In the school records for that year, there’s an article from the Medical Tribune and Medical News that someone from the school had clipped and placed in my file. OVER-CONCERNED MOTHER HELD URGENT PEDIATRICS PROBLEM, read the headline. The article described a mother who “projects her own illness onto her child and takes him from physician to physician seeking one who will confirm her diagnosis.” This mother “falsely sees her child as ill or exaggerates his sickness.” Such mothers should be considered “psychiatric emergencies,” the article explained.
* * *
THAT SEPTEMBER, I somehow progressed to fourth grade, and the school year of 1969–70 started well enough. But by the new year, I had stopped going to school again, and my teacher, Mrs. Jensen, started coming to the house to tutor me. I took my lessons in the den, wearing my pajamas and lying down on the couch, so I wouldn’t overexert myself.
Mrs. Jensen had brown curly hair and a dark blue suit. She was a stern, older lady, but I didn’t mind. I looked forward to my sessions with her very much. My days were so long and uneventful, and I was eager to learn. Mrs. Jensen gave me a book on Greek mythology, and I became fascinated by the stories of the gods and goddesses.
One day, when the lesson was over, Mrs. Jensen asked me a question.
“Nina, don’t you want to come back to school?” she asked me quietly. “You seem fine to me. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you.”
“I can’t,” I told Mrs. Jensen, shaking my head. “I’m not well.”
“Why won’t you come back?” my teacher insisted. “You can tell your mother you want to come back to school.”
I started to cry. I wasn’t used to being questioned. I didn’t want to go back. I needed to stay home with my mother.
“I can’t,” I repeated through my tears.
My mother must have heard me crying, because she came into the room, her face furrowed with concern. Mrs. Jensen stood up and turned around to face my mother.
“Nina needs to be in school,” my teacher insisted. “There is nothing wrong with her.”
My mother protested. She told Mrs. Jensen about my doctor visits, about my health problems, about how hard it had been for me to keep up with my studies.
Mrs. Jensen repeated that I seemed fine and that I needed to be in school; she raised her voice, her finger jabbing the air.
My mother started to cry. I couldn’t bear to see her so upset.
“Don’t say that to my mommy!” I told Mrs. Jensen.
I ran to my mother, putting my body against hers.
“Leave my mommy alone!” I shouted at my teacher.
This was not like me. I was such a quiet child; I hardly ever raised my voice. But I was going to defend my mother no matter what.
Mrs. Jensen was taken aback. She looked at me and looked at my mother, and threw her hands up, as if she didn’t know what else to say.
“You’ll be hearing from the school,” my teacher informed us. Then she strode out of the house, slamming the door behind her.
We didn’t see Mrs. Jensen at the house again.
I was ten years old. I didn’t question my mother’s role in keeping me at home. I just wanted to protect her from my teacher, who seemed intent on upsetting us. It was only years later that I realized why Mrs. Jensen had shouted at my mother the way that she did. She was trying to save me.
* * *
NOT LONG AFTER the incident with Mrs. Jensen, my mother came into my room in the middle of the night to wake me.
“Nina, get up,” she whispered. “We’re leaving.”
Even in the darkness, I could see the pale oval of her face and her sweet, sad eyes darting with nerves.
I did as I was told.
My mother helped me to pack my sister Jill’s little olive-green floral suitcase. With me still in my pajamas, we crept out the door, leaving my father sleeping in his bed. My half sister, Patricia, had left her red-and-white convertible Mustang in our garage for the winter. My mother had the key. We slid into the seats of the Mustang. I held my breath as my mother turned the ignition, and pulled away, the sound of the car tires on the gravel drive so loud I was convinced we would wake Malcolm. But as I looked behind me, the house stayed safely dark.
My mother explained that we were going to Steubenville. To Ohio.
We drove through the night, my mother chain-smoking cigarettes with the window cracked, checking the rearview mirror obsessively; the headlamps of every passing car like searchlights tracking our escape. At some point, we pulled over so we could get gas and my mother could make a phone call. I remember wondering who she was calling. My father, to tell him we’d left? Or was she calling her mother in Ohio to tell her we were on our way? When my mother returned to the car, she didn’t explain.
She started the
