The Origin of Me, Part One
My mother was a 'ho, plain and simple. How else would you describe a woman who had four children by a man that was not her husband? As some of you might have already thought - I am a bastard.
My mother was the third of five children: four girls, one boy. Was it middle child syndrome that drove her to act out to get attention? By her own accounts, she was pretty wild as a young girl. Her teen-age years were spent in the Bronx at a time when everyone was using ration coupons during World War II. I think this was the start of her less-than-scrupulous ways - if you wanted new stockings and had no coupons, you would have to trade for them, or steal them.
Her mother, Florence, a dutiful wife, had her hands full with five children; her father, Frank, was away at war. Not being under Frank's watchful eye Catherine took advantage. Like most girls of her era there was no career for her after the war; the only option was to snag a husband. I don't know that she loved Edward Gaffney, but he was a way out of her situation at home. 1947 found the 19 year old Catherine Florence Peneno married, and pregnant with her first child. I don't know what Edward did for a living, but according to my mother it was drink.
Being the good Catholic, Mom turned into a baby machine; I don't think she even knew what birth control was. Regina arrived in 1948. The twins - Patty and Kathy - in 1949. Christopher showed up in 1950. This is where it gets a little fuzzy. What I know of my mother’s story is bits and pieces, some of it confirmed, some of it conjecture. My mother once alluded to a back room abortion in 1951. We never really discussed that. At first, she said that Edward had pushed her off of a ladder and she lost the baby. The first story is probably the true one.
Edward faded out of the picture some time around then. I met the man once, years later. He seemed nice enough, and definitely looked worn out by a lifetime of drinking. My sister, Regina, took me on a pilgrimage to New Jersey to meet her father, whom she hadn't seen in quite some time. He was remarried, had other children. I wonder what makes a man abandon one family for another. It wasn't like he was that far away.
How my mother got through the next few years, I do not know. I think she mentioned moving home for some time. One of her sisters, Terry, had married a local boy named Tommy and he had a friend named Salvatore Marinelli. My mother had known Sal even before she met Edward. Sal was a neighborhood goon - worked for the local mob doing collections. I'm sure he must have been cute and charming; he looks it in his pictures. He once told me he didn't serve during WWII because both of his legs were broken (I wonder if that was "work" related).
He and my mother became friends, then quickly became lovers. In 1952 she was pregnant again, but this time with Sal's child - even though she was still technically married to Edward, and Sal was still very much married to Rose (they had a 5 year old girl running around their one-bedroom apartment in the Bronx). Over the next year, Kay - a nickname that most everyone knew her by - moved out of her mother's apartment and Sal was helping her make ends meet. She was having enough trouble with 4 kids and now number 5 was on the way. Sal had an unusual proposition: he and Rose would raise the child.
The thought of it is staggering. This is 1952. Kay was an adulterer. Her family disowned her. There was to be no contact with her parents, or her siblings. Her father insisted on it. Kay was distraught; her family was all she had. Sal was still living with Rose.
How Sal approached Rose is beyond me. My heart goes out to Rose. Faced with the loss of her husband, she does the one thing she thinks might keep him around: raise his child by another woman.
My mom decides to name the new baby girl Theresa after one of her now estranged sisters. Rose takes the baby in, with the understanding that Kay would never take her back - or let Theresa know she was her birth mother. And Sal would promise to stop seeing Kay. Both women made their sacrifices, with both thinking they would be the one to keep their man.
posted by Frank @ 9:46 AM
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