Because of Daddy

Ialways obeyed my mom’s rule about not going to close to the curb. But that was when I was 5, now I am seven-years-old; practically a grown woman. I know that she doesn’t see it that way, but I do. And that is why I decided to test the waters with my basketball every so often. When mama wasn’t looking, my ball would roll from our driveway right into the street; make it to the middle almost then roll back to hit the curb. I didn’t go too far, just far enough to get my stranded ball. I couldn’t leave it there to go get mother, just so she could come get it. What if the mean boys down the street saw it all alone and took it? I knew they would if I left it. They threw snowballs with rocks in the middle of them at Abby and I, I wouldn’t put it passed them to take my ball. It was new, from Wal-Mart. It was yellow with a smiley face on it… and they couldn’t have it. It was mine and I was going to be the big girl I am and get it. Mom would surely understand!

She didn’t. She was smart. She sent me to my room and closed the door all the way. I hated that. It scared me. I cried and cried and cried, but she never opened it back up without saying, “What did I tell you about going that close to the curb? You could have gotten hit by a car.”

I cried more, but I knew that I wouldn’t have gotten hit by a car. The only people that came down that road were the people that lived on it. And they know kids lived here, so they went slow. But to get out of my enclosed square box that I was terrified of, I said, “I am sorry ma, I won’t do it again.”

We lived on a side road off a side road in Johnson City. There was a little store on the corner near the main road that I was never allowed to go to. Yet this was like the “curb” issue. I talked Abby into going with me every so often and that weird kid, Matt that couldn’t stop trying to hold my hand tagged along. I didn’t like him, he was too strange. I would go there to buy candy cigarettes because I thought they were cool; or “kool” which is how the older kids were spelling. Mom threw a fit every time I went there, and yet, I still did.

I guess that at some point she decided I was old enough to cross streets. I am what kids call a “walker.” I walk to school. From my sitter’s house about 5 blocks away, I walk to “Stinkin’ Lincoln.” I don’t know how that name caught on, but that is what we all called it. Maybe it was because there were crossing guards everywhere, that mom didn’t have trouble letting me walk to school. I would walk every day with Abby to and from school.

Today was different though. We made up our minds that this day we were not walking to school. We were walking home to our apartment building across the railroad tracks. Abby and I came from “broken homes.” At least that is what my Aunt called it, and I though she meant my house was falling apart, but it looks study to me. However, I guess she meant we didn’t have fathers. Although, I do have a daddy and so does Abby, they just don’t live with us. And on a day like today, we couldn’t sow our faces at “Stinkin’ Lincoln.”

Today was the day all the kids fathers lined the back wall of classroom. The day they looked at the pictures we drew that hung neatly on the walls and the day that they hugged their kids and said I love you to them because they were proud. And today, like last year, my dad wasn’t there. I didn’t invite him, so maybe it was my fault. Last year, I brought my mom and the kids laughed… I didn’t want that to happen again, so Abby and I skipped school altogether today. No parading fathers to gawk at, no kids to laugh and pick on us, no teachers with searching eyes as they call for our fathers to stand, NOTHING to hurt our feelings.

It was the perfect plan. We walked the long distance home, and made it without getting hurt. WE crossed streets, held hands, looked both ways… we were big girls. Not big enough to carry a key though. We were locked out. We came home to spite the school, and we were locked out of the house. But that meant nothing, the garage was always unlocked and it had everything we needed. Toys to play with, bikes to go to the park, and our lunches were in our bags.

Everything was going our way until the little blue car that Abby’s mother stepped out of pulled in the driveway. We scattered like loose marbles, running anywhere we could to get out of sight and hid behind towering bushes. She must have seen us because her voice yelling our names carried through the air and pierced my ears. “Abby, Ashley…”

“We’re not here…” What was I doing? I might as well have jumped on her car.

BUSTED! I had ruined the whole plan. We were dragged to school and straight to the principles like stray dogs to a pound. Humiliation hit me as the kids peeked through the crack of the door on the way to the bathroom. And at that moment I wished my mom was there in class with me because I wouldn’t be as ashamed.

The weeks following were bad. Mom made me sit in the corner of the living room facing the wall for a month, while Abby was outside playing after a week.

Seven is a hard age and I am sure it gets harder as I get older. But if I learned one thing, it’s not to skip school… or maybe it’s to not get caught.