When I Had a Family: A crash-course in the early years

'American' Part 1: Scrambling | Chapter 1

You are about to read a chapter of ‘American’, a short book of a short life story. The whole book will be posted, piece by piece, within two months. So, if you enjoy this reading, please stay tuned for more.

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1998
I was ushered into the world as fireworks illuminated the humdrum skies over the city of Syracuse. I tried but failed to arrive on the Fourth of July, falling flat in my bold declaration that we ought to forget about America, and celebrate me instead. Alas, punctuality has never been my strong suit. Mom says I was the only pretty baby she has ever seen. Fashionably late. Slender, seven pounds seven ounces, touting a full head of hair. Dad was there to welcome me too, which was a first for him because he was never much good at punctuality either. My sister, not present, was disgruntled. Her ninth birthday was the next day, and nothing overshadows you quite like a fresh bag of flesh called “baby sister.” My brother was unamused, having prayed to God for a brother.

—

Two months later, Labor Day 1998, a tornado came through the city of Syracuse and took half the trees with it. I was too busy sipping milk to be bothered, and my brother and sister both slept through it, despite their windows having been shattered across the room. That’s the story as I’ve been told, my first lesson in chaos, the natural habitat of our family.

—

As a baby, I used to have long conversations with whomever would indulge me. Babbling the duration of a Shakespeare sonnet, I’d stop for breath and inspect the faces of my audience. Someone would implore me, “What else?” and I’d start all over again, in blissful incoherence. When no one was listening to my babbling stories, I’d get bored and roll my tongue into the back of my throat just to hear myself living.

Mom once got her hands on a bunch of tiny Sunday dresses for me to wear and decided we ought to do a photo shoot. She’d put a dress on me, and I’d smile a smile that’s too big for my face (I never grew into it). She’d snap a photo. Then she’d go to take the dress off, causing an utter devastation, and I’d cry and cry. She’d put a new dress on, and I’d cry some more. Then she’d pick up the camera and I’d smile with my whole face again.

—

As soon as my muscles could accommodate, I started fleeing the crib at night, and my parents would invariably find me burrowing between them as they slept. There’s no evidence to suggest I was a hinderance to their intimacy; in fact, they may have been relieved to have my tiny being forcing further distance between them.

Dad regularly woke up a 5 AM, his tree-like form usually exaggerated by white winter long johns. He’d often carry me downstairs with him, and we’d sit side-by-side on the couch as he read the Bible and I watched Reading Rainbow.

—

My nanny was a German Shepherd named Hannah, who claimed me as her own, marching around my stroller to keep strangers away. She once bit a hole through my uncle’s thigh for daring to approach me. One of very few pictures taken of me as a baby is a prize shot depicting me with a face-full of pasta sauce, Hannah smiling wildly beside me. Presumably, her loyalty had been bought with the scraps of my dinners.

—

When I was two and some change, I’d wake up with my family every morning as they got ready for school and work. My siblings were scholarship kids at Christian Brothers Academy, and my parents were crisis counselors at the Rescue Mission, the biggest homeless shelter in the state. The whole household would make haste gathering their belongings for the day, and I’d do the same, running around and throwing pictures, statuettes, cans of beans, and whatever else could fit, into my bag. Mom finally caught me packing up a fancy vase. The babysitter confirmed that, yes, I had been known to show up to daycare with odds and ends, and she never could understand why my parents sent me with a can of mushrooms to eat for lunch. To this day, Mom maintains that it broke her heart watching me scramble to keep up with the family; I maintain to this day that I am still scrambling to keep up with the family.

—

I don’t recall that my sister and I were ever close until she graduated college; she moved back in with us, one thousand miles away and several homes later, with no option but to share a bed with me.

The sole memory I have of interacting with her in our first home is when I walked in on her in the bathroom. My eyes widened with shock and my mouth turned with confusion as I pointed at her, and yelled “there’s hair!” She promptly turned and screamed for me to get out.

My brother, on the other hand, made sure to leave an impression, specifically in the form of traumatic memories of my stuffed animals swirling around the ceiling, hung from the fan, or a doll hung upside down from the banister of the stairs. I suspect he was also there when I fell off Mom’s exercise trampoline and got a bloody nose, though I can’t clearly remember, seeing as I had a pillow case over my head.

He had, after all, prayed for a brother, and really, it was rather noble of him to make the best of having another sister.

—

“I have to poop!”

I pounded on the bathroom door, hurling all forty pounds of my five-year-old body against it. My sister had been in there for two hours in kid time, which is about five minutes in real time. My legs were paralyzed by impending disaster. The nearest bathroom was two flights of stairs away.

“I have to poooooop!”

Older siblings are unphased by such dramas - they enjoy it.

“I - HAVE - TO -” I found myself suddenly flying through the air, carried like a dandelion in the breeze, Dad’s arms displaying all their handyman might in one heroic act. His long legs - longer than I was tall - leapt down several steps at a time. Suddenly I was standing next to the downstairs toilet, the door swiftly closing behind me, Dad disappearing before I could even glimpse his superhero cape following him out of the room.

—

Having been born a disbeliever, the night before Christmas was twice spent wide awake, waiting to catch an imposter in the act of gift-sneaking. On the second attempt, with wild success, I caught my Uncle Mark red handed, red clothed, red cheeked, posing as the man himself. My holiday skepticism must have come from my devoutly Christian father, who had to be convinced every year by my mother to let his children believe in Santa.

—

When I was five, we moved into a house across the street. I remember nothing of that first year except that our dog got cancer and lost a leg. Shortly thereafter, my mom stood in the doorway of her home office and asked if I’d rather live with her or Dad. My five year-old brain couldn’t understand much, but it did understand that that was too big a question to ask someone my size.

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