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onto the bed.
    ‘Well, honey, what do you
think?’ asked Bob.
    ‘I’m in a state of shock.
I’ve never seen so much stuff it’s embarrassing. I don’t know what to
say to them it’s just too much, Bob.’
    ‘You’ll get used to it. In this
family, if one person gets something new, everyone gets the same. Relax and enjoy
it.’ But how could I enjoy it when I knew how little my own family had?
    The following weekend, the Irvines threw a
big welcome-home party for us. Relatives and neighbours poured in to meet me and greet
Bob. The house was crowded with people chattering, laughing, asking me questions and
feasting from a table laden with food, most of which was unidentifiable, at least to me.
My senses were already being assaulted by the stink of cigar smoke but add to that thesmells that went with all that ‘foreign’ food, and I
felt queasy. I wasn’t used to the scent of German and Polish sausage, sauerkraut,
pickled herrings and cheese. Little did I know that marrying into a German family, some
of whom were Wisconsin dairy farmers and who had brought the stinky cheeses, meant I
needed to develop a much stronger stomach than the one I had.
    Again, family and friends showered us with
gifts and I felt welcomed by their many kindnesses, although I was annoyed and
embarrassed to overhear a conversation Bob’s mother had with another woman.
    ‘She’s quite pretty,’ said
my mother-in-law, ‘but so frail-looking.’
    ‘She doesn’t look as if
she’s ever had a decent meal,’ said another.
    ‘Yes, she’s pathetically
thin,’ my mother-in-law replied, and I wondered how they would feel if they heard
me saying, ‘Ooh, she’s pathetically fat.’
    ‘She comes from a very poor
family,’ came yet another comment.
    ‘Stupid cows,’ I mumbled, under
my breath.
    ‘What was that you said, honey?’
someone asked, but I just shook my head and walked away. Then someone tapped my arm and
pulled me towards a small group of visitors.
    ‘Say something in English,
honey,’ she said.
    For a second, I didn’t know how to
respond. I wasn’t sure what she meant. ‘I’m talking English,’ I
replied. ‘English people speak English.’
    ‘Isn’t that just the cutest
thing?’ she remarked to the group, who laughed, but I still didn’t know what
the silly cow meant.
    ‘Has she had much schooling?’ I
heard another old biddy ask my mother-in-law. ‘It doesn’t sound as though
she has.’ I didn’t hear the response, but by then I’d heard enough
from behind their cupped hands and I went outside, wondering if there was anything right
about me or the way I spoke. ‘Just going to get some fresh air,’ I told Bob,
but I was seething and fighting back tears of hurt and anger.
    Some of what they were saying was true, but
I certainly didn’t need to be constantly reminded of it. I’d thought
I’d left all that behind.
    Linguistic differences often made people
laugh or ask for explanations. I could understand that, and didn’t mind being
teased or corrected, but I didn’t need to hear whispered criticism of myself it
was as if I had the plague.
    In my early days in America, simply telling
someone the time often brought laughter and teasing. For example, I would say it was
five and twenty past ten, or five and twenty to ten; Americans would say twenty-five
of
ten, or twenty-five
after
ten. There were many similar examples
of the differences in our supposed same language. Parts of cars had different names: the
British ‘bonnet’ for the American ‘hood’, ‘boot’ for
‘trunk’, ‘petrol’ for ‘gas’ and ‘wings’
for ‘fenders’, to name a few. Most people know and understand those
differences now because of television and other media, but back then, those little
differences were new and even somewhat entertaining. In America, ‘fanny’
referred to someone’s bottom, while in Britain it meant ‘vagina’. I
had to be vigilant while I was learning to speak American-English. I just hoped