Ocean State

Family Happiness

3 Family Happiness [1] When Donna was first married, her mother collected linens and kitchen tools enough for three houses, and where was Donna moving with her blond husband, a contractor, but a third-floor tenement on Regent Avenue. When it became available in May, Dolly was in that flat from dawn to dusk, papering and painting, laying linoleum and scrubbing woodwork. Dolly was sewing Donna’s going-away outfit, a navy suit with flared skirt and two changes of blouse: flowered and solid. The gown and veil were bought from New York Lace, and Dolly was doing the fitting, first on the dress form, and then—when she could catch her—on Donna, who shouldn’t have been gaining weight, but was. She was a nervous, high-strung, silly girl, and the wedding , in planning for a solid year, had burned off what maturity she’d gathered, necking and petting with Carl Linstrom, twentyfive , the only son of the Swansea Linstroms, one generation off the boat. The Linstroms and Bergmans were congregants at St. Lucy’s Lutheran, and bride and groom had known each other since bible school. 4 family happiness They would be married by the Rev. Albert Oberg, standing before the birch altar shipped over from the old country when the church was little more than a dream and a hope in a region settled by a mere handful of Swedes. Everything was working out as planned. Dolly went to the apartment alone most days and was glad to have the time to rearrange the knick-knacks or the cabinets after Donna—or maybe it was Carl, or even Carl’s mother—had snuck in to see the place and things were moved, or glasses were used and left in the sink. This upset Dolly. Her cheeks would flush and tears flood her eyes: ingratitude was deeply rooted in her only daughter, and came from Einar’s family and she knew exactly where, but didn’t want to think of the suppers and teas and church picnics when it had flared out from her mother-inlaw ’s black heart and stung, cut, and all but poisoned the first year of Dolly’s marriage. The first thing Dolly did was let the light in, pulling the cord on the Venetian blinds—some green, some white, some off-white—wiped and dusted every few days. The slivered daylight , cool and weak, striped the linoleum—black, white, and red, a dizzying pattern, but a bargain in a single, fresh bolt. Was marriage a gamble with such a one as her Donna? Stay out of it, Einar had said and said again, as needed, and she knew that much, although Donna could read her mind, and when she saw that written on it, she threatened to move out on the spot and in with Carl in his railroad flat next to the lumberyard. “Oh no, you will not!” she said that terrible Sunday after the bride’s dinner for the groom’s family. And, “Oh yes, I will so,” Donna shot back. And, “Don’t talk back to your mother,” they heard coming from the den, where Einar had fled, hiding behind the 5 Family Happiness paper and a cloud of smoke. They laughed to hear that rarest of signal from the head of the household, and the matter was forgotten for a minute. What happened was this: after all the goodbyes were said, and half a Boston cream pie packaged for Mrs. Linstrom, and before Donna flew off to meet Carl at the bowling alley, Dolly had sat her daughter down for a heart-toheart talk, something her own mother had failed to do, leaving everything after the wedding a mystery and a darkness. She knew a thing or two about a Swedish husband was how the talk began, and Donna had laughed. “I’m sorry, Momma,” she said, with a hand over that fresh mouth. “Tell me. What do you know?” Dolly was mortified. She flushed and steamed in silence until Donna brought her a glass of cold water and an aspirin, and kissed her—a rarity—and she calmed down, never that easy once she got started. “What I was trying to tell you, before you laughed at me—,” she glared, and Donna glared back, and they got nowhere. The frustration—the eighteen years of unspent energy— leaked into other areas, best left untouched, such as...