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178 12 custody visits Marriage is a bribe to make a housekeeper think she’s a householder. —THORNTON WILDER (1897–1975), American author and playwright ANNIE THE NANNY My father would often say to me, “Always make them think you have money, Rickey—people will treat you better.” It seems to me that my father paid a terrible emotional price just to be liked. Ultimately his money and insecurities brought only strife, turmoil, and rebuke. For much of his life he solicited the admiration of others to salve the pain of his own broken childhood, and although he probably could not admit it to himself, he fended off the collective neurosis, jealousy, and greed of a half dozen women demanding financial assistance by wielding an open checkbook to clear his conscience. After he made an enemy of one, another waited in line to take her place. And so it went, year after year. Ann Smith, the English girlfriend lurking in the shadows before my mother and father’s divorce, had settled into a regimen of keeping house for and socializing with my father not long after Mom stopped calling her ex by his first name, substituting the more formal “Mr. Lindberg” in her written correspondence. Ann showed up at Dad’s door one day, luggage in hand, and was added to the company payroll as a housekeeper at a salary of a little over fifty dollars a week. Chuck found a kindred spirit in Ann. She filled the roles of den mother, buddy, cook, and flirty older woman, stoking the fires of his raging adolescence. Ann was fifty-five years of age—a seasoned traveler, amateur psychologist, and woman looking to improve her lot in life by cozying up to the master of the house, playing along, smiling lasciviously at his good-looking son, and counting on the day when my father would promote her from the status of part-time courtesan to full-time wife. At least four nights a week, sometimes oftener, Ann slept over in custody visits 179 Skokie. During my custody visits, she discreetly transferred her things to the den while I occupied the “guest bed” in the master bedroom right next to my snoring old man. Proper images had to be maintained, but even I, a homesick little waif of six, had to wonder why the housekeeper called my father by his first name, with a tone of affection and high regard, and sat by his side each night in the living room as he watched Have Gun—Will Travel and Maverick on the television. Despite the obvious clinking of the cash register inside her head, Ann was a kind and generous hostess who made these bleak, court-mandated weekend separations from my mother tolerable with trips to the movies and the Foster Avenue Beach, east of Swedetown. But her friendliness and interest in my well-being were called to account once I was returned to Emma and Helen’s custody. “So, where did Mrs. Schmidt take you this time?” Emma churlishly demanded. “She’s a gold digger, you can be sure. She will cheat you out of your inheritance.” Grandmother’s words were a strange buzz to me, but gradually I began to understand the way things were. Ann, of course, was caught up in the trappings of my father’s Swedish life, from dusting the Blekinge coat of arms on the wall of the den to boiling the potato sausage, slicing the salty sil (herring) in the refrigerator, and acting as Dad’s “travel agent,” booking a Miami Beach cabana for his annual wintertime junket to the land of the orange groves. She had no choice but to adapt to her employer’s preferences if there was any hope at all of tying the knot. It was just another phase of her job along with the forays into Clubland, where she always hung on his arm as he warmly greeted the boys at the Svithiod Club and the Verdandi Lodge, the “red-faced men” with the same tired-out old wives each year. However devoted, loyal, and true Ann Smith might have remained had she been given the opportunity to exchange vows, Dad never reciprocated by expressing affection and fidelity. He was forever unrestrained when it came to engaging in extracurricular activities with women. My brother described one night—painful but bitterly amusing—when Ann was fast asleep in the same upstairs bed abandoned by my mother three years previous . Charles was in...

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