THE DAY TIME STOPPED

Going to Meijer for my prescription and groceries, problem: no insurance and the discount cards mailed to us, have expired. The clerk is working on finding some discount and it is taking time, I need to pack for a 5000 mile trip in our RV (hoping to camp on the trip in January) to spend the last days with my mom before she dies.

As I wait, I see a picture of my mom appear in my mind, (this never happens). No time for shopping, I need to get home.

I walk in the door and Bart is leaving, “I have some errands to run, be back later!”

“A text arrived from my sister, it is a picture of my mom, she looks dead already!”

“Sorry, I will be back soon!”

Believing my mom can hang on, I hope! Twenty minutes later another text comes. She is gone.

WHAT DO I DO?  I am alone 2500 miles from family. WHAT DO I DO? I post this question on Facebook and get condolences but no help.

My sister calls, “The pastor has come to the house, he is asking us to tell him, ‘what is the most important thing about Mom?”

“SHE CAME AND FOUND US!!!!!!”

*****

47 years earlier,

“Isn’t it great to have time off from school to play?, Did your class have a play about the Pilgrims and Indians?”.

 “No,  are you moving?”

“NO, WE AREN’T!” I turn and see a U-Haul behind a station wagon. “No one said anything, but something is happening.”

Very soon I am in the third seat, leaning out the window saying goodbye, “I will write to you!”

Dad says, “NO, YOU WON’T”

Everyone is in the car except…  “Where’s Mom?”

Dad responds, “We will pick her up at the gas station.”

Sitting back, I wait, trusting Dad because he is, MY DAD, my everything! Driving up to the gas station, I am searching for Mom, she has to be here, somewhere! “WHERE IS SHE!!! Where is Mom!”

I start moving forward to get out of the car, “Is she in the bathroom?”

Dad says, “get back in your seat!”

“But Mom, where is she?”

“BE Quiet!”

Mom, Where are you? We can’t move without you!

Dad gets back into the car, “Kids, guess what, Edie is going to be your new mom!”

WHAT IS GOING ON? MY MOM IS GONE? I didn’t understand when Edie and her 3 kids moved into our house, it was weird how her three kids added to my family made 3 boys and 3 girls. I was the oldest but now became a middle child and now, their mom is suppose to be my mom?

Dad drives us to his best friend’s place. It is getting dark, we knock, when the door opens all 8 of us crowd inside the door, and stand there. “Hey buddy, Guess what I’ve decided to do? Isn’t this exciting? Aren’t you happy for me?”

“What in Heaven are you doing?”

“the kids are tired, can they lay down to nap? Then we can talk.”

Dad carries the little ones, I follow. We 3 kids lay down, he covers us and turns on the record of, “Peter and the Wolf” and later, “The Nut Cracker” My brother and sister fall asleep; I am trying to listening to the story but the sound of yelling is rising over the top of the stories.

We soon pile back into the car, we are not welcome anymore. Backing out of the driveway, we hear, “Go home to your wife!”

*********

Meanwhile, Mom is at the beautician getting “the works” done.

“What are you getting all pretty for? Do you have a party to go to?”

“He must have gotten a job to have money to pay for this. I wonder where he got a job?”

“Nobody here to pick you up?”

Can I use your phone to call home? Thank you! No one is answering, I guess I will walk.”

Mom arrives home, talking to herself, “Rich was suppose to pick me up, he made me think things were turning around and getting better; telling me to get “the works” done, he is not here to see what he paid for?”  Opening the door, she sees a letter on the table.

“What Has Rich Done Now? I cannot believe he thinks he knows kids and he leaves the bikes parked outside!”

“What do I do? Who do I call? MY KIDS ARE GONE!!! WHERE ARE MY KIDS? It might be good that Rich left, but MY CHILDREN!”

Calling the Pastor, “Rich is your friend, Do you know where he went? My house is empty! My kids are gone! All I have is a STUPID 10 page note from Rich telling me how I was a bad mom and didn’t control him like his mom did! He decided to replace me with Edie and her 3 kids? He could have left with her, why did he take my children? What do I do?”

Pastor responds, “I am on my way over! Sit tight!”

“I need to stay here because Justine will call, she is in first grade and knows the phone number, she will call her mom!” The phone is eerily silent. “I want to call my sister but I don’t want to tie up the phone, if I am on it and Justine tries to call she will get a busy signal!”

“It is getting dark,”  Pastor pleads, “You need to pack some things and come with me to my house, I cannot allow you to stay in this empty house waiting for the phone to ring.”

*********

Dad drives North into Canada to see relatives, finding no help he drives South to Missouri to his big sister. She will help me! She always fixes things!

We get to stay with my favorite cousin and play with barbie, I’m not allowed to have a barbie and they have sea horses. We spend a few weeks with my Aunt and her family sleeping on the floor of the play room in sleeping bags. We stay long enough for me to start school; Dad takes me to school.

The teacher asks, “Which reading book are you using?”

Fear and anxiety overwhelm me and all I can do is stare at her.

“Come on honey, you know what book your used!”

We leave Missouri and find a home to spend Christmas and the New Year. This house has cathedral ceilings  and open floor with a fireplace at the far end; we used a long picnic table to sit and eat, we slept upstairs: all the children sleep on the floor in one room in sleeping bags. Christmas morning we come down stairs and see pretty colored  papers to learn origami. We also drink eggnog by the fireplace. Outside we slide down the hill on a sled and ice skate on the frozen pond.

New Years Eve, all the children are in the sleeping bags asleep; I hear the church bells ring out marking midnight, and I feel something wrong. My eyes are closed but I feel someone is putting their hand inside my sleeping bag and touching me where no one should. Dad is downstairs, Mom is gone, I am alone!

Soon we are driving again, the sun is warm and strong.  Dad is all excited about this new fruit at the gas station!  It is a mixture of orange and tangerine. After the gas station we drive through the desert and stop to look at cactus, I pick a flower and soon find out the cactus flowers have thorns! My hand is filled with Thorns! Often we stop at McDonald’s to eat and use the bathroom. I proudly remember the day, finally I am able to eat a whole Big Mac by my self. I don’t know if I actually grew bigger but I felt like I won something! I have enjoyed Big Mac’s ever since.

Pulling into the outskirts of San Diego we find a dead end street to park our U-haul. We 6 children walk up and down the empty dirt field and climb the fence to check out the cement drain, picking up golf balls that fly over from the golf course, you can make money picking up golf balls. What else do you do at a dead end street when you live out of a small U-haul trailer? We eat peanut butter and Jelly sandwiches finishing one jar of this interesting mix of peanut butter and jam in the same jar with a loaf of white bread for each meal. We are sleeping in the car in cramped conditions; where do we get water or go to the bathroom?  The local 7/11 store is just down the street.  Soon the police come to tell us we cannot stay there.

Quickly, we move into a huge room at a motel down the street from the dead end campsite; the adults take the bed and we kids sleep on the floor again, soon we move into the house down the street, across an empty lot. The boys get a bedroom and the girls get a separate room, we all have beds! No kitchen chairs or table but a long countertop to stand at to eat. The only time I remember eating the older children gathered around the fridge looking for food, we found half a loaf of bread to split and we each looked for something to put on the bread. My brother chose Tabasco sauce, I chose mayo.

We have a dog named Princess who lives chained up outside and a cat shows up on our doorstep one day. We were all excited over the possibility to hold it, to keep peace we decided to each have 60 seconds to hold it in our arms; I never knew how long a minute could be while waiting for my turn, but quickly the minute leaves while holding the pretty white Siamese cat.

We start school again, this is my 4th classroom, in the fourth state, of my second year of grade school. I find many differences: the first is the hallways are outside in the sun, lunches are at picnic tables outside; once and a while we eat in the classroom as a lunch cart brings the milk, and we pay our 5 cents. The classroom is half Spanish speaking and half English speaking; our teacher speaks both languages. The playground games are the same: 4 square, 7 up, and dodge ball. I am very good at dodge ball, but each state has it’s own rules.

Life in San Diego with no money is boring; we go to the beach, (an inlet that is safe with playground equipment to climb on), sometimes we actually make it to the ocean and have a run in with jelly fish, scary. We take a ferry to “someplace” just to do something different. One day we have this HUGE FISH on our front lawn! It would take 4 of me to come to the size of the fish! It stayed there a long time, felt like forever to me.

One day, Dad takes me with him as he paints a room of a house on the beach. I think he wants me to help him a bit, showing off the kind of house he is working in, but mostly he wants Father/Daughter time; with such a big full house there isn’t much time to be his princess, like I used to be.

Another trip we go to the mountains to see some big telescope. When we got to the top Keith takes me to find a huge rock. We are off by ourselves, away from everyone. I am uncomfortable.

Mostly we sit around the house, Keith is the babysitter. We live on a double lot next to the highway, the motel, and the 7/11: the lot is dirt like the dead end street. One day Keith is spearing aerosol cans that don’t sell; he is trying to get them to explode, maybe he just wants to scare me. Other times he likes to rip apart golf balls to get to the inside saying it is poison, just for fun. These were better games than others he liked to play.

*****

Mom gathers herself, realizing she is alone; she packs everything up, asking a neighbor to hold the boxes until she is settled. She catches a bus to the farm to see her Mom and Dad. Understanding she won’t get anything done out on the farm, she moves to the city with her big sister. Anger building, Mom goes to the capital for help. She makes a ruckus, causing the attorney general to rescue his secretary. He explains, her husband didn’t do anything illegal: The Governor and the police say the same thing.

Starting life over Mom starts back at college, maybe I can finish the degree I was working on when I became pregnant and my husband was called into the service. Mom gets a job to support herself as a waitress at the local Howard Johnson’s, pretending she is just a college student with nothing to hide. One day Dad wants to make sure she stays away or maybe he just wants her to understand why he left: he sends his uncle to talk to Mom at work.  Dad’s Uncle sits at the table waiting for her shift to end. Mom keeps her composure and finishes her shift. She sits down with The Uncle, who was her doctor during the birth of two of her children. Everything is fine until he tries to explain how Dad just fell in Love.

Mom’s voice started to rise quiet loud as she SAID, “HE DOESN’T KNOW THE FIRST THING ABOUT LOVE!”

With that he leaves. Her coworkers came to offer support because they could tell she was upset, her secret was out.

Mom borrows money to hire private detectives; they find her brother-in-law willing to talk, the detectives fly her down. She walks into his work office and starts speaking with passion, “Where are my kids?”

Shushing her, he takes her to a restaurant to talk.  “They are in Southern California.” With that knowledge the case is transferred to a California Private Detective to find Her Children. They do find her children and fly her into town.

***

We have visitors driving motorcycles; they run out of gas and ask to use our phone, we let them into the house to call for help. While on the phone they asked many questions about who we are, how long have we lived here, and are we were the only children in the house? The next day these same men drive by in a black 4 door vehicle and asked my brother and I to get in. We do.

We drive up to the day care where my sister stays during the day and stop. There is another vehicle in front of us with a women getting out of the car; she walked back to our vehicle opens the door, and takes me out of the back seat, hugging me, and calling my name. I don’t really know who this is when suddenly another vehicle pulls up behind us; they are pulling me like I am the rope in a tug-of-war, between Mom 1 and Mom 2! “Someone call the Police!”