NONFICTION

Chapter Eleven— Being a Parent to My Youngest Siblings

In Search of the Magical Other — 11

When work was done, I went to my grandparents. It was early so they still hadn’t yet eaten so I had breakfast with them, hot oatmeal with a liberal helping of brown sugar and real milk. While eating, I told them about the store, about how big it was and how I had a good person to work with.

With breakfast done, I decided to go home to sleep while the kids were at school. Thanking my grandparents for breakfast I promised to be back in a few days and then left. Taking the bus as far as the Alta Vista shopping centre, I hitched hiked two different rides in order to make it most of the way home, leaving me just a short walk to the acreage.

The house was quiet with only the TV playing with the volume turned low. Four-year old DJ was sitting in front of it as I entered the house. The dining room and living room had clothing and toys scattered everywhere.

A large pile of dirty clothing sat near the entrance to the basement where the washing machine was located. The smell of urine was strong telling me the diaper pail was filled with soiled diapers. Approaching the pail, I could smell the shit and urine. I would clean out the pail later.

I walked up the stairs knowing my mother would still be in her room. I called out hoping she would answer. The only sound was a burbling by the baby, E who was now just over a year old, too old to be in a crib, but too young to be in a bunk bed with the other kids.

The door to my parents’ bedroom was open. My mother was still in bed, sleeping. E smiled and raised her hands hoping I would let her out of the big steel-framed crib. She was smeared with shit which had escaped out one side of her diaper. The shit was ground into the bed covers as well.

Lifting her out of the crib, I took her into the bathroom and gave her a bath before taking her downstairs to have a late breakfast. DJ came into the kitchen asking for some more breakfast when he heard E babbling.

The milk from the morning was still on the table along with all of the used bowls and plastic glasses. The bag of puffed wheat was almost empty. I searched to see what else I could give to my littlest brother and sister. A loaf and a half of bread was all I found, so I made them some toast which I then covered with a thin syrup made using tea and brown sugar, a poor man’s maple syrup.

While the two ate, I cleaned off the table and began to fill the sink with water to do the dishes. They would then be ready for when my other brothers and sisters came home from school. I was tired and thought of laying on the sofa for a rest. Yet, I couldn’t take the chance of leaving the two little kids unsupervised.

As I was finishing with the dishes I heard my mother moan. She had woken up.

“Bobby? Is that you?” she called out in a weak voice.

“Yes, Mom.”

The only response was more moaning from upstairs.

“I’ll bring you some tea when I’m finished taking care of E and DJ. Okay?”

Her voice suggested that she was suffering great pain, as if she was almost at death’s door. “Okay.”

Cleaning a spot off the dining room table, I got out some broken crayons and unused sheets of three-holed paper from an old binder and set them there for the kids, hoping they would stay there long enough for me to take some toast and tea up to my mother.

“Here, Mom.”

With a groan, she turned onto her back, grimacing as if wracked with unbearable pain. “Can you get me an aspirin?”

Though the bottle was on the end table next to the bed, she waited for me to open the bottle and take out two small, white pills.

“Where’s Dad?” I asked as she swallowed the pills with a sip of the tea.

“Can you take care of the baby for me? I don’t feel well,” was her answer.

I knew it would be wasted effort to try and get any answers when she was in one of these states. If I said ‘No’ my brother and sister would have to fend for themselves anyways and I would be blamed for being an ungrateful, self-centred little prick. It was easiest to just say ‘Yes’ and let the mood go away on its own.

“Yes, Mom.”

I left her and went back downstairs. DJ was drawing and E was sitting in front of the TV. With both of them occupied, I sorted the clothing into a number of piles for washing, took down the first load, then returned to the kitchen to finish cleaning it up.

I made them bowls of warm milk and cubed bread with white sugar sprinkled on top for a mid-morning snack. Then I let them watch some more TV while I rinsed out the fouled diapers so they could be washed. I thought of the mess in the crib upstairs but I wasn’t ready to go into the room and have to deal with his mother.

With several loads of washing completed, I took the kids outside so they could play on the grass while I hung out the clothes. While waiting for another load to finish in the washing machine, I played a game with them and soon had them laughing. Their laughter brought me a moment of joy as well. It was almost as if they were my children.

Previously

Thanks to Author, D. Denise Dianaty, Sarah ✨, Chris Floyd, Robert, Carrie, Mariana Busarova, Love, Block Wife, and all my other incredible readers.