A Life of My Own. Donna Wilhelm

the bed, searching for and finally grabbing my worn, corduroy slippers. I found my pink chenille bathrobe draped over a nearby chair, pulled it on, and trussed the belt tight. Shaking with premonition, I raced down the hall to Grandma S’s room.

      She never locked her door. I pushed it open, desperate to see Grandma S sitting secure and erect in the high-back chair, fingers and silk threads flying in and out of the embroidery hoop in her lap. But not that morning. Grandma S lay still in her single bed, a small mound draped with a pale yellow quilt. I crept close and leaned over. Grandma’s eyes were closed, her hair fanned out like a silver halo around her face. She must be tired today, I thought. Maybe last night she stayed up too late reading from her Bible. With tentative fingers I touched her cool, unresponsive cheeks and smoothed away the wisps of silver strands touching her forehead.

      “Good morning, my little one,” she whispered.

      I was relieved to hear her voice. “Grandma S, are you sick today?”

      “Oh no, dear child, I feel just fine. Well, maybe a little tired.”

      “Would you like me to help you get up?”

      “No, not just yet, I’ll rest a bit more.”

      “Did you read too long last night?”

      “No, I had something else to finish, on the table. Have a look.”

      On the pine table, next to the high-back chair, rested the wooden embroidery hoop. Its center glowed with the perfectly completed bouquet of purple violets, stems held together by a golden bow. Yellow streamers trailed down to a finely executed inscription: Made with Love—by Jennie and Danusia.

      Grandma S didn’t get out of bed that day, or any other. Her final piece of embroidery complete, she could rest well. No matter how often Mother had pummeled my soul and lashed my body when I disobeyed her, Grandma S soothed my anguish, always ready to embrace and restore me. If only she’d arrived sooner and stayed longer. Soon enough, her little room in Mother’s boarding house was occupied by a stranger. Never again would I tiptoe down the hall to push open that bedroom door. Brutus would miss Grandma S as much as I did. At least we had each other for comfort.

      In years to come, I would receive another gift from Grandma S—her handsome grandson would teach me a very different lesson about love and loss.

      Polish Relatives and Secrets

      Our social life revolved around Dad’s extended Polish family. Other than occasional Polish boarders and Dad’s allegiance to the local Polish newspaper Novy Swiat, we didn’t mix with the rest of Hartford’s immigrant culture. For Dad, Mother, and me, there were no Polish Hall dances, no traditional Pulaski Day parades, no Polish Catholic church.

      Mother didn’t like sitting around making nice, but she liked free babysitting. Boisterous relatives getting together at someone else’s home gave Mother the perfect opportunity to show up just long enough to drop me off. She’d poke at me and announce, “Danusia no make nuisance.” Then she’d scoot out the door, head for the Packard, and take off on some mysterious errand.

      Hoping to escape attention, I’d snug into a well-worn chair in the corner. No adult relatives suspected that I understood nearly every Polish word of adult conversations. Raised eyebrows and guilty glances signaled that juicy gossip was coming.

      “Hania and Juzo—how they live so good, buying them bigger and bigger houses?” Speculation was rampant about my parents’ mysterious source of money. They’d owned a house on the Connecticut shore (sold before I was born), Boarding Houses #1 and #2, and the 300-acre Old Glendale Farm, where Dad and I escaped from Mother for days at a time.

      Inevitably, one question led to another. “You think Hania and Juzo got plenty secret money from Old World?” Even though I had no idea about the source of any “secret money,” such speculation fed my hungry imagination.

      Years into the future when those relatives were dead and gone, I yearned to hear them again, gabbing in Polish while dipping and stirring Polish krusticy, sugar dusted, fried twists of dough, in glass mugs of hot tea. Such happy memories belonged to times when I believed that grownups had answers to all my questions.

      There was one person willing to share the family stories and secrets with me—Aunt Mamie, Dad’s sister. She was also the top person on Mother’s drop-off babysitter list. Aunt Mamie and Uncle Matthew owned Kazanowski’s Delicatessen, where expat Poles came to “taste the homeland” and left with butcher-wrapped kielbasa sausages and squat jars full of pierogies, dough bundles filled with mashed potato, cheese and onions, or sweet fruit preserves.

      Mother burst into Kazanowski’s with me in tow and thrust me behind the counter toward Aunt Mamie. “Here is Danusia for visit!” With no concession to small talk, Mother whirled back out the door to the Packard that she’d left with the motor running. As always, it was anyone’s guess when she’d be back or where she went. I loved Kazanowski’s Deli, redolent with tasty Polish treats. And I was in no hurry for Mother to come back and claim me.

      Aunt Mamie and unidentified employee in Kazanowski’s Deli, 1947

      Gentle Aunt Mamie took my hand. “We go to take-a-rest place,” she said, then guided me to the cluttered back room of the deli. Easing into a forgiving leather chair, Aunt Mamie sighed with relief and lifted her swollen legs into the familiar indentations of the poufy leather ottoman. I snuggled next to her and began to ask my questions.

      “Ciotka Manya,” I said, using the Polish that made her happy, “why do Edith and Carl live in Arizona? Don’t they like Hartford?”

      Now, the mere mention of Edith’s name brings a sense of dark betrayal, but there were early years when I loved and admired my sister. Years when Polish relatives in Hartford extolled Edith as “our free spirit of the desert.” She did indeed cross America solo at least once a year in her battered station wagon—journeys that made her mythical reputation as vast as the distances she traveled and as enigmatic as the places we could only imagine.

      “Ach, my little Danusia.” Aunt Mamie hugged me close to her ample bosom and smoothed back wisps of hair from my damp forehead. I savored how her skin smelled of Ivory Soap. When I pressed my face deep into the folds of her cotton apron, I inhaled scents of Polish ham and dill pickles. “Your mama Hania never talks about how Edith eloped with Carl. So gifted violinist, only nineteen years old when she meet Carl, no-talent baseball player but so-good dancer.” Before anyone could stop the “wildness,” Carl snatched Edith away to get hitched. “Hania never forgive.” Aunt Mamie shook her head at the memory, her blonde braids quivering. “Your mama calls him good-for-nothing Carl.”

      Aunt Mamie patted my hands as they rose and fell on top of her tummy with the rhythm of her breath. I drew comfort from her warmth and gentle affection. Unlike Mother, Aunt Mamie never yelled or hurt me.

      “Edith had so bad sinus trouble,” she continued. “Doctors say she must live in hot dry climate. They pack everything in Carl’s old junk car and drive thousands miles from rain-and-snow Hartford to who-knows-where Arizona.” Aunt Mamie’s Slavic complexion glowed with perspiration. It was real hot in that back room, and her plump figure was double-wrapped in a long, crisp white apron that touched her ankles, leaving only a hint of pastel blue dress peeking out at the hem. Aunt Mamie’s blue eyes darkened as she returned to her story. “If only they no stop by side of the road. Why Carl go outside somewhere and Edith stay in car? Maybe driver of big truck was crazy drunk when he crash into their car. Edith’s body go through the front window. Glass all over, some in her eyes, many broken bones in her shoulders and arms.”

      A chill ran up my arms. I shuddered at the thought of how much that accident must have hurt Edith. Aunt Mamie lifted up my chin, and her eyes met mine. “You know how her face looks now?” she asked.

      I nodded. Edith’s face and neck were pockmarked with tiny, indented scars. Even in hot weather, her clothes covered her arms and came right up to her neck. Bright light bothered her eyes so much she