times.’
‘Mother, it is time we had a serious talk.’
`All right. Please do.’
‘Donald and I are not going to be able to live here.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘I’m sorry, too. But it’s the truth.’
‘When are you leaving?’
‘Don’t you want to know why we are leaving? And where we are going?’
‘You will tell me if you wish to tell me.’
‘It’s because we can’t stand being treated like prisoners in a jail!’
I made no answer. The silence stretched out, until finally my daughter said, ‘Don’t
you want to know how you’ve been mistreating us?’
‘If you wish to tell me.’
`Uh… Donnie, you tell her!’
`No,’ I objected, I’ll hear from Donald any complaint he has about how I have
treated him. But not about how I have treated you. You are right here, and I am your
mother and the head of this house. If you have complaints, make them to me. Don’t
try to fob it off on your brother.’
‘That’s it! Orders! Orders! Orders! Nothing but orders, all the time… like we were
criminals in a prison!’
I recited to myself a mantra I learned in World War Two: Nil illegitimi carborundum.
I said it three times, under my breath. ‘Priscilla, if that is what you mean by
orders, nothing but orders, I can assure you that I won’t change it. Any complaints
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you have I will listen to. But I won’t listen to them second hand.’
‘Oh, Mother, you’re impossible!’
‘Here is another order, young lady. Keep a civil tongue in your head. Donald, do you
have any complaints about my treatment of you? You. Not your sister.’
‘Uh… no, Mama.’
‘Donnie!’
‘Priscilla, do you have any specific complaints? Anything but a general objection to
taking orders?’
‘Mother, you – There is no point in trying to reason with you!’
‘You haven’t tried reason as yet. I’m going to bed. If you leave before I get up,
please leave your latch keys on the kitchen table. Goodnight.’
‘Goodnight, Mama,’ Donald answered.
Priscilla said nothing.
Priscilla did not come down for breakfast.
‘She said to tell you she doesn’t want any breakfast, Mama.’
‘Very well. Fried eggs and little sausages this morning. How do you want your eggs,
Donald? Broken yolks and vulcanised? Or just chased through the kitchen?’
‘Uh, however you Nave yours, I guess. Mama, Priss doesn’t really mean she doesn’t
want breakfast. Shall I go up and tell her that you said she has to come to
breakfast?’
‘No. I usually have my eggs up and easy but not sloppy. Suits?’
‘Huh? Oh, sure! Please, Mama, can’t I at least go up and tell her that you said
breakfast is ready and she should come eat?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I have not said that and I do not say it. The first child to try a hunger
strike on me was your brother Woodrow. He lasted several hours but he cheated – he
had stashed vanilla wafers under his pillow. When he finally gave up and came
downstairs, I did not permit him to eat until dinner time, which was several hours
away. He did not try it again.’ (But he tried everything else, with lots of
imagination!) ‘I don’t coddle hunger strikers, Donald, or tantrums of any sort…
and I think no government should. Coddle hunger strikers, I mean, or people who
chain themselves to fences or lie down in front of vehicles. Grown-up tantrums.
Donald, you have objected to my orders twice this morning. Or is it three times? Are
you catching this from Priscilla? Don’t you have it through your head yet that I do
not give unnecessary orders, but those I do give, I expect to have carried out?
Promptly and as given. If I tell you to go jump in the lake, I expect you to return
wringing wet.’
He grinned at me. ‘Where is the nearest lake?’
‘What? Swope Park, I guess. Unless we count a water hazard at the golf club. Or a
landscaping pond at Forest Hills. But I don’t recommend disturbing either corpses or
golfers.’
‘There’s a difference?’