Free Three Rivers by Roberta Latow Page B

the day he died.
    Kate’s dream was to reform him, change him, and then leave him. Isabel, her firstborn, was to grow up and become rich and famous so that they could run away together. Kate was a hard worker, and once she had her dream and her plan clear in her mind, she worked at it hard.
    Her first breakthrough came when Isabel was born. She loved and pampered Isabel, who was a happy, lazy, good-natured baby, one that responded to all the love and adoration by being an obedient mummy’s little girl. Then mummy’s little girl was turned into a little Jewish Shirley Temple that could not dance, had no voice and was downright rotten at the piano.
Oh, Shirley Temple, have you any idea what your genius and success have wrought upon so many plain, fat, little dull children?
To this day Isabel could remember the whack of the cane on the bare boards and the screams of “Pick those feet up, up, up; pick those feet up,” as an uneven chorus line of fat five-year-olds tried to keep time to “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” The tears of exasperation in the eyes of the teacher, a poor man’s Fred Astaire, whose great claim to fame was that he had taught Eleanor Powell to dance.
Thank God Shirley Temple got old and became a lousy actress
. Isabel smiled to herself.
    By then, Ava was two years old. A funny-looking little baby … well, not so much funny as ugly. She cried most of the night and screamed a good part of the day. She was an unhappy baby and difficult beyond belief, and she never changed as the years went on, never stopped in her bid for attention and care. What was so amazingabout nasty little Ava was that she got it. As a baby she thought it her due and was never happy even when she had everything she cried for.
    Out of sheer meanness Ava gradually began to dominate the household. It would be safe to say that Sam, Kate and Isabel were terrified of the child. Mary, the maid-cum-nanny, was more amazed than terrified.
    But Kate still had her dream, and although she found it more difficult to do her household chores in the morning and tear out of the house for the day with little Isabel, she carried on.
    The years rolled by and the three women grew into their patterns. Ava finally stopped crying, went into sulking and whining and then to a moody silence. Sam kept working and paying the bills. Kate kept loving and adoring and praising Isabel, kept
trying
to praise and love little Ava, kept providing the wifely duties to Sam and had lots of nervous breakdowns that manifested themselves in hypochondria and several operations. Isabel loved Kate, this wonder-woman and martyr who suffered marriage and a difficult child like Ava, and whose whole world was wrapped up in Isabel, her only reward for her trying life.
    By the time Isabel was ten, Kate started to shift some of her responsibilities onto her firstborn. When she was in the hospital the maid would do the cleaning, but Isabel would try to keep Sam and Ava happy. The meals were heated, and some even prepared, by Isabel, with the help of Kate on the telephone. She tried to please Sam but never found the way. As for Ava, she mostly took care of herself and only spoke to Isabel when she needed something.
    The milestones of childhood: from happy, smiling, gurgling baby to fifth-rate Shirley Temple, to mama’s little
balebosta
(that’s Yiddish for an overachieving Jewish housekeeper), to the Kissinger of the Wells family. By this time the family did need a Kissinger for Kate and her depressions and frustrations. Hypochondria and illness came periodically and what little Isabel did was everything Mummy asked, willingly and lovingly, in the hope of a little peace in the family.
    If there was not Mummy to be pacified, there was Ava; if little Ava was not happy everyone suffered. If little Ava could not sleep, no one else was allowed to sleep. If little Ava would not eat, she was bribed. If little Avahad a tummyache, she whined and carried on until everyone else had a headache.