Chapter 5 mother meets father

My mother often writes notes to me.No matter where she drove me, when she let me get off, she would always give me a note.I have never understood why she did this. She can tell me what she wants to say in person. There is no need to waste paper like this, and I don't need to smell the bad smell of envelope glue. The first note, I think, was from her on my first day of kindergarten in 1954.How old was I then?Are you five years old?The school playground was full of kids, screaming and running.I held my mother's hand and walked into the campus with her.A woman in a black bonnet stands before several teachers.I've seen other mothers kiss their babies and leave.I burst into tears.

What's wrong?mother asked. do not go. When you come out of class, I will wait for you here. don't want. it does not matter.I will be here then. What if I can't find you? you will find me. What if I lose you? You can't lose your mother, Charlie. She smiled slightly.She reached into her coat pocket, took out a small blue envelope, and handed it to me. take it.She said: When I miss me very much, I open it and read it. She took tissues out of her purse, wiped my eyes, gave me a hug, and said goodbye.I can still see her walking backwards, blowing kisses to me, Revlon lipstick on her lips, hair brushing her ears.I waved her goodbye with the hand holding the letter.I guess it didn't occur to her that I had just started school and couldn't read.This is my mother.The most important thing is the heart.

The story goes that she met my father on the shore of Piperville Lake in the spring of 1944.She was swimming and he was playing baseball with friends.His friend threw the ball too high and it fell into the lake.My mother swam towards the ball.My father also plunged into the water.He picked up the ball and his head came up, and my mother happened to be swimming up there, too, and they bumped their heads. We didn't stop after that.she says. Their relationship developed quickly and passionately, because my father was like that, when you set out to do something, you have to achieve the goal.He was a tall, stocky young man, not long out of high school, with his hair combed into a high jet cut, and he drove his father's blue-and-white LaSalle.When World War II broke out, he immediately joined the army and told my mother that he wanted to be the man who killed the most enemies in our town.He was put on a ship and dispatched to the Apennines and the valley of the Po River in northern Italy, near the city of Bologna.In 1945 he sent a letter from there, proposing to my mother: to be my wife.I think what he said sounds more like an order.My mother wrote back and said yes, using fancy linen letter paper that was too expensive for her, but she bought it anyway.My mother respected words, and the tools used to communicate them.

Two weeks after my father received the letter, Germany signed the document of defeat and surrender.He is coming back. My argument is that he didn't have enough wars to his liking, so he made his own wars out of us. My father's name was Rainer, but everyone called him Ryan.My mother's name was Pauline, but everyone called her Percy, like the pocketful of Percy in a nursery rhyme.She has big almond eyes, and her long dark hair is often rolled up like a waterfall; her face is soft and fair.She is reminiscent of the actress Audrey Hepburn. In our small town, there are not many women who can be described by this sentence.She likes to put on mascara, eyeliner, lipstick, you name it, she uses it. Most people think she's funny or bubbly, or end up thinking she's weird or headstrong.And I found her nagging most of my childhood.

Am I wearing waterproof shoe covers?Are you wearing a coat?Have you finished your homework?Why are my trousers ripped? She always has to correct my grammar. Myself and Roberta are going to talk to me. She interrupted me: Roberta and me. myself and Jimmy want Jimmy and me.she says. Parents will engrave a certain posture of themselves on their children's hearts.My mother's pose is that of a lipsticked woman, leaning forward, wagging her fingers, begging me to do better than I am now.My father's stance is that of a resting man, shoulders leaning against the wall, cigarette in hand, watching me swim or sink in the water.

Looking back now, I think I should have been able to understand at that time that one of them was leaning forward towards me, and the other was walking backward away from me.But then I was just a child, and what could a child know? My mother was a French Protestant and my father an Italian Catholic.Their combination contains a plethora of gods, crimes, and all sorts of little things that spice up life.They were arguing non-stop.Quarrel over children; quarrel over food; quarrel over religion.My father had a picture of Jesus hanging on the wall outside the bathroom, and my mother took it down while he was at work and hung it somewhere less visible.The father came home and yelled: For Christ's sake, you can't remove Jesus!She said: Ryan, this is a painting.Do you think God wants himself to be hung next to the bathroom?

He hung up the picture. The next day, she removed it again. So you come and go, endless. They come from different backgrounds and cultures, but if my family adopted a democratic system, my father's vote would count as two votes.He decides what we're going to eat for dinner, what color the house is going to be painted, which bank we're going to put our money in, and what channel we're going to watch when we turn on the family's Zenith black-and-white TV.On the day I was born, he informed my mother that the child would be baptized in a Catholic church.That's it. Ironically, he is not a devout Christian himself.After the war my father opened a liquor store.He is more interested in profit than in prophecy.As for me, I only have to worship one thing, and that's baseball.He threw balls for me before I could walk; my father gave me a wooden bat before my mother started letting me use scissors.He said, as long as I have a plan, as long as I work hard to make it happen, one day I'll be on a major league team.

When you're young, of course you're going to live in your parents' plans for you instead of living in your own plans. So, from the age of seven, I scoured newspapers for race results from my would-be employers.I kept baseball mitts at my dad's store so that he could catch me in the parking lot when he had a few minutes to spare.Sometimes I even go to Sunday mass in my baseball spikes, because as soon as the final hymn is sung, we're heading to an American Legion game.When I hear people say that the church is God's house, I worry that God will not like my shoe spikes digging into His floor.Once I stood on tiptoe, but my father whispered to me: What are you doing?I immediately put my heels down.

However, my mother didn't like baseball.She was an only child, and her family was very poor when she was a child. After the war broke out, she was forced to drop out of school and work to earn money.She attended night school to get her high school diploma and then enrolled in nursing school.She believed that the most important things to me were books and colleges, and the doors they could open for me.Her best words when it comes to baseball: It gives you a little breath of fresh air. But she will be there.Standing in the stands, she wore large sunglasses and her hair was carefully done by a local beauty parlor.Sometimes I would peek at her from the players' dugout and see her looking out over the horizon.But when it was my turn to strike, she clapped her hands and yelled, Come on, Charlie!I thought, that's all I care about.My dad coached every team I played on before he left us.Once he caught me looking in my mother's direction and yelled, Eyes on the ball, Chick!There is nothing there to help you!

Mom wasn't in the plan, I thought. Still, I can say that I adore my mother; the way boys adore their mother and take her for granted.She made it easy for me to like her.First of all, she's funny.She doesn't care about smearing ice cream all over her face and making people laugh.She would imitate strange voices, such as Popeye's voice, or imitate the jazz singer Louis.Louis Armstrong's hoarse voice: If you don't let it in, you can't blow it away.She tickled me and let me tickle her, and then she laughed and pressed her elbows tight against her body.Every night, she helped me tuck the quilt, rubbed my hair, and said: Kiss my mother.She told me that I am very smart, and being smart is a kind of honor given by God. She insisted that I finish reading a book every week, and took me to the library to ensure that I could read a book every week.Sometimes she dresses too gaudy.She sang along to the music, and it bothered me too.But there was never a moment between us where we couldn't trust each other.

I believe everything my mother says. But don't get me wrong, she's not everything I want.She would hit me, scold me, punish me.But she loves me.She really loves me.She loves me when I fall off the swing.She loves me when I step on her floor with muddy shoes on.She loves me when I'm throwing up and my nose is running and my knees are bleeding.I have come and I have gone; she loves me as much as I am as well as as ill.She has a bottomless well, from which love flows unceasingly for me. Her only shortcoming is that she didn't ask me to work hard to pursue her love. Listen, my theory is this: Children go after the love that hides from them, and for me that hides love is my father's love.He stashed it somewhere, like people keep papers in briefcases.I've been trying to get in there. Years later, when my mother passed away, I made a list of times my mother stood up for me and times I didn’t.The disparity between the two tables is sad to say the least.Why would a child take one parent for granted to such an extent while holding the other to a lower and more permissive standard? Maybe it's like my dad said: you can be mom's son, and you can be dad's son.But you can't be both.So you pick the one you feel you might lose and hold on to him. ◇◇◇ When my mother stood up for me I am five years old.We headed towards the Fanari market.A neighbor opened the screen door of her home, and she, in her nightgown and pink hair, called out to her mother.While they were talking, I walked out to the backyard of the house. Suddenly a German Shepherd rushed towards me.woof!It is tied to a clothesline rack.woof!It stood up on its hind legs, and the rope that tied it was straightened by it.woof! I turned around and ran.I screamed loudly.Mother ran towards me. What's wrong?She yelled, clutching my elbow tightly: What's wrong? There is a dog! She exhaled.have a dog?Where?Is it over there? I cried and nodded. She took me in strides around the house.The dog is here.It growled.woof!I backed away, but my mother pulled me forward.She barks, barks and barks.I've never heard a human being make such an awesome dog bark. The dog crouched down and changed from howling to whimpering.Mother turned and faced me. You gotta let 'em know who's boss, Charlie.she says. (Taken from a list in a notebook kept by Chick Bernato.)