Edith and Carl had a daughter named Reggie. She and I were exactly the same age. My mother was old enough to be my grandmother, Edith was old enough to be my mother, and despite my tender age, I was technically Reggie’s aunt. According to family gossip, these were strange flukes and coincidences.
“Where was Reggie born?” I asked.
Aunt Mamie tensed with nervousness and strained to lift herself out of the leather chair. “All I know is they adopt her,” she said, avoiding eye contact with me. “Customers waiting.” The conversation was over. Aunt Mamie took my small hand in her rough one, and we walked to the front of the store.
That day, I’d learned something only Aunt Mamie would tell me: Reggie was adopted. Edith never talked about anything private. And even though I was young, I knew that there was something forbidden about this conversation—and the word adoption. Mother and Dad avoided it like a curse word. During my childhood anything related to adoption was kept dark and secret.
Hunched over my childhood desk under the kitchen window, I retreated into an imaginary world where everything was perfect. In one of the drawers, I kept my treasure chest made from a cigar box, its lid covered with pictures of fashion models torn out of glossy magazines. Inside was my collection of my hand-drawn paper dolls. “Dress like me! Look like me!” they compelled. Every one of my dolls was a fantasy image of me. The cardboard box was so overstuffed with my treasures that I had to patch it together with layers of Scotch tape. None of my paper dolls ever felt lonely or ugly. None of them suffered verbal or physical abuse from an angry mother. In that ideal world, I had a mother who assured me every day, “You are beautiful! You are smart! You are talented!”
Mother, Dad, Edith, and babies Reggie (L) and Danusia (R), 1944
I grabbed my box of colored pencils and began to sketch something to make myself feel wonderful—like a pink cashmere sweater with satin bows and pearl buttons.
“Danusia, now!” Mother shouted from the hallway. “Get apples from tree for Ciotka Clarcha.”
We never visited Aunt Clara without Mother’s idea of a gift, especially if she planned to leave me for an overnight with my cousin Theresa. Aunt Clara was my aunt by marriage; she was married to Dad’s cousin Eddy. Although we were several years apart, Theresa and I were as close and complicated as sisters, brought up in very different households, yet Polish customs and relatives linked us together. Throughout our adult years, Theresa and I would forge through family sagas, love and jealousy, laughter and tears. No matter what and where, we were always there for each other.
I scrambled outside to the backyard covered by a bumpy carpet of fallen apples. Furiously, I stuffed oozing, over-ripe fruit complete with stems and leaves into a bulging canvas sack. Mother waited at the wheel of the Packard—motor running, fingers tapping, glaring at me as I ran breathless to the car.
Shoving the bag of apples onto the car floor, I scrambled into the back seat. I had only mere seconds to draw my last calm breath and inhale the smell of rich leather. With a mighty groan, the Packard lurched forward. As a five-year-old vigilante, I knelt at the rear window to report any sightings of highway police. Commando Mother up front braced muscles and quite a bit of fat as she leaned into each swerve of the four-ton Packard careening like a military tank across Hartford traffic. Hapless pedestrians be warned: driver of vehicle does not follow speed limits or roadside warnings! Driver-warrior Mother pushed luck to the limit.
Forty-five tense minutes later, the Packard roared into the driveway of 88 Burlington Avenue in Bristol. Yet again, we’d evaded our enemy, the Connecticut State Highway Patrol. Aunt Clara’s white two-story house was my safe harbor after the storm. Its black shutters framed streak-free windows that glistened in the sunlight. Shaky with tension but grateful that we’d arrived, I crawled out of the Packard that seemed to perspire gasoline and ran for the side door to Aunt Clara’s kitchen. Mother hoisted the sack of apples onto her shoulder, cradled a large crockery bowl filled with greasy leftovers from last night’s dinner in her hands, and puffed along behind.
My Aunt Clara, Connecticut, 1950s
Before I could reach up for the knob, the door swung open. There stood Aunt Clara, stretching welcoming arms toward me. Tall and slim in a pastel pink cotton dress protected by a floral apron, she was the perfect image of the 1950’s Polish-American housewife. “Danusia, moya kohana,” she said. I loved how she called me her “sweet dear.” Pressing my short, plump body into her embrace, I breathed in an intoxicating blend of Coty’s Lily of the Valley perfume—and Polish apricot bars.
“Hania, again you bring gifts.” Aunt Clara rushed to relieve Mother of the heavy burlap sack of apples and placed it upon the polished kitchen counter. She turned to take the crockery bowl from Mother’s calloused palms. “Hania, you work too hard,” Aunt Clara said gently. “I must rub your dry hands with Jergen’s Lotion.”
Mother beamed, a young-girl smile on her aging face. Aunt Clara carried the bowl of spoiling contents to the big Frigidaire, opened the door, and cleared a space on the bottom shelf. As she turned her back to us, I saw only the wiggling tail of a fresh tea towel as fastidious Aunt Clara wiped smears of grease from her scrubbed-clean hands.
“Now we take time for tea and fresh Polish apricot bars.” Aunt Clara set a copper kettle on the porcelain Hotpoint stove. I spotted my favorite wooden chair leaning against the wall, pushed it up to the red and white checked kitchen tablecloth, and sat down with my elbows bent on the table top, fingers cupping my chin. I inhaled deep, full breaths of contentment. In Aunt Clara’s kitchen, I felt safe. Nothing in this house could hurt or disappoint me, especially when Polish apricot bars were waiting.
One cup of milky tea, three sugar cubes and four apricot bars later, Mother was fueled up for the drive back to Hartford. “Tatush waiting I fix good Polish dinner for him,” she said. With a cursory wave, Mother sped away. Without me as her backseat vigilante, the stakes favored the Connecticut State Highway Patrol.
With my cousin Theresa at school and Uncle Eddy at work, I had Aunt Clara all to myself. In Aunt Clara’s pristine Betty Crocker world, my childhood indoctrination to healthy eating began and ended. Aunt Clara religiously followed the 1950s-era Basic Seven Food Wheel taped to the wall of her tidy pantry: nothing deep fried; plenty of fresh vegetables; measured portions; and no between-meal snacking. I was her avid convert.
In my imagination, dinners at Aunt Clara’s house were picture perfect, a typical American family sitting around a table set with matching china, no shouting, Emily Post manners, everyone served heaps of loving from the oven. In reality, we couldn’t have been perfect. Maybe Aunt Clara and Uncle Eddy argued sometimes, and maybe my cousin occasionally didn’t want to do her chores. But at dinnertime, when I sat across from Theresa, listening to quiet, polite conversation, I felt content and well-fed. And I could actually identify what I was eating—baked chicken, green peas and puffy American white rolls. Bliss!
After dinner, Uncle Eddy typically headed to the adjoining living room and relaxed in his favorite chair to read the paper. Aunt Clara pulled the latest Good Housekeeping from a tidy stack of magazines on the coffee table and settled on the sofa without wrinkling her housedress. Theresa—adored by her parents and envied by me because she was older, prettier, and owner of a closet full of pretty clothes and shoes—disappeared upstairs to do homework. This left me alone in the kitchen in front of a heaping dessert plate of Polish apricot bars and a pile of Theresa’s dog-eared Junior Guide magazines. Life didn’t get any better than overnights at Aunt Clara’s.
Low voices stirred from the living room, and either Aunt Clara or Uncle Eddy slowly pushed the kitchen door closed. How strange—they weren’t reading, they were talking. Tiptoeing to the door, I pressed my ear tight against the smooth wood.
Uncle Eddy repeated a familiar question, one I’d overheard