Johnson Family that you have to take care of scrapes right away or you get some kind of infection.
The difference between here and home is that if you don’t take care of an infection right away, you can’t magic it away. You need some little pills that Mom calls “horse pills” and Karl says cost a fortune, and if I’ve learned anything about the Johnson Family, it’s that they don’t have a fortune. They “make do.”
I grab a pair of jeans and a heavy sweatshirt, and yank the one and only towel I get for the whole week off the hanger where it’s drying from this morning, and head to the bathroom. Fortunately no one is there.
I’ve learned the art of the fast shower and an even faster change of clothes. Three bathrooms, nine kids, two adults means hogging any bathroom facility can lead to major fights and even more major crises.
The bathroom is barely big enough for me, the toilet, the pedestal sink, and the bathtub shower combination. I set my clothes on top of the shelf holding a few more towels (take them at your own peril) and start the shower.
Then I take a deep breath. Tears prickle again.
I have no idea what I’m doing. I have no idea why I’m here.
I wasn’t lying to Eric; I’m terrified of this new job.
I’m terrified of everything in this place.
And I don’t know how much longer I can keep myself together.
FIVE
DINNER AT THE Johnson Family Manse is one of the few times I feel at home. A crowd, sitting at a giant table, passing food around and laughing. The loud conversation, the fights, the spilled water, the dropped silverware clattering on the floor, the dogs circling, the cats sitting on the benches as if expecting to be fed—all feels like Mount Olympus to me. Whenever my dad’s family got together there, mostly in the summer, we divided up by table and it often got out of control.
Here, we have assigned seats. We go clockwise by age order. Mom sits at the head of the table. Eric sits to her right, followed by Lise, me, and Anna. Karl sits at the foot of the table and tries to keep the dogs under control. (Sometimes he leads a dog outside by its collar, and the dog whimpers the whole way. It knows it’ll be banished from dinner for days if that happens.)
The little kids sit on the other side of the table. Leif sits next to Karl, then Ivan, Ingrid, Hans, and Hilde. Mom mostly deals with Hilde, who is four and so blonde it hurts. She looks like I did at that age. In fact, all of the girls except Lise look like me at various ages. It’s really clear they’re Mom’s daughters.
Hans is six and thinks he’s much older than Hilde. He tries to keep her in line, and she won’t have it. Not a dinner goes by without a Hans and Hilde fight, usually broken up by Mom, with her patented do I have to make you leave the table? glare.
Tonight, they’re all focused on the food. Sloppy Joes aren’t just Ivan’s favorite. The entire other side of the table thinks Sloppy Joes are a nectar of the gods. Maybe it’s because we get to dish up our food in the kitchen. Or maybe it’s because the little kids get a meal the same size as everyone else’s (usually, they get kids’ portions).
On the table, full plastic water pitchers with gigantic white lids glisten with humidity. Yellow plastic bowls filled with plain potato chips sit on either side. Green plastic bowls with a mixed salad sit next to the potato chips.
There are food rules here: no chips without salad, but you can have salad without chips. Or you can just have the Sloppy Joe, making the hard rolls that Mom indulges in all soggy.
I eat my Sloppy Joe with a knife and fork and endure all the teasing. But I hate having hot burger and sauce slide down my arm, and I’ve ruined more than one shirt trying to get the stain out of the sleeves from tomato sauce. (We do our own laundry here, and I still haven’t gotten the swing of that.)
I ignore the standard teasing because I can actually predict how it’s
The difference between here and home is that if you don’t take care of an infection right away, you can’t magic it away. You need some little pills that Mom calls “horse pills” and Karl says cost a fortune, and if I’ve learned anything about the Johnson Family, it’s that they don’t have a fortune. They “make do.”
I grab a pair of jeans and a heavy sweatshirt, and yank the one and only towel I get for the whole week off the hanger where it’s drying from this morning, and head to the bathroom. Fortunately no one is there.
I’ve learned the art of the fast shower and an even faster change of clothes. Three bathrooms, nine kids, two adults means hogging any bathroom facility can lead to major fights and even more major crises.
The bathroom is barely big enough for me, the toilet, the pedestal sink, and the bathtub shower combination. I set my clothes on top of the shelf holding a few more towels (take them at your own peril) and start the shower.
Then I take a deep breath. Tears prickle again.
I have no idea what I’m doing. I have no idea why I’m here.
I wasn’t lying to Eric; I’m terrified of this new job.
I’m terrified of everything in this place.
And I don’t know how much longer I can keep myself together.
FIVE
DINNER AT THE Johnson Family Manse is one of the few times I feel at home. A crowd, sitting at a giant table, passing food around and laughing. The loud conversation, the fights, the spilled water, the dropped silverware clattering on the floor, the dogs circling, the cats sitting on the benches as if expecting to be fed—all feels like Mount Olympus to me. Whenever my dad’s family got together there, mostly in the summer, we divided up by table and it often got out of control.
Here, we have assigned seats. We go clockwise by age order. Mom sits at the head of the table. Eric sits to her right, followed by Lise, me, and Anna. Karl sits at the foot of the table and tries to keep the dogs under control. (Sometimes he leads a dog outside by its collar, and the dog whimpers the whole way. It knows it’ll be banished from dinner for days if that happens.)
The little kids sit on the other side of the table. Leif sits next to Karl, then Ivan, Ingrid, Hans, and Hilde. Mom mostly deals with Hilde, who is four and so blonde it hurts. She looks like I did at that age. In fact, all of the girls except Lise look like me at various ages. It’s really clear they’re Mom’s daughters.
Hans is six and thinks he’s much older than Hilde. He tries to keep her in line, and she won’t have it. Not a dinner goes by without a Hans and Hilde fight, usually broken up by Mom, with her patented do I have to make you leave the table? glare.
Tonight, they’re all focused on the food. Sloppy Joes aren’t just Ivan’s favorite. The entire other side of the table thinks Sloppy Joes are a nectar of the gods. Maybe it’s because we get to dish up our food in the kitchen. Or maybe it’s because the little kids get a meal the same size as everyone else’s (usually, they get kids’ portions).
On the table, full plastic water pitchers with gigantic white lids glisten with humidity. Yellow plastic bowls filled with plain potato chips sit on either side. Green plastic bowls with a mixed salad sit next to the potato chips.
There are food rules here: no chips without salad, but you can have salad without chips. Or you can just have the Sloppy Joe, making the hard rolls that Mom indulges in all soggy.
I eat my Sloppy Joe with a knife and fork and endure all the teasing. But I hate having hot burger and sauce slide down my arm, and I’ve ruined more than one shirt trying to get the stain out of the sleeves from tomato sauce. (We do our own laundry here, and I still haven’t gotten the swing of that.)
I ignore the standard teasing because I can actually predict how it’s
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