January 6, 1960

 

I remember the night my younger sister came home from the hospital. She was number four of us five siblings. We lived in a drafty, old brick farmhouse in the middle of town.

 

I was sitting in an overstuffed chair that had been dragged into the kitchen from the living room. I was five years old and my next younger sister, sibling number two was sitting in the chair with me. I am sibling number one. Sibling number three was wrapped up in a comforter asleep in a smaller chair next to us.

 

Our mother was sitting in a straight back kitchen chair directly in front of the gas stove whose oven door was wide open. She had the baby bundled up in blankets lying on her lap. She was wearing her winter coat over her pajamas.

 

There were a couple of candles that provided the only light and casting long, dancing shadows on the high ceilings of the huge room. Sibling number two was scared of the flickering shadows so I had to pretend that I wasn’t. We shared a bowl of popcorn.

 

The power was out.

 

 It was January 6^th in Northern Vermont so we could have been without power as a result of a snowstorm. Our father was still drinking in those days so it could have been a result of not paying the electric bill.

 

We asked our mother why we all were bundled up huddled around the kitchen stove. We asked her where our father was. She said, “We wouldn’t understand”.

And we didn’t.