One of Four

By Patricia Hopper

There were four of us in our house not including my mother and father, a house that was attached to three other houses. Some families had more than four kids, but few had less. Occasionally there were two, and seldom only one, except when having babies was difficult. It was considered sad to have just one child. “How lonely that must be,” someone once said. How nice that must be, I thought. To have my own room, no sisters to share with, no brother to bother with, everything to myself. 

Jean Matthews was an only child, and we all fought to be her best friend. Her house was quiet. We played games with no noise from crying siblings and no interruptions to come help. Her mother did everything. She even brought milk and biscuits to us while we played. I felt discontented after a visit to her house and complained about my siblings. Mam said, “This is the best time of your life. You’ll miss each other when you’re grown.”  Not true, I thought. Why would I miss a brother who was rough and who thought boxing was fun, a sister who whined, and a baby sister who cried over everything. Blind, my mother was, couldn’t she see our house was bedlam.  I really liked being Jean Matthew’s friend. In Autumn we sat on the bench under the apple tree in her back garden and read, munching juicy apples that fell to the ground. My sisters cried to go with me, but only I was invited, and Mam understood. There was only one child in Jean Matthew’s house.

Jean’s mother fixed tasty meals. Corned beef, spicy potatoes, carrots, pickles, tomatoes, soda bread and marmalade. Small cakes with icing followed. Food never lasted long at my house. Cakes, biscuits, tarts, fresh baked bread disappeared almost immediately.  In Jean’s house these things were stored in dainty dishes, and we could have as much as we wanted. Once, when Jean’s parents had company and her mother prepared a lot of food, I couldn’t eat everything on my plate and felt guilty. What if the famine came back? It had happened before, over a hundred years ago. We learned about it in school. People had died of starvation. “That would never happen now,” my dad said. But weren’t there missionaries in Africa? Over there, helping starving people? 

The Farrells were the largest family on the road. That family was so large they lived in two houses. I could never tell one Farrell from another and didn’t try. I never knew who lived where, and I wasn’t sure which one was the mother. We were never told about sex or babies. Children weren’t supposed to know such things. When I asked where we came from, my dad said he found us under a cabbage head. Some kids said the Stork brought them, but that had to be because they didn’t have gardens. Surely, that was why we moved to the suburbs where houses sported small patches of ground, and owners filled them with rows of cabbages, potatoes, scallions, and peas. My parents said soon there would be another baby at our house, and I began checking under the cabbages when I thought to do so. At the same time my mam was becoming larger and rounder; that’s what I should have been paying attention to. 

We didn’t have boys in our school but saw them through glass doors that separated the boys’ school from the girls’ school. Some girls liked boys, giggled when they came near. I thought they were nasty and mean. They liked to swear, pull hair, throw stones, and interrupt our games.  When people talked about wrong doers, they must have meant boys. Girls didn’t like to sound angry or threaten or hit. It was boys who did those things; they seemed to know how instinctively. Since I didn’t like boys, I was sure I would never marry. Why were husbands necessary anyway?  

My dad was the exception. He wasn’t like those boys. He played games with us, bought us ice cream and took us places. He held my hand when climbing jagged rocks at the ocean, making me feel safe. He taught me to swim, run fast, ride a bike, play soccer, and camogie (hurling). His strength was my protection.  I was never afraid when he was around.

I didn’t know Jean Matthews was sick. She missed school, but I thought that was because she was an only child, and her parents couldn’t stand to be alone sometimes, so they kept her home. I stopped by her house before Christmas. She would get wonderful presents I knew, much better than mine.  I wanted to hear all about them.  Her mother was crying that day when she answered the door, and I wasn’t allowed to see Jean. On Christmas Day, after visiting my grandmother, cousins, aunts, and uncles, I decided to go over to Jean’s house.  But my mam stopped me. “I don’t know how to tell you this,” she said. A pained look clouded her happy face, and she seemed to have trouble breathing. “Jean died this morning.” Tears edged from her eyes.  “I’ve been trying to find a way to tell you all day.”

“That can’t be,” I said. “I talked to her just the other day.”

“I know,” Mam said.

“She wasn’t sick or anything.”  

“She was, but her mother thought it best not to tell you. She wanted Jean’s friends to treat her as normal as possible.”

“Jean never said anything. I was her friend; she would’ve told me.”

“Jean was very brave. She didn’t want her friends to feel sorry for her.”  

None of this was making any sense. Jean was nine like me, and kids our age didn’t die except in an accident.

“Only old people die,” I said.

  “She had Leukemia,” Mam said. “It can’t be cured. It’s a difficult thing to understand. But Jean is an angel now.”

Mam’s attempt to ease the shock of Jean’s death didn’t give me any comfort. Her words only made me hate God, which I knew was blasphemous. He ruled the universe, so why did he force Jean to die just so she could become an angel? It didn’t seem fair. The priest said God sometimes took people to heaven for reasons only He knew, and we would not always understand. He had a special place prepared in heaven for children like Jean. The priest’s words only made me hate God more. 

I attended Jean’s funeral service at the church along with everyone in our class. 

As time passed, I felt a need to be near Jean before images of her began to fade. In Spring when flowers bloomed, I visited her grave with my mam.  Kneeling on sparse green grass, I ran my hand over her name deeply indented in a large gray stone. I felt she knew I was there as I spoke to her for the last time.  

During the period that I missed my friend, I learned I didn’t like being alone.  For a short while, I viewed my brother and sisters differently. I didn’t want anyone to die, and my sister’s whining, my brother’s roughness and my baby sister’s crying were reassuring. The rhythm of my sisters’ breathing at night, my brother’s continual aggravation, and my parents soothing voices became my refuge. For the moment, I was satisfied being one of four.