On warm nights, the family spread throughout the house like lounging cats. But when it was cold, we slept in the same room, the pink room being the only one with heat. My mother and her six children gathered hungrily around the large furnace that squatted in the center of the room. Some shared a big bed, others slept on the floor; it was like camping out in our cousins’ yard, only warmer.
There was no working bathroom in the house. We had a small room complete with tub and toilet, but no pipes were attached to either. It was simply a room to wander into and wonder over. But for bathroom services, we used the outhouse behind the house. Sometimes we’d drag the old claw-foot tub, like a porcelain bear, into the living room, where we’d plug the drain and fill it with water heated on the kitchen stove, then hop into it in twos and threes.
I got a twin bed once, for some occasion or because my mother found one at a good price. I had it for about two days, but lost it when I peed on purpose. I was afraid to go to the outhouse alone, so I peed right on the bed, right through the Raggedy Ann and Andy sheet set. The mattress had a plastic sheath whose protective powers intrigued me and which I convinced myself I was testing, but mainly, I was afraid of the spiders that spun on silver strands along the outhouse path. Someone saw the wet sheets, and I was found out. And so, as punishment for my freestyle peeing, the secondhand bed and its new mattresses—even the pee-stained sheets—were taken from me and given to my sister Stephanie, while I got Steph’s old sleeping bag. I cried hard about losing my bed, but in the end, I didn’t miss it, and was somehow comforted by my return to the floor.
The house had once been a stop for stagecoaches, but by the time we arrived, it was divided into two large apartments. People moved in and out of the other apartment all the time, as though stagecoaches still pulled through—made stops, loaded up, then pulled off again. Brothers, sisters, cousins, and friends stepped down from unseen coaches, stayed awhile, then packed up again, left. People were here and not here, in a ghostly procession of comings and goings. Except men. There were no fathers or boyfriends in either apartment.
A young woman lived upstairs. If she had a husband, he had wronged her, or died. The scent of male tragedy clung to her. She painted her toenails red, wore ankle bracelets, and drove without shoes. My mother, who painted no part of her body, pointed out that barefoot driving was illegal.
The woman had several cats and gave me one of the tiniest, a kitten so soft and white I named her Fluff. She was warm, I was cold: that was the basis of our love. My mother warned me about holding the cat, said she’d die if I didn’t let her be, that I’d make her sick by carrying her around so much. But I couldn’t stop. I was crazy with desire for Fluff, and nuzzled my face into her fur every chance I got.