Mom also bought some electric heaters and a refrigerator on layaway,
and we'd go to the appliance store and put down a few dollars every
month, figuring they'd be ours by wintertime. Mom always had at least
one. "extravagance" on layaway, something we really didn't need—a
tasseled silk throw or a cut crystal vase—because she said the surest way
to feel rich was to invest in quality nonessentials. After that, we'd go to
the grocery store at the bottom of the hill and stock up on staples such as
beans and rice, powdered milk, and canned goods. Mom always bought
the dented cans, even if they weren't marked down, because she said they
needed to be loved, too.
At home, we'd empty Mom's purse onto the sofa bed and count the
remaining money. There'd be hundreds of dollars, more than enough to
cover our expenses until the end of the month, I thought. But month after
month, the money would disappear before the next paycheck arrived, and
once more I'd find myself rooting in the garbage at school for food.
Toward the end of one month that fall, Mom announced that we had only
one dollar for dinner. That was enough to buy one gallon of Neapolitan
ice cream, which she said was not only delicious but had lots of calcium
and would be good for our bones. We brought the ice cream home, and
Brian pulled apart the carton and cut the block into five even slices. I
called dibs on first choice. Mom told us to savor it because we had no
money for dinner the next night.
"Mom, what happened to it all?" I asked as we ate our ice-cream slices.
"Gone, gone, gone!" she said. "It's all gone."
"But where?" Lori asked.
"I've got a houseful of kids and a husband who soaks up booze like a
sponge," Mom said. "Making ends meet is harder than you think."