I DON’T REMEMBER
-Chapter 5 from Dreams of Flying by Johnny Frem Dixon
. “What’s for dinner?” Brenda beamed at her mother.
. “Oh sure. Now I let you out of your room and you’re all smiles, the perfect little girl. A good girl. But how long will it last, Brenda Cunningham?” Brenda sat down quietly at the table.
. It had been one very long week. On Monday morning, her mother had been called in to talk to the principal when Brenda got pushy at recess. Why did that little snitch have to be so stubborn? Brenda told her she was too slow to play hopscotch with the Third Graders. She even gave her some chalk to make her own hopscotch.
. Monday night Brenda felt her mother’s wrath. She got a spanking and was banished to her room directly after school and her mother was cold and unloving on Tuesday and Wednesday, but as usual it eventually blew over and Thursday had been pretty good. Today after school, it had all gone wrong again.
She had come home right away and, hoping to get into her mother’s good books, Brenda had started her weekend’s homework right away.
Her mom sat across from her at the dining room table on the telephone.
. “…a woman has to have a sex life, doesn’t she?” Brenda’s mom set the phone receiver into the crook of her neck so she could talk while doing her make-up. “There’s more to life than flipping burgers in a truck-stop and raising kids, right?” She patted the little sponge into the foundation compact and powdered her face.
. Brenda watched her mother, carefully studying all the details of the make-up ritual. Her mother pointed at the Third Grade Reader. Brenda turned to the end of the story she had read in class that day and she stared at the questions: The old man in the short story had a niece and the niece had one daughter. How was the daughter related to the old man? He was: (a) her grandfather. (b) her great uncle. (c) her uncle. (d) her father-in-law. (e) none of the above.
. That was easy. (b) her great uncle. But the question boggled her mind. It was almost the same as her own life, but not quite. Brenda’s mother, Sue Cunningham, had one daughter. And Brenda’s mom had an uncle, an old man—that was Brenda’s great-uncle, Charles Patrick Cunningham, who had died and left this house to her Mom. She knew that much. But the very old woman, who had loved Charles Patrick Cunningham. She wasn’t Brenda’s great-aunt. She was just Bunny. And she came with the house. But where were Brenda’s grandparents? Brenda’s mom once had a mother—she was dead now, but not a father. At least that’s what she told Brenda, but Brenda knew that everyone had to have a father and a mother some time…at first anyways, so she must have a grandfather somewhere.
. Brenda didn’t have a father. Not anymore. She tried to remember him. It had been three years. She could still hear his voice. She would never forget it. It sounded just like that guy on TV—the guy on the Weather Report, but they didn’t look the same. Definitely not. But what did he look like? She could barely remember his face anymore. Her mother had thrown out everything that reminded her of him and there were too many other boyfriends since then.
. Her mother turned her head away from the phone. “Brenda, get on with it. If you’re having trouble with that question, go on to the next one. Sorry, what was I saying? Yes, It’s not that busy, but it’s the shift. Graveyards are hell.” Her mother plucked at a hair on her cheek.
. “Brenda is safe as long as you’re home, Bunny.” She looked over at Brenda and pointed sternly at the page of homework.
Brenda studied the next question: Did the old man in the story have children of his own?
. “Are you sure, Bunny?” Brenda’s mom wiped her brush in the eyeliner. “…you don’t want to go out for Bingo tonight?” She peered into the make-up mirror and began to coat an eyelash. “’Cause I could always ask somebody…” She wiped her brush again and did the other eyelash.
. “I can’t help it. I’m single. I get lonely. So why do I feel guilty? A little distraction on a Friday night. God knows I deserve it. One Saturday morning I might not be here when she wakes up and now I’m having a canniption. All week long I’m here every morning to get her off to school…except when you take her there for me.”
. She waved at Brenda and made a gesture toward the coffeemaker with her hand. That meant: Get up and bring it here, girl.
. “I grab what little sleep I can get during the day and I’m there to pick her up every afternoon…except when you pick her up. I hope you know how much I appreciate that, Bunny.”
. Brenda picked up the page and held it up so as not to see her mother. She read the question again.
. “And then I spend quality time with her every afternoon…when I’m not cooking her meals, cleaning her room or doing the laundry or helping with her homework.” Brenda’s mother kept up her phone conversation, while raising an eyebrow at Brenda and shaking her coffee cup in the air impatiently. “And after I’ve put her to bed I only get an hour to myself before I have to be at work again.”
. Brenda sighed and got up slowly. She went over to get the glass coffeepot from the warming plate on the counter.
. “And I don’t take any hand-outs. No Welfare. I provide, don’t I?”
. Brenda carried the coffeepot carefully over to her mother and tried to figure out how she could reach across to her mother’s coffee cup. Her mother shook her head and tapped her hand on the tabletop to tell her to set it down—not to try pouring it. But Brenda was old enough to pour coffee. She’d done it before.. . . “Yes, well it’s great that Uncle Patrick left us this place—otherwise I don’t know what I’d do.” Brenda’s mom picked up her coffee cup and moved it closer. . . “So, all right, you’ll be back home by eight o’clock?”
. Brenda began pouring. “So I’ll make sure she’s ready for bed.” So her mother was going out and it would be just Brenda and Bunny again. Brenda wanted her mother to put her to bed.
. “All right, bye.” Brenda was frowning disapprovingly at her mother and she didn’t notice the coffee running over the edge of the cup. Her mother put the phone down and then backed up quickly from the table.
. “Aahh, Lord Jeeeezus, child, what in hell are you doing? If I’ve told you once I’ve told you a thousand times.”
Brenda didn’t comprehend. What had she done now?
. “Look. The coffee, Brenda. Didn’t I tell you to just set it down?”
. Brenda saw the coffee on her mother’s very special table. “But I thought…”
. “You know where thought got you.”
. “Sorry. I’ll get a cloth.”
. “No, you just go up to your room and think about this.”
. “Sorry,” Brenda wrung her hands. “Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.”
. “NO. You go to your room.”
. “Mom, I’m really sorry.”
. “And take your homework with you.” She handed her the sheet of paper.
. Brenda grabbed the paper, tearing it as she pulled it away from her mother.
. “I hate you,” she muttered under her breath.
. “All right, then don’t bother coming down for dinner.” Her mother was picking up her book as Brenda went up the stairs. Oh great! Her mom wanted to read. . That would mean she would have to stay up there for hours.
. Brenda lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling. How many times had she been through this in her life? She lost count somewhere around a zillion. It had been this way every day of her life. And, just her luck, today it happened before dinner. If it happened before dinner-time, then she would sit there and read for hours before she’d make dinner. And now she might not make it at all.
. Why did she always get sent to her room ‘…to think about this?’
. She didn’t have to think about anything. It was usually the same thing. She made a mess and she was supposed to know better. And there was something wrong with her attitude. Well, there was something wrong with her mother’s attitude, too.
. Brenda seldom wasted much time thinking about what happened. Not much. She was eight years old now and she had already learned that it didn’t do much good to cry. No one ever came anyway, did they? Better to while away the time playing with her dolls. Her favourite doll, the teenage one, was Cinderella. The rest—all flawless, young women with pointy breasts—were supposed to be ugly step-sisters and the one with the crooked hair that wouldn’t lay flat was the wicked step-mother. Brenda was busy disfiguring them with crayons when her mother called.
. “Brenda!”
. “…and that,” she said, adding an orange mole to a cheek, “is why the prince won’t even look at you…”
. “Are you ready to be good?”
. Brenda dropped the crayon.
. “Brenda, you can come down now.”
. Come down now? What did she mean? It wasn’t morning yet.
. “I’m sure you’ve had plenty of time to think about it.”
. Brenda wondered how long she’d been up there. She could be stubborn. She could stay up there till morning. It wasn’t that bad.
. “Brenda, are you hungry?”
. Yes. Now her mother wanted to feel better, so she wanted Brenda to apologize.
. “Supper’s ready. Are you hungry?”
. Brenda could smell something strange. “Yes.”
. “Well, if you clean up your room before you come down, you can have supper.”
. Brenda surveyed her room. She had to clean it every day. “It’s not that messy.”
. “Well, you can just stay up there and think about it some more if you like.”
. “But, Mom, you said I could come down.”
. “And now I said you can’t. If you’d like dinner—and there’s chocolate cake for dessert—you’ve got to clean up.”
. “Oh, okay.”
. Brenda threw all the toys into the trunk, put the dolls on the shelves and tidied up the papers on the desk. Not bad, but the bed was a mess. She quickly pulled the bedspread up over the pillow and ran down the stairs.
. “What’s for dinner?” Brenda beamed at her mother. . . . “Oh sure. Now I let you out of your room and you’re all smiles, the perfect little girl. A good girl. But how long will it last, Brenda Cunningham?”
Brenda sat down quietly at the table. She lowered the corners of her mouth, took the sparkle out of her smile and did her best to walk her mother’s fine line.
. Her mother was going out, so Brenda would spend the night with Bunny. She wasn’t too crazy about that, but it would probably be better than an evening with her mother at this point.
. Dinner looked weird—wieners, but chopped up with…what were those? They kind of looked like beans in tomato sauce, but the beans were a pale washed-out colour, coated with a mushy orange paste. And potatoes. Were those potatoes?
. She had just concluded that yes, those were boiled potatoes—skins left on—when her mother came down the stairs. “Brenda, go back upstairs and make your bed properly.”
. “Aah, Mom.”
. “Don’t ‘aah, mom’ me. You heard me.”
. Brenda seethed with hatred, but put on an obedient face. If she could just get through dinner. She ran upstairs and re-made the bed very carefully this time.
She sat back down at her plate. Well, anyway, she liked wieners. Somehow she got tons of wieners. No. Wait. What was this? Carrots. It wasn’t wieners. It was carrots. Carrots.
. “Oh mom, why did you put carrots in my beans.”
. “I want you to try them. They’ll taste just like the rest of it, because they’re all cooked together. Come on.”
. “Mom!” Carrots. How dare she? She knew Brenda hated carrots. Brenda ate her potatoes, felt her mother’s eyes on her, but didn’t touch the beans. She finished the potatoes and gave her plate a little shove. “I’m full.”
. “That’s fine. Maybe you won’t be full after a while. You don’t get up from the table until you’ve cleaned your plate. You got that. You can sit there all night if you like.”
. “But…
. “No buts.”
. “Aah, no fair.”
. “No more whining, Brenda.” Her mother’s face took on that stern look. The one she put on as a warning.
. Brenda picked at a forkful of beans. She put one bean in her mouth. It tasted worse than she expected.
. “And some carrots.” Her mouth burned.
. “Too spicy.”
. “Brenda.”
. She ate one carrot. “Yucck! It still tastes like carrots.” She spat it out onto her plate.
. “Okay, that’s fine.” Brenda’s mom sauntered casually into the living room, settled comfortably into the black, naugahyde recliner and picked up her pocket-book.
. “Witch,” Brenda silently mouthed. She stared at her plate, absentmindedly turning one of the carrot slices over and over. If it wasn’t so hot. She tried to eat a mouthful. She cried.
. “Don’t bother.”
. She choked back her tears, didn’t care, wasn’t going to eat this, looked through at her mother nonchalantly licking her finger and flipping a page. She set her fork down just as nonchalantly, stared at the dining room wall and the black velvet painting of two deer in a meadow, heard the hum of the refrigerator, the voices of children passing by on the road and the creak of her mother’s chair. She stared back at the smelly beans.
. Her mother flipped another page.
. Why had she even come downstairs? She should have been stubborn and stayed up there all night. She decided she liked her room better than her mother’s company anyway. She would spend all her time there until she was grown up and could leave the house. Then it wouldn’t be a punishment.
. She tried another carrot, felt her throat and mouth swell, couldn’t keep the food down. “Uuuuuuuwwwh.” The carrot tumbled back to the plate, coated in a yellow snot.
. Her mother flipped another page.
. Brenda put her elbows on the table and rested her head in her hands, felt the sweat on the back of her neck and wiped her hands on her lap.
. Her mom set her book down. “Okay, Brenda. Up to your room.”
. “But I thought…”
. “You know where thought got you.” Her mother reached beside the chair for the wooden spoon. She pointed it at the stairs. “Go and don’t come down until you change your attitude.”
. Brenda ran up the stairs to her room.
. She picked up the stepmother doll and made the wart on its nose bigger.
. “There, Sue Cunningham, you evil step-mother.”
. She played this game for a while until she realized that hers was no Cinderella story. It was more like Rapunzel, with Brenda as Rapunzel and her Mom as the witch, who had locked her in the tower, but Rapunzel would outsmart this witch. She would refuse to let down her hair. She would not apologize.
Brenda always wondered why Rapunzel let down her hair for the witch. Now she knew. The witch brought dinner. Yucck! She would just starve then, locked there by her evil mother. She probably wasn’t her real mother. She probably kidnapped her when she was a baby.
. It seemed now like it had always been this way. Always. She wasn’t really sure about anything before school started. She couldn’t clearly remember the times when they had lived with her father. It had been ugly just before they left—she knew that much and then when they left for good, it was actually much better.
. That was one period of her life that Brenda liked to remember. That was because the babysitter came with them when they left—a big, kind, gentle, nurturing, Swedish woman, whom Brenda absolutely adored.
. Brenda had just started Grade One when they moved to Vancouver and Mom got a job in a tavern, so the babysitter would pick Brenda up from school. Brenda would follow her around and they would do the washing and gardening together and they would cuddle up together on the couch for stories. Even so, Brenda remembered that at first she really missed her Mom. One day she got in trouble for it.
. It was raining. They were waiting for the bus and the babysitter was fumbling around for their transfers. She let go her hand and Brenda looked up, past her broad hips and behind her. Just around the corner she knew her Mom was working. She knew because every day on the way to school, they had their secret ritual. Turn around three times and blow a kiss towards the dark wooden doors of the tavern. Now the babysitter was mopping her brow and muttering to herself. She seemed to have forgotten not only where she put the transfers, but she had forgotten about Brenda, who ran off to the end of the street and, before the babysitter noticed, was already in front of the doors.
. It took all Brenda’s strength to pull them open. Once inside she became frightened. The darkness blinded her. The same smell filled the air as what she smelled on her mother when she came into the room to tuck her in at night after work. Except stronger. Brenda covered her mouth and nose. Once her eyes got used to the darkness she began to make out the outlines of familiar things. Tables and chairs. Men sitting against the walls leaning over drinks like they were saying prayers. She could hear them mumbling to themselves.
. It was a long time before she spotted her mother. There. It was her laughter that pointed her out. There she was. Leaning over the counter, her black dress cut low and her breasts leaning over too. She was talking to a man who was not looking at her eyes. And then Brenda was noticed; someone shouted out, “Hey, who’s the midget?” Everybody was laughing.
. “They’re getting them in here younger and younger each day!” More laughter.
. “Hey Sue, doesn’t this one belong to you?”
. Then everyone was staring at her and Brenda was scared and ran to her mother and buried her head in the white apron. It was stiff from the spray starch. It looked like it would be soft but it wasn’t. It scratched her face.
. The man talking to her mother was no longer laughing with her. He looked down at Brenda and picked up his drink and moved away. Brenda felt her mother becoming stiff too. She didn’t bend down to pick her up or cuddle her like other times when Brenda felt scared. Instead she was rough with her. She grabbed her shoulders and shook her.
. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “How did you get here? Where the hell is that good-for-nothing babysitter?”
And as if on cue, in came the big woman, awkward and bumbling, bumping into things like Brenda’s rolley-polley clown. But it didn’t make her laugh. Brenda began to cry and the babysitter was already walking her out, apologizing to Brenda’s mom, to everyone, to anything, even the chair she bounced into on the way out. And Brenda was bawling now.
. Outside the babysitter mopped Brenda’s face with the little cloth hanky with the pretty blue flowers. She set Brenda on her knee when they got to the bus stop bench. She held her close to her large breasts, a place Brenda had come to know as what ‘safe’ meant. Where ‘love’ was.
“It’s okay, my sweetie, you did nothing wrong. Your mama isn’t mad, you just surprised her, that’s all. People can do the oddest things when you startle them.”
. Brenda was listening, but not listening. She knew the babysitter was trying to make it right. But something inside her felt broken and she couldn’t stop crying. . “Remember,” said the babysitter laughing, laughing so hard that the skin under her chin shook like the surface of a bowl of milk, “remember what I said when you hid under your bed from me and grabbed my ankle? ‘Lord billy bejeesus,’ I said, ‘save this old woman from the pixies and fairies.’“
. The babysitter was borrowing the hanky from Brenda and was wiping away her own tears. Brenda couldn’t help herself. She joined in, recounting how she looked up from under the bed and watched as the old woman had crossed herself and jumped back as high as Jack-be-Nimble.
. Her ‘fairy godmother’, that’s what Brenda always called the babysitter, though she had to be careful when she remembered her now, because it often made Brenda sad to think of her. She had loved her as much as her mother.
. Love—that wonderful, warm, cuddly place you could find with a fairy godmother, where all the things you did were marvellous and always deserving of her endless lavishings of praise and affection, where all that praise and affection made you bubble over with love and joy, which made your fairy godmother beam with happiness, scoop you up in her arms and say something like, “Heavens to Betsy! You’re the bestest!” And you would shriek with delight, which only made it even better.
. That memory was the bestest place to dwell, but, try as she might, it always led to the next one, the harsh memory.
. “Her heart gave out.”
. Her mother’s explanation was puny and ineffectual compared to the big ball of magical energy that her fairy godmother had been. And Brenda was sad for the rest of that summer until they moved out to Blackwater. Some of the sadness went away when this other old woman entered Brenda’s life. Bunny was nice to Brenda, but Bunny was strange. She would never fill those shoes. She forgot things that you only told her a little while before. And she wasn’t warm and cuddly. She was cranky sometimes. And she spent hours and hours just sitting in that armchair until she fell asleep reading the newspaper. And then Brenda was expected to wake her up and help her to her bedroom. At least Bunny explained death better than Brenda’s mother.
. “She went to join her husband in heaven, but some of her stayed here. With you. In your heart.”
Brenda wanted to go to heaven too, but she was afraid she wouldn’t make it. She had been a pretty bad girl most of the time since her fairy godmother died. So bad that it seemed now that she was spending all of her time here in her bedroom.
. She considered what she had done and whether or not her fairy godmother would have punished her. Would she punish her for not cleaning her room or not eating her dinner? For talking back? No, she would nearly cry if Brenda said something mean to her. Big tears would well up in her eyes and she would stop what she was doing. She’d say, “Please don’t hurt me, sunshine. I love you.”
. The best make-believe tales had a nice old woman in them, a grandma or a fairy godmother. Brenda longed to be old and have grandchildren of her own, who would follow her around all day. She cherished the memory of the warm feeling of those big, soft arms holding her lovingly as she nestled into the folds of tummy and pillowy breasts to listen to the umpteenth reading of her favourite story, “Uncle Wiggily and the Apple Dumplings.”
. Apple dumplings. Brenda had never tasted them—she thought they must be something like the pancakes and cinnamon that Bunny made for her—only way, way better! For the rest of her life Brenda would wonder what apple dumplings were.
. She heard a car door slam followed by the sound of Bunny making her way up to the porch.