Etiquette and Vitriol by Nicky Silver (classic fiction .txt) 📗

her up, rather like a marionette, while I dressed her. Now, I was eight, and naturally jealous that I’d been replaced as the center of the house, so I put her in a very ugly outfit! Plaid skirt, floral sweater, two different earrings and so on. “We’re going for a walk!” my father informed her. And she responded—exactly right! “I do not care to.” But out we went and, flanked on either side, she greeted the fresh air. We looked like Oscar Levant, Fred Astaire, and a drug-ridden Nanette Fabray, three strong in strides from The Bandwagon!

Now don’t misunderstand me. She was not catatonic. No. She was not a zombie. She just chose not to. From that day on, she chose not to. We pretty much had to prop her up all over the place. We’d stand her at the stove, and she’d cook something—although her disinterest in the project usually resulted in dinners of pudding and peas. Or my favorite: Aspirin! She just reached up, into the cupboard and cooked what she grabbed. (She is really enjoying herself)

Oh, we’d prop her up in front of the radio. We’d put a vacuum in her hand and she’s clean the same spot, over and over again . . . until it was immaculate! At first, I didn’t mind at all. It was like having this huge doll that really did wet herself. And I’d have my friends over after school to play with her. But, before long, I grew bored . . . the way children do. And as the years passed, my father came home later and later, leaving her to me. And he never yelled anymore. And he never threw things.

By the time he died he seemed very sad. That was a terrible time, the time he died. I was eighteen.—Oh, I said that. And although he left me ample money to have someone take care of her, I didn’t feel I could leave my mother. Besides, I was still in high school, where I was considered very pretty and everyone liked my stories. I was always charming, even then. And in an era where chastity was vogue, I was liberal with my favors. I was very popular with any number of young men attending NYU and Columbia, and even as far away as Princeton. It wasn’t that I liked sex so much. Because I didn’t. Then. I don’t know. I was too giggly to really dictate what I wanted. And besides, that was unheard of then.

(With authority) Women today are very lucky that it’s become fashionable to actually indicate to their bed partners the location of their clitoris—excuse me, EXCUSE ME, but it’s true.

But I was never stupid. And I saw my peccadilloes as escape routes. Remember, I was still propping her up and picking her clothes and cooking for her, unless I was willing to dine on Ajax, which she took to incorporating into her recipes the way homemakers on a budget work with tuna.

The point is, I quickly became pregnant. I never took precautions, knowing little about them, and wouldn’t if I’d known more. I didn’t see a doctor. I didn’t have to. I knew it. I could feel it. So, I spent the next week dating the seven candidates who might be my baby’s father. A couple, I was sure, would softly hold my hand all the way to their Park Avenue doctors to have my ticket to freedom scraped from inside me. But Philip was, then, a gentle man. And I could tell when he looked at me that he adored me. Even if I couldn’t tell when we made love. So the following week, I informed him that I was carrying his child, and true to form, he asked me to marry him.

Three months later, my mother, who’d really deserted me ten years earlier, deserted me finally. She died of a stroke in mid-afternoon. She should have been dressed. She could have been up and doing things. But, I assume . . . she did not care to. I thought of leaving Philip, since I’d married him to escape my life, which now escaped me. But I was pregnant and he was wealthy and solicitous. In time, I had Philip, whom I loved. And Amy, whom I did not. I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s because she’s such a graceful and delicate flower—I use sarcasm to illustrate myself.

Children are an odd phenomenon, don’t you find? I have to say, I’ve never really understood them. It seems so irrational to me. You create something. You carry something around, inside of you, for what seems an eternity, and then you are delivered a person. A stranger. And you can tell me otherwise, but from the minute we’re born, we are people. My children had likes and dislikes from day one. Philip adored music and art and emulated me. While Amy, on the other hand, turned her nose up at my breast and never really came around!

(Lecturing) I see young mothers in the park walking their children, like poodles on leashes. I am aghast! They treat their children as if they were objects. I claim no expertise BUT it has been my experience that children are not dogs. Were they dogs, I’m afraid, I’d’ve been tempted to put Amy to sleep several times by now. I don’t mean to be hard about Amy. I’m sure she has many fine qualities—which are not apparent to me. All people have goodness inside of them! Only some people have very little, and it’s very, very, very deep down. And she is a stranger! That’s what it comes down to. I know she came from me, but she’s not part of— oh, God. I must sound awful. But it’s true. My feet are part of me. My hands are part of me. My children are people I know. I do love them. Don’t mistake my objectivity for indifference. I love my children very much. I just see that they are