Red Rover - Childhood loneliness - Part 4

I slumped out of the big chair and dragged a crate that was under the ironing board over to Joanie’s chifferobe. It was off limits to me. She kept a lot of stuff in the top shelf: her paper dolls, photos of friends, drawing paper, crayons, and scissors. Joanie drew and colored the prettiest dresses for her paper dolls, and I was fascinated with them. Hardly a day went by that I wasn’t sneaking the paper dolls out and playing with them behind Momma’s bed.

But this time, I wasn’t interested in her paper dolls. There was a mirror in the door of Joanie’s chifferobe. It was high up like her stuff, so I climbed on the crate. Joanie had said I was littler than the other kids. I wanted to look and see for myself. It didn’t do any good. All I could see was the top of my eyes - and the big bump on my head.

There wasn’t anybody I could trust to tell me the truth about this. Daddy called me “little girl” all the time, but sometimes he called Joanie that, too. And Joanie had probably called me “little” just because she was my big sister. Momma said I was a “big girl“, but maybe she just didn’t like crying. She never cried. I dragged the crate back to the front room, and decided that I didn’t need any old mirror. I knew I wasn’t little!

That night, after my sister fell asleep, I climbed up on Momma’s and Daddy’s bed. They were talking loudly in the kitchen, so I knew I had time to visit my secret place. I was afraid of the dark, but nobody knew that. I guess I wasn’t really afraid of the dark; it was the loneliness I always felt when it was dark - being alone scared me. There was a big window above the bed. Even if it was cold, I would shove the window up so that I could press against the screen and look up above the roof of the warehouse next door. There was a street light that was always on. I could only see a patch of its light on the corner, but it helped shoo the loneliness away.

If it wasn’t raining - and it rained a lot in New Orleans - I could see the stars sprinkled across the sky. I just knew that Somebody lived up there at night. I had the sense that Somebody watched me a lot through the Night Window - just like I watched people from my window. Somebody listened to my thoughts, too. I don’t know how he did it, but I liked it. I never felt alone when I looked up at the night through that window. I would stay there with Somebody until I heard the beer bottles being tossed in the crate Momma hid in the cupboard under the sink. Then I would go to bed...