My Three Lost Girls: How I Reclaimed Them from My Heart’S Netherworld

By Su Anne Sherry

Growing up an orphan, author Su Anne Sherry often found herself adrift in lifebelonging to no one. As Sherry struggled to navigate the sometimes perilous waters of her life without parental guidance, she just wanted to know what it felt like to be loved.

In her poignant memoir, Sherry, called Sophie in her childhood, chronicles a lost and lonely little orphans hunger for affection and her struggle to understand her world as she battled instinctively to hold onto her true selfand her sense of humorin the face of institutional indifference, bureaucratic foibles, and human cruelty. Orphaned three months after she was born due to her mothers untimely death and her fathers chronic illness, little Sophie began her journey through foster care and subsequently life in an orphanage, where she learned to embrace random acts of kindness, develop her personality, and overcome daily challenges. As she slowly unveils memories from her coming-of-age journey, she illustrates the power of the human spirit to overcome even the greatest of challenges in order to realize true happiness.

My Three Lost Girls shares a heartrending, often humorous account of one womans pilgrimage from an unpredictable beginning in an orphanage to adolescent independence, where she finally discovers what it is like to be loved.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jan 30, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469700212

Su Anne Sherry

Su Anne Sherry enjoyed a diverse professional life that included stints as a marketing executive, political consultant, pollster, and principal in her own public relations firm. Her other adventures have included mountain climbing, whitewater rafting, and sailing. Now retired, Su Anne and her husband, Frank, live in Pottersville, Missouri, where she is enjoying her latest passion—acting.

Book preview

Contents

Author’s Note

Special Thanks

Prologue: Little Sophie

Part One: The Home

Part Two: The Kruger House

Part Three: The Dolan House

Interval

Part Four: Lena’s House

Part Five: My Own Place

Part Six: The House on 75th Street

Epilogue: Reclaimed

This book is for the dearest person in my life, my husband Frank, who taught me how to say yes to the world.

Things barely remembered are released by the act of writing.—V. S. Naipaul A Way in the World

NOTE: In order to protect their privacy, I have altered the names of certain individuals who figure in this narrative. All other names, events, places, and dates are rendered exactly as I remember them.—SAS

Author’s Note

Growing up an orphan, I found myself adrift in life, unloved, belonging to no one, with no family tree, no roots, no history. Blown about like a tumbleweed, I managed to overcome what fate hurled at me.

During the course of my journey and without parental guidance, I often struggled to navigate the sometimes perilous waters my life. Most of all, I wanted to discover what it felt like to be loved.

When my grandchildren asked questions that I could not answer about my lineage, I decided to write a history for them, so they could have at least some sense of who I was, and how I became the person they know as G’ma. Not sure they would ever read my tale, I found it didn’t matter. Among other things, I fantasized that perhaps one day someone, somewhere, would find my story in a dusty old attic, and be curious enough to read it.

Most stories about orphans and orphanages, e.g., Jane Eyre, David Copperfield and Annie, are works of fiction, written by adults, who never experienced first-hand the reality of being an orphan. I wanted to remedy that. My story is true. I lived it when I was a little girl. I walked the halls of the institution that housed me. I ate orphan food. I played and prayed with others, like me, alone in the world.

In this book I not only share those early orphan years and the time I spent in foster homes—where most orphan stories end—I also include the adventures of my young adulthood, when I found myself on my own in New York City at the tender age of seventeen, without the benefit of any guidance whatsoever.

Perhaps you’ve wondered how being an orphan, feeling all alone in the world, and living in an institution affects one’s life. If so, I offer this one example to show how I overcame my lot in life, and how the sometimes tragic events I faced as a young girl, as well as the random acts of kindness that came my way, helped to develop my personality, and instill in me certain values that in time strengthened my character and solidified my convictions.

Not all orphans arrive at adulthood the way I did. Many never make peace with the sadness of their early beginnings. They are often lost forever. But I was able to overcome. I am, at last, able to tell my story in these pages. Su Anne Sherry

Special Thanks

I would be remiss, if I failed to express my gratitude to certain people who, unknown to them, sustained me at critical times during the writing of this book. A special thank you, then, to:

Marty Podskotch, formerly of Delaware Academy, Delhi, New York. Now the author of books on the Adirondack Mountains, Marty insisted that I read to his students from my then work-in-progress when I didn’t think I was ready. The positive reaction of the students convinced me to press on.

Julie Upton, RSM, Ph.D., Professor of Theology and Religious Studies, and Provost of St John’s University. While she was herself writing a tribute for the 100th Anniversary of Angel Guardian Home, Julie read what I had written of my early years in the institution. Her warm praise not only gave me the courage to continue writing—it also assured me that my memories of the orphanage were accurate.

Judy Bowles Bean. A dear friend, Judy’s emotional reaction to my story, as well as her insights and suggestions, helped me to realize that my book would appeal to adult readers as well as younger people.

Arlene Anderson Arnold. A professional photographer, and valued friend, Arlene’s artistic contributions to this book have been priceless.

Jane Boudrot, my cherished friend. Jane has been there, lovingly, over the years it took me to complete this work, patiently reading each revision with a warm heart and truthful reaction.

Prologue: Little Sophie

On a warm, Sunday afternoon, just before the turn of the millennium, my daughter Diana, then still a doctoral candidate at Harvard, and I revisited the orphanage where I had spent much of my childhood: Angel Guardian Home, in Brooklyn, New York.

Diana had often expressed curiosity about my days in the orphanage. During her own childhood she had listened wide-eyed to my carefully-edited, Disney version of life in the home—as we orphans used to call the walled-in institution that sheltered, fed, and educated us—but which could never provide the love we craved. Now, a grown woman, Diana longed to see for herself the reality of this font of fantasy that had spawned so many maternal tales.

Unlike Diana, I had mixed feelings about once again beholding Angel Guardian Home. Half a century had passed since I had left the place that had been the central locus of my life for almost five, crucial, years. Except for my G-rated stories, meant to beguile my daughter, I had banished the events of those orphan years to the netherworld of my mind. With that act of will, I had also forsaken my own child self, little Sophie, condemning her to wander, forever lost, in the dark labyrinth of memory that I had constructed to imprison the ghosts of my painful past.

Busy with my own life as a mature woman, I never thought of little Sophie anymore. The stories, supposedly about her that I had recounted to Diana, had nothing to do with the genuine little Sophie. They were only cartoons of that child who had been me, whose very name I had rejected. Little Sophie, long lost in oblivion, had nothing to do with the woman I had become since leaving the home. Now, at Diana’s urging, I was to return, as an adult, to the institution.

How might that return affect me? Would I stumble onto long forgotten sorrows? Would I surprise myself by laughing as I recalled the games we played, or the songs we sang? Would I bring to mind friends, whom I had once loved fiercely, because we shared the ineradicable loneliness of abandoned children? Would I weep to recollect the innocent prayers we orphans offered to God the Father to whom we little girls clung tenaciously, because he alone professed to love us?

Although, the prospect of visiting Angel Guardian Home, after so many years, unsettled me more than I was willing to admit, I was determined to see it through for Diana’s sake. I telephoned the institution about arranging a visit. I learned that the home no longer housed orphans, was no longer, in fact, an orphanage, but an agency dedicated to providing foster homes for children, as well as related services to families in crisis. I also learned that the facility was not open to the public on Sundays—the only day Diana had available for our expedition.

Despite this disconcerting news, Diana and I decided that, even though we would not be able to gain entry to the home, we would still make the trip to Brooklyn, New York, from suburban New Jersey where we lived. At least, we would see the orphanage from afar. Diana would satisfy some portion of her curiosity—if only at a distance.

We drove to Brooklyn in Diana’s old Subaru. We parked and found ourselves standing before the tall, iron gates that separated Angel Guardian Home from the outside world.

As I peered through the metal bars, it seemed to me that the buildings and grounds were little changed by time—though considerably smaller than my childhood picture of them. Still, here was the lofty smokestack of the old laundry, the sprawling brick façade of the main building, the green lawns, and the surrounding walls of brick—not nearly as high as I remembered them but still surmounted by barbed wire and shards of glass.

Sadly, the very emblem of Angel Guardian Home—a larger-than-life statue of a grave-faced angel, sheltering a little girl under a celestial wing—no longer occupied its place on the front lawn. I experienced an access of disappointment at its absence. Had I not been one of those who sheltered under that angel’s wing? Without the presence of the statue, gleaming white in the sun how could I be sure I was seeing reality?

pagethree.tif

The Author revisiting Angel Guardian Home

Minutes later, as Diana took photos of me with the orphanage as a backdrop, a singular event occurred. A man abruptly appeared, opened the gate, and let himself into the grounds, allowing the metal barrier to swing shut behind him. Instead of closing all the way, as it was supposed to, the gate remained open an inch or two as if offering admission. I let myself imagine that the spirit of the missing angel was summoning us inside.

Speaking no word, but sensing something providential in the circumstances of the moment, Diana and I pushed the gate open—and stepped across the boundary onto the forbidden grounds. We followed the cement pathway to the front door. Would this obstacle also open for us? It did, and so we walked into the shadowed reception hall.

Off to our left, we heard male voices in conversation—security guards or watchmen changing shifts. They hadn’t noticed us. I allowed myself to fancy that the absent angel was guiding us, had once more taken me under his wing.

Treading softly, Diana and I inched our way further into the Sunday afternoon silence of the deserted building, until we could no longer hear the men talking. In that heavy quiet, my heart began to race.

Although I was a grown woman, happily married, a mother, and a grandmother—and although I had achieved professional success, and had traveled widely—I felt myself, without warning, transported back, half a century, to a time long before I had become Su Anne Sherry, back to a time when I had been Sophie Madison, orphan, the angel’s child.

Suddenly, I was seeing with Sophie’s eyes.

Steering Diana confidently through halls, and up staircases, past the gaze of plaster saints on pedestals, I moved ever deeper into the geography of my own past. I knew where every stairway led.

As little Sophie, I entered, once again, the fun room where I had played at jacks, then, into the dormitory where, with a hundred other little girls, I had whispered my nightly prayers, and then to the dining room where I had sat in my designated place for upwards of five thousand, hearty meals.

With my heart swelling with both apprehension and exaltation, I began to detect the voices of those who once filled these empty halls and rooms with life. I heard laughter echoing off the walls. I heard the pounding of feet as spectral little girls thundered up and down the stairs. Voices, voices, voices sounded everywhere—and one of them was Sophie’s voice, little Sophie, giggling, praying, and calling to me.

Until that afternoon, I had been certain that my child-self lay forgotten in the depths of my past. But now, traversing those empty corridors of Angel Guardian Home, hand in hand with my beautiful and brilliant daughter, I could not escape the breathless whisper that said little Sophie lived still—a ghost, inhabiting those halls. Was she a ghost in my heart as well?

Still accompanied by a murmurous chorus of ghost-girls, I led Diana into the rear precincts of the institution, out of the building and onto the cement playground where I heard little Sophie laughing as she roller-skated with friends. Farther on was the grove, a copse of trees and flowering shrubs where little Sophie had spent many hours dreaming of life, and perhaps, love. And there I saw the angel.

statueofAngelingarden.tif

Angel of the Home

Removed from its old place on the front lawn, the statue now stood in this tranquil, shaded place where little Sophie used to dream, alone but at peace. How could I doubt that the angel had somehow opened the gate and the front door of Angel Guardian Home, so that I might make contact with little Sophie?

When Diana and I, still undetected, departed Angel Guardian Home later that day, both of us wept—she for me, and I for little Sophie.

Following that Sunday afternoon, little Sophie haunted me in nighttime visions—a knobby-kneed, faceless figure in the shadows of my dreams. Though I could not picture her clearly, I could hear her voice ringing in my mind, as if imploring me to find her and take her home.

For two years or more I delved into memory, trying to bring little Sophie back, not as the elfin figure I had presented to Diana in stories, but as she really was, as me, as I had been so long ago. Slowly—with much stumbling and uncertainty—I began to call forth true memories.

Oh, little Sophie, my lost girl! I had abandoned her—and then betrayed her into oblivion. I refused to desert her again. I was determined to bring her home to me, where she belonged. I realized that I could only do that by resurrecting the truth.

To recapture that truth, I needed words. I had to write little Sophie’s story—as it was—no matter how painful the process, no matter how long it might take to complete. For only in the act of writing, could I revive the long suppressed and barely remembered reality, that would liberate little Sophie from the dark abyss to which I had banished her.

And so I began to write her story—and mine.

Part One: The Home

My mother died three months after I was born. The year was 1934. Her name was Sophie—the name also given to me at birth.

At the time of her death, my mother was in her late thirties. She had lived in a cold-water flat on Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn, New York, with the man identified in the official records as my father, a Polish immigrant who took the Anglicized name John Madison after his arrival in the United States. John Madison made a meager living as a cabinet-maker. He was fifty-three years old when I came into the world.

My mother, also a Polish immigrant, was never legally married to John Madison but to another, a vague figure whom she had left almost a decade before my birth.

In my more romantic moments I have imagined a tempestuous triangle: a passionate young woman running from a tyrannical husband and finding happiness in the arms of John Madison, the man she truly loved. There exists no evidence for such a scenario. The cold records—birth certificates, citizenship papers, hospital files—contain no such dramatic details. Still, it would appear that my mother and John Madison loved each other. For, though terribly poor, they stayed together until her death.

From what I gathered from a variety of sources as I grew up, my mother died because she had developed a serious heart ailment during the months before I was born and was thus in no condition to bear a child. Although—even in those days prior to the easing of abortion laws—she could have found ways to end a dangerous pregnancy, she decided not to do so. Was this an act of bravery? Or was my mother’s decision dictated by the mores of her class, and time? I shall never know.

Given the severity of the illness that kept my mother hospitalized until she died, I have often wondered if she ever held me in her arms. Did she ever look down into my face with the love found only in a mother’s eyes? Was it her idea to name me Sophie after her? Above all, what did she look like?

There are no photographs of my mother. Thus, I can only speculate. What was the color of her hair? What did she look like when she smiled? Do I resemble her? Such questions must forever go unanswered. For me there never has been, and never will be, a mother-face. That picture frame will remain empty—always. There will also never be a mother-voice for me to recall as a source of comfort and security. Still, I have fashioned a special place in my heart for the unknown woman who gave me life. I have not made my journey without her.

50862.jpg

Born of a severely ill mother, I was, for the first few months of my life, a sickly creature who almost left the world before she was truly in it. According to the records, I was in and out of hospitals, treated for a variety of ills, and given at least one massive blood transfusion. Thanks to timely medical care, and a certain amount of luck, I survived. By the time I was five months old, I was considered a more or less normal infant, ready to be discharged from treatment. The trouble was that there was no place for me to go. My mother was dead. My father could not care for me because—as I was to learn years later—he had developed serious health problems as a result of military service in World War One. He had to spend long stretches of time in hospitals. In effect, I was an orphan.

Accordingly, I was turned over to a Catholic charity: Angel Guardian Home in Brooklyn, New York. I was almost immediately placed in a foster home. I stayed there until I was nearly three years old when, for reasons that still remain obscure, I was returned to the orphanage. I wasn’t destined to remain in Angel Guardian Home this time either. In short order, I was given a home by a uniquely warm and tender person. I knew her only as Mrs. Platt.

If it is true—as I believe—that the beginning of life is crucially important, that the human spirit, personality, and soul are shaped during the early years of childhood, then I owe whatever spirit and soul I possess to this second mother of mine.

babyphotolittlesophie.tif

Baby Sophie at 18 months soon to become a kind woman’s Honeybunch.

I don’t know how I came to be under Mrs. Platt’s care. I was never able to unearth the circumstances of that fortunate event. I have always supposed that Mrs. Platt was not one of the foster caregivers usually enlisted by Angel Guardian Home in those times, but a trusted friend of my father who had offered to take me in. In any event, according to the scanty records, Mrs. Platt came to Angel Guardian Home one day in March, and carried home with her a smiling, little girl with wisps of blonde hair. I was to stay with Mrs. Platt for two-and a-half happy years, until wrenched away in a cruel act that causes my heart to ache to this hour.

It is with the advent of Mrs. Platt that my memories of little Sophie’s life begin. Some of those memories are vague, general impressions. Others have been blended by time into composite recollections of many repeated incidents. They are no less genuine for that. Some, however, those most painful, or joyful, or tender, were long ago seared into my soul. These I can resurrect and re-construct, as if little Sophie lived them only yesterday, for the events that create us, even if they take place in early childhood, are never truly lost in time. They come forth when summoned by the need to tell of them. So it is with Mrs. Platt.

50871.jpg

For some reason I’m unable to conjure up any clear picture of Mrs. Platt’s face. I can, however, reconstruct definite images of her otherwise. She was a plump, gray-haired woman, probably in her sixties—a grandmotherly type—full bosomed, soft, and lovely to hug. I particularly recall that she favored floral-print dresses.

Mrs. Platt lived by herself in a small redbrick house on Marine Avenue in Brooklyn, New York. She was, I believe, a widow though I have no recollection of her ever speaking of a husband. I am certain, however, that she had been married, because she had a daughter who was living somewhere else at the time of my arrival.

Mrs. Platt exuded warmth and caring. She was always gentle and very kind to me. She picked me up whenever I fell. She hardly ever scolded me. She taught me my manners. She loved me as if I was her own. She called me honeybunch. Living with her, I had my first experience of what it meant to have a home. If I couldn’t have my real mother, God had sent me the next best thing.

Impressions of Mrs. Platt whom I called mummy, still glow brightly in my mind. She loved to work in her flower garden. She would spend hours pulling out weeds, humming as she did so. Weeding, apparently, was never a thankless chore to her. I guess that’s why to this day I, too, love to weed my garden.

Mrs. Platt especially enjoyed what she called her tea time. Every afternoon around four o’clock, she would stop whatever she was doing, and put up a pot of tea. This was her quiet time, she said, and as I think about it now, it was the only time I recall her ever taking a rest from her many, busy activities.

Sometimes Mrs. Platt would make a cup of tea for me too. This was mostly warm milk with just a hint of tea, but it was fun, and made me feel grown up. Mrs. Platt and I would sit together at the kitchen table, look out the window into her garden, and sip our tea. She’d sigh once in a while as if breathing in the beauty of her handiwork. We didn’t talk much at tea time. We’d just listen to the quiet. It was a time for appreciating things, and letting thoughts just wander.

Under Mrs. Platt’s watchful and always fond eye, I grew strong and healthy. Because Mrs. Platt was a woman who knew how to nurture growing things, including a little girl, I went from a scrawny waif to a chubby, happy child, self-assured and curious.

As I look back now, I see clearly that Mrs. Platt filled those first impressionable years of my life with affection, security, and confidence. I know that her caring also fortified me against what was to come.

If I loved Mrs. Platt, I loved her house as well. It was always toasty in winter, and it smelled of cinnamon. I also loved the neighborhood where we lived. There were lots of trees. There was also a firehouse down the block where a large Dalmatian dog usually lay asleep on the sidewalk.

And, there was Fort Hamilton Park, a beautiful expanse of green not far from our neighborhood. It was there on a spring afternoon that I learned I had a father. Until then I didn’t know he existed.

50877.jpg

It was a radiant spring day. Mrs. Platt and I followed our customary routine dressing in our Sunday best to go to church. For me, this always meant an organdy pinafore over a light blue dress, with a little hat perched on my blonde ringlets and tied under my chin. Mrs. Platt always donned one of her floral-print dresses, sensible black shoes, and a wide-brimmed hat crowned with artificial flowers. What made this particular Sunday more memorable than most was the fact that, contrary to her custom, Mrs. Platt did not tarry to greet her neighbors after mass but quickly took me home.

When we arrived at the house, she permitted me to remain outdoors while she went inside to prepare Sunday dinner. She cautioned me not to get my dress dirty because, after our meal, we were going to the park where a surprise would be waiting for me.

Excited but mindful not to mess my dress, I rode my tricycle and amused myself, all the while inhaling the aroma of roasting chicken wafting out the slightly open kitchen window. The menu for Sunday dinner never varied. We had roast chicken with stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, and fresh string beans. Mrs. Platt was a very good cook.

After our meal, when the dishes were done, Mrs. Platt took off her apron, folded it neatly and set it on the counter. I remained seated at the table. Swinging my legs back and forth as they dangled from the big chair, I waited patiently while Mrs. Platt freshened up. Finally, we left the house. We headed straight for Fort Hamilton Park where my surprise awaited.

As we entered the park, Mrs. Platt softly announced that my father had come to see me. My father? What father? I was confused, even a little frightened. Nobody had ever mentioned a father to me before. Why did he come? Was he going to take me away from Mrs. Platt?

Sensing my anxiety, Mrs. Platt reassured me in her gentle way that everything was going to be all right. I listened as she explained that my father had been sad for a long time after my mother died and that he was a very sick man. Mrs. Platt explained that my father had been hurt in the war and that he had to spend most of his time under medical care. He was now well enough, she said, to leave the hospital. She smiled, adding, And who is he coming to see? You, honeybunch! You must be very important to him. Because I trusted her with all my soul, I believed what Mrs. Platt said about my being very important to this father I’d never met. Suddenly my heart began to fill with anticipation. I was going to meet a very special man, my father, for the first time in my life!

At the park Mrs. Platt led me toward a man who was standing at rigid attention next to a big, black, antique cannon. The man was wearing a dark suit with a starched white shirt, a gray tie, and a dark hat. His shoes were black and shiny. He was stockily built and clean-shaven.

As we approached, the man removed his hat revealing a full head of hair—thick, straight, black, and slicked back from his forehead. He had small, dark eyes and dark, bushy eyebrows. As we got closer, I could see that his face wore a shadow of stubble.

Sophie, this is your father, Mrs. Platt said. It was one of the rare times she called me by my given name instead of honeybunch. I looked up at the dark-haired stranger and whispered, Hello.

The three of us strolled over to a nearby bench. Mrs. Platt sat down first. My father put his hat on the bench and then took a seat next to her. He picked me up and placed me on his lap. I squirmed and tried to get down. I wanted to go to mummy. I wanted to sit on her lap. But Mrs. Platt gave me a look that told me I should sit still—and behave myself.

I perched obediently on my father’s knee while he and Mrs. Platt chatted. His voice was deep, and when he spoke I found it hard to understand his words. I had never heard an accent before. My father asked if I was a good girl. Mrs. Platt assured him that I was a very good girl.

After a while, Mrs. Platt suggested that my father and I go for a walk so that we could get better acquainted. My father put me down gently, and got up himself, very slowly. He reached down to take my hand. I looked at Mrs. Platt, questioning what to do. She nodded a reassuring yes and gave me a smile, letting me know it was all right. I slipped my small child’s hand into my father’s rough grip for the first time.

Leaving Mrs. Platt sitting alone on the park bench, my father and I strolled hand in hand, across the soft grass that had already turned spring green. We didn’t have much to say. I wondered what I should call him. Father? Daddy? Then I remembered that a friend I often played with called her father pops. I had always liked that. I decided to call my father poppy.

When at last he spoke, I had to listen carefully to understand my father’s peculiar pronunciation. He pointed to the big river that flowed at the bottom of the long green hill that formed one side of the park. That river, he said, flowed out to the ocean, and the ocean circled the entire world. I listened, enthralled by his words, mesmerized by the sound of his voice, and thinking the ocean must be a wondrous place.

All of a sudden, I had an urge to roll down the green hill that led to the river’s edge. Though I had always begged Mrs. Platt to allow me to do this, she would never permit it. She used to say that she didn’t want me to get my dress dirty. But I knew better: she was really afraid I’d end up in the river. But on this day my father gave me his permission.

I lay flat on the grass and smoothed my dress over my knees. Then, I crossed my arms over my chest, and turned myself over and over until I was tumbling full speed down the hill. Squealing with delight, I rolled all the way to the bottom. When I opened my eyes and looked up, there was my father standing right next to me.

Thank you, poppy, I said. It was the first time I called my father out loud by the name I had given him. He smiled down at me and took my hand again. Of course I wanted to repeat the fun, but my father said in his gruff, emphatic voice that one roll down the hill was enough.

As we climbed back up the hill, I could hear my father grunting, and gasping for breath. It alarmed me. I asked if he was sick again. Calling me little Sophie in his thick accent, he assured me that he was just tired. We struggled on, making our way slowly up the hill.

Nearing the top, I found myself hoping that Mrs. Platt had not seen me rolling down the hill in my pretty dress. If she had, she might be very upset with me.

When we reached the hilltop, I looked over to where Mrs. Platt was sitting. Her face was lifted to the sun. Her eyes were closed. I breathed a sigh of relief. She couldn’t have seen me tumble down the hill. I was safe. My father and I shared a secret on that warm, sunny day in May.

When we got back to the bench, Mrs. Platt stood up and said good-bye to my father. She handed him his hat. She called him John. They clasped hands for a moment. Then he turned, bent down, and gave me a quick kiss on my cheek. I hesitated. Now, what was I supposed to do? Mrs. Platt gave me another look, nodding her head in my father’s direction. I obeyed and, standing on tiptoe, kissed my father’s prickly cheek. He put on his hat, rubbed his fingers along the brim, turned, and walked away. The meeting was over.

During those early years with Mrs. Platt, I had always felt different from my friends because they had mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers. I had only Mrs. Platt. But now, I had a father as well. After that day, whenever anyone asked, I was able to say, truthfully, Yes, I have a father, but he’s sick. Someday we’re going to be together, but for now he has to live far away. I was not so different after all.

I didn’t see my father for a long time after that first meeting. Apparently he was never well enough to make another trip to Fort Hamilton Park. Still, it was comforting to know that he was out there, somewhere.

As I look back on that day, I realize that my father’s visit was an abbreviated one. He stayed just long enough to leave me with a precious gift: a father-face and a father-voice. I was grateful for that.

50883.jpg

From the sketch I’ve drawn, it might seem that I was a perfectly obedient, lovable child, living in bliss with Mrs. Platt in that warm, redbrick house on Marine Avenue. However, judging by some of my most vivid early memories, I must have been a classic brat—on occasion.

Mrs. Platt, and her friends, doted on me. They often said: What a beautiful child! What a special little girl! So lovable! She must be blest. They showered me with affection. They always called me honeybunch. No wonder I sometimes behaved like a brat! There’s nothing like a gaggle of grandmas to spoil a kid, particularly one who had gone almost overnight from neglected infant to beloved child. Still, there’s no denying that there was a definite bratty side to honeybunch. If she didn’t get her way, she would throw herself on the floor, pound her fists, stamp her feet, scream, howl, and have a world-class temper tantrum.

Children learn very quickly what works, and I was no exception. Mrs. Platt, who could deny me nothing, was an easy mark. I learned early on how to get my way with her: a tantrum did it every time. I didn’t carry on constantly—just when there was something I really wanted. My world, for the most part, was a happy place, and my tantrums few. But now and then the house did resound with my outbursts. One incident in particular comes to mind.

It was a rainy day. I wanted to go outdoors to roller skate. Mrs. Platt said, "No." I wanted to roller skate! I didn’t care that it was raining. I pitched a major fit. To appease me, Mrs. Platt said I could skate in the basement. I ceased my carrying-on immediately, and spent the next few hours happily skating around the cellar poles. The basement turned out to be a perfect place to roller skate because the floor was very smooth, and I didn’t have to worry about cracks in the cement. After that, I’d skate in the basement even if it wasn’t raining!

Weeks and months drifted happily by in the little redbrick house on Marine Avenue. Then, one fateful day in the summer of my fifth birthday Mrs. Platt’s daughter came to live with us, bringing with her a sickly infant boy. This seemingly innocuous change in our world led to a terrible event that turned lives upside down, and left me with a guilt I carried for years.

50889.jpg

I know nothing of Mrs. Platt’s daughter, not her history, not even her name. I don’t remember the baby’s name either. I do, however, vividly recall that the little boy was very sick with a rare skin disease which made his skin break out in pus-filled sores. He’d cry for hours.

Every day the baby had to be treated with a soak in medicated water. His skin would then have to be coated with a special, ill-smelling salve. After this treatment, the little one, temporarily soothed, would nap for a while. But he would always wake up crying again.

I didn’t like the baby. He wasn’t cute. His skin was ugly, and his whimpering and wailing upset me. I was also jealous of the time Mrs. Platt spent taking care of him instead of me. Whenever I showed my resentment, Mrs. Platt would explain that the baby couldn’t help his crying. She would tell me that I should be grateful that it wasn’t I who was suffering so. She’d attempt to assure me that, if I were as sick as the little boy, she’d take care of me with the same tender attention she gave him. I did try to feel sorry for the baby—but I was jealous all the same.

Gradually, as the days passed, the baby’s crying, and his need for constant care, became part of the daily routine of the house. Then, on a hot and clammy, summer morning in August, catastrophe put an end to that routine. The harrowing details of the tragedy remain seared in my memory like a brand on my soul.

For some reason, Mrs. Platt and her daughter seemed out of sorts that morning. Mrs. Platt had even asked me to be particularly good that day. I tried to do as she requested because I always wanted to please her. I was in the bathroom, standing on my little stepstool next to the baby’s mother. I could just barely see the baby lying on a canvas contraption that was set up in the bathtub. The baby’s crying was worse than usual. I watched as the mother cupped the medicated water in her hand, and poured it gently over the baby’s body. As she did so, she spoke softly to her infant. However, nothing seemed to calm or quiet the little one that day.

After a while, the mother said she had to leave the room. Before she left, she pulled my stool closer to the tub so I could see the baby full-length in the bath water. His head was resting on a