The Back Building (3 page)

When we arrived at Judith’s spacious village home Saturday afternoon for our visit, we rang an ornate doorbell. True to my mother’s expectation, a maid answered the door and saw us to a room that was adorned with two settees facing one another with a coffee table in between. (Ten paces from the entrance to the davenport.) When our hosts appeared they were both dressed lavishly in floor length skirts and freshly pressed lace blouses with silver embellished buttons. Judith wore a brooch at her neck that my mother fawned over and her daughter, Anne, played the role of gracious hostess with ease.

“Iona, do tell us how your school work is coming along. You are in the ninth grade, correct?” Mrs. Taylor inquired.

“You know I am in ninth grade…..” I started to say with too much attitude.

My mother cleared her throat and nodded at me in such a way that told me I had better rethink my answer.

“Why yes, Mrs. Taylor, I am doing well in school. I can only hope to be as bright and well liked as your Anne is someday.” I blinked excessively as I spoke.

“Iona, you are quite lovely yourself. I have no doubt everyone agrees.” Mrs. Taylor sipped Earl Grey from her dainty tea-cup, her pinkie extended outward. Then the cup was placed back on its saucer and she edged it away from her as if one sip were appeasing enough.

Our conversation continued on with me being sickeningly sweet and praising Anne at every turn. My goal was to make Anne be nice to me at school and get my mother off my back.

Anne did invite me to join the girls in their circle the next day at recess. She made a point to invite me right in front of our teacher, who seemed very impressed with Anne’s thoughtful gesture. As I approached the circle (eighteen paces from my desk to the girls) clutching my lunch pail by my side, she quickly turned her back to me, closing the circle’s gap. Anne snickered to the group and once again I was cast out. This time I felt humiliation worm its way into my cheeks coloring them with a blood rouge.

Every day henceforth this game ensued. Anne pretended to be my friend when the teacher was in view, but as soon as she was otherwise engaged I was mocked and treated poorly.

“You’ll never have any friends, you little brat, and neither will your mother if she keeps begging you off on her acquaintances.” Anne spat the horrific words at me one day in front of the other girls and I could feel the blush rise in my cheeks.

“Who would want to be friends with you anyway? You’re nothing but a spoiled, rich girl. Have fun at your sewing circles,” I replied.

I would get her back and I knew just how. She could taunt me all she wanted but when she made fun of my mother I had a prickly sensation creep up my back that I couldn’t let go. After school that day I checked my trap; I snared a squirrel that I carefully gutted. I took its limp heart out and put it gently aside. I then wrapped it in leaves and carried it home, leaving it in the toe of my boots by the front stoop. I carried my boots to school the next morning, aware of the forecast of rain and the dense puddles that could ruin my patent leather shoes.

I arrived early in the classroom and positioned my boots and umbrella in the hallway by our coat-hooks as did the other students who prepared for the inclement weather. (Twenty-seven paces from hallway to desk.) Mid-morning I asked to use the restroom (thirty-six paces from desk to bathroom) and was excused. I quickly but quietly retrieved the organ and found Anne’s lunch pail. I unwrapped the slimy, un-beating heart and deposited it in between her slices of bread along with her cheese and crisp maple bacon.

I bet it wouldn’t taste half bad if it were pan-seared and doused with salt and pepper. I went back to the classroom and focused on my schoolwork. When Anne’s class was excused for lunch I waited for the shrill, and when it came I played dumb.

The prank was blamed on one of the boys, but interestingly, Anne never encouraged me again in front of our teacher. Nor did she extend further social invitations and I was more than fine with that. My mother, however, was befuddled. She had inquired about lunching with ladies and starting mother-daughter sewing circles but no one was able to partake.

About this time I noticed mother’s belly was swollen and protruding. There was to be a new baby within four month’s time. They didn’t know if it was a boy or girl but the doctor said mother was healthy and would have no trouble birthing this baby, although she was thirty-six.

Hetty was hired for three days a week now as mother grew larger and less able to move about freely. She waddled when she walked and tired very easily. Jeffrey and Will, my brothers, were given more duties on the farm and spent more time hunting in order to prepare our stores for the brutal winter months ahead. Ithaca was known for its damning, dreary winters.

It was during one of their hunting forays that they found my traps. They immediately relayed the information to my father who wondered who would have the audacity to hunt on his land. Each one of his seventy-five acres was his and no one had the right to hunt on it without his direct permission.

It didn’t take long for my father to realize that the simple snares were set by me, and what ensued scarred me for life. Father called me to the kitchen (eighteen paces from the parlor to the kitchen table). Holding my latest catch in his hands, he unloosened the snares and set the dead squirrels down. Mother sat by the window, her loom in her hand as she embroidered a pillowcase for the new baby. Stress showed itself in the wrinkled brow that presented across her forehead as well as her shallow breathing.

“This is madness. You deliberately disobeyed me, Iona. You are causing your mother stress due to the reports from school saying you are causing mischief and now this. We have a new baby coming soon, we can’t have this type of thing agitating your mother now.”

“I can explain.”

“I don’t want to hear your explanation, I assume Hetty is to blame, that you are giving the meat to her family, am I correct?” White spittle formed at the corners of his mouth when he spoke and I couldn’t take my eyes from it’s foam.

“Yes, I am giving it to Hetty. But she didn’t ask for it, Father. I just know it’s hard for her, isn’t that being charitable?” I would use any angle I could to get out of this.

“You have a good heart, Iona. But you can’t put meat on everyone’s table. Your only requirement is to worry about you. You are meant to become a young lady, but by all reports you are a tomboy and a social outcast. Your behavior is intolerable.” Father loomed above me and tried to regain his composure.

This hit me like a brick. I felt the sting and weight of my father’s words and saw the way it weighed on my mother’s slumping shoulders. I had never thought of myself so harshly and frankly didn’t strive to be like everyone else. I wasn’t sure what I could do but the thought of running away occurred to me. I could run to Hetty’s. They would take me in, I could put food on the table every night there.

“You must conduct yourself in a way that befits this family. The boys have made very good names for themselves, but you’re embarrassing them and us with your ill temper. Your blatant refusal to take up tasks that are fitting for girls your age is unacceptable. If it keeps up, Iona, we will send you to my brother’s farm in Elbridge and I can assure you, he won’t be so tolerant. Now shape up.” Finally, he wiped the creamy foam that collected at the corners of his mouth.

Later that night I was tucked properly in bed. My hair was brushed and braided, my clothes were laid out for the morning, and I listened as my mother and father conversed in their bedroom below my loft.

“It’s madness, she counts every pace everywhere she goes, and if she loses her place she has to start over. She counts other things too like the number of slats of wood on the floors, how many grains each slat has, the frames in the windows, the windows in the house, and so on. Yesterday, when there was a snarl in her hair and she lost track of counting her strokes she threw the brush across the room putting a hole in the wall. She cleans the bathrooms twice a week, is fastidious about working her way from the inside out. She has no friends and refuses to act like a lady. She has no patience, Don. I am worried about the baby. You saw how she strangled the chicken last week. What if she hurt the baby? What if she is truly mad and needs help?” My mother sounded borderline hysterical. She cried in bursts that altered between strangled sounding sobs and silence.

I held my tongue as they discussed exaggerated incidents. No harm came from my counting, it’s just something I did for amusement. I admit I tried stopping but found it difficult. Counting occupied my mind and I liked it. I did strangle a chicken, but that was because Hetty said it was needed for dinner. She hated the killing of animals so I offered to do it. I snapped its neck and laughed as it ran around for a count of thirty seconds before succumbing to its demise. I supposed it was true, I was an outcast, but I had no recollection of throwing a brush through the wall. That was just a lie brought forth by my mother’s condition. Of course I cleaned, I cleaned with Hetty enthusiastically, to help her and learn from her as they suggested. Did they forget it was their command that I shadow Hetty whenever she was working? I needed to hone my skills and who better to learn from than our housekeeper?

As I lay listening to my folks, I seethed and grew angry enough to spit nails. I ripped my braids apart and grabbed lumps of my hair, pulling it out in thick segments. I bit my lip in order not to scream from the pain each pluck induced, the biting produced a vast amount of blood which spilled down my chin and onto the collar of my nightgown soaking through the fabric and leaving a stain for Hetty to deal with.

In the morning I had fifteen noticeable bald patches on my now lopsided head, my mother swooned when I appeared in the kitchen, but my father sat me down.

“Are you ill?” he asked leaning over me studying the missing contents of my swollen head.

“No, Father, I am not ill, and I am not ‘mad’ either as you and mother suggested last night.”

“Well, I don’t know whether you have seen yourself this morning or not but you are missing half your hair.” Father ignored the fact I overheard his conversation and carried on fussing over my hair.

My mother wept softly into her kerchief at the loss of my hair. She always said I had the most beautiful, lush, thick locks and that I was lucky. Now the hair was stuffed into my pillow with the down from our deceased chickens.

“You will not go to school today, Iona. Instead, I am taking you to see Dr. Morgan. I think we need to see what is going on here. Maybe there is a reason behind this pressing madness.”

A tear escaped and I let it trail down my cheek and my chin and drip onto my clothes. I was ordered to bathe and dress (fourteen paces to the bathroom). Then we would head into town and get to the bottom of my ‘condition’.

After being poked and prodded, questioned and humiliated, I was deemed ‘unwell’ by a doctor who hardly knew his head from his arse. Whether or not my illness was a physical or mental matter was in question and needed further investigating. I was not allowed to attend school in either case, both to protect the good name of my family and to prevent the spread of any disease, should I be harboring one. The hair perplexed the doctor the most. The missing clumps were random and, he said, no one in their right mind would subject themselves to that type of bodily harm or pain. It was indeed painful, but I would never admit it.

My father didn’t tell my mother the doctor questioned my sanity. Instead, he told her I was to stay at home and get plenty of rest. I had an unidentified illness that would benefit from proper nutrition, extra portions of meat, and lots of rest.

My mother complied with the doctors’ orders and began to give me second helpings at supper-time over the course of the next few weeks. As a result of proper nutrition, I gained weight and my hair grew back in. It formed spikes in patches across my head and I liked the feel of it so much I took my mother’s shears and cut the rest of it off to match.

When I entered the kitchen the following morning my mother took one look at me and fainted. My father ran to her and cursed me. I was deemed mentally ill by the doctor and it was advised I be sent away.

Chapter Two

Willard Hospital for the Insane

I was allowed to bring one suitcase with me to the treatment facility in Lodi, New York. In it my mother carefully packed everything she thought I would need while I was away. I would be gone for one month during which time the change of scenery and care of the specialized doctors was supposed to make me ‘better’. The Willard State Hospital on the eastern shore of Seneca Lake was known as the best, particularly for disturbed women and children.

Neatly folded one on top of the other were my nightgowns, underwear, socks, two skirts, and their corresponding blouses. Beside them, were a bible, my toothbrush, a hairbrush, and ribbon. Peculiar, I had no hair to use the ribbon on, and my time away was supposedly temporary. There was a small sewing kit, two small needles and two spools of thread. No scissors. My indoor slippers sat on top of the clothing, and the blanket I had had since my birth was on top of my toiletries. At the last minute my mother added stationery and a pen. She hoped I would write and promised to do the same.

A black automobile pulled up at eight in the morning on October twenty-ninth. Two stodgy gentlemen dressed in tweed suits entered our home and one took my suitcase. It was placed in the trunk of the car (twenty–six lengthy paces from hallway to trunk). The other man escorted me outside quickly, in case my parents changed their minds. My mother’s hug lingered, she kissed my cheeks and her tears melted into my skin, for a brief moment I even felt loved. My father was emotionless, he spoke to the men quietly and watched from the window as I was led away by the elbow.