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took her to religious pageants and sent her to Sunday school, an experience, she told Dr. Fromm, that gave rise to a recurring childhood dream wherein she stands up in church without any clothes on, and all the people there are lying at her feet on the floor of the church, and she walks naked, with a sense of freedom, over their prostrate forms. Another dream, also involving nudity, resulted from a visit she paid with the Bolenders to a country cemetery. In this dream she races naked around a cemetery at dawn trying to find a way out, getting lost, tripping over a headstone, then finally exiting the cemetery through high steel gates.
    Norma Jeane attended kindergarten and then first grade with Lester, a boy her age who’d been adopted by the Bolenders. The two children were given private piano lessons at home, but Lester, as Marilyn Monroe recalled, constantly disrupted the lessons by throwing temper tantrums. She additionally remembered (how could she not?) that the Bolenders would discipline both youngsters by beating them with a belt, a practice that forever instilled in her a fear of violence. Her favorite “household member” turned out to be Charlie, a pet collie that accompanied her on treks through a clump of piney woods several blocks behind the house. One morning she awoke to find that Wayne Bolender had given the dog away the night before. No explanation for this action was ever provided. “Charlie simply disappeared,” Marilyn would tell Dr. Fromm, “like so many others in my life.”
    In June 1933 Norma Jeane’s mother, currently working as a film cutter at both Columbia Pictures and RKO Studios, suddenly decided to reclaim her seven-year-old daughter from the Bolenders. For a brief period, they resided in a small rental apartment in North Hollywood, while Gladys put the finishing touches on a six-room bungalow she’d acquired on Arbol Drive, a short distance from the Hollywood Bowl. To help with the monthly mortgage payments, Gladys rented out one of the bungalow’s three bedrooms to an English couple, George and Maude Atkinson. Among the items she acquired for Norma Jeane was a white lacquered baby grand piano (and matching bench) that had once belonged to actor Fredric March. She also gave her daughter a set of Glenn Miller records and a windup portable Victrola. At the beginning of September, Gladys enrolled Norma Jeane in the Selma Street Elementary School. Determined to succeed in her new role as a doting parent, Gladys altered her work schedule so that she could take Norma Jeane to school in the morning and retrieve her in the afternoon. She used a small inheritance from her mother’s estate to hire a part-time housekeeper to help with chores and prepare meals. But by the end of 1933, Gladys had run out of cash and had to let the housekeeper go. It was the same year that Tilford Hogan, Gladys’sgrandfather, committed suicide by hanging himself, some said, with a shower curtain.
    For all Gladys Baker’s noble intentions, her plan to create a home for her daughter soon went awry. As the months passed, her behavior grew increasingly erratic. She took a medical leave of absence from her job and began spending more and more time in bed. At night, Marilyn would tell Dr. Fromm, she could hear “the lady with red hair” weeping in the other room. Gladys no longer bothered to change her clothing. On the rare occasions she went out, she always wore the same baggy black dress. Her hair was matted. She had stopped bathing. For hours she would stand at the window of her bedroom, staring out, motionless. One night Norma Jeane lay next to her in bed, clasping her hand. Not knowing what to do or say, she told her mother she loved her. It was the night she realized Gladys wasn’t well and wasn’t going to get better.
    Returning home from school the next day, Norma Jeane found her mother in bed, her nightgown hiked up to her waist, her legs coated with a patchwork of urine and feces. A foul odor filled the