CHAPTER TWO
TWENTY-ONE YEARS EARLIER—BARBARA AT FOUR
Providence, April 1918
Barbara circled her spoon around her bowl and rounded up the last Post Toasties. Yum. The milk was sweetest when it turned that pretty cream color. She swiped the back of her hand over her mouth. “Daddy, when can we go to the dry-goods store?”
“Elbows off the table, and use your napkin to wipe your mouth,” her father said. “This afternoon. After I finish grading papers.”
Her mother leaned over and picked up her bowl and juice glass. “We can play the piano together after I wash the dishes.”
She watched her mother walk to the kitchen counter. Her brown hair tumbled over her shoulders, and her sweater swooshed this way and that because her hair was long and her sweater was baggy, and she was skinny.
Her father slung an arm around the back of his chair and said to her mother, “Maybe Barbara would like to arrange her bookcase.”
That was Daddy’s way of telling Mommy that his idea was better than hers.
Barbara was excited about her new bookcase. Her father had bought it especially for her so she wouldn’t have to keep squeezing her books higgledy-piggledy in the old one.
Her mother stacked the breakfast dishes on the counter—saucers first, then cups and bowls. “Go on upstairs and work on your bookcase, dear.”
Barbara bustled up the stairs and sat down in front of her old bookcase. Her father had explained that books should be arranged according to the first letter of the author’s last name. But she’d come up with her own system: the top of the bookcase for books she used all the time, like The Butterfly Guide; the first shelf for books she was reading now; and the two bottom shelves for the books she’d read so many times she could recite parts of them, like The Three Mulla-Mulgars and The Princess and the Goblin. When she told her father about her plan, he said she could still alphabetize them on their shelves. Only that didn’t work for the books that had pretty covers because she liked to stand them up, so they looked at her in a pleasing way.
She started arranging her books into piles—one for each shelf of her new bookcase—and she heard her parents talking in her father’s study. Her mother’s voice sounded screechy like it did when she was mad at Daddy, and that made her feel squirmy. She took off her shoes, tiptoed down the stairs in stocking feet, and crept up to the door.
She could hear the rocker in the corner of the room go creak, creak, just the way her mother rocked, not fast, but steady, like every other tick of the clock. That meant her father was sitting at his desk, which always had stacks of paper piled up with their corners poking out like star spikes.
Her mother said, “I think of my high school students joking in the hallways, and I just don’t feel it’s fair to deprive her of that.”
“Missing out on tomfoolery’s no deprivation. She possesses a playfulness all her own. Look at those snowmen she built in our likenesses.” She could picture her father at his desk—his black hair swooped over the top of his head and his pixie-like ears sticking out.
“I’ll grant she’s creative,” her mother said.
They’re talking about me, Barbara thought. But Mommy and Daddy said I could visit with all the grown-ups whenever I wanted, so why are they talking without me?
Her father asked, “Then why resist?”
“Because I hate to set her apart from her age mates.”
“She’s far ahead of other children in the ways that matter. I wish those louts in my classes had her curiosity and knack for knowledge.” Barbara smiled. Daddy thought she was more curious than the big kids he taught at the university.
“You’re not concerned about her being labeled peculiar?” Barbara would have to look up that word peculiar. She didn’t like the way it sounded.
“She’s bright. She has a purpose about her. But I wouldn’t call her peculiar.”
“You know very well what I mean,” her mother said. “She spends all her time with our friends and us.”
“You worry too much. Give her a good education, and she’ll have the world at her feet.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“Then why dig your heels in?” Her father sounded mad, but only a little, like when she didn’t choose the very best word to describe a cloud or flower or bird.
“She should learn to play with others.”
“She gets along famously with both of us,” her father said. “With all adults, for that matter. My God, she’s got more charm than any of my colleagues.”
“It’s not the same.”
“I credit you with teaching her to be gracious and at ease with our guests.”
“Now who’s trying to charm?” Barbara could tell her mother thought that was a clever thing to say.
“You know I don’t hand out empty praise.”
Everything was quiet then, and Barbara stood still so they wouldn’t hear her at the door.
“Look, it’s not a difficult decision,” her father said. “Let’s just get on with it.”
“We agreed I’d start teaching again.” Uh-oh, Mommy was getting crabby. Daddy wouldn’t like that. “Lord knows we need the money.”
“Oh, to hell with the money.” Barbara twisted a button on her dress. She hated hearing Daddy swear. Her mother said vulgar language was a lazy substitute for proper English.
The rocking stopped, and Mother said, “I’m the one who has to wring every penny out of your paycheck for rent and everything else. While you spend however you please.”
Then her father used his quiet voice, the one he used to calm Mommy down. “If the high and mighty at Brown see fit to promote and tenure me, we’ll have more money.”
“And I can stay home all day, every day, and use my master’s degree to tend a four-year-old.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake.”
“Fine, start your filthy cursing.”
Barbara’s eyes started to drip tears. She blinked them back. Daddy had told her big girls don’t cry. But she
