Adalaide, a short story

Adalaide was brought up in a fairly well to do family and had no wants from birth. The proverbial silver-spoon was indeed in her mouth, although not until she was fed solid food, as her first year she was fed the nectar reserved for newborns. Her first years were, as they say, "unremarkable" other than that she seemed to pout much when her siblings were reprimanded as if she, in some way, had also committed the infraction and was also being punished. By being the youngest child, she was the tag-a-long of her sisters and the go-fer of her brothers.

Adalaide was her father's and mother's late-in-life child, her father was 47 when she was born and her mother turned 47 the day after Adalaide was born. At the time of her birth, her siblings were Ned 8, Paul 9, Mike 10, the twins, Rita and Rose 12 and Mary 13. Adalaide's grandparents were 70 the year she was born. There was only one set of grandparents for Adalaide as her maternal grandparents had passed away the year before she was born.

As soon as she could toddle and talk, the boys would allow her into their enclave behind the old barn on the property and commission her to go get cookies from their mother or permission to raid the refrigerator for bottles of juice. Mother always said yes, so the reason for having Adalaide run those errands was as much for the boys' amusements as it was for permission or cookies, which is why they never asked her to get cookies and permission on the same mission.

Now the girls, all of whom being older than the boys, looked on Adalaide as more a tag-a-long nuisance. She was their 'baby sister' and they often treated her as if she were not there or could not understand what they were saying. The oldest sister felt tender towards Adalaide, but would not try to stop her twin sisters from their teasing and tricks. Adalaide looked up to her older sisters and always felt that there must be something wrong with her because they didn't treat her as they treated each other.

Each fall until she was old enough to attend school, Adalaide would watch her sisters and brothers walk out the door on their way to school, make the turn onto the sidewalk and briskly walk the three blocks to the school complex. Although they were in different grades, her siblings all attended schools in the same educational complex. From her earliest age, she wanted to join them and walk to school too.

Adalaide's mother became involved in volunteering when Ned started Kindergarten. She had graduated college with a degree in Home Economics and put her education to good use raising the six children. Volunteering was her respite, her chance to speak to other educated adults and her way to get out of a busy but fairly happy household each week. When she had ventured out of the house to volunteer for the first time, she felt insecure because the other women seemed to know so much beyond babies and diapers and feeding schedules and household help, but it wasn't long before she, too, felt comfortable among her peers. She enjoyed her pregnancy and the birth of Adalaide, but she wasn't ready to return to the enclave of the nursery after Adalaide's birth and had employed a full-time English Nanny for Adalaide when she turned a year old.

Adalaide's father, the eldest of eight brothers, was an executive at the family's banking and insurance company. He had worked himself up from mailroom as a fourteen year old to junior executive by the time he'd graduated from college at twenty-one when he married his high school and college sweetheart. He took graduate studies while working and growing his family with children. Adalaide was his surprise and his delight. Like most executives, he worked long hours but made a point of eating the evening meal each workday with his family. Saturdays were 'his' day and he'd go to the club around ten in the morning, after having a quiet five minutes with each of his children. He would not return until the children were fed and put to bed and the household help had left until the morning, other than the housekeeper and the Nanny who each had their own small bedrooms in the house. This was his time with his wife and he never missed a Saturday evening with her.

Sundays were the day that the entire family gathered at Adalaide's grandparents' home after attending church. Grandfather and Grandmother were the patriarch and matriarch of their eight sons. They had a huge castle of a house on the highest hill in town. It was an enormous Victorian house with three full stories and an attic full of wonderful antiques, treasures to discover and a wonderful balcony outside the attic gable which faced toward the sea. All the way around the first floor was a wonderful porch with rockers and swings and plant stands overflowing with ferns. The yard in front was the scene of many games of badminton and croquet. The sides and back yards had tall oak trees which provided homes for birds and bases for games of hide and seek and tag. The attic, however, was the favorite place of all the grandchildren and although it seems impossible, every cousin could find a special space for himself and herself among all the boxes and trunks and old furniture. The grandchildren spent many happy hours in the attic as they shared their secrets, hopes and dreams with each other.

The first floor of the house was all parlors and dining room which seated all the adult children and their spouses and a kitchen big enough for a staff of three. The kitchen included a children's table with benches and room for highchairs as there seemed always to be at least one grandchild in the family in need of a highchair. The second story had four bedrooms and the third story had six more bedrooms. There was a full bathroom off of each bedroom. Grandmother's and Grandfather's bedroom was the largest and had a huge sitting room where visiting grandchildren spent the night on pallets after being read to by Grandmother and occasionally by Grandfather.

This was Adalaide's world. She was nurtured by parents and grandparents and had one of the best English Nannies on the East coast. Yet, something inside Adalaide was different from her siblings and her cousins. As she grew, she always felt "different" but had no vocabulary to explain it until later in life.

Adalaide's schooling began the year that Mary graduated from High School. No longer was she the face behind the storm door looking out at her siblings. Now she was one of them, tagging along as fast as her legs would propel her, down the walk, onto the sidewalk and three blocks to the school complex. Mother had come to the school in late summer to make all the arrangements, so Adalaide walked into the Primary School building without benefit of parent. The first day of school was the day the Nanny was 'let go' and a second housekeeper was hired. Mother was out volunteering and of course Father was at work. The first day of Kindergarten was full of noise as the teachers welcomed each child and asked them questions about themselves, such as "what's your favorite color" and "what animal do you like best" and "do you have a favorite story." The teachers were gathering information so that they could include children's favorites into the classroom lessons to help make the children's education fun and personal as well as informative. Adalaide's favorite story was Sleeping Beauty. She didn't know why. Her favorite color was sky-blue with white clouds. Adalaide's favorite animal was the Blue Jay that laid her nest high in one of Grandmother's and Grandfather's big oak trees. Each Spring, Adalaide would run up the flights of stairs to the third floor and peer out of the windows of the bedrooms until she found the tree where the Blue Jay had prepared her nest.

After school that first day when she was five years old, Adalaide skipped home, happy to be returning to a place she felt secure and loved, only to remember, as she raced to the kitchen, that Nanny was no longer there. The new household help was an older woman with a kind face, but it wasn't Nanny. After her light snack and a 'thank you,' Adalaide went up to her room, plopped on her bed and sobbed into her pillow. She missed Nanny and somehow she felt responsible for Nanny not being at home on the first day of school.

From every viewpoint except Adalaide's she had a very normal life through her school years. She watched Mary graduate and leave home to attend college, and then Rita and Rose joined Mary at college after their graduation. Something internal always gripped Adalaide as she watched her older sisters walk down the aisle of the school auditorium to receive that rolled up piece of paper. Adalaide would later describe the intense pain as a "tearing" or a "burning up" of something deep inside her heart. There was a respite between the twins' and Mike's high school graduation. Mike was a star athlete and would be attending a university on the West Coast. Adalaide was happy and sad at the same time as she watched him walk the same aisle as her sisters had. The next two years were kind of a blur as Paul graduated and Mother and Father sorted through their accumulation of 30 years of marriage to facilitate a move from their home into Grandfather's and Grandmother's house. Mary married in between Paul's and Ned's graduations. Mother and Father gave Mary and her husband their house as a wedding present. Adalaide did not want to give up her bedroom, the sight of the old barn from her window, or the security she felt in that house. However, she never verbalized that because she did not think her parents would pay much attention to the "baby" in the family. And she was probably correct thinking that. Grandmother and Grandfather could no longer live alone and since Father was their oldest child, it fell to him to be their caretaker in their old age. It was just the way things were done and no one questioned it.

Rita and Rose graduated from college with their teaching degrees. At the very next Sunday family gathering with many of their aunts, uncles and cousins in attendance, they announced there at Grandmother's and Grandfather's house that they had both felt the call to become Religious Sisters in the Church. There were no dry eyes as everyone there gave them hugs and advice. Adalaide stepped backwards from the group and leaned against one of the old oak trees, silently sobbing. Everything seemed to be dissolving right in front of her. Her family was going away, in different directions and eventually she would be the only one left. She would be all alone, except for her parents and her aging and frail grandparents. And the waves of guilt swirled around Adalaide's mind and heart.

The year that Rita and Rose left for the Convent was the year that Ned graduated from high school. Adalaide was ten years old. Something inside her froze as she watched him eagerly walk the aisle to obtain that diploma which he always said was his first step in his plans to become a lawyer. Two days after high school graduation, Ned left for summer school at Harvard as a legacy, following in his father's footsteps but opting for law instead of banking.

And now, Adalaide was the only one at home. Well, the only child at home. Grandmother and Grandfather each had a private nurse on duty all the time. They went no where without the ladies in starched white dresses and caps gingerly watching out for them. Two parlors had been converted into bedrooms for Grandmother and Grandfather as they could no longer walk up the flight of steps as they had done for over 53 years. Adalaide had chosen one of the third-floor bedrooms for her own, much to the household help's consternation, since that meant a walk up all those steps in order to clean and bedroom and scrub a bathroom every day. She never mentioned it and Adalaide never thought anything of it, since household help were never allowed to disagree with a task unless they wished to be let go.

When Adalaide was 12, Mike graduated from college. Mother and Father took Adalaide with them to the graduation ceremony. Mike looked wonderful to Adalaide and he teased her a little asking her to ask Mother for some cookies before he had to take his place with the graduates. Watching him accept the diploma from the university president's hand gave Adalaide such a gripping fear that she nearly yelled the "NO" that was bottled up inside her chest. No one paid any attention to her plight, and she was quickly able to compose herself. At the campus wide reception after graduation, Mike introduced his parents to the agent and the coach of the Farm League he would be joining the very next day. Mike could have gone directly to the Major Leagues, but he had planned out his future and wanted to start at a Farm League. Since the Major League Team coach couldn't convince him otherwise, to keep Mike on their Team, he was accepted in their Farm League. (This turned out to be a very wise move on Mike's part. When he joined the Major League Team at the age of 25, he was the healthiest and strongest he'd ever been and he always said the reason he had no injuries during his football career was due to his having spent those early years in the Farm League.)

The next year, Paul graduated from college and was accepted at Yale where he would pursue his Master's degree before attending Yale Law School. A year later, Ned graduated from pre-med and went to the State University of New York to obtain his Master's degree before applying at Johns Hopkins Medical College.

It seemed like so short a time to Adalaide as she stared at her graduation dress in the full length mirror in her third floor bedroom since that first day of school eighteen years ago. Her parents were now 65 years old and her grandparents were now 88 years old. Time had dulled the eyesight and hearing of Grandfather and he walked in a slow shuffle, but Grandmother seemed not to have changed at all since Adalaide could recall except that she now required a wheelchair. And her parents were nearly the same as she always remembered them: busy at work or at volunteering. The household help had been replaced four or five times since Adalaide was a young child, so there was no continuity and no lasting friendships there. Her elder siblings were off doing what they believed was their life's calling. And then there was Adalaide.

At the graduation ceremonies later that day, her dress covering by her gown, that same conflicted terror gripped her heart as she started up the aisle, up the steps, took the handshake and the rolled paper representing the diploma which had been given to the class the day before, then across the stage, down the steps and into the auditorium seats, safe once again. Finally the ceremony was over, the class sang the school anthem, balloons were released, and as one, they walked back out of the auditorium to the applause of parents and friends. None of Adalaide's siblings were in attendance. She had said it was okay when each called, wishing her their best, but in her heart, it wasn't okay. Her parents were there, beaming as usual. That made her feel even worse. No one knew the terror she harbored in her heart. No one really understood her.

All through her academic career, Adalaide had made many friends, but never a best friend, although had you asked her, she could have rattled off five or six names of the girls in her class. She was more a hanger-on than friend to any of them. They invited her to come with them to various activities because all their fathers did business in Adalaide's father's bank and their parents had coached them well to "be nice to Adalaide." Now, she was a high school graduate with college in the immediate future. Adalaide had never been asked if she wanted to attend college. She was asked merely, of these five colleges, which three shall we submit your applications to?

The summer between High School Graduation and her Freshman year in College, was a blur of visiting siblings, buying clothes for college, picking out sheets and towels and bedspreads and accessories for her dorm room. But Adalaide still felt that gnawing fear but could not find words for it. One morning two weeks before she was to be driven to college, Adalaide was upstairs in her room sorting through her drawers, deciding what to toss out, what to take to college, and what to leave at home. She walked over to the third story window and looked out into the branches of one of the oak trees in the yard. A flicker caught her eye and she watched as a baby blue jay tried to jump up from the nest to the tree branch and then back into the nest. Adalaide was mesmerized by the little blue bird. "That's how I feel," she thought, "I'm not really ready to leave home, but I know I have to spread my wings and fly." Adalaide stood there for fifteen minutes or so, then saw the little bird take off and fly toward her window. Her mouth opened in horror, she watched as the bird slapped into the window pane and then slid down the window and tumble onto the roof shingles, just short of falling off the roof. Adalaide looked carefully and saw that the little blue jay was stunned and breathing. She tried to will it to get up and fly, but it only raised its head, look around and then lay its head down again.

Adalaide was caught up into the baby blue jay's plight. She carefully opened the dormer window, removed the screen and leaned out of the window to rescue the bird. The little bird was just beyond her reach. She pulled herself back into her room and looked around for something she could stand on so that she could reach farther. She pulled her rocking chair up to the window with the front of the chair barely touching the wall. Stepping over the arm of the rocking chair, she leaned out of the window and carefully pulled most of her body through the window. She reached for the little bird with her right hand, placed her left hand under the bird, gently cupping it. At the same time, she raised her feet and put her weight on her toes. Gravity pulled the front of the rocking chair forward and Adalaide's body downward.

As if in slow motion, Adalaide slid out the window and quietly tumbled the three floors down to the grassy yard below, the little blue bird safely clutched to Adalaide's breast.