No. 4

Mrs. Lafayette to Detective Quinn (Meal Plan)

Detective Quinn

908 E Jefferson

Louisville, Kentucky

June 14, 1940

Dear Detective,

I went on that stage. Eventually, the applause sat well with me. It did not affect my father, for as I said before, it was unreal, superfluous—besides my mother said that our success and his success could only come with devotion to our Lord according to our personalities and with something she was fond of saying, “the hygiene of spirit,” which I understood meant to leave him out of it.

While I craved or imagined my father’s passionate elocutions in the courtroom and the office—often over some suit about defamation—for that was his theater, when he came home, he would take to drink and fall asleep on the davenport with the newspaper over his face. It was my mother who preached at all our meals. The head of the table was set but sitting somewhere else.

He even declined the manly role to lead us in prayer. Sometimes, though, he yelled it out over his newspaper, including his folksy prayer that she would please stop holding her breath. Other times he could only nod to her or say that maybe he might do that sometime, when the hygiene of spirit moved him.

Our digestive systems revolted, quietly. We were, all of us, mere skin and bones. To perform as ideal children and singers, we needed fancy attire. We kept our growing bodies in line to save money.

We enjoyed a lovely home along the main street with a long stair set high above the mud and horse traffic, with a decent view of the little people in town and a wide porch to sit and visit. It really did feel that we were a bit on stage, though. One day when I complained about it to my older brother, who challenged me not to take it (meaning Mother) so seriously. When I asked my younger brother about it, he told me to seize the opportunity (meaning business). At that moment, I saw a way out, and, with his help, we began to play as though we were elevated in every sense of the word. And it stuck with me, the theatre. And it would impress Mother (for a moment here) and send her off (for another moment over there) for us to play a part in her play until I found experience to have her play a part in mine.

Mrs. Laura Lafayette

Copyright 2025 Christine Friesel