Chapter 6: Kathleen
Kathleen didn't remember much from her early years before she went to live with her grandmother at the Spencers' house. Her grandmother had come to visit the Hayward household to take care of Kathleen and her sisters while their mother was in the hospital. Kathy understood that the reason her grandmother took her home with her at the end of her visit was because Kathy and her father didn't get along together very well.
Life with the Spencers and her grandmother was idyllic except for the extra studying Kathy had to do to catch up on her school work. The Spencers managed to get her into the same private school her mother and "Aunt" Elizabeth attended even though Kathy didn't start first grade until December when she had turned 6. In the first few years of school Kathy needed to spend that extra time studying but by the time she was at the top of her class it was already an established habit. Although Kathy caught up to her classmates academically she never managed to catch up emotionally or socially. She felt more comfortable with children a year or two younger than her or with adults.
Although Mrs Spencer was away from the home regularly with her social gatherings and charity meetings Mr Spencer spent almost every day at home now that he was retired from business and government. Even so Kathy received so much attention from both the Spencers and her grandmother it was like she had 3 grandparents. Her grandmother Flanagan showered her with love and care and taught Kathy how to cook and clean and to set a proper table.
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Mr Spencer emphasized the importance of reading because it was needed to learn most other things. At first he read to Kathy every day but then after she learned how would have her read to him. On weekends, holidays and over summer he taught her how to play children's card games, board games, dominoes, checkers and then chess. Most importantly in the beginning he taught her how to use the computer.
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Mrs Spencer taught Kathy how to behave like a lady, how to walk gracefully and about all the intricacies of good manners and etiquette.
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Often the whole household would watch TV programs together. Kathy's opinions and comments were just as welcome as everyone else's.
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All that changed when Kathy's mother convinced her grandmother to bring her back home when her grandmother came to look after the Hayward household when her little brother, Alec, was born. Soon after her grandmother went back home the family was given some hand-me-down clothes from the neighbors. Kathy refused to wear the boy's blue jeans. It wasn't that they were used but that they were "boys". Kathy had not yet realized how poor they were, living on her father's sargent's pay in comparison to the Spencers. Her father went ballistic, yelling at her how the Spencers had spoiled her. When he started kicking Kathy her mother intervened only to be slapped so hard her fell to the floor. When Kathy went to console her mother she begged Kathy not to provoke her father. In order to protect her mother Kathy began the long, slow process of curtailing her naturally outspoken, rebellious nature.
Kathy had many opportunities at the nightly diner table to learn this self-control. She sat on the right hand of her father and whenever she contradicted or disagreed with anything he said he'd whip out his hand and slap her face saying she shouldn't talk back. Her mother's only comment was that Kathy needed to learn to keep her mouth shut. Over the years Kathy did learn to keep her opinions to herself. And when she realized her father was purposely baiting her she knew she had him beat. She would just look at him with a slight smirk of contempt knowing that unlike him she didn't need others to agree with her to know her opinion was valid.
Life settled into a measure of harmony until Alec became school aged and their mother, Margaret, got a job. Since Margaret had a college degree she got a job that paid twice as much as her husband. The shift in finances resulted in a shift in power within the family which didn't sit well with their father, Tommy. When he accepted a transfer he left the family behind and he and Margaret separated. When he sent a nasty letter to her mother she came crying to Kathy to be consoled. In the letter he accused Margaret of caring more for the children than him. He said he only courted her because the Spencers had rejected him for their precious Elizabeth. He said that the only reason he married her was because she trapped him by getting pregnant. He railed against the Spencers. Although the letter devastated her mother it made Kathy angry and at the same time seemed to lift a burden she didn't realize she was carrying. She now understood why her father never liked her and why they never got along. She vowed never to marry a man like her father.
Soon tragedy, the Spencers died, one right after the other. The family went to the funerals and the reading of the wills where they learned that each generation had received some money. Mrs Flanagan got enough to retire to a nice retirement home. Margaret got enough for a down payment for a house. And Kathleen had received enough to supplement a college scholarship. Kathy wondered if part of the reason for the Spencers' generosity to their family was because they knew about the situation with Tommy Hayward and felt guilty for bringing him into Margaret's life.
At the funerals they met the Rothman family. One person who took an instant dislike to their family was the Spencers' grandson, Wolfgang. Kathy thought he was so cold to her because he was jealous of her close relationship with his grandparents, especially his grandfather. Although Kathy resented his attitude toward her she couldn't help being attracted to him. Even as a teen he was everything she admired in a man - good looking, confident, outgoing, smart, charming and generally nice, at least to others besides herself. Over the years he became the standard against which she measured every other man she met.
