Emmie of Indianapolis: The Story of an American Girl

Indianapolis, Indiana 1963

Take the Long Way Home

I STORMED OUT OF MY room and jerked the front door open when I heard her say that, fast as my legs could run. I cut through the backyards, over old man Henry’s pepper plants, squashing them when I slipped in the dirt. He screamed something dirty to me, something like idiot little rat, but I wasn’t sure. Mrs. Apple let me in after I rattled the screen door.

“Hurry! That damn fat monster’s after me!”

“What? That kind of language isn’t like you at all. What’s the matter? The kids are with their grandmother, Emmie. Why don’t you stay and eat?”

I sat down while she served me little pancakes filled with raisins and nuts.

“You need twelve for the plate to look good.”

They did look good with all the butter she piled on top. As she poured the syrup, I told her how pretty they were. Mrs. Apple really cared about the appearance of her food. She brought me hot cocoa. Old man Henry snuck up to the door, and I jumped out of my seat.

“Where’s that delinquent? She needs a good whippin’ and I’ll do it.”

Mrs. Apple met him at the door and threatened to call the police.

“Can I read now?”

Mrs. Apple always let me pick any book to read. I wanted to find the word “divorce” in the dictionary. Divorce—a severing of ties between a husband and wife. I didn’t know what severing meant. I looked up that word also. I kept reading, but Mrs. Apple’s children never came home.

“See you later, Mrs. Apple.”

“Goodbye, Emmie. Come back and visit me again.”

Mommy saw me wandering down the street and hollered to me.

“Come inside, honey, I have something to tell you.”

I took my time. My little sisters were sitting side by side on the couch. Cissy leaned her head on Janey’s arm. I sat down beside them and crossed my knees.

“Girls, we’re moving to another house on Saturday. Your Daddy and I are getting a divorce.”

Mommy looked straight at us, puffing on her Pall Mall, waiting for me or my sisters to answer her. There was not a sound in the room. I felt as if somebody ought to talk, so I spoke up.

“Why? Don’t you love Daddy anymore?”

Mommy kept staring at us.

“That means you’ll have to pack all your things in a cardboard box. Get busy now.”

Cissy climbed down from the couch and came to me. The three of us walked into the bedroom. I made sure we put Cissy’s things in first. She’d have a crying fit if we forgot anything. Janey took her clothes from the drawers and dumped them into the box. Then she sat on the floor next to Cissy while I packed my comic books and skates. My school uniform went on top and last, our winter coats.

“We’re done now, Mommy!”

Janey ran into the kitchen where Mommy was standing on a chair throwing dishes into a box. She made a lot of noise all evening. The smoke from her cigarettes was so thick it choked me. There was nothing else to do. My sisters and I watched Gunsmoke until it was bedtime. Early Saturday morning, I ran to the neighbors to let them know I was leaving. Everyone asked me why.

“It’s because of the divorce,” I answered and hugged everybody goodbye.

Some neighbors patted me on the head or gave me a kiss. Mrs. Apple grabbed a coffee cake from her counter that she’d just finished baking. It was wrapped up in wax paper when she gave it to me.

“You poor child. Take this. Now, who is going to eat my food? Give your sisters some. It’s cinnamon pecan. God bless you!”

“Thank you, Mrs. Apple. I’m sorry I can’t come over anymore. Goodbye!”

I ran home carrying the cake close to my chest. It was still warm when I put it down on the table. Mommy was drinking coffee. I cut two slices of cake. We sat facing each other across the table.

“Could I drink coffee too, Mommy? It’s a coffee cake. Mrs. Apple gave it to us.”

Mommy reached over and took a clean cup from the box. She filled my cup from the percolator and handed me a spoon.

“I suppose. It’s moving day.”

We ate cake together and drank coffee. The second hand on the clock ticked loudly. It was quiet in the house until Cissy woke up. She jumped up and down on her bed crying for me to hold her. I couldn’t do it. My throat was tight, and my arms felt too light to hold anyone. Mommy reminded me of moving as I went out the back door.

“Don’t get lost, Emmie. We’ll be leaving in a few hours.”

I knew where to go, to my secret tree where no one could find me. At the edge of my neighborhood, there was a piece of land in a wooded area with many tall trees. I followed the path around the last yard, over a cement pipe that crossed the creek. My tree was in the middle of all the other trees, but it was the best one with a round trunk and no ugly spots on the bark. The arms of my tree stretched up straight like a person would raise their arms toward heaven. All it took was one foot on the side to push myself up, and I was sitting in my seat between the arms. I pretended that the tree had a lap. It was a living tree just like the ones in The Wizard of Oz. Mine was a good tree. I was protected if anything evil tried to get me. My tree didn’t have fruit, so when my enemies came, my tree would pick up rocks and throw them at the bad people. A family of cardinals lived in my tree. The mother was plain, but she always stayed with her husband. He was bright red and very flashy. They brought back worms for their babies, never minding if I was there. I picked two leaves and pressed them over my eyes. When I looked up at the sun, I could see the veins inside the leaves. Down below, the water in the creek flowed and bubbled over the rocks while I was sleeping. I could hear my father’s voice before I saw him. I let him get closer to me before I said anything. Then he was standing directly below me. I looked down and saw the part in the top of his hair.

“Here I am, Daddy! Up here in the tree!”

When he raised his arms up to me, I jumped. I was small for my age. He stumbled a bit, but we didn’t fall.

“Your mother’s looking for you. Let’s go now.”

We walked slowly back home, his hand on my shoulder. The station wagon was loaded up with all our boxes. Cissy was sitting on the sidewalk watching Janey do cartwheels on the lawn.

“Wait! I can’t forget Teddy!”

I ran back into the house and searched all the rooms. There he was, sitting on the floor of my closet. Teddy was my six-foot-tall stuffed bear that I’d won at the fair when I was ten. I still liked to keep him in my room. I came dragging him out by the arms, stumbling down the steps.

“We don’t have room for that thing, Emmie. Get in now. Bring your sisters and let’s go.”

Mommy was sitting behind the steering wheel. She puffed hard on her cigarette and blew the smoke toward Daddy’s face. I couldn’t make my sisters mind me no matter what I said, so Daddy put them in the back seat. I was the last one to get in, still holding Teddy.

“Alright. You can take him. But you’ll have to sit on him all the way.”

Mommy gave in and slammed the car door shut. She turned the key, and the radio came on as Johnny Cash sang Ring of Fire. We drove away from our house. Daddy kept standing there on the front sidewalk, waving at us. I saw him when I turned my head around and looked out the back window. He kept getting smaller and smaller until I couldn’t see him anymore. When we turned the corner, he was completely gone.

When the Angels Arrive

We left our house in Lawrence, Indiana with the furniture still in place, curtains hanging and the pictures on the walls. The day seemed like once when my family went on vacation to another city. The buildings looked old and strange. Big houses with tall windows lined every street. Every house had something to fascinate me; porches wrapping all around the front and sides, towers with pointed roofs and circle windows. Some houses had stone lions guarding their entrances. Others were covered with wooden shingles and ivy outside. There were homes that had thick front doors and stained glass with yellow, red, and blue. I saw pictures of birds and angels and flowers in the windows and doors. Some of the houses had small windows at the very top. As we drove by, I named all the different shapes to Janey and Cissy.

“Diamond, triangle, oblong, square, rectangle, heart, circle, oval.”

Mommy drove and drove around the neighborhood.

“Are we in Cincinnati?” I asked her.

“No, honey, we’re in Indianapolis. Lawrence is a part of Indianapolis, on the east side. This is the center of the city. We’ll get an apartment here soon as I can find one.”

Janey kept pushing me over to the side of the car door, but I didn’t say anything. I was too busy looking out the window at everything. What huge houses and little yards! They were so close together. You could lean out one window and touch the window of the house next door. Where would my sisters and I play outside? The yards were only big enough to stand in.

Mommy drove the station wagon slowly up and down each street until we stopped at 16th and Pennsylvania Street. She had a newspaper on the seat beside her. We were parked in front of a drugstore on the corner. Mommy read the newspaper for a while and smoked another cigarette. I wanted to go inside the drugstore because I could see people sitting at the counter eating.

“When are we getting lunch? It’s one o’clock now.”

“Emmie, be quiet and wait. I have to find Talbot Street.”

The people at the counter stirred cream and sugar into their coffee and stared back out at me. I looked in all directions to find the street.

“Look! Mommy, there’s a sign across the street. It says Talbot.”

The house with our apartment was three stories tall with a huge front porch. We waited in the car while Mommy went inside.

“Help me carry Cissy while I get our things. This place is only fifteen dollars a week with furniture.”

I carried Cissy upstairs, and Janey followed. She was only seven, but she clung to me too much.

“Janey, get your blanket and bring it in.”

I laid Cissy on the sofa. It looked scratchy and old with holes in the arms, and it was an ugly brown. Our apartment was in the front on the second floor. I looked out the window and saw Mommy down on the sidewalk talking to a man. I heard them coming up the stairs. He came in first and carried the boxes. Mommy helped him set up Cissy’s playpen in the living room by the window. I remembered I left Teddy in the car. He was heavy so I had to push him up the stairs. When I reached the landing, I lay down on the floor and shoved Teddy with my feet into the apartment.

“God Almighty! What kind of a thing is that?”

It was the landlord. He had such a loud voice that he woke up Cissy.

“Listen, you! You better not tear up my property. Hear me?”

The old man yelled at us as he shook his fist. I grabbed Cissy while Mommy struck a match and lit her cigarette. She told him that we were good kids, and we wouldn’t destroy anything. We’d keep our apartment clean and not bother anyone.

“I hope that darn baby don’t cry all night, either. Rent is due again next Saturday. I’ll be here at noon to collect.”

He slammed the door. We heard his feet hit each step on the way down until he went out the front door mumbling.

“What a mean old man. What an ogre!”

Mommy crushed her cigarette in the ashtray and began to cry. After that, we always called the landlord Mr. Ogre, but not to his face. We could see him down in front, sweeping the sidewalk or working on his car. Janey stuck out her tongue as she looked down on him. Once, she spit out the window, but it didn’t hit Mr. Ogre. The spit ran down the front shingles and glistened in the sun for a few hours. When we saw him, we didn’t say anything since he might yell or come after us kids.

I helped Mommy unpack our dishes. Janey kept quiet, but we made her take her clothes from the box and put them in the dresser. Janey and I each had a uniform from our Catholic school. We hung our blue plaid jumpers in the closet. The room where Janey and I slept had a small bed pushed against the wall. Janey lined up her dolls on the windowsill. I stacked my books and my school supplies on top of the dresser. It was a different kind of bedroom than we had in the suburbs. This room had gray wallpaper with giant purple roses, and the window reached from the ceiling to the floor. We didn’t have white lace curtains like our old room. Now, we had a paper shade with a tear in the middle. I pulled the string, and the shade rolled up around the tube. We watched it spin so fast that dust blew down on our faces making us sneeze.

“Mommy. Come and see our new room.”

Janey yelled for Mommy. The bed was already covered with sheets. They were stiff, but clean. She spread her blue blanket over the bed and propped her stuffed cat on the pillow.

“It’s great, Janey” Mommy said.

“Where will you and Cissy sleep?”

“In the living room. I’ll sleep on the couch and Cissy will sleep in her playpen.”

We continued to make the apartment into our new home. Mommy went to the store and came back with food. She tried the new stove and cooked minute steaks and baked potatoes. The kitchen had a red metal table with red plastic chairs. We kept bumping elbows as we ate.

“Could I wash the dishes now, Mommy?”

I always liked how the soapy water felt. I took a rag and washed the entire room, refrigerator, stove, windows, and floor. In the living room, there was a big pole that connected the ceiling to the floor. Cissy and Janey were trying to wrap their arms around it, but they couldn’t do it. Then I tried, and I couldn’t either. The pole was so wide that Mommy could stand on one side of it, and we couldn’t see her. We played for a while until I remembered about Sammy Terry’s weekly show. It was funny that he dressed up in a long black robe and wore makeup like a dead person. We were lucky that Daddy had put our television in the station wagon. Mommy got one of our neighbors to carry it upstairs. Mr. Hubert was very tall and thin. He lived downstairs. He grunted a little when he placed the television on the stand, but he was very friendly. Mommy offered to give him a tip, but he wouldn’t take it. With a wink at Janey, he left.

“Come down and get me anytime you girls need help. I’m a widower!”

I thought that meant some type of religion. Mommy explained that it meant he wasn’t married since his wife was dead.

“Why did his wife die? Why does he live alone? Does he have children? Do you think he gets lonely down there? Why doesn’t he get married again?”

“Stop, Emmie. I don’t know! Maybe you should go interview him.”

I knew what an interview was. Movie stars were often interviewed. Reporters interviewed criminals for the newspaper. I thought about how I could interview Mr. Hubert. I’d knock on his door and ask him if he would answer some questions for me. I needed new paper for my three-ring binder to take notes.

While I was thinking, Mommy fixed chocolate pudding for Janey and me and a bottle of milk for Cissy. We sat on the couch with the pole in front of us to eat our dessert. Janey had to sit on the other side away from me to see the television. Cissy finally went to sleep. Mommy read her True Story magazine. Invasion of the Body Snatchers was on Sammy Terry’s Nightmare Theater. I had to explain everything to Janey. She’d come over to my side of the couch, whisper a question, and then go back to her side. Mommy woke us up when the television screen was gray and giving off a buzzing sound of the sign-off. We had stayed up until all the programs went off the air. Then Janey and I slept in our new bedroom. The light from the moon came through the hole in the shade. It made a halo of light all around Teddy in the corner. I could see him watching me and smiling as I went to sleep.