Hungry Hill: A Memoir

Mother’s Day 1993 [Includes Image Plates]

A Memoir 115 and how to do the math, the fractions. The navy sofa costs so much more than my eighth-grade graduation dress, yet I make the decision to buy it in such a flash, I worry I’m overlooking some critical factor. Please, let me get this done. “Charge it, please.” Powerful words, magic words, but who really cares about a living room couch anyway? And sit-down—what kind of a word is that? = Mother’s Day 1993 (Carole’s apartment again. There is a white ceramic pitcher filled with peonies and Mother’s Day cards standing up on the black coffee table. Joe O’Malley smiles when he reads one of the Mother’s Day cards, his expression then turning somber. He wipes a tear from his eye and drops the card on the table when Carole enters carrying a small dish of Fig Newtons and Vienna Fingers.) Joe: I loved Susie’s note—on your Mother’s Day card. Quite the tribute. Carole: For a twelve-year-old, she sometimes has the insight of an adult. Joe: Like her mother at that age. Carole: (Laughing.) I hope not. ( Joe slaps the sofa and picks out a white feather from a pillow. He strokes the feather between his fingers.) Joe: Carole, did you pick out this sofa? Carole: No, I sent Abby to the furniture department at Bloomingdale ’s. She’s fourteen. Joe: (Playfully.) You’re with the old man for two minutes and already you’re slipping back to your old sarcasm. Carole: I just slide right into it, I don’t mean to. It’s easier for me to be sarcastic than to bring up the purchase of the living room sofa. Joe: (With resignation.) Not that again. Carole: (In disbelief.) Again? I’ve never even mentioned it before. (With shock.) Who, Dad, sends a thirteen-year-old out to buy a sofa? 116 H u n g ry H i l l Joe: (He is in the past.) Every time I looked at the flowers on that old sofa, I thought of your mother, snuggling with her. And I needed a new sofa for me to move on. Was it mourning? Carole: I never knew whether you were sad and that made you drink or you drank and that made you sad. Hard to say. But why didn’t you pull yourself together to go to Forbes and buy the sofa yourself? You were supposed to be the adult in the family. Joe: (Smoothly.) Hey, you got a kick out of it. Carole: I may have felt special traipsing around Forbes with the charge card in my sweaty palm. But I was a kid. As if I had any idea of what I was doing. Joe: I didn’t know anything about sofas, either. Carole: It wasn’t like I was buying a gallon of milk. A sofa is a major expenditure. A sofa selected for its length alone. Joe: That was as good a criterion as any. Carole: The furniture department had a good laugh. It was funny later. Ridiculous at the time. Joe: They probably started treating teenagers with a little respect. Carole: (Her sarcasm surfaces.) I’m sure. So I was part of a cause. That’s good to know. Joe: You got through it. Carole: I guess. (She passes the cookies to her father.) Dad, this is the same sofa I’ve had since we were first married. Joe: Well, that David’s a lucky man. And, Carole, you did get it done. Carole: But look what happened to it. Apparently the sofa did not measure up. Or maybe I didn’t. Either way, it had a brief life at 21 Lynwood Terrace before it was tossed. Joe: That came later. Carole: (Ruefully.) If I had only known then what was coming later. (She reaches for a cookie.) Maybe I should write a how-to book for fathers. Joe: The past is the past. Carole: Is it? I know, I know—put it behind me. = Betty O’Malley, Connecticut, circa 1940. Courtesy of Gerry O’Malley. Drawing of Joe O’Malley by Art LaVove, October 17, 1945. Right: 21 Lynwood Terrace, early 1950s. Front row: Gerry, Betty holding Stevie, Carole holding Joey; back row: Danny, Michael, Joe. Courtesy of Gerry O’Malley. Left: Joe and...