– 10 –

The little things continued over the years, my mom showing that decisions were not for the young. Mom was there to protect and direct at all times, and that did not just mean pointing the way. It meant being the way. Mother became my model for everything, including how I dressed. In particular, how I dressed for one event.

Sometimes Dad didn't travel alone to town. I don't know whether Mom just needed to see other faces or whether she was itching to see the kinds of things other people actually bought. On the rarest occasion, she'd splurge and pick up some lipstick when she was low, but that was about it.

So from time to time, we all piled onto the horse wagon and made our way those five miles into town. These were the best of times for me—scenery, sure; buildings, yeah, and people. Especially people. It was almost hard to remember that there were people besides Mom and Dad and the family living across the creek from us.

Beckermans was the only general store in town. Besides Beckermans, there was the post office, a blacksmith shop and a grain elevator. A hamlet of fewer than twenty-five people really couldn't support much else. The general store carried all the staples my dad went to town for, and the other knickknacks people might want—toiletries, perfume, shoes, clothes, tools…you name it.

When you pulled up to Beckermans, you'd see one of those old gas tanks outside, the kind with gas inside the glass container up top. You had to hand crank the thing to fill your car. It was always a little dark inside the store because they didn't have any wired electricity, just a generator in the far corner to run a few dim lights. There were oiled wooden floors, shelves everywhere, and a payphone near the front. Through a door in the back were the living quarters. My dad seemed to like Mr. Beckerman. They shook hands the way men should, with a smile, looking eye to eye.

I didn't know what they spoke of in the store because they spoke in English, and we only spoke Ukrainian at home. That was still the native tongue for both my parents, and it was the only thing I was exposed to. So while they batted away tongues, I stood in awe of the rows and rows of canned goods and the barrels of dry goods scattered through the store.

I remember the first time I saw a wheel of cheese there that I called my dad's attention away from Mr. Beckerman. “What is it?” I asked him.

Dad took the can that Mr. Beckerman was handing him, then looked my way. “It's cheese,” he said.

I gave Dad a doubtful look. “That's not cheese. Mom makes cheese at home and it doesn't look anything like this.”

Dad smiled. “It's still cheese,” he assured me. He turned back to Mr. Beckerman, said some things in English, and the two of them laughed together while they looked at me, amused. I smiled politely, then turned away, hoping they weren't laughing at me.

I saw my mom walking toward the back door that led into the storeowner's quarters. She always did this when we went into town. Normally I spent my time looking in through a glass showcase in the store, where they kept lipstick and dolls and beautiful ornaments—things I knew I could never have, but things I dreamed of owning. That glass showcase was magic for me. It represented a different kind of life, a kind of life that others had. It was my secret dream to have that kind of life and that showcase was part of the dream.

But on this trip, when I learned that cheese could look different if it wanted to, I watched curiously through the showcase as Mom knocked on the door to the Beckerman home and Mrs. Beckerman opened up. They exchanged a few whispered words, and she handed Mom a box. Mom's face turned bright red as she took the thing. She tried to make her way outdoors unnoticed. She hurried toward our wagon to shove the box under the seat. But I had followed, and when she turned, I stood on the porch of the store with my head cocked to one side. “What's in the box, Mama?” I asked her.

Poor Mom. Her face had nearly lost its initial flush when she saw me there. She was beet red again in a second. “Nothing for you to think about. I'll tell you when you're older.”

I wanted to be older right away. I wanted to know what was in that box, but I would wait years before I would find out. Growing up had so many obvious advantages, and this mystery was just one more to add to the list.

Another mystery was make-up, something I wasn't allowed to explore for many more years, yet something my mom took very seriously for herself. Her impact on other people was important to my mother. And no kidding about it, I loved watching her get ready for trips into town. She used to curl her hair with bobby pins and then style it when it dried. She formed waves of hair, beginning at the part and working across her head. Then she used an eyebrow pencil to enlarge her beauty mark before adding a hint of blush to her cheeks. And finally, she topped it off with dark red lipstick to match a deep magenta, taffeta dress. Boy, my mother knew how to do it. I was too young to notice, but I'll bet she had all sorts of men looking her way when she was all done up like that.

I was all of five years old, so no need to tell you Mom wouldn't let me touch the make-up, and I wouldn't be allowed to till I was sixteen. “Too much flair,” she'd tell me. “Not good for a girl until she's ready to get married.” Presumably, that meant at around age sixteen.

At least when I was five, I'm sure my mom was right; make-up probably wasn't a good idea. Anyway, she could hardly afford lipstick for herself. But a dress! If only I could wear one dress that wasn't Mom-made—a dress from a real store—the kind that fit the glass showcase dream of owning something truly beautiful. I wouldn't care about make-up or growing older just yet. If I had one store-bought dress for wearing to town, to look as beautiful as the girls there—I would be in child heaven!

The tragedy, if I can call it that—the five-year-old mind holds a different measure of the awesome and the awful—is that Mom had a two-part agenda that conflicted with itself. On one hand, she was all about making ends meet, which is one of those old-fashioned values we could probably do with more these days. On the other hand, she was set on making sure we looked good for other people. The first of these meant all of my clothes were homemade, which conflicted with the second because Mom didn't have a sense of style or design for how she dressed me.

Out on the farm, that wasn't much of an issue. The horses weren't going to say anything, even though they stared me down with those mean old eyes. The chickens clucked at everything, so I didn't take any special offense when they clucked about my clothing. But when we went to town, I hated looking frumpy. Worse yet, I was to go to school before long—I knew that; my mother knew that. The question was could she bear for me to look homemade when image was so important to her?

Eventually, the day arrived when Mom didn't have much choice. We were invited to a wedding, and my mother hadn't the time to make a dress to give the right impression. So finally—finally!—we went to the big town, the town that had the hospital I was born in, where they had shops galore. I went with a dress in mind. One of the small specialty shops was a clothing store for children called Bo Peep. As we walked inside, I could hardly fathom so many clothes existed in the world, much less in our little part of it. And the dresses—oh, they were far more beautiful than the images I had dared to conjure. The experience felt luxurious. I breathed in the moment and began sifting through the dresses. They felt good in my hands. The sewing was perfect; the styles set my little mouth a-gaping. My mother was my hero for bringing me here!

As much as I loved nearly all the dresses I saw, two stood out. I was almost ready to call my mother over and have her pick between them, when, before my eyes appeared a dark blue velvet dress cut perfectly, lace around the neck and cuffs. It was my dress. I knew it. The other two didn't matter any more, and I turned to call my mom.

But, as I turned, she was right in front of me.

With a dress in hand. With a dress possibly more ugly than any she had ever made.

The thing was a travesty to behold, an insult to the very notion of little girls. Who—who!—would design such a thing and sell it? Did they mean to ruin an innocent kid's childhood?

Worse yet…what was my mom doing carrying the thing? But that didn't take long to solve. A smile spread across her face, which might as well have been Cruella de Vil's smile in that moment, as she stepped toward me, arms held out to measure the dress against me in her mind's eye. Well, there wasn't a question any more: my awful homemade dresses were no longer awful. Presuming my mother didn't intend torture, my dresses were awful because her eye couldn't tell the difference, because her taste, in my mind, was terrible.

In that moment, with my heart sinking fast and the upcoming wedding flashing across my imagination, I started to protest my mom's selection. But as her smile fell, she stunned me...