I was away. We had only spent one session learning the basics of algebraic equations and now we had moved onto quadratic equations and trigonometry. Whenever Rachael looked over my work from Miss Cooper's sessions she always looked amazed and confused. She often didn't believe that my mixture of numbers letters and pictures of triangles actually meant anything at all and accused me of just doodling in my sessions. A couple of times Rachael had told me that the only reason I had those sessions was because of my behaviour problems. I wasn't aware I had any behaviour problems but Rachael scornfully informed me that of course I did and that I spent I most of the time disrupting the class.
"It's horrible when you're sat with Jamie and the other boys", she often complained, "None us can get any work done at all with you lot messing around."
"It's only because I've finished the work and get bored," I responded.
"Liar," she accused, "you're getting as bad as Mama for making up stories. There's no way at all you'd done all those long divisions before you and Jamie were throwing rubbers at each other. They were really hard. And don't try and tell me that all those doodles you do and that jumble you write down is harder maths because I know that's a lie as well."
I really had finished those problems and I knew what I did with Miss Cooper was real work, not just something made up to distract me. I had once read my school file and saw that the teachers thought I was incredibly clever and should be moved up to the High School. The notes showed that Mama had said no because it would confuse my father when he came to search for me a he would be looking for a girl in my current grade. This was followed by a series of question marks and dated as later was a post script saying that the school had managed to contact my father and he had said he knew exactly where I was but he didn't feel a move to High School would be beneficial for either Rachael or myself. He said a ten year old didn't belong in that kind of environment and that it could cause Rachael feelings of inadequacy and resentment towards me.
It sometimes surprises me when I look back now at how naïve Rachael and I, and to some extent our brother's, were to what was going on around us. I had never questioned anything people told me, especially adults, and although Rachael could read between the lines more than I could she was still clueless about a lot of things around us. We didn't have to be worldly-wise though, any of us. We lived in a nice neighbourhood, we took vacations, the boys attended boarding schools and so would we soon, and although we weren't rich, apart from the times Mama took to her bed, there was never anything we lacked. If there was none of us could name it. The only thing that marked us out as different from any of the other families was the number of children Mama had had. Sometimes when people commented on it Mama would laugh and say, "I was raised a catholic, what can I say." Back then I didn't know what it meant, yet another example of how clueless I really was.
I was incredibly excited about the news that Neil was coming home and as soon as Friday at that. "Is it his vacation time already?" I asked.
"No, honey," Daddy said, "But we don't know how long Mama will be in hospital and I have to go to work still. I can't take time off because we have things to pay for already and now I'll to pay Mama's hospital bills as well."
"So why does Neil have to come?" Rachael asked sullenly.
Daddy ruffled her hair affectionately. I think he knew how she felt about Neil. "Because," he patiently explained, "Someone needs to be here to take care of you girls and Neil is the only one old enough to do it. Even though Faith's good at it people won't let girls your age take over a household and plus, sometimes there are problems you and Faith wont be able to cope with so you'll need a grown up around. You girl's need to be in school anyway."
"What about Neil's school?" I worriedly asked. I knew that Neil was away at college studying hard but I also knew things didn't come as easily to him as they did to me. Sometimes I could even do his assignments. As much as I wanted him at home I didn't want him to fall behind.
"College is different," Daddy explained, "You can pretty much go to college any time as long as you can afford it. Neil will stay at home for the rest of the school year, even if Mama gets well and comes home before then, and then go back next year and start his courses again." I wasn't to know it then but despite Daddy's words it would be a long time before Neil returned to schooling.
At that was how it was, just as Daddy said. Neil returned that Friday to watch over me and his other sisters while Daddy went away to work to pay for all the bills that came with a large family and a sick wife. As I got older and Neil began to resent him more and more for foisting the problems of a man on a boy who should have been having the time of his life so did I. I often wondered, as we all did, especially Rachael, what made Daddy's trips longer and longer and made him stay away for such long periods of time. I knew, as I know now that it was the sadness of his life that drove him away to find happiness elsewhere. As long as Neil was shouldering the responsibility of us younger ones all he had to provide was our financial support, which he did, adequately, we were never as poor as some of the people I knew, and eventually with all three of the boys working and providing we were comfortably off.
Neil's first few weeks at home I followed him like his shadow. I craved love and affection, having my mother, who I had been so close to, so far from me. Neil claims now as he did then that I wasn't his shadow but his helper, preparing meals and playing with Joy, helping Rachael with homework and showing him how to run the gauntlet of a supermarket and the intricacies of the washing machine. The affection he gave me then has never dried up although I do not need it as much as I once did. I like it though. The feel of his strong arms around me, protecting me, comforting me, letting me draw from his strength so that I am able to go on and face the challenges of a new day.
I am no longer his helper, now I am his partner and his equal. When neighbours hold get togethers or parties, Neil and I are invited as a couple, as the head of our household, and I guess in a way we are.
Soon after Mama had entered the hospital, it was vacation time for the Anthony and Darren, our brothers away at boarding school. Before this had never been a problem as we usually went on a family vacation together but this year sleeping arrangements posed a problem. Using ingenious techniques with beds and closets Neil and I set up the two biggest bedrooms in the house to accommodate us, one for the boys, one for the girls. Little Joy's room, the smallest room in the house was set apart for Daddy, but when his visits grew less and less frequent it became Neil's.
At the end of the vacation Daddy was home for a rare visit. He pulled us all into the sitting room and sat us down. "How would you feel," he said, addressing all of us but aiming his comments at Anthony and Darren, "If the boys didn't return to boarding school this coming year but stayed at home with us."
From the way Neil held me tightly on his lap I could tell that this was something that he and Daddy had already discussed, because he didn't seemed surprised at all.
Rachael looked at him disgusted and Darren looked as though he was about to cry.
"It'll be too crowded!"
"Rugby season starts this term and I'm on the team I can't let them down!"
"I was going to try out for the play this year and there's the autumn formal!"
"Neil already has enough to cope with with three of us."
"What about my S.A.T. 's?"
"What about sport?"
"What about our education?"
"We won't all fit!"
"What does Mama say?"
The barrage of questions, pleadings and demands flew thick and fast at Daddy coming from the four of us younger ones with Neil saying nothing and Joy too young to input anything.
Daddy held up his hand to silence us. "Shush!" he demanded. It was then I think that the lines on his face seemed to deepen and his face took on almost a grimace of pain that he started to wear a lot whenever he was confronted by more than one of his children at a time.
Daddy started to speak in a low but firm voice, "With the bills for your mother to pay and the mortgage on this house we can't afford the school fess and unfortunately neither of you are eligible for scholarships of any kind. I know it will be a squeeze, but it is only until your mother is well enough to return home. Then you can go back to school. Plans have already been made that you will attend the local High School come September. It's a good school with excellent sporting facilities and a good academic record. If you two concentrate you have every as good as chance as any anywhere of achieving good S.A.T. results and going on to college. You wont even be there that long, only a semester or two."
This was a false statement as well. The boys were to stay there for the rest of their high school years. Daddy was right about somethings though. Darren did find their sports facilities excellent and got a scholarship to the local state college where he still was and Anthony got good enough S.A.T. results to go to the same place. Nowadays Anthony and Darren spend most of their time out with friends or girlfriends or up on the campus just hanging out. They haven't gone to live on campus though even though that would make more space. They stay at home and work to pay bills so that they can 'help out.' A lot of the time, like when I'm doing the second load of ironing in one day, I wish they would go, but they feel guilty about leaving us all behind. Also I would miss them tremendously if they went. They're a great help with Joy as well, because sometimes its hard to know if Rachael keeps a proper eye on her when no one else is around, been so lost in her own fantasy book world as she is.
Once a week the boys have Joy so Neil and I can go on a 'date', which is just our way of saying, escape from the madness. Sometimes I feel like it's a real date though and sometimes I wish it was. I get so lonely sometimes, like when I'm watching some stupid sitcom and all the girls my age are obsessed with boys. Neil's threatened to get rid of Nick at Night if he doesn't stop finding me in tears at the end of some dumb show. Its just sometimes I feel a lot older than I really am.
Don't get me wrong, I have friends, and most of them are male. I spend a lot of time with my old grade school buddy Jamie and the rest of the jocks at school. It's just that I don't spend too much time at school because there's always chores to be done. This suits me fine and most of my teacher's too. I go about once a week to get assignments and I'm still making straight A's. It's hard to put into words because the majority of the time I'm happy with my life but my Mama raised me on a diet of romance and promises and I cant help feeling that love and romance will never come to me while I'm stuck washing dishes and raising Joy.
I'm happy with Neil though. He more than makes up for anything I feel I may be missing and he's good about watching Joy in the evenings so I can go out. Most of the time I like to stay at home with him though.
It's Neil who shakes me out of my revere as I stand looking in the living room at my siblings. He wraps one arm around me and kisses me lightly on the head. I look up and smile at him. "Don't look so sad on such a happy day," he tells me.
I cross my eyes and stick my tongue out at him, "That better?" I ask.
"Much, you don't look half so ugly now," he affirms as I lightly dig him in the ribs and he laughs at me. "Come on, they'll wonder where their drinks are."
Neil lightly pulls me into the room, whispering to me as the others turn towards me ready to welcome me and make me the centre of all the fun, "Don't think about the past, think about now and how much you're loved."
Sometimes I think Neil knows me too well.
My brothers and sisters piled into the house before me, our silence broken. Anthony was singing a snippet of a pop song and Darren was joining in making up alternative words, which were making Joy giggle. They trooped through the kitchen and through the dining room leaving a trail of coats, gloves and scarves behind them. Only Neil had not travelled through the house, instead, he was stood by the kitchen door, where we kept the kettle, preparing a tray to make us all hot drinks.
Coming in from the porch I squeezed his hand and he turned to smile at me. I smiled back and travelled on through the house deftly collecting my siblings' winter wear and piling it into the cupboard under the stairs. With six people living in the house things had to be put away straight away, otherwise the house soon looked a mess.
Back before the bad times this house had been plenty big enough. My parents bought it when Rachael and I were ten and Joy was only a baby. Neil was already at university and the other two boys were away at boarding school. Rachael and I would also be going away in a few years time, that's why my parents had chosen to move to a smaller house; tuition fees for six children were going to cost my parents a lot. My mother and father had the largest bedroom, with me and Rachael sharing and Joy in a small box room. There always seemed to be enough room back then but now there was never enough.
Joy had now moved into mine and Rachael's room, along with us, and the three boys shared my parent's old room most of the time. Originally the box room had been reserved for our father but his time in the house had got less and less frequent, until now we hadn't seen him in over six months. Neil slept in there nearly all the time now. It was strange but even back when our father was there a lot and the boys were just moving back home, we never thought about how we would, or could, reshuffle when Mama came back home. I suppose we all knew she wasn't, at least not anytime soon.
Signs of my mother's illness had always been there, but they had been ignored, or else none us had noticed, mother always having been strange. Every week for as long as I could remember she would visit a psychiatrist twice a week. During school holidays she would take us girls and we would sit in the waiting room, Rachael engrossed in a novel, and me keeping the baby happy. My mother would leave those sessions refreshed and smiling. "See," she would say, taking the baby from my arms and grabbing my hand, "It wasn't too boring waiting for me now was it?"
"No, Mama," I would say smiling back at her eagerly wanting her happiness to last forever. Rachael would reluctantly return from whatever fictional world she had entered and absently shake her head.
"Then lets go have some fun!" she would respond.
Giggling like she was our age, Mama would take us into town where we would run round shops trying on outlandish outfits and striking model poses. Sometimes Rachael would join in as well, but more often than not, she would stand by the changing room door with her nose stuck back in her book. Even baby Joy would sit in her pushchair and giggle her appreciation. It was only after Mama's sessions that Rachael got away with standing and reading in public. One normal day in the supermarket Rachael had been absently reading a library book she had just checked out as she was pushing the cart. I had been pointing things out to Joy trying to make her chuckle her deep baby laugh when I heard a scream.
"How many times have I told you not to read when you're meant to be doing something else?" shouted Mama.
"I'm sorry," Rachael said, "I didn't know you were going to stop. I didn't mean to bang into you."
"Sorry?" Mama screamed, "Sorry?" with that she began to reach for whatever was on the shelves and began throwing them at Rachael. Most of them missed and the majority were soft packages, but all of a sudden Mama took a tin of beans from a shelf and aimed them at Rachael's head.
With an awful thud they made contact and Mama seemed to come out of her rage. Rachael was crying silently a hand held up to a gash on her forehead trying to stop the blood that was rushing out. I ran over to her and tried to help her but she shrugged me off, and continued staring at Mama.
Everything was silent. Cahiers, shelf stackers and regular customers were stood stock still in the aisles watching us. Joy began to cry
"I'm sorry," Mama almost whispered, "Oh, Rachael, I'm so sorry" Mama reached out her arms to Rachael but she ignored them. I could here the people around us start to whisper. Mama started crying.
"Come on, Mama," I said, "Lets go"
I held my hand out to her and she took it. I supported her as she wept her way out of the store. Rachael followed, pushing Joy and trying to stop her tears.
"You still love me don't you?" Mama pleaded.
"Yes, Mama" I dutifully said. Eventually we made it home. My father was away on business so Rachael reluctantly let Mama tend to her wound.
My mother took to her bed and stayed there for two days crying on and off. She wouldn't leave the house and wouldn't let us leave either. She locked all the doors and hid the keys under her pillow. "In case," she explained to me, "In case you're lying and you don't love and you go and tell them all how bad I am." My father came home two days later. It was fortunate he did. We never bought the groceries and we were running out of food and formula. Rachael had been talking about breaking a window but they were all double glazed. My Mama had had the sense to cut the phone wires as well.
On days after Mama's sessions it was Ok for Rachael to read while Mama and I were silly. Huddled in the changing room after our dress up sessions Mama would let me choose a small thing I liked to keep. Smiling at me she would remove the tag and let me wear it under my clothes, "We don't want Rachael to see you got something so pretty do we?" Mama explained when I once asked why I couldn't wear the necklace I selected outside my shirt so everyone could see. I didn't see how Rachael would care. She wasn't interested in clothes or jewellery, and anyway sometimes there were gifts for her too, like on the days we went to the bookstore we would often find the book Rachael had been looking at hidden amongst the piles of library books we always took home. I didn't argue though. It was best not to argue with Mama, because sometimes, but only if we pushed her too far, Mama would hurt you, like she had Rachael in the supermarket. It was easier to agree.
I always tried to do what Mama wanted. Sometimes she would find me sat reading, which I loved to do almost as much as Rachael did, and would tell me not to. "You don't want to read do you?" she would ask mockingly, "Come over here and tell Mama how much you love, then maybe she'll tell you a story better than one in any book"
So I did and she did. She would tell me wonderful stories about a princess who met a prince at a ball and fell in love with him, but how it all went tragically wrong, because the princess was already married to a wicked King who would never let her go, and because the prince had an ogre for a mother who forbade the prince from rescuing his princess, even though she gave birth to his two beautiful twin daughters. "That's you, honey," she would say. "I named you Faith because I would always have faith that he would love and come rescue me sometime, and I called Rachael, Rachael after a lady in the bible who didn't have a baby until she was real old and then only had it because her husband had great faith in God, and so do I."
Then she would cross her eyes at me to make me giggle and say "And I called her Rachael because I bet she wont have babies until she's real old because she's ugly and men only want pretty girls like you and me." I would laugh with her but feel bad for Rachael at the same time. She was pretty, she just didn't always agree with everything Mama said and that was why Mama picked on her so much. I was glad when Daddy was around. Then she didn't pick on her too much.
Soon though Mama stopped being fun any of the time. She wouldn't tell me about the beautiful princess anymore, and her weekly sessions stopped. She would lie in bed all day and not do anything. We would come home from school each day to hear Joy crying from down the drive. When we entered the house, whatever mess we had left that morning was still there. Rachael would begin to tidy up and to make some sort of dinner. After a few days we had got used to this new routine.
I would run upstairs as fast as I could to find Joy still in her crib. Her own waste would be smeared everywhere and she would be crying from hunger, discomfort and boredom. I would bathe and dress the baby and then strip down her crib, washing all the soiled sheets. As soon as they were done I would wash mine and Rachael's school clothes. Every morning I would beg Mama to get up and care for baby Joy, "I will" she promised every day but never did.
After five whole school days of this Rachael and I decided we couldn't leave Joy on her own anymore. It was clear Mama was never getting out of bed and wouldn't look after herself, let alone a baby. She was refusing any food we sent to her and she was always just lying, staring at the ceiling. It was me who discovered what she was doing about going to the toilet. I had gone in on the second morning to plead with her about Joy when my toe stubbed against something by the bed.
"What's this?" I asked pulling a bucket full of her waste towards me. "Oh, Mama!" I cried. After that it was my duty to clean and replace the bucket every day.
Our plan for caring for Joy was simple. Come Monday I wouldn't go to school. I would stay home and Rachael would tell them I was sick. I would do this everyday for a week and then the following week Rachael would stay home and I would tell everybody Rachael had come down with my illness. We thought this would buy us time until Daddy got back. We weren't sure exactly when he was due home but he had been gone an awful long time so two weeks should be about right.
All we knew was that we could never, ever let anyone else find out, not even our brothers when they called once a week. We would chat inanely to them and tell them Mama was resting, or out, or seeing to Joy. We just knew if we could keep things going for just a little while longer Daddy would be able to make Mama better when he came home.
It was me who decided all it would take for Mama to get better was Daddy coming home. On the first day of my vigil I went in to see Mama while Joy took her morning nap.
"Mama, why are you sick?" I asked
"I'm not sick," Mama replied.
"Then why wont you leave your bed?"
Mama finally dragged her eyes from the ceiling and looked at me. "I can tell you," she said, "But you can't tell anybody else. It's magic and magic only works if it's a secret. You can know though because you're his beautiful girl who looks so much like him. Promise not to tell?"
"I promise, Mama," I said puzzled
"I know why the prince I told you about hasn't come. Its because I was running around with Joy. He's cross because Joy's not his baby. He doesn't mind me playing with you and sometimes Rachael, though he likes you best, but he hates me playing with Joy. I should never have had her. So if I stay here and don't move and don't even play with you he will know it's him I love best and will come for me."
"That's crazy, Mama," I said, "There is no prince, that's just a story you made up."
"I was wrong to tell you," she started to cry, "I thought you loved me and you'd understand but you don't. You don't love me."
She ripped her eyes from me and turned back to the ceiling. "I do love you, Mama," I said, "I do." But it was too late she was lost to me now.
I waited all day for Rachael to come home trying to decide whether or not to tell her what Mama had said. She had said it was magic, but her story was so crazy. I was so excited though I had it all worked out.
"Don't you see," I told Rachael, "Those stories she told me were true and Daddy's her prince. All we have to do is wait for Daddy to come home and then she'll be better."
"That's stupid," Rachael said "We said we'd keep it secret until Daddy comes home because we don't know what's making her sick but Daddy coming home wont cure it. She needs a doctor and maybe that man she used to do see. I thought you knew that."
But I was adamant. I knew my mother. If she said she had a prince then she did. Mama would never lie to me.
"Yes she would," Rachael protested, "She steals and she lies and she's horrible."
"You're wrong!" I screamed, "Mama would never steal or lie."
"Oh yeah, then how come she never pays for the books she gives me or the stuff you take home from clothes stores?"
"That's not stealing!" I yelled.
"Then what is it? And if yours and Mama's crazy story is true then who's baby is Joy?"
"You're awful I screamed at her, awful!"
I picked up the baby and left the room tears pouring down my face. At first as I sat there playing with Joy I thought about how Mama was right telling me not to tell Rachael. Rachael was ugly and lived in her stupid book world. What did she know about things being real anyway? I hoped I hadn't ruined the magic by telling that awful pig.
Later in bed that night I began to think properly about the things Rachael had said. Maybe some of it was a little bit true. Not all of it though, and I was sure Mama didn't mean to steal things. She probably didn't know, just like I hadn't until now.
The next morning Rachael and I acted like nothing had happened and Rachael headed for school while I washed Joy. And still we waited for Daddy.
On the first Monday of Rachael's time at home, we were sat eating frozen pizza at the dining room table. The Saturday before, we had taken some money from Mum's purse and Rachael had gone to the supermarket. I had stayed at home with Joy because one ten year old shopping alone would cause less interest than two of us and a baby.
"I think we should tell someone," Rachael said through a mouth full of cheese. I knew that the only reason Rachael wanted to tell anyone was that staying at home with the baby wasn't as much fun as she thought it would be. She had thought she could sit all day reading but Joy was demanding. Plus there were other things to do such as emptying Mama's bucket or doing simple household chores.
"No," I said, "we just have to wait for Daddy."
"We cant," she said, "Not anymore. We've used all Mama's money and plus.And plus I'm scared."
I knew how much it had cost Rachael to admit she was scared.
"Me too," I said, "But who can we tell?"
"I don't know. How about one of the boys?"
"It would have to be Neil." Rachael pulled a face at my suggestion. Neil was the eldest of our three brothers, in fact the eldest of us all, and I idolised him. Neil was everything I wanted in a man when I grew older. Even at ten I thought a lot about love and romance and getting married. These were the only kind of books Mama would let me read and then she only let me read those so she had someone to talk about the books with. Rachael would pass her books on to me and I would devour them in secret, but somehow the tales of happily ever after resided best in my mind.
Neil was everything those storybook hero's were to me. He was handsome and clever and always had time to talk to me. He knew the names of all my friends, the results of all my tests and the words to all my favourite songs. I only had to tell Neil something once and he would remember it forever. When he pulled me close to him for a hug I could smell the pure maleness of him. It was a smell Daddy didn't seem to have; a mixture of cigarette smoke, deodorant sweat and for some reason, fresh baked bread. Neil was bigger than Daddy, so when he put his arms around you, or sat you on his lap, then you felt like nothing in the world would ever hurt you again.
Rachael didn't like him, but I don't think it was because he was mean to her, or picked on her like Mama did. Instead it was because she was jealous. Mama was mine and Daddy was hers, yet Daddy was so proud of his big grown up son. He would stand and tell his friends about how Neil was doing at university, about all the parties he was invited to and the girls he dated. Somewhere in the conversation he would forget to mention Rachael and every time I would see her eyes glaze over with pain. Rachael would never be able to compete with him. He had eight years on her, and he was a boy. Plus there had been a full four years where Neil had had Daddy all to himself, without a brood of others to compete with.
"Why him?" she asked pulling a face.
"Because if we tell the others, they'll tell their schools. Plus there's nothing they can do from school."
Rachael considered this in silence before nodding her consent and then she dropped her eyes back to the open book and began to read again whilst taking bites of her pizza. I was tired of her reading. I wanted her to talk to me.
"Rachael?" I said, waiting for her to look up before I continued with what I was saying, "Don't you think its weird that the boys ring us every week, but Daddy doesn't ring us while he's away, not ever?"
Rachael though about it for a while. "No," was her response, "I wouldn't ring home either. Not if it meant having to listen to Mama's nonsense. I bet it drives him mad when he's at home. Maybe that's why he goes away so often, so he doesn't have to see her."
I opened my mouth ready to stick up for Mama when I heard footsteps in the kitchen. I looked in shock at Rachael waiting for to do something. She was the brave one.
"Where's my girls?" came a voice from the kitchen.
"Daddy!" I gasped and left my food lying on the plate as we ran into the kitchen to see him.
Rachael sat on Daddy's knee in the dining room telling him what had been happening. I was stood in the kitchen washing the dishes from our dinner and trying to keep Joy happy at the same time. Occasionally snatches of the conversation would come through but I tried to block it out. Now that Daddy was home I would never have to think about this sort of thing again.
They were just finishing as I walked back into the dining room. "I'm proud of you both," Daddy said pulling me and Joy to him with the arm that wasn't around Rachael. "Now I have a favour to ask you. I wouldn't normally ask you to do this on your own in the evening, but you've shown me how grown up you can both be. I need to sort some things out with your Mama so I'm going to give you some money. Do you think you girls could go to the movies and make your way home afterwards?"
"Of Course," said Rachael scornfully, "But only if we get to leave the baby here."
Daddy chuckled at her.
We made our way slowly to the movies. Rachael laughed at me as I skipped along in front of her. "Why are you so happy?" She yelled after me, but she knew why and as she said it she grinned so I knew that she was feeling as carefree as I was.
"Because when we get home Daddy will have made Mama all better," I yelled slowing down to wait for her.
Rachael began to look sad. "You're so stupid," she said catching up to me, "Mama wont be well for a long time." She put her arm around me though to soften the blow. She had no need to though because I didn't believe her anyway. Daddy was going to make Mama well. He was.
The film finished and we made our way home. I burst into the house expecting to see Mama in the kitchen preparing a meal, smiling, ready to greet us with hugs and kisses and tell us how sorry she was for scaring us and telling us how much she loved us.
The house was eerily quiet when we entered. Almost instinctively Rachael and I stopped chattering. "Mama?" I almost whispered.
There was no response. I looked at Rachael for my cue on what to do next. I could see from her face that even though she had told me I was been stupid expecting Mama to be fine when we returned that she must have held some hope as well.
"Come on," she said, taking my hand and pulling me into the house.
We wandered through the dining room and into the living room. Daddy was sat on the sofa his head in his hands. He looked up when we entered. "Hey girls," he greeted us trying to smile. "Where's Mama?" I asked, "Is she OK now?"
"Come sit with me" Daddy said making room next to him so that we could sit either side of him. "You see the doctor came to see your mother and it turns out she's very ill. In fact they've had to take her to hospital."
Rachael and I stared at him. Finally Rachael found her voice and asked, "What's wrong with her?"
"Well no one's really sure. Its something inside her making her sick, its not a disease like flu or measles, its something inside her mind that's making her ill. The doctors need to see her and talk to her to find out what that something is so they can start to fix it."
"How long will she be in hospital?" I asked.
"I don't know, but probably for a long, long time. I'm going to need your help with Joy." He replied.
"That's OK," Rachael said, "Faith's real good with her."
"Good," Daddy said. "I was wondering who had been taking such good care of you girls."
"That was Faith," Rachael said, "I'm no good at stuff like that."
That was true. On the days that Rachael had been home I had had to redo some of the chores when I got home and I had had to make dinner every night.
"Well done, honey," Daddy said smiling softly at me. "Maybe," he continued, looking quickly at Rachael as if seeking her approval, then turning back to me, "You could stay home tomorrow and the next day to keep things going until Neil comes back on Friday."
Rachael hadn't looked too bothered about my staying home to deal with things. Rachael loved school so she wouldn't be jealous and she hated it when I was in her class like I was in fifth Grade.
I wasn't too keen on school. I found it incredibly boring. The work was so easy a lot of the time I was sat bored and restless. Most of the time I was done so quickly I sat chatting with other people around me until the teacher sent me off to do other things. Occasionally, if we were doing something incredibly simple, my teacher would send me out to the sixth grade class to take part in their lessons. This didn't happen very often though because their work was just as easy as the stuff that we did. Now I had to go out of lessons two afternoons to work with a lady called Miss Cooper.
Miss Cooper worked on harder things with me but she still didn't stimulate me at all. Once she had explained to me about how to work out what x equalled in an equation I was away. We had only spent one session learning the basics of algebraic equations and now we had moved onto quadratic equations and trigonometry. Whenever Rachael looked over my work from Miss Cooper's sessions she always looked amazed and confused. She often didn't believe that my mixture of numbers letters and pictures of triangles actually meant anything at all and accused me of just doodling in my sessions. A couple of times Rachael had told me that the only reason I had those sessions was because of my behaviour problems. I wasn't aware I had any behaviour problems but Rachael scornfully informed me that of course I did and that I spent I most of the time disrupting the class.
"It's horrible when you're sat with Jamie and the other boys", she often complained, "None us can get any work done at all with you lot messing around."
"It's only because I've finished the work and get bored," I responded.
"Liar," she accused, "you're getting as bad as Mama for making up stories. There's no way at all you'd done all those long divisions before you and Jamie were throwing rubbers at each other. They were really hard. And don't try and tell me that all those doodles you do and that jumble you write down is harder maths because I know that's a lie as well."
I really had finished those problems and I knew what I did with Miss Cooper was real work, not just something made up to distract me. I had once read my school file and saw that the teachers thought I was incredibly clever and should be moved up to the High School. The notes showed that Mama had said no because it would confuse my father when he came to search for me a he would be looking for a girl in my current grade. This was followed by a series of question marks and dated as later was a post script saying that the school had managed to contact my father and he had said he knew exactly where I was but he didn't feel a move to High School would be beneficial for either Rachael or myself. He said a ten year old didn't belong in that kind of environment and that it could cause Rachael feelings of inadequacy and resentment towards me.
It sometimes surprises me when I look back now at how naïve Rachael and I, and to some extent our brother's, were to what was going on around us. I had never questioned anything people told me, especially adults, and although Rachael could read between the lines more than I could she was still clueless about a lot of things around us. We didn't have to be worldly-wise though, any of us. We lived in a nice neighbourhood, we took vacations, the boys attended boarding schools and so would we soon, and although we weren't rich, apart from the times Mama took to her bed, there was never anything we lacked. If there was none of us could name it. The only thing that marked us out as different from any of the other families was the number of children Mama had had. Sometimes when people commented on it Mama would laugh and say, "I was raised a catholic, what can I say." Back then I didn't know what it meant, yet another example of how clueless I really was.
I was incredibly excited about the news that Neil was coming home and as soon as Friday at that. "Is it his vacation time already?" I asked.
"No, honey," Daddy said, "But we don't know how long Mama will be in hospital and I have to go to work still. I can't take time off because we have things to pay for already and now I'll to pay Mama's hospital bills as well."
"So why does Neil have to come?" Rachael asked sullenly.
Daddy ruffled her hair affectionately. I think he knew how she felt about Neil. "Because," he patiently explained, "Someone needs to be here to take care of you girls and Neil is the only one old enough to do it. Even though Faith's good at it people won't let girls your age take over a household and plus, sometimes there are problems you and Faith wont be able to cope with so you'll need a grown up around. You girl's need to be in school anyway."
"What about Neil's school?" I worriedly asked. I knew that Neil was away at college studying hard but I also knew things didn't come as easily to him as they did to me. Sometimes I could even do his assignments. As much as I wanted him at home I didn't want him to fall behind.
"College is different," Daddy explained, "You can pretty much go to college any time as long as you can afford it. Neil will stay at home for the rest of the school year, even if Mama gets well and comes home before then, and then go back next year and start his courses again." I wasn't to know it then but despite Daddy's words it would be a long time before Neil returned to schooling.
At that was how it was, just as Daddy said. Neil returned that Friday to watch over me and his other sisters while Daddy went away to work to pay for all the bills that came with a large family and a sick wife. As I got older and Neil began to resent him more and more for foisting the problems of a man on a boy who should have been having the time of his life so did I. I often wondered, as we all did, especially Rachael, what made Daddy's trips longer and longer and made him stay away for such long periods of time. I knew, as I know now that it was the sadness of his life that drove him away to find happiness elsewhere. As long as Neil was shouldering the responsibility of us younger ones all he had to provide was our financial support, which he did, adequately, we were never as poor as some of the people I knew, and eventually with all three of the boys working and providing we were comfortably off.
Neil's first few weeks at home I followed him like his shadow. I craved love and affection, having my mother, who I had been so close to, so far from me. Neil claims now as he did then that I wasn't his shadow but his helper, preparing meals and playing with Joy, helping Rachael with homework and showing him how to run the gauntlet of a supermarket and the intricacies of the washing machine. The affection he gave me then has never dried up although I do not need it as much as I once did. I like it though. The feel of his strong arms around me, protecting me, comforting me, letting me draw from his strength so that I am able to go on and face the challenges of a new day.
I am no longer his helper, now I am his partner and his equal. When neighbours hold get togethers or parties, Neil and I are invited as a couple, as the head of our household, and I guess in a way we are.
Soon after Mama had entered the hospital, it was vacation time for the Anthony and Darren, our brothers away at boarding school. Before this had never been a problem as we usually went on a family vacation together but this year sleeping arrangements posed a problem. Using ingenious techniques with beds and closets Neil and I set up the two biggest bedrooms in the house to accommodate us, one for the boys, one for the girls. Little Joy's room, the smallest room in the house was set apart for Daddy, but when his visits grew less and less frequent it became Neil's.
At the end of the vacation Daddy was home for a rare visit. He pulled us all into the sitting room and sat us down. "How would you feel," he said, addressing all of us but aiming his comments at Anthony and Darren, "If the boys didn't return to boarding school this coming year but stayed at home with us."
From the way Neil held me tightly on his lap I could tell that this was something that he and Daddy had already discussed, because he didn't seemed surprised at all.
Rachael looked at him disgusted and Darren looked as though he was about to cry.
"It'll be too crowded!"
"Rugby season starts this term and I'm on the team I can't let them down!"
"I was going to try out for the play this year and there's the autumn formal!"
"Neil already has enough to cope with with three of us."
"What about my S.A.T. 's?"
"What about sport?"
"What about our education?"
"We won't all fit!"
"What does Mama say?"
The barrage of questions, pleadings and demands flew thick and fast at Daddy coming from the four of us younger ones with Neil saying nothing and Joy too young to input anything.
Daddy held up his hand to silence us. "Shush!" he demanded. It was then I think that the lines on his face seemed to deepen and his face took on almost a grimace of pain that he started to wear a lot whenever he was confronted by more than one of his children at a time.
Daddy started to speak in a low but firm voice, "With the bills for your mother to pay and the mortgage on this house we can't afford the school fess and unfortunately neither of you are eligible for scholarships of any kind. I know it will be a squeeze, but it is only until your mother is well enough to return home. Then you can go back to school. Plans have already been made that you will attend the local High School come September. It's a good school with excellent sporting facilities and a good academic record. If you two concentrate you have every as good as chance as any anywhere of achieving good S.A.T. results and going on to college. You wont even be there that long, only a semester or two."
This was a false statement as well. The boys were to stay there for the rest of their high school years. Daddy was right about somethings though. Darren did find their sports facilities excellent and got a scholarship to the local state college where he still was and Anthony got good enough S.A.T. results to go to the same place. Nowadays Anthony and Darren spend most of their time out with friends or girlfriends or up on the campus just hanging out. They haven't gone to live on campus though even though that would make more space. They stay at home and work to pay bills so that they can 'help out.' A lot of the time, like when I'm doing the second load of ironing in one day, I wish they would go, but they feel guilty about leaving us all behind. Also I would miss them tremendously if they went. They're a great help with Joy as well, because sometimes its hard to know if Rachael keeps a proper eye on her when no one else is around, been so lost in her own fantasy book world as she is.
Once a week the boys have Joy so Neil and I can go on a 'date', which is just our way of saying, escape from the madness. Sometimes I feel like it's a real date though and sometimes I wish it was. I get so lonely sometimes, like when I'm watching some stupid sitcom and all the girls my age are obsessed with boys. Neil's threatened to get rid of Nick at Night if he doesn't stop finding me in tears at the end of some dumb show. Its just sometimes I feel a lot older than I really am.
Don't get me wrong, I have friends, and most of them are male. I spend a lot of time with my old grade school buddy Jamie and the rest of the jocks at school. It's just that I don't spend too much time at school because there's always chores to be done. This suits me fine and most of my teacher's too. I go about once a week to get assignments and I'm still making straight A's. It's hard to put into words because the majority of the time I'm happy with my life but my Mama raised me on a diet of romance and promises and I cant help feeling that love and romance will never come to me while I'm stuck washing dishes and raising Joy.
I'm happy with Neil though. He more than makes up for anything I feel I may be missing and he's good about watching Joy in the evenings so I can go out. Most of the time I like to stay at home with him though.
It's Neil who shakes me out of my revere as I stand looking in the living room at my siblings. He wraps one arm around me and kisses me lightly on the head. I look up and smile at him. "Don't look so sad on such a happy day," he tells me.
I cross my eyes and stick my tongue out at him, "That better?" I ask.
"Much, you don't look half so ugly now," he affirms as I lightly dig him in the ribs and he laughs at me. "Come on, they'll wonder where their drinks are."
Neil lightly pulls me into the room, whispering to me as the others turn towards me ready to welcome me and make me the centre of all the fun, "Don't think about the past, think about now and how much you're loved."
Sometimes I think Neil knows me too well.