she could do one day, too.
But Margaret was a little too cowed by Mimi to compete with her that way. She always wanted more reassurances and support and approval than her mother was willing to give. So she put those feelings on a shelf, for the time being.
* * *
—
DONALD HAD BEEN off at college when they’d moved to Hidden Valley Road, and had only come home for visits. After his release from Pueblo, his stay at home seemed open-ended—until he got better, maybe, or at least could be trusted to hold a job and live alone. That day seemed far off to everyone, and for Margaret, who was eight when Donald moved home, each day with him there brought the fear of something new. Donald would lead masses for a parish of one—himself—shouting the Beatitudes, the Hail Mary, and biblical passages. He would go to the art store and buy some cheap picture frames and mount them to the wall, framing one-word quotes like sincerity all around the house. Too contained by the house, he would walk hundreds of miles around the neighborhood, county, and state.
At mass every Sunday, Mimi told the children to pray for Donald. But in public, she would titter and smile and say that their family of twelve children was a little daffy or eccentric or adorable—like the family in You Can’t Take It with You. The most she would say about Donald was that he had not been the same since his wife left him. That woman had not been a good choice for Donald. The marriage was all wrong to begin with. Now he couldn’t seem to get over her. “She was not a wife—she wasn’t,” Mimi would say, shaking her head—implying, without exactly saying, that her son’s problems were the result of a broken heart.
As Mimi doubled down on her perfectionism, the girls became her most trusted deputies. Both girls tried to help their mother—taking out the trash, mopping the floor, washing the dishes, setting the table, vacuuming, cleaning the bathrooms—as if there wasn’t a sick twenty-five-year-old man stalking the yard or writhing on the floor. Six o’clock remained the dinner hour, and whoever was home was expected to sit down and eat—even if, in the case of Donald, he had spent much of the day dressed in a monk’s robe. Mimi also tried to include Donald in family outings, but the results were mixed. When she brought him to a hockey game, he got down on his knees in the middle of the crowd and started praying. That evening, as he chewed on a mouthful of steak, he announced to everyone at the table that he was eating his father’s heart.
Hoping things might turn around for Donald did not seem to work in the slightest. Margaret turned nine, ten, and eleven on Hidden Valley Road with Donald dominating everything about their home life. Margaret and Mary got used to him exchanging blows with the brothers still at home—Joe, Mark, Matt, and Peter. Once, Donald thought one brother had made off with his medicine and tried to choke him. Another time, Donald took an entire bottle of pills and an ambulance came for him, again. The only person willing to break the silence around the problem of Donald was Jim, the maverick second son, who took pleasure in dropping by and saying what he was sure everyone else was thinking. Shut the fuck up. Get out. Why don’t you leave? Why don’t you get out of here? What are you doing living here at your age?
Jim came up with a nickname for Donald: Gookoid. That name stuck. Most of the younger siblings invoked the name more than once a day. Teasing Donald felt better than avoiding him, which drained them of all agency. Making Donald the brunt of their jokes gave them a sense of power over a situation they had no explanation for—and reassured them that whatever Donald was, he was not them.
* * *
—
ONE AFTERNOON, DONALD pulled a knife on Mimi. Margaret dashed to the phone in the kitchen and tried to call the police again—but this time, Donald lurched around and yanked the phone out of the wall. Margaret started wailing, sobbing. The wire from the phone had given her an electric shock.