A Reason to Believe_ Lessons From an Improbable Life - Deval Patrick [6]
I was frightened that night. It was unnerving to hear Uncle Sonny threatening us from just the other side of the door and embarrassing to think the neighbors were also hearing it. Everyone knew about Sonny’s transgressions but mostly looked the other way. His addiction was never discussed in front of Rhonda and me. My mother was her usual remote, calm self that night, hardly saying a word, smoking in bed, as if it were perfectly natural to have a grown man hammering away on the door and shouting threats and obscenities for hours in the middle of the night. I was confused, but no one offered a word of explanation to Rhonda and me.
Gram was quite open about her belief that mothers prefer sons, and she never wavered in her unapologetic preference for Uncle Sonny. That slight was indefensible, and my mother never forgave it. While Sonny routinely stole from his own parents and could not provide for his children, my mother stuck by her kids, worked to improve herself, and provided. She was a clerk at a local dry cleaner’s while taking night classes at Dunbar High for her GED. Eventually she landed a job at the downtown post office, joined the union, and got benefits. We took a trip to the downtown Sears on State Street once a year for new school clothes and tried to make them last all year long, even through our growth spurts. We had to change into play clothes every day after school to prolong the life of the school gear. Except on Sunday mornings, holidays, and special occasions, when Gram took charge of us all, my mother was expected to provide our meals. They were plain and functional, food as fuel. I did not know that peas were green until I was an adult. I thought they were gray.
I never heard Gram complain about our being there, but her frustrations were evident. Always careful with money, she tried to maintain two separate economies in the household—my mother was responsible for us, Poppy was responsible for her. Gram would buy one small can of frozen orange juice concentrate every week and apportion one tiny glass for Poppy, and only Poppy, to have with his breakfast. She kept his juice on a shelf in the Frigidaire that was dedicated exclusively to my grandparents. On hot summer days, that juice, with all the sweet pulp floating around in it, would absolutely call to us. I used to wonder what possible difference it would make to take a single sip. Who would notice? Well, Gram noticed, and would let me have it—especially on those occasions when one sip would lead to more.
(Years later, my wife, Diane, could not figure out why I bought gallons of orange juice at a time, even though we were at no risk of running out and I had lost interest in drinking it.)
The little stresses in our house or in our lives never seemed to bother Rhonda. She was enviably at ease at home or in the neighborhood. Though she looked awkward as a girl, skinny and all elbows with crooked front teeth, she was sociable and had many friends with whom she spent hours. She was in and out of their houses, jumped double Dutch with the best of them, knew all the latest dance steps, and kept up with the kids’ gossip. Although we were close when we were small, we were openly contemptuous of each other as adolescents. Having raised children of my own, I now know this was a natural phase, but as teens Sonny justifiably referred to us as “the battling Patricks.” I was a total nuisance when boys started to enter my sister’s picture, taunting them and generally being a pain. Rhonda endured me as patiently as she could while her suitors were around, then let me have it when they left. Other confrontations were mostly spawned by my jealousy. Though I was regarded in