Let me start by saying, though I dearly love my sister, it's really annoying that I look older than she does, especially as I'm the younger one! Fran inherited our mother's fine bone structure and perfect teeth. I don't think either of them ever had a cavity! Life isn't fair, but then again, that's a lesson we learned early on from Ben, our father, a distant and difficult man. Early photos reveal a handsome couple; he a young lawyer, and our mother a recent college graduate with a degree in journalism. There are no later pictures of the two of them together.They were a match made in heaven -- and in hell! Dinner time at our home was straight out of Marat-Sade, with Mater (our mother's nickname) often making an offending item for dinner that she knew our father hated. Baked potatoes were particularly lethal. Sitting across the dinner
table, Fran and I would look at each other, squirming; we knew what was coming. We prepared for the inevitable explosion. Dinner was served, a baked potato sitting squarely on each plate. A build-up of tension, and then our father, outraged, would scream at our mother: MILDRED, YOU KNOW I HATE BAKED POTATOES! WHY DID YOU MAKE ME A G-D DAMNED BAKED POTATO!Mater would run to the kitchen in tears while Ben fumed and Fran and I sat frozen, waiting to be excused from the table. As long as I can remember, we called our mother, "Mater." Later, as she aged, she became "the Queen." It suited her.
Anyway, Fran saw "Meet Me in Saint Louie" seventeen times during that time, hoping to create the family we never had. And I......well, more to come!
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