“I offhandedly mentioned to Jeff that an application was due the next day but that I hadn’t mailed it. He opened a drawer and took out an overnight envelope. He told me to stop what I was doing, leave work and send the application immediately. I protested about the expense of overnight postage, but he said he would cover it.”
“I never considered it at the time, because he seemed to be having as much fun as everyone else, but if I was using my job to create the family I wish I’d had, it was possible that he was, too.”
"Jeff surprised me with an early graduation present: a trip to Boston. He paid for the hotel, the car and the plane tickets. We toured campus and visited Fenway Park and did some sightseeing around New England.”
I was ordered to carry bookcases upstairs and, once, to move a piano from one side of a room to the other. I fell carrying the bookcases. And after pushing the piano my arms and legs hurt so badly.
She began to offer me her clothes, for a price. Impressed by these worn things, which looked simply gorgeous to a little girl who had only two dresses to wear to school, I bought a few.
Still, I had trouble summoning the courage to discuss or object to the increasing demands She made. And I knew that if I told my mother how unhappy I was she would tell me to quit. Then one day, alone in the kitchen with my father, I let drop a few whines about the job.