Bringing Home the Duncan Phyfe: Chapter 9a

The bed Dad bought from his 3rd grade teacher had been stored in a basement, and one of the sideboards was slightly warped, just enough that the center two slats sometimes fell out at the least convenient times. It happened about once a week, and it was always on Mom's warped side of the bed. KERPLUNK! Down would go the center slats like a slide and the bedsprings would droop down to the floor while the other slats usually stayed in place. Notice I said usually.

One night the landlord and his wife (who lived on the main floor below them) had someone staying in the guestroom, which was directly under Mom and Dad's bedroom. They could hear voices coming up through the floor. "That explains the extra car parked out front," Dad whispered as he turned out the light.

Around midnight, Mom rolled over in bed and KERPLUNK! went the slats, dropping the mattress down like a hammock on her side.

"Don. Don. Wake up. The bed's caving in again."

"Just go back to sleep. I'll finish him in round three and fix the bed in the morning," Dad mumbled and slipped back into oblivion.

"That's easy for you to say. You're side's still up. Come over here and see how this feels." But Dad was sound asleep. "Don. Don..."

Mom started bouncing her rear end against the bed to wake Dad up. She knew not to hit him in his sleep.
The summer before they married, he had a successful run at boxing in the Golden Gloves and sometimes dreamt he was in the ring again. His "round three" non sequitur was a hint that this was one of those nights. [That's Dad on the right delivering a left.]

"Don!" She whispered loudly, pulling far arm toward her. He rolled with a groan down into the crater with her, but he was still sound asleep. "Don, I can't wait till the morning!" She bounced in place again. He mumbled something about an uppercut, but was not awake.

"I'll never get to sleep," she thought then blurted out, "Don, I can't go all night like this!"

Frustrated, she now gave the bed one big bounce, and WHAM! the other slats fell with a loud smack. The metal bedsprings slammed the wooden floor. Mom screamed and Dad jumped up in his boxing stance ready to fight. He evidently thought he'd fallen to the canvas, and sprang up to avoid the count.

"That was a slip. Let's keep going!" Dad shouted.

Mom turned on the light and laughed at him standing there in his boxers ready to box beside the collapsed bed.

Dad blinked and looked around the room. His rigid arms went limp. "What happened?"

"Shhhhhh... people are down there," she reminded pointing at the floor. "The bed slats fell out again--this time they all fell out." She didn't bother to mention that she had been bouncing to wake him up.

That night, Dad did what he should have done in the first place and screwed the slats in place, and the bed worked fine after that.

The next morning, as Dad walked out to his Bell truck, a man was getting into the strange car he'd seen the night before. The house guest smiled and gave Dad a thumbs up. Dad waved back slightly puzzled. It wasn't until Dad put the key in the ignition that he realized what the man's gesture implied, and he glanced back red faced, but the man was gone. The young husband looked up at the apartment window and slowly turned the corner of the driveway as a boyish grin turned the corner of his mouth.

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My parents had been married for about two months, but to Mom the apartment still didn't feel like home despite her efforts. It's not that she felt uncomfortable or unwelcome or unloved in the surroundings. She had feathered the nest with enough touches to make it look a little more homey... but when she dusted the things or looked at the rooms before turning out the lights at night... something was missing.

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A few weeks before, she bought the Sunday paper to read together on the floor. Propped up on their elbows, side by side, they laughed at the funnies and read tidbits of news to each other. For a moment, it felt like a regular Sunday afternoon at home. Mom could almost hear the voices of her parents and grandparents and siblings in the background. When they were done, she deliberately left the paper stacked beside the couch to make the third of three rooms feel like a living room, as if living happened there, as if others may plop down on the couch to catch up on the news. Several days past before she threw the untouched paper away.

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Today she would try something else. Almost all of the wedding presents were already in use, but still the scant furnishings of the apartment looked forlorn. Mom finally had some ideas that might help. This was her regular day off, and she planned to spend it decorating. The weekend before she bought as many things as she dared without including Dad who ran the household budget. This would all be a surprise to him. It was somewhat of a surprise to her as well, since she had never decorated a thing in her life—not even the bedroom she shared with her sister. The truth is her ideas were less about decorating than disguising, creatively hiding the most unsightly things about the small apartment.

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Let's face it... depending on where a couple starts in life, decorating is more about covering up than showing off. (Sort of like Adam and Eve's first attempt at fashion a la fig leaves.) We've all done it: …placed a throw rug over the warn part of the linoleum or carpet... placed a centerpiece over the stain in the table cloth... hung a picture over a hole we don't take the time to patch... put a doily over the scratch on the end table. Only the first occupants of a new home, have a truly blank slate to work with. To varying degrees, everyone after that is covering something up. It was this pragmatic decorating that my mom was especially good at throughout life, and it all started in their first apartment.

Because the old cast iron tub with the lion claw feet could be seen from the kitchen, she put a shower curtain around it, even though the tub had no shower. It hid the awful rusted feet and stained floor below.

Just when she thought she'd finished that room, she noticed the medicine cabinet was empty and it gave her a strange sense of abandonment.
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Her parents' medicine cabinet was full of tonics and tubes and boxes and bottles, most of which were rarely used, but there was something very comforting in knowing all those things had been there whenever the grown ups in her life had to make something better. So she walked to the drug store (she did not yet have her driver's license) and bought bottles and tubes of everything she could remember from her parent's cabinet. In a sense she had merely decorated the cabinet. The things inside were not yet needed, and some had no real medicinal value, but they were remedies nonetheless, cure-alls for a greater need: they helped hide a niche of emptiness and made Mom feel more at home.

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The old kitchen sink that was bolted to the wall had been skirted round with what looked like flower sacks that doubled as hand towels. Mom took some blue gingham and sewed a new skirt for the sink, a curtain and valance for the window, and a matching tablecloth. She was done just in time to begin making dinner. It was only hamburger and onions (not hamburgers on a bun, this was more like meatloaf patties). Since she had extra time, she decided to make this ordinary meal as nice as possible to show off that day's handiwork. The table was set perfectly, meal simmering, when Dad came home from climbing telephone poles.

Mom met him at the top of the stairs and made him close his eyes as she walked him to the bathroom. She showed him the shower curtain and the medicine cabinet and the receipt for all the items. He was impressed. "There's more. Wash up and meet me in the kitchen."

The nervous homemaker touched the silverware one more time but didn't move a thing. Dad came in and smiled. "Wow! This looks great. You've been busy today."

Pointing at the sink, Mom announced, "This is a curtain not a towel."

"Then I guess I'll just have to dry my hands off on you." Mom turned to close the window curtains. He kissed her on the back of her neck and pretended to dry his hands in the pleats of her cotton dress.

"One of these day's you're going to leave hand prints back there--and people will think I'm a floozy."

"I promise to never leave hand prints, and there's nothing floozy about it when you're married." Dad laughed. He kissed her softly and punctuated his low embrace with a pat on her rump. The look in his eye had nothing to do with handprints or hamburger.

Mom took his hand and pulled him to the table.

"Let's eat. It's all ready. The only thing missing was you."

To be continued: