Zero to Five - part two

When the twins were born just a little more than a month later, Honey took them to the office building where Don had become the darling of the steno pool. He could type faster than anyone there courtesy of the National Guard. They thought that made him unique and wonderful and also just like them. He would laugh and gossip and they all liked him equally, like he was one of them; the bitter middle-aged women and the disappointed unlovely girls . He lightened their world and they either adored him and thought him "such a nice boy” or swooned and fantasized about him. He hated it when Honey showed up and broke into that bubble. He was embarrassed to be a father at all, let alone a father of three. Mother was twenty and he, nine months younger, was just nineteen.
When Leone first laid eyes on him she thought she adored this lovely, polite and smiling young man. Something in her just knew he was safe for a troublesome teenage daughter. She breathed an unconscious sigh of relief and set about to manipulate a relationship between he and Honey. Leone felt she had a right to be manipulative. She was worried because at thirteen, Honey suddenly, inexplicably grew moody. She seemed troubled and it was then that the migraines that had plagued her off and on since childhood anchored their teeth in her head and refused to let go until the day she died.

What Leone didn’t know was that Honey had a secret. That secret worked on her and demanded behavior that Leone thought only “bad women” exhibited. Leone was constantly accusing her and worrying that her behavior would “get her into trouble”. When Don came over to study, Leone manufactured “going steady” as a cure for Darlene’s troubles. Now the other boys would leave her alone, she reasoned. Don went along with this arrangement because it seemed pleasant enough. Honey was fourteen and he would be fourteen that summer, but he was big for his age, nearly six foot and such a nice boy. It suited him to be thought of as “Honey’s Boyfriend”. The title made him feel safe instead of exposed.

But Honey wanted something from my father. She just wanted, she wasn’t sure what because the secret was so fleeting and furtive and over with no possibility of repeat and no culmination to reach. Honey was just left feeling surprised and soiled and wanting. The secret had been another nice boy once.

Leone trusted this young cousin who came to visit before being shipped off to war. It was romantic and patriotic to host the young men about to lay their lives on the line. Leone thought back to the time she folded bandages and promised all the boys she'd marry them if they'd just come back from the Great War so far removed. But now they were calling it the Second World war and Leone felt guilty, frightened for him and warm toward her cousin all at the same time. “Be nice to him,” said Leone to Honey the month before her thirteenth birthday.

Honey was nice to him because that’s what her mother had told her to be, though he was no longer a nice boy or a nice man. After he left, mother had the secret, a hunger and a growing confusion.

Don was the answer to a mother’s prayer, thought Leone, because he didn’t seem to be interested in getting Darlene alone and he was always a perfect gentleman. Honey thought she was in love. Her heart would turn over when this tall, handsome boy would walk toward her down the school hall. Surrounding him like lesser wolves around the alpha male were a constant pack of younger boys who all looked up at him adoringly. Don hung his arm around my mother’s shoulders and stood there talking to them while Darlene propped him up. She smiled and smiled.