Bad Connection

I could see the pain in her eyes. She wanted to cry, there was no doubt about it. Her tears had already begun to formulate in her tear ducts. I could see the tiny drops appear on her lashes. They fell slowly and quietly down her cheek and around her chin. Some fell into the crevasses of her lips and others fell gently to the ground.

I don’t think anyone could tell what her problem was; anyone but me. I knew what it was. I had been there before. I made a fool of myself crying. My boyfriend, William picked on me horribly for it too. Kept saying, “You aren’t allowed to cry, so stop it!” Those words were like knives in my chest. Can’t cry? How I supposed to show emotion then? Deep down I knew though, he had cried before too.

I drew back to the girl. I wasn’t sure what I should say. I didn’t know if I could help her. I wasn’t going to tell her to stop though… stop crying… I would never. That would just make it worse. Unfortunately, I experienced that too. William made me experience a lot with him… things I could never get used to. Things I am not sure I even want to explain because they are too painful.

I was so unsure about the girl. I thought I knew her, but I was wrong. Her face was so familiar, yet so unrecognizable. Maybe the bruises made her look different. Deep down I knew she was experiencing something like me. Maybe hers was worse… maybe it wasn’t. I couldn’t quite tell yet. I walked by her, she wasn’t too bad. Maybe a black eye, but it was covered by makeup that now trailed down her face after the tears and exposed it in a striped manner. However, I knew that the emotion pain was much worse than this physical nonsense. I know that the emotional was killing her. I knew that, because it almost killed me too.

She calmly looked at me and quickly stopped crying, trying to rub the evidence of hurt and pain of her face with her palms and wrists. That when I knew I had to do something. She was scared to cry in front of people. She couldn’t live in fear every time she cried. “Here.” I handed her my number. “Call me, we need to talk.”

She looked at me not like a crazy stranger (which any normal human would have), but a stranger that knew her pain and exactly what she was going through.

Days passed- no call. Weeks passed- no call. What was with her? I knew what was up. I knew the pain and fear took her over. It hurt her so bad, it even scared me. Then- RING! RING! RING! It happened. She called. I picked up and said nothing. I didn’t want to scare her more. Finally, after five minutes of dead air, she spoke. She spoke of it all.

Her boyfriend was the problem. (Gee, that sounded oddly familiar…) He called her names, cheated, made her do all his things like chores, make him food, clean his room, homework, anything he didn’t want to do- he figured that’s what she was there for. (…too familiar.) He hit, pushed, slapped, punched, grabbed, and choked her. (She was practically living my life.) He sounded like William. He did it all to her. Treated her like a white trash slave. A slave that he could boss around then have his with at the end of the day.

What was his name? She hadn’t said his name. And I wasn’t sure if she would… she said she was scared she could never get out or away from…

Yeah, from? From who??? Who are we talking about?

She sighed heavily like his name weighed 4,000,000 pounds as she said, “William.”

RETAIL WOES

I hated working there. Not because I hate clothes- I most certainly don’t hate clothing… just ask my closet. But either way, hating clothes or not, I hated working there. Knowing that for 5 hours or so, I would have to stand there wearing the same line of items I would initially have to try to sell.

Walking up to people asking each and every person how they were and if I could help them find something, trying to read people to see if I should even ask them how they are because if I did- are they kind that wants to be acknowledged in a store and if they don’t even get a smile when they enter, they may think about suing or maybe they are the kind of shopper that if I even glance at them or head in their direction I may be snapped at because I am invading their space.

I was always in the back, which was my zone. I was number 200. A number I was supposed to keep track of because I was just a seasonal helper- I suppose that would mean I was an elf. 200- Whenever someone bought a majority of pieces from my “zone” the cashier would have to tally how much money was being spent in my zone. I guess that is how the management knew who was doing their selling job.

“Sales.” That is what it read on my schedule every night I worked, which only happened to mainly be Saturdays. This meant when we were busy, I would have to use my time wisely to do what my boss considered “recovery.” I would have to start in my zone from the time I clocked on until 8 pm and refold every piece of clothing that was even remotely looked at or out of place. Then from 8 until we closed, I moved from my zone to the front. Refolding and rearranging the stacks of shirts and pants until I was blue in the face.

I hated not knowing when I would get a break, but I did know that I would rather sit on a bench in the mall for my 15 fly-by minutes rather than in the stingy little break room in the back. Every night I would take my water bottle wrapped in plastic and find a place to put it in the stuffed little refrigerator, making sure that it was not touching anything in there. Every time I opened the fridge the stench of moldy cheese and half eaten stale yogurt cups infused my nose with a scent that I was certain was not reality.

Without fail the manager who left moments after I arrived every Saturday would call at 8:30 pm on the dot to “check in.” I would always be folding the men’s jeans (which everyone claimed they couldn’t teach me because there was never enough time- when all it really was, was the front was showing and you fold them in half long way and then twice short way) about a hop, jump and skip away from the check out counter where the supervising manager would carry on a conversation that was heard throughout the store. “She is “recovering” right now. She’s doing the jeans. Oh, yeah- Linda is fine. She must have swept at least 8 times.” Then she would do that annoying fake laugh that would echo through the store and make my head pound.

We closed at 9 pm. The mall would close then, but we were just getting the closing process started at 9. The manager would have to do her money counting thing and who knows what else. I do know that it takes almost an hour to get it done, because we wouldn’t leave until 10. While she was doing that, I would still have to sweep the floor again, close and lock the front gate, remove all the garbage from the five trash cans in the store, make sure all the fitting rooms were clean of lost clothes, vacuum the fitting rooms, and then after all that was said and done, continue to do the “recovery” of the merchandise on the floor until she turned off the music. The music would be my cue to head to the storage room and clock out, grab my coat and purse, hit the lights for the place and head to my car.

Heading to car- I don’t think I have ever been so happy to leave the mall after a hard and tiring day at work in the retail business.

The Price is Right and Coffee

After breakfast, when we were all stuffed to our nostrils with bacon, eggs and hash browns, Lillian excused herself and headed up to the bathroom. At least, that is where we assumed she was going. We weren’t like vultures heading up after her to sneak a listen at the door. We didn’t have to do such a thing, we could hear her coughing and choking as the toilet flushed and the shower ran.

She wasn’t in the shower or getting ready to be; not unless she made a mess doing her business and needed to clean it out of her thick long blonde hair. However, she did turn it on every time. I suppose it was to drown her self inflicted noises out. I am sure it didn’t work because we could her loud and clear.

We all suspected what she doing. She was drawn to the toilet like a mosquito to a light. We never said anything though. We all just looked at mama who shook her head and said, “Who is ready for some Price is Right and coffee?”

That was mama’s way of moving on.

I guess it was a healer for her. After papa Jones died, she told the funeral director she wanted a TV tuned to The Price is Right during his service. We all found it a little odd, but just nodded and smiled in agreement when the funeral director looked our way for approval. And there it was on that cold November night; a 20” TV on a yellow stand behind papa’s casket. Bob Barker could be heard throughout the parlor.

Every once in a while mama would yell, “That’s not the right price you fool! You are not going to win that damn car with your stupidity.”

Reverend Burkelow would stop, stare at mama in disbelief and ask, “May I proceed?”

Mama would huff and mumble, “How am I supposed to know what’s going on when ya’all keep interrupting my game? I have to be on my toes you know?”

Lillian eventually would come down from her royal thrown with an astonished look on her face as to why we were all so calm. If you ask me, she wanted attention. I had hoped she didn’t wash out her mouth and still had an acid taste dancing on her tongue.

Lillian was the middle child of the five girls mama had and then there was me, Brett, Jacob and Jack. When Jack came along, Lillian was right around hitting puberty and mama was in denial because of it. She knew that Lillian was going to be a so-called “tough cookie” and she was right. I don’t know what gave her such an idea. It must have been the way Lillian snuck makeup onto the bus and then washed it off before coming home. Or the way she stole all mama’s nursing pads and stuffed her training bra until she was a double d.

At age 11, Lillian was already parading boys in and out of her life. She was fickle with them and desperate to fit in with Sandy and Marty, her two older sisters. Sandy was captain of the cheerleading squad and had boys drooling over her since she reached high school. Marty was beauty queen and happened to be dating the star football player. Lillian was honestly a bookworm nerd who lurked in Marty’s closet, eating donuts and cutting holes into her shirts.

She would often try to make mama mad by telling her, “I want a guy with a Harley. And maybe some tattoo’s too.” Mama would whip her head and say, “Lillian Bell Winnie, our God doesn’t condone such ridiculous behavior. You don’t know any guys with such things anyway. The boys you bring home can barely ride a bicycle.”

I never understood Lillian’s tactics to getting attention. She tried too hard to win mama’s love. We were all in competition for it, but it seemed that only one person held the key to mama’s heart… Bob Barker.

Mama would look at him with dreamy eyes and at the end of the show say, “Good job Bob- I will spade or neuter every animal on the block to please you.”

Not to say that mama never took care of us or loved us, but she just wasn’t the regular mom. She never baked cookies or brownies, unless we were invited to watch The Price is Right with her. She never wiped things off our face with spit on her hanky, never took us underwear shopping then follow us into the dressing room and say, “Is your package okay? I want grandkids some day.”

No, mama wasn’t mama until she had her fill of Bob Barker.

I think that is when everything changed. Mama sat us down in the living room, each of our hearts pounded so hard we thought there were gremlins in our chest trying to break free. “Kids: Marty, Sandy, Lillian, Paulette, Emma, Charlie, Brett, Jacob and Jack- I am leaving. I am going to California. I am going to get my Bobby.”

She called him ‘Bobby’ when she had the look of love in her eyes. This wasn’t the first time she did this. She tried to drive to California once before from here in Lipinsip, Mississippi. She didn’t make it. I guess she made it to Texas where she met Papa Jones and they had this thing on the beach. She turned around and brought him home. Two years after they met… he died, and well- you know how that went. She assured us and then reassured us that this trip would be different. She wouldn’t be stopping for any fun, just to eat and sleep.

I don’t suppose that I ever really thought mama was going to make it there. And if she did, I was close to positive that Bob Barker would not be gracing our doorstep too soon if ever.

Of course, what can I say? Mama was determined to have him. She decided to save her nickels and dimes and hit up us kids for money. We had somehow talked her into flying to California, in hopes that she would get scared and decide not to go. She referred to planes as giant pigeons that were hard to shoot down. I guess mama was more determined to get to California than we had all originally had thought, because the moment she got enough money for round-trip ticket, she was packing her bags and heading out.

Mama had her ticket to the show stuffed in her purse with her makeup. She informed us that she would be on the show in the morning and to watch closely in the crowd for her. We had no doubt we would see her. She had been practicing her wave for the camera for weeks. She would sit on the couch, then jump up like a wild gorilla and then sit back down gently in her seat, as she brushed the stray gray hairs from her eyes and pressed her lips firmly together to smudge her flying spit with her lipstick.

To me, she looked ridiculous, but she claimed that Bob Barker was her soul mate and she had to make him see it too; I suppose she was going to do it whether or not we all tried to stop her. Sometimes in my mind I wonder if mama ever planned out what to do if this hadn’t gone according to her plans. I think she didn’t. Otherwise, she would have told us plan A and plan B, or maybe not and she has plans for each letter of the alphabet and just hopes one of them will work.

And there she was, mama sat there in the crowd with her bright blue dress on and that preposterous looking feathered hat on. She stood out like cow in a chicken coop. Everyone gathered around the TV, cheering on mama as the announcer finally said, “Tilly Jones, COME ON DOWN!” My brothers and sister were hooting and hollering as mama ran down the aisle to her place in line. And just as she made it to her spot and Bob said hi, she ripped off her blue dress, let down her hair from the hat and revealed her jeans and T-shirt that said, “BOB, MARRY ME!” I shook my head and rolled my eyes. I had never been so embarrassed in my life, but now that I had already been watching, I knew I had to see what would happen next.

Bob blinked his eyes a few times as he came closer to mama to read her shirt. “Bob, I love you,” Mama blurted out when Bob came close enough. Then she grabbed him by the head and planted a kiss on him.

Needless to say, mama was escorted away by security before she could even give a bid. But she didn’t leave silent, she shouted the whole way, things we couldn’t make out, but something to the effect of, “We belong together” I suppose.

Weeks went by and mama didn’t come home. She called and called, but never came home. She said she was determined to get her “prize” and that she wouldn’t leave California without him. Finally after Lillian talked to mama and tricked her into come by saying Bob was here looking for, mama walked through the front door only to be saddened by his non-presence and maddened by Lillian’s behavior and lying.

Mama moped around the house like a dust bunny, until the Friday morning we found her on the couch surrounded by pictures of Bob Barker. We had mama’s service there at the same funeral home we had Papa Jones’. TV’s surround the place, some showing her appearance on The Price is Right and some just playing other episodes. Everyone had a cup of coffee and everyone said their goodbyes. We were all ready to lay mama to rest when Bob walked in the door and said, “I’ll never forget such a determined contestant.” Bob kissed the casket and laid a flower on top as he grabbed his coffee and watched some of The Price is Right.

Gardenias & Roses

I saw her there in my garden. This wasn’t the first time she had been traipsing through the grass and dirt to smell my rose bush. She’d smell for a few minutes, making sure to sniff each one before she’d put her hand on the stem of the one she smelled last and plucking it from my garden. And every time, I would see her flinch as she got poked with a thorn here and there as she carried away her prize, a flower to give to her mother. I would see little drops of blood fall to the dirt floor as she skipped along our dead end road into the horizon where she faded down the hill.

Some might ask why I didn’t go out and ask her not to pick those flowers every day or at least help her clean off her hands from the battle wounds she endured while fighting with the thorns, I guess I was just scared that she would stop going to the rose bush and start looking at the gardenias that were near the oak tree. I couldn’t let her do that. I didn’t want her smelling them or touching them. They weren’t prize gardenias or anything; they were just too special to me to have a little girl near them.

I knew who she was, but now I can’t think of her name without looking it up in the village newsletter from two years ago. It takes me awhile to find it, I have run my finger down the list of people and by the time I find her name the tip of my index finger is black from ink. She had won that poetry prize down at her middle school back then. I think her name is Cassie Mills, but memory doesn’t serve me very well I am most likely wrong. I guess we will call her that for now anyway.

Every once in awhile she would bring me something that she made in class or Sunday school, and I would hang it on my fridge like she was my own blood. I’d invite her in for cocoa in the winter, lemonade in the spring, fresh orange juice in summer and iced tea in the fall. She would say yes occasionally and we would sip our drinks with whatever snacks I had made for the day, she would check her out-of-date watch and say, “Thank you for the snack Mrs. Astor. I have to go though, mama will be looking for me and I need to get home for dinner. I will see you next week.” That is when she would hug me and skip out the front door. She’d peek around after I’d latched the lock on the old wooden door and she’s take a rose from the patch. I never considered it stealing, I didn’t really mind much, I just wanted her to stay away from the other flowers.

Cassie was a smart girl. Outgoing, enthusiastic, beautiful, Lord was she ever so beautiful. She had the thickest red hair and millions of little freckles all over. Every once in a while she would come over to my house after school and I would have to wash the marker off her face where kids tried to play connect the dots with her freckles. Poor girl, always nice to everyone and she always got picked on. So on some days I would go pick some flowers from the garden and make her a salad to take home to her mama.

Her mama had some sort of disease back then and was very rarely seen out and about. Cassie did her best to take care of her mom; made dinner, brought flowers (from you know where), stayed home every once in a while to clean the house and tend to her mom when she was too weak to get out of bed. I don’t know why they didn’t have a live-in nurse; it would have taken a lot of stress off Cassie.

Eventually I heard that her poor mother died from that horrible sickness. But for some reason, Cassie still took flowers from my garden. I can just assume that she takes them to the cemetery where her mom was buried next to her daddy. He was a jerk that died in jail shortly after he was arrested. Cassie doesn’t talk about him much, but I know that she wish he was around to get to know her. And for her sake I wish he was able to see the beautiful girl that she grew up to be since he had seen her last. He died when she was three, so she doesn’t know too much of him, just anything her mama told her and that wasn’t a lot either. I didn’t ever have any insight. I steered clear of him myself, he was covered in tattoos. All inked up and pierced… defiantly not what God had intended for our bodies.

I am not sure now, who was taking care of Cassie, she was considered an orphan now. I think her Aunt Lily was taking care of her for a little a bit at the house down the road still as things were being thrown away or picked at by family of the deceased. Cassie would spend more time with me than down there. She would tell me she couldn’t stand watching her family just go and throw her mama’s things away. She was 15 years old then and she asked if she could stay with me because her Aunt Lily wasn’t paying any attention to her. I said yes and had hoped she was going to ask me that sometime.

I made my spare bedroom in the house especially for her. Milli Vanilli posters were hanging around along with Paula Abdul. I remember shortly after she moved in, she would play her music loud enough for me to hear. I never asked her to turn it down; it was great seeing she had so much life in her. I figured I’d let her sing, it was best she was doing that rather than moping around after losing her mother. She was a great singer anyway and I never minded the racket. She would hum Straight Up by Paula Abdul, and every once in a while she would catch me singing along because the song grew on me.

Still, as she lived here with me, she would walk to the roses, smell for a few minutes, making sure to sniff each one before she’d put her hand on the stem of the one she smelled last and plucking it from my garden. This time though she brought the flowers to me. She still never said anything about taking them; she must have known I knew she was taking them. I’d fill up a vase and by the end of the week; my kitchen would look like a garden. She still never went by those gardenias.

My husband Lloyd Whitney Astor died in 1943, two years after we got married in San Jose, California. Just five weeks after our wedding, the inevitable happened: he was shipped off to the war. We had always worried it would happen. He didn’t wasn’t to go, of course; neither of us did, but we spoke of it often-­­ because we knew his time would come. We had married on a Saturday night, March 17, 1941 in a church downtown, the same church that my mama been married in. I was just 24 years old. The next day we left for our honey moon to Boston, Massachusetts. Shortly after arriving, Lloyd took me to the house he had bought as a wedding gift, a beautiful little house in Medford, with a white picket fence and a garden in the front. Three days after we moved in, he got his orders calling him to duty. Before he left, he planted the gardenias out in the garden and told me that if I sat there next to them, I would always and forever feel his love while he was away. He wrote many times and called as often as he could. He would always sign saying, “My deepest love to my new bride and forever my wife, Lloyd.” Two years later after never coming home for a visit, the letters stopped from him and I received one instead from the Sergeant stating he had been killed in battle and that his things would be sent home right away along with his body for proper burial. When his body was shipped home, we buried him next to the gardenias. I never got married again and I never once missed a day when I went out and sat in the garden near the gardenias.

After awhile, Cassie started to get sick. She wouldn’t talk to me, wouldn’t eat, and barely leave her room. I called the doctor on May 28th, 2008 but by the time he arrived, Cassie had died in her room. The doctor said she had Huntington's disease that was passed from her mother.

I laid Cassie under the rose bush with a nice head stone that read, “The Daughter I never had or never will have, a loving girl whose life was cut short, may she rest in peace with our Lord our God.”

My Sally Michaels

I would walk to the river every weekend with Sally Michaels. We would hold hands as we skipped down the road singing “Somewhere over the Rainbow.” We would belt it out so loud it would be earsplitting to the neighbors. Sometimes it would rain and we would catch the falling drops in our mouth, but most the time it would shine so bright that we would have contests to see who could look at the sun the longest without turning our head to blink away the polka dots in our eyes. She was my best friend then and we were inseparable. Sally and I were like two peas in a pod. We would finish each other’s sentences and dress alike to the point of being unnoticeable as ourselves. Sally was a silly girl. She could always make me laugh. She would bend over backwards or do flips on the trampoline like an acrobat. She would be the one to initiate karaoke at parties by singing “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.”

She and I both had long thick flowing blonde hair, stunning ocean blue eyes and a favorite pair of paint stained jeans we wore that year to camp when we both fell in love with Mason Charlie Jacobs. We never told each other that we each kissed him in the summer of 82. We had seen each other behind the coke machines, smooching him up. I had my eyes open when I saw her standing there with her hand on a nickel pushing it into the slot of the vending machine, and I saw her there with him the very next day kissing him with her eyes open. So I know she saw me, however we never came out and talked about it, I think it was a secret we both obviously knew we had, but we just thought it would be best to not speak about it.

We were Sally and Becca; which was like pork chops and applesauce to some people. I was all Sally had. Her mom left her with her father when she was born and her father was just a dead beat who still lived with his mother. Sally always told me that I changed her life. She’d say, “I am never going to let go of you Becca, you have changed my life for the better.” I never really knew what that meant. I could just assume it had something to do with the slump she was in with her family life.

Sally was so beautiful, much more than me. That is what I have believed since kindergarten when we first shared our lunch’s together out by the swing set. Ever since I can remember, she had a porcelain looking face that looked like she had permanently painted on rosy cheeks. Her lips had always been the color of red like the poisonous apple from Snow White. Her hair was softer than mine; she said she brushed it a hundred and one strokes every night before bed and a hundred and one more in the morning before breakfast. Maybe that was why hers was so shiny and straight and mine looked dull and kinky.

Even though I would insist that she was so much prettier than me, she’d look at me and roll her eyes as she’d say, “Ha, you’re the pretty one Becca. Don’t flatter me with lies.”

My Daddy Paul had always liked when Sally would come over. He didn’t mind that she was around making racket with me or eating dinner with us. I thought for sure he wouldn’t want her over so much since we had not a lot of money and we didn’t need another mouth to feed every night. But Daddy Paul was so fond of Sally and took her under his wing like his daughter. He took us clothes shopping, took us to movies, bought us candy, and popped us popcorn as we sat on the couch watching Top Gun and drooling over Tom Cruise.

Daddy Paul would always take Sally home around 11 p.m. in our 1965 beat up Chevy truck that smelled like rotting leather and gasoline, just in time to call each other at midnight and watch Growing Pains together as we snickered about which of us would grown up to marry Kirk Cameron. But every once in awhile, Sally wouldn’t call me, and then in the morning she‘d tell me she forgot or fell asleep. Daddy Paul would sometimes tell me that she fell asleep in the car so not to expect a phone call.

Daddy Paul was my mom’s second husband. My real dad died when I was just one and so Daddy Paul adopted me as his own and then my brother came along four years later. He was a strong man that never liked to discipline me. He had soft hands that would hold mine when we were grocery shopping or walking through the Whitmore-and-half mall.

Eventually though, Sally and I faded as friends. She’d walk past me a school, barely glancing at me with her head to the floor. She didn’t acquire a new friend, no, that wasn’t the problem, and now I wished it was. Our junior year was hardest. Applying for colleges, or deciding what else to do after graduation. I was sure that Sally would be a shoe in for Harvard to be a lawyer or NYU to be a doctor, but she wasn’t even looking at her options. She wouldn’t talk to me and tell me what was wrong, and now that I think about it, I had spent so much time trying to be like her, I never saw what was going on right under my nose. And after awhile, Sally wasn’t showing up for school. I’d sit in math and stare at the back of Jason Coal’s head and then look to my right to an empty seat and desk where Sally normal would sit.

The news would come on at night, and tell me that Sally was reported missing by Daddy Paul. He said that he took the initiative because he knew her family wouldn’t. But I have to admit, I never thought Sally Michael’s was missing. I thought she knew exactly where she was and when she wanted to come home, she would. She had probably run away from her home because of her dad or something. Why she didn’t run to my house was weird. She always ran here. She’d tiptoe out of her house after Daddy Paul dropped her off, and she would climb in through my bedroom window at 1 a.m. and sneak under the covers with me as we would snicker about being rebellious and possibly getting caught in the morning.

Yet, something seemed different about this. Daddy Paul kept telling me, “She will turn up somewhere Twitter-bug. And if she doesn’t, then we will just have to move on.” This wasn’t too comforting. I wanted Sally back in my life now, and no one could tell me she wasn’t coming home at least sooner or later.

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The years passed without a word from her. And I can’t begin to describe how college was without her near me. Daddy Paul paid my through college, said it was because he loved me and Sally would have wanted me to go and become the best detective I could. I was doing it for her. If no one else was going to find her, I would. I went all four years to get that degree before I could start my own investigation into finding her. I had searched everywhere in 1991. The last place I looked before giving up was my Daddy Paul’s old Chevy truck. He had that towed away to the junk yard when I was a junior, right when Sally went missing.

Theodore Linchard’s Junk Yard was about two minutes away from Whitmore where we lived on the top of Pickle Hill on South 86. Theo looked at me scratching his head as he said, “I still have that truck tucked away in the storage area that your daddy rented five years ago to store it in. Can’t think why he wanted it in there and never bothered to ask. I have an extra key here, you sure he won’t mind you rummaging in it? Naw, of course he won’t… what am I thinksing. You run along there Becca, its number 86 along the Wish-wash river bank. Don’t tell your Daddy I gave you the key, he’d curse me out… put everything back where you found it Bec.”

86, 86, 86- amazingly, that number haunted me for so long that you’d think eventually it’d lose meaning. But 86 still rang clear to me as I walked along the river that Sally and I would soak our feet in on those hot summer days.

I crossed the path to the storage sheds where I found 86. I pushed in the key and turned it with all my might. Holding my breath until I was blue in the face, I squatted to the dirt beneath me and pulled up on the handle until the door flung open. There it sat, “Old Red” with disintegrating black tires worn down to the axle. The back window was smashed and I could see the rearview mirror dangling by a thread of plastic. Daddy Paul always had hay and whatnot hanging out of the back, but now the six foot bed was clean as a whistle; not speck of dust dirt or hay. I strolled my finger tip down the edge of the truck as I found my way to the passenger side door.

That is when I saw her. She was decomposed, but knew it was her. Sally Whitney Michaels, the same one that I had grown to love as a sister.

“I had hoped I could tell you one day. Maybe explain myself. But as the time went on, I couldn’t break it to you.” Daddy Paul was standing in the door way to the storage unit when I turned around. “I am sorry Becca. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. It was the only way I could get her to keep her mouth shut. She screamed a lot, telling me to stop. But I just pressed on, raping her because I had to satisfy my own needs. I went too far, I am sorry. I am so sorry.”

Daddy Paul said sorry a lot to me after that, especially since I found enough evidence to prove him guilty in the raping and murdering of Sally. I have to say that there has never been a prouder moment in my existence then putting him behind bars for life without parole.

I guess it is devastating when you find out your parents are just human and make mistakes- even if they are unforgivable.

Livermore’s Fallen Leaves

Ican remember the leaves being yellow at the time my sister and newly found love were just getting to know each other. They would look up and stare at the clouds, talking about how fluffy they were and how they looked like different animals. Her face would be tickled by the occasional blow of the wind and the grass would massage her feet as they walked to the nearest river for a dip.

Livermore was just two miles away and it seemed to always have a beautiful cove this time of year. The birds would still be on nearby branches singing summer songs as they would jump into the deep blue of the lagoon and swim with the kissing school of fish. Her face would be covered with mascara running down her cheeks and emerging upon the blue water, staining it black. He would take his hand and wipe away the streaks left upon her face.

Daisies lined the shore as if to sing to the company of Jackson and Omara. Frogs could be heard jumping around from lily pad to lily pad as Jackson chased the little hoppers saying, “We are going to have frog legs tonight, Omara. Frog legs, ya’ hear?”

My sister and Jackson were just giddy over one another and couldn’t stop to think because they were consumed with kissing. My heart was set on Travis, and that was the only reason I tagged along to Livermore. Travis always went with Omara and Jackson to the cove. He would spend hours on end walking through the forest picking leaves off the ground and putting them in his pockets. Quite silly if you ask me, but he said they made good backgrounds for his environmental scrapbook. He would sit and talk to me about the trees- the old hickories that had been growing for years and the maples that he used to climb when he was just five years old and the oak tree down the hill that he carved his mama’s name in just after she died of cancer. He would always point out of bare trees looked like upside down lungs with their braches sticking out the way there did. He would ramble on about how long those trees had been growing there and how long he’d been seeing the same ones grow since he’d been a young boy. I hadn’t the heart to tell him he still was a young boy. He thought for sure he was a grown man, and to me, he was. And he was the grown man that had stolen my heart by picking fallen leaves.

Omara and Jackson could be heard yards away laughing and giggling, while I followed Travis’ every move. He would stop every once and awhile and say: “’There’s a tree that grows in Brooklyn. Some people call it the Tree of Heaven. No matter where its seed falls, it makes a tree which struggles to reach the sky. It grows in boarded up plots and out of neglected rubbish heaps. It grows up out of cellar gratings. It is the only tree that grows out of cement. It grows lushly ... survives without sun, water and seemingly without earth. It would be considered beautiful except that there are too many of it.’ Do you know who said that Kate?”

My eyes would wander around and then I would reply, “Betty Smith. Don’t you think I know that Travis?” He would laugh and keep walking trying to find the most beautiful leaf.

Omara and Jackson would eventually have to find us after the sun began to set on Livermore, Sparkling the sky in magnificent colors of red and pink. Travis would look at me and say, “It’s a sailor’s delight but it’s a romantic’s secret weapon.”

We would ultimately wander home, the four of us still babbling about how the water was cool enough to swim in and the leaves were beautiful, when in my mind all I cared about was the fact that Livermore’s fallen leaves brought me closer to Travis.

My First Real Relationship

This wasn’t the plan you know? There never was a plan I guess. Nothing is ever really set in stone, especially when it comes to me. I never sat down and said what my life would be like. I just sort of guessed it would be “normal.” What is that anyway? NORMAL… well I guess that everyone should have known when I took my first breath that I wasn’t going to be normal and nothing I would ever do was normal. So why would this situation be any different?

I guess this would be considered normalcy: (or what I was told anyway)

1. Graduate from high school
2. Go to college
3. Get a degree
4. Find a nice guy that my mother liked
5. Date a long time
6. Marry him
7. FINALLY… have kids.

But reality always steps in the most absurd times when it is not welcome. And I guess that is what you can say happened to me. Reality stepped in and ruined my normalcy that I didn’t have going on in the first place. So the plan that was never planned… changed. I never planned on having two kids by the age of 22. But those are the cards I was dealt. I hate those cards. I wish I could put them back into the pile, shuffle, and be dealt again. But this isn’t poker or go fish. Don’t get me wrong, I love them both… in very different ways because of the different situations; I love them. They are my life, and I am sure I will feel the same if and when I have more. Whenever that may be…

I always wanted to be a journalist. As far back as I can remember that is the certain job I had chosen. That was in seventh grade that I decided that. Before that, I don’t know what it was running through my mind. I do know that when I was little, I wanted to be whatever my mom did. Whether she was working at the A & P, or Kmart, that was what I was going to do. I wish it was that easy. Saying… “I am going to be ____________.” And poof, that is your job profession.

I wish that concept worked for many things. Especially guys! I happen to choose the wrong guys; not only for dating, but for friends too. I have had them all! Ones that were annoying, abusive, distinct, stalkers, smothering, difficult… the list does go on, but I would rather not bore you. Now that I think about it, in my eyes, I did have my perfect man before. That was many, many years ago. So far back, it seems like that life and my current one are separated by galaxies. I would need a space shuttle made by NASA to get back to that life. This guy was perfect… for me anyway.

I never really understood the importance of it, and some would say I still don’t. But the meaning of love was what was really mind-boggling to me. I could never understand the word. Maybe it’s because it was used so much that the definition just slipped my mind. Or maybe all my life, the word “love” has been used out of context. “I love you” just seems silly to say. I don’t think it is in the words that someone knows you love them; I think it is in the way you act, the way you touch or look at them… maybe there is no such thing as love after you felt it once. Maybe you only get one chance at it and then that is it… the word is useless after that.

I was in love once. I was... {Thinking}… 14? I don’t know it was 1999, and I am 22 in 2007, so… {Calculating}… yeah, 14. Hmmm, I am never good at math and very rarely remember ages. Anyway, he was short. I am not going to sugar-coat this; I am not going to say he was tall with brown eyes and handsome. He wasn’t tall… he was short. He didn’t have brown eyes, he had blue. And well, he wasn’t handsome… we were 14, so he was cute. He grew up to be handsome, but back then, he was just cute. Yup, that was Zachary.

He was my type I guess, whatever that phrase means. A person that isn’t my type is someone who is, in jail, a gang, homeless… or… dead. He wasn’t any of those. He was dating one of my friends when we met though. Luckily that only lasted a week, and there were no hard feelings between them. I asked her, Courtney, if she could “hook us up.” And she did.

I first met Zach at church when we were 13. We both worked down with the 3 year old kids. I had been in transition from Johnson City school to Windsor. To my surprise, I never knew he went there. When I went to Windsor and he walked down the hall, SURPRISE SURPRISE! There he was.

We went 3 years dating on and off. What do you expect? We were 14 when we first got together… dating was nothing more than a game back then. One of us would break the others heart, we would have a good cry, it would last about a day or two, then we would get back together, fall “in love”, and do it all over again.

What would a relationship be without kissing? There was plenty of that. That was how we knew to show affection. He was a great kisser. I don’t remember the first time we “pecked” kissed, but I do remember my first REAL kiss. We were on our way up to the 5th floor. It was a youth group that we attended every Wednesday night at our church. We always took the elevator… I don’t know why. Was it because we hated walking the 5 stories of stairs or was it that 1 minute we were alone in the elevator? I don’t know. Every time we would get into that elevator, the door would close, and it would be like… for that 1 minute, we would be in another world, our own world. And he would kiss me. But this certain day, it was a different kind of kiss. He slipped his tongue in my mouth. Caught me off guard, but I thought it was great. I was getting a kiss that I have seen happen only in the movies or on TV. I was so happy that someone wanted to kiss me like that. From then on, I think that is the only kind of kissing we ever did.

               I decided that every relationship needed a song. You know, something that when people hear it, they think, “hey that is just like Ashley and Zach.” Well I loved the song “Meet in the Middle” by Diamond Rio. “It was seven hundred fence posts from your place to ours, neither one of us were old enough to drive a car.” How true was that! I even went as far as trying to count the fence posts between his house and mine, but I don’t remember what conclusion I came to. Eventually he and I agreed our song “Swear It Again” by Westlife. Back then, like I said, we were 14, everyone was jumping from boyfriend to boyfriend, girlfriend to girlfriend, so when Zach and I found each other and we had this “love” that we swore no one else had, this became our perfect song: “Just look around- And all of the people that we used to know, have just given up, they wanna let it go… But we're still trying.”

We had some great times together. I remember I used to go to my dad’s every summer to visit. And one night before I was supposed to leave, we laid on my trampoline under the stars, and talked all night. That was it. And it was all sorts of romantic… even though we weren’t really sure what romance was… but now that I think about it… it was romantic.

Every Christmas Eve, we would spend together. His parents and him, my mom and I, would all go to church for the evening service, then to his house to do the exchanging of gifts. He got me a red wool sweater once. It was beautiful, but I remember I hated to wear it because it was itchy. I should have worn it more, but I was stubborn to itchiness.

I don’t remember what it was for, but one time, he got me a necklace; the 7-ring-I love you-necklace, a ring for each day of the week. Each ring represents each day that he loves me. I still have it to this day. I loved that necklace.

He and I would have so much fun together. We were childish at times, but we were “in love.” We were in our version of love. And looking back now, he was the love of my life, probably always will be. Why aren’t we together now? That’s an easy answer… in 2002, I messed it up. He went with his grandparents to Paris, France for the summer. I was in a place called Upward Bound for the summer at Binghamton University. (A place where students who are failing classes, go to make them up. I guess it was really a summer school, just with a twist.) Anyway, I met a guy named Shane there. He was nice. I don’t know what attracted me to him. For heaven’s sake, I had a great guy, who was across the Atlantic Ocean in another country, but no matter where Zachary was, he was great. While Zach was away, I ended up dating Shane as well. Yeah! My first experience cheating… and my definite last. I didn’t find it so hard. I mean, hello… Zach was in FRANCE. It didn’t occur to me how painful this cheating thing would turn out to be. I didn’t even consider it “cheating.” But by the Webster’s Dictionary definition, that is what I was doing, cheating. Anyway, long story short, Zachary obviously came back home, and found out that I was dating someone else. I had to make the grueling choice between the love of my life and this random guy. You’d think that decision would have been the easiest one ever. Not for me, I knew I wanted to be with Zach. I always wanted to be with him. But I guess since I had already hurt him, I couldn’t be with him anymore, and deal with the guilt on my shoulders that I did that to him. So instead of making the right decision, I made the easy one… and I chose Shane.