of the wall. Never opened her mouth, never made a move, just sat there and read the Daily News and the Mirror. What she was was petrified, because the Rosses had literally told her, “You find a chair, you put it in the corner, and you stay there and don’t say a word about anything.” That was the directive, and even when people would come up and compliment me, she’d say thank you and then close right up because she was afraid she’d get into trouble.
That fear was in a sense contagious, because I was scared of my mother. She was very unpredictable emotionally, one step away from suicide most of the time, so I never knew what was going to happen. She might turn into an iceberg, with a really mean expression on her face and a rigid body, and withhold any and all affection. At other times everything would be fine and then all of a sudden she’d be screaming and yelling.
One New Year’s Eve my sister, who never went anywhere, was going out with the man who would become her fiancé, when my mother threw a tantrum. My sister decided not to go and I kept insisting she should. But when Carol started out the door, my mother began to attack herself—it was astounding to watch. She smashed her face against the doorjamb, pulled out her hair, beat her face until she’d broken her nose and was a bloody mess. Of course my sister came back in, and I kept saying, “Get outta here! Get
outta
here! If you go, she’ll stop.” And she went. And my motherstopped. And I took care of her. It was not the first time, and it wasn’t the last, that she acted that way.
The other thing my mother did to terrible excess was crying. Relentless crying. For days and days and days on end. I’d be at the Rosses’, the doorbell would ring at ten A.M., and she’d be standing there in tears. She would come in and sit down, and it would be obvious that she’d been at it for quite a while. She would continue crying and the Rosses would get angrier and angrier. They would try every approach they could think of to defuse the situation. They’d leave her alone, go and do business, come back—she was still the same. Dinner would come and go, the evening would set in, it could be one or two o’clock in the morning, she was still crying. Once you unplugged the dam, this lady did not stop.
My mother would never say why she was doing this, and I know now that she really didn’t know why, didn’t understand that it was not due to any single cause, it was because of everything. Her fear of the Rosses was ten times greater than mine; she is, in fact, still afraid of them. This was a terrified woman, someone with less than an eighth-grade education, who had no sense of self-worth. The Rosses managed to loom as authority figures; they appeared to her to be educated people of means. And my working represented income that was like a gift from God, which she didn’t want to jeopardize. My mother has always felt responsible for everything; anything in the world that goes wrong, she must have caused it. So the Rosses’ admonitions and warnings were taken very seriously by her. She figured she could wreck everything for me. Still, she resented the whole situation. There was a lot of fury in my mother in those days.
What my mother’s behavior accomplished was exactly what the Rosses hoped it would: it drove an emotional wedge between me and her that made it easier for them to keep me away from home. Although my mother had signed a contract with the Rosses, which neither of us had ever read, they wanted more than that, they wanted to completely control me. But they could never dismiss the threat, minor though it was, that one day my mother might say, “I’ve come to my senses now. That’s my daughter and we’re leaving.” So they never tried to hide the contempt they had for her. Theycharacterized her as mentally ill, unbalanced. “We just have to put up with Mrs. Duke” was one of their pet phrases.
So even though it troubled me, even though part
That fear was in a sense contagious, because I was scared of my mother. She was very unpredictable emotionally, one step away from suicide most of the time, so I never knew what was going to happen. She might turn into an iceberg, with a really mean expression on her face and a rigid body, and withhold any and all affection. At other times everything would be fine and then all of a sudden she’d be screaming and yelling.
One New Year’s Eve my sister, who never went anywhere, was going out with the man who would become her fiancé, when my mother threw a tantrum. My sister decided not to go and I kept insisting she should. But when Carol started out the door, my mother began to attack herself—it was astounding to watch. She smashed her face against the doorjamb, pulled out her hair, beat her face until she’d broken her nose and was a bloody mess. Of course my sister came back in, and I kept saying, “Get outta here! Get
outta
here! If you go, she’ll stop.” And she went. And my motherstopped. And I took care of her. It was not the first time, and it wasn’t the last, that she acted that way.
The other thing my mother did to terrible excess was crying. Relentless crying. For days and days and days on end. I’d be at the Rosses’, the doorbell would ring at ten A.M., and she’d be standing there in tears. She would come in and sit down, and it would be obvious that she’d been at it for quite a while. She would continue crying and the Rosses would get angrier and angrier. They would try every approach they could think of to defuse the situation. They’d leave her alone, go and do business, come back—she was still the same. Dinner would come and go, the evening would set in, it could be one or two o’clock in the morning, she was still crying. Once you unplugged the dam, this lady did not stop.
My mother would never say why she was doing this, and I know now that she really didn’t know why, didn’t understand that it was not due to any single cause, it was because of everything. Her fear of the Rosses was ten times greater than mine; she is, in fact, still afraid of them. This was a terrified woman, someone with less than an eighth-grade education, who had no sense of self-worth. The Rosses managed to loom as authority figures; they appeared to her to be educated people of means. And my working represented income that was like a gift from God, which she didn’t want to jeopardize. My mother has always felt responsible for everything; anything in the world that goes wrong, she must have caused it. So the Rosses’ admonitions and warnings were taken very seriously by her. She figured she could wreck everything for me. Still, she resented the whole situation. There was a lot of fury in my mother in those days.
What my mother’s behavior accomplished was exactly what the Rosses hoped it would: it drove an emotional wedge between me and her that made it easier for them to keep me away from home. Although my mother had signed a contract with the Rosses, which neither of us had ever read, they wanted more than that, they wanted to completely control me. But they could never dismiss the threat, minor though it was, that one day my mother might say, “I’ve come to my senses now. That’s my daughter and we’re leaving.” So they never tried to hide the contempt they had for her. Theycharacterized her as mentally ill, unbalanced. “We just have to put up with Mrs. Duke” was one of their pet phrases.
So even though it troubled me, even though part
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