Used

When I was in grade 13 my parents went on an extended trip to Europe.  They were gone 4 or 5 weeks.  It was partly a business trip to London and partly a ski holiday in Austria and Switzerland.  I was left in charge of my sister and youngest brother who were in grades 6 and 3.

I can imagine there are families where this situation would not be cause for concern.  Loving relatives or even neighbours would be on hand for help and respite.  The parents would have been away for many shorter trips and for this especially long one they would of course remain in close contact with their children, offering advice and care.  The teen left in charge would have learned from her parents' example how to provide for a family.  The two older brothers away at university would have been a source of calm.

Right.

I had once made a meal on my own using a recipe from Home Ec.  This would have been several years before and was something I never tried again.  The reaction from my father and brothers was too much for me.  Now, not long before they left, my mother gave me some meal suggestions and quickly explained how to make rice pudding.  We were on our own.  I remember being humiliated one evening when an older brother arrived with a friend just as I was struggling with Hamburger Helper and frozen peas.  I remember being invited for dinner by the mother of my other brother's girlfriend.  The three of us -- my sister, little brother and me -- nervously ate at a little table in their kitchen.

It amazes me to recall that my sister and brother were only 11 and 8 years old.  They would still have come home from school for lunch while presumably I was gone all day at high school.  I can't remember any of that.  Did they come home to an empty house?  Was the house even locked?  Did they have keys?  For most of my life the house had been unlocked and the car keys in the ignition.  I remember taking my brother to his hockey games but the rest is a blur.  I was in grade 13 which is supposed to be important, stepping stone to young adulthood.  I know that I spoke on the phone with a man at the faculty of music during that time and he dashed my dream of music at university.

Would it have been any different if my parents had been there?  My oldest brother has said that he brought up himself.  True enough.  We all did.  My parents parenting style was at best neutral -- though often harmful.  My sister has recently said that she felt no difference while they were away.  We just grimly carried on.

The strongest memory I have of that time is the day we three brought home Kentucky Fried Chicken.  A treat beyond imagining.  They were having a sale and we had to line up.  Somehow we got home with the boxed dinners too soon for our regular meal time.  My sister decreed that we had to wait.  I think we even sat for a time at the table, waiting.  I might have been oldest but my sister was in control.  I know her command often helped calm my many anxieties about being in that house.

We received a few postcards and letters from Europe during those weeks.  A phone call would have been out of the question except for the most dire emergency.  Fortunately, we had none.  I was paid for my stint as housekeeper with skis.  Now skiing was one thing that I loved.  The other was music.  I remember going downtown with my parents after their return to get the skis -- ones that had been rentals at the ski store.  So I could say that, like me, they were used.