Birdie and Beletta
By: Barbara J. Savage
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2012 Barbara J. Savage
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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Chapter 1
“The wind is messing up my hair-do.” Mother complained as she patted the back of her shellacked French-twist. She found a stray bobby-pin and pushed it in deeper.
We cranked our windows up without being told. Dad turned the air-conditioner on. Goosebumps bubbled up on my legs, and I wished I had worn pants instead of shorts. Ruth’s heels dug into my thigh. She stretched out more on the back seat and squashed me into the door. Mother lit her first cigarette of the journey, and my eyes began to water from the acrid blue smoke that filled the station wagon. I didn’t bother to complain. It wouldn’t have done any good.
My father, Tom Noble, turned onto the highway that led out of town. He adjusted the knob of the air conditioner and turned on the radio. He listened for a couple of seconds and then turned it off.
“Do you drive a car like you fly a helicopter?” Mother broke the silence.
“What?” Dad looked at her quickly and back to the road.
“Do you always have to be adjusting something or turning a knob?”
“I guess.” Dad brushed her off.
Mother leaned her head against her window and closed her eyes. The car rocked me to sleep.
“There’s the state line.”
Mother’s voice woke me up.
“We just left Texas.”
“Did I tell you that Louis got the apartment manager to hold a place for us?” Dad changed the subject.
Dad’s Army buddy, Louis Norton, had gotten his orders a couple of weeks earlier and had been sent to Virginia as well.
“They only had one two-bedroom left, but Louis said they will push another bed into the second bedroom room for us.”
“I don’t want to share a room.” Ruth was awake.
“They didn’t have any three bed-rooms available, so you will have to. It’s only for a few months.” Dad tried to rationalize with her.
“I hate it.” Ruth crossed her arms over her chest.
“Maybe they have a swimming pool.” Mother tried to comfort her.
I really didn’t mind sharing a bedroom with her, but Ruth found this totally unacceptable. She hated me with a vengeance. Mother tried to console her by telling her that we would be living close to the ocean. It didn’t change Ruth’s attitude a bit.
It was the first time I knew of living in an apartment. They had told me that the family had lived in an apartment when I was born in Germany, but of course, I didn’t remember that. The earliest house I remembered was where we lived while Dad was away in the war the first time in 1965. It was in Carlsbad, New Mexico, so we could be close to my grandparents. I was three and I remembered a lot of bad dreams of wicked dinosaurs, a creepy dark place under the sofa end table where I was sure a ghost lived, the floor furnace that melted my crayons if I dropped them into it, my cat, and getting my tonsils taken out. After that, they made me give my cat away because the allergies still didn’t get any better.
The next place had been Army quarters in Texas. It was a duplex. That was where I had asked about the picture of the little girl that sat on top of the TV. Mom had reacted very strangely. In a matter of a few seconds, she had put her hand over her mouth, turned her back on me, spun back around to face me, and ended up looking at the ceiling whispering “Oh, God.”
I looked up, too. I didn’t see anything to be upset about up there. I was trying to decide what I should say or do next when she pointed at the photo and sternly said, “See that picture? She was your sister. That was Debra.”
“You mean Ruth?” I thought maybe that she had gotten my sister’s name wrong. I couldn’t understand why she was mad at me.
“No. Debra died right before you were born. She died from Leukemia and is in heaven now.” Mother covered her face with her hands and sobbed as she left the room.
My mother never talked more about it, and I wasn’t about to ask. I was worried. I didn’t want to die and then never be talked about again. I had so many questions. I had no choice; I had to ask Ruth. I found her in her bedroom. I slipped in and closed the door behind me. I walked into the middle of her room. Ruth stared me down as she dropped her doll. “Did you know we had a sister named Debra that died?”
She nodded yes.
“Why did she die?”
“She got sick.”
“How did she get sick?”
“I don’t know. It just happened. It was cancer.” She stood up.
“Do you remember her?”
“Not really. Maybe? I don’t know. Leave me alone.” She went around me to the door.
“Wait. Will I get it and die, too?” I called to her back.
Ruth stopped and turned around. “Why did you ask that?”
I didn’t want to admit my fear to her, but I had to know. “Will you forget about me, too?”
Tears splashed onto my cheeks. My tears repulsed her as much as they shamed me.
“No. You’re not going to die, and I wouldn’t forget about you.”
She ran away, leaving me alone in the room. That was the closest my sister ever came to telling me that she cared about me. I actually got a warm feeling for just a little bit.
A couple of weeks later I accidentally knocked Debra’s picture off the TV. The glass broke and tore the photograph. Mom screamed and yelled, said that I didn’t deserve to live there anymore, and threw me out of the front door onto the porch. I heard the lock turn from inside. She had locked me out. I didn’t know what to do. I was too stunned to cry. The lady who lived on the other side of duplex opened her door. The walls were like tissue paper and she had probably heard everything that had just happened. She waved for me to come over to her. When I didn’t move, she asked me if I wanted to come into her house. I wanted to. She was always nice to me. She gave me a book of nursery rhymes one time. Quickly the pictures formed in my head of how much worse my situation would get if I took her up on her offer. There would be yelling and spanking. Dad would use the belt. My family would hate me even more. I shook my head no. At the same time, Mother unlocked the door. She didn’t open it. I turned the handle and bolted inside. Mother wanted to know what the woman had said. I said nothing as I ran to my bed and hid under the covers. I’ll never forget how badly I wanted to go to the neighbor lady’s house.
Dad drove like a maniac and we arrived in Newport News in only two days. He triumphantly pulled into the parking space in front of our new apartment home. It was on the first floor in the middle of a very large complex. As I entered the apartment, I was suspicious. Would it be wonderful or horrible? The door opened straight into the living and dining area. A short wall created an entrance into the kitchen. There a sliding patio door opened onto a small concrete patio. The bedrooms and the bathroom were off the living area by a short hallway. It reminded me of the house on the Dick Van Dyke Show. So far, so good.
Ruth entered our new room first, with me on her heels. The bedroom should have never had two beds shoved into it. There was barely room to walk between them. One was against the wall with the foot at the door, two feet over was the next bed, lined up in boarding school regulation, against the wall. A short dresser stood against the wall at the foot of the bed under the window. A small closet was at the end of the dresser. Ruth immediately claimed the bed underneath the window. She also claimed the closet as her play space, leaving me the whole rest of the room, which amounted to nothing.
“Look at this.” Ruth pointed at a baby-blue princess phone setting on the dresser. She picked up the receiver and held it to her ear. “It works.”
She inspected the dial mechanism and pulled a small piece of cardboard out from under the plastic in the middle. She flew out of the room with it.
Her voice echoed through the empty house. “Mother, I need a pen so I can write our phone, address, and the police number on our phone.”
“Look in my purse. Wait, did you say you have a phone? Don’t use it unless you have permission.” Mother responded.
I resurveyed the room and accepted that I would be playing on my bed until I found somewhere else I could go. I hoped that maybe I would find a new friend in all of these apartments.
That’s what I was good at, hoping. There were times that my hopeful pleas to God were answered. When we lived in the duplex, I watched Ruth get on the bus and escape to the first-grade. When she returned in the afternoon, I quizzed her relentlessly, trying to understand what school was. She answered some of my questions and even went so far as to describe the blackboard for me. I was fascinated. I couldn’t believe there was actually a place like this. I had been struggling to figure out reading for a couple of weeks, and the thought that a teacher was someone who helped someone do that thrilled me. I hoped I could go there, the next day. Maybe Ruth knew how I could get on that bus. I expected Ruth to be mean, but I hoped that just this once she was nice and would tell me how I could be so lucky and go to school.
“How do I get to go? I need help to learn to read.” I asked her.
“You can’t, you’re too little.” Ruth shoved by me and headed down the short hall towards the duplex’s only bathroom.
“Too, little? The doctor said that I would grow soon.” I called after her, as she slammed the bathroom door shut behind her.
I was a very tiny four-years-old, barely the size of a rather small three-year-old. I was very thin and very tiny, to the point of worry. The Army doctor that my mother had taken me to a month ago had said I was healthy, just extra skinny and extra little. He blamed it on my being born to early. He told me to eat, took some of my blood, and sent me out of the there with a candy. I hoped I would grow enough overnight so Ruth would tell me how to go to school. Ruth was big, and not just because she was older than I was. She was actually bigger than most children were her own age. Next to her, I looked even smaller and pathetic. I hated that people treated me as though I was a baby just based on my size. We were children in extremes, she was bigger to an extreme, and I was small to an extreme.
I always wondered if this was another reason why she hated me. All of my parents’ dreams and plans for Debra died with her. After Debra was gone, Ruth had our parents all to herself. Sure, Dad began to drink like a fish to escape reality. He didn’t drink to forget what happened, he drank to become numb to what had happened. Mother just checked out without the help of alcohol or drugs. She just didn’t interact with much of anyone anymore. Yet, for what it was worth, Ruth was their only child and the recipient of what was left of their parental love. She had gone through the illness of Debra and having to share her parents with a sibling that not only got most of the attention, but she very well deserved it. And then Debra died. Now Ruth had my parents to herself. The death of Debra wounded my parents, and Ruth was their bandage. They were fractured and a bit smaller, but they were what Ruth would have thought of as her family. Until, one day, when I was born, and everything changed again for Ruth. Suddenly, she had to share her world with another sister. I wasn’t dying, but a baby demands a lot of a parent’s attention. Once again, Ruth had to fight for the attention that this new sister vied for. I was also able to be a bandage as well. I believed that Ruth hated me, solely because I existed.
The next morning I was exactly the same size I had been when I went to bed. I needed to go to school, and I didn’t have time to grow. I had no choice. I was going to have to ask my mother.
God heard me ask my mother, oh, and my father heard, too. He had received a bulletin that the Army was starting a kindergarten on base. He told my mother to call and find out if I was old enough. He reminded her to tell them how smart I was. The director told Mother that since the school was just getting started and there were many open spaces, she would let me attend even though I was technically too young. She said that I would probably have to go for two years before I could enter elementary school. The day the director walked me in to join the class, she rolled her eyes at Mrs. Cornfoot and said that my parents thought I was advanced. Mrs. Cornfoot nodded knowingly and asked me my name.
“Darla.” I answered her and looked straight into her blue eyes. “Where do I go to get help learning to read?”
I pulled the nursery rhyme book out from the front of my pants where I had hidden it before I left the house. I thumbed through it until I found the word that I couldn’t figure out.
“I have it pretty much figured out, but I need help with this word.” I held the book up, and pointed at the word “know.”
“Oh,” Both women said at the same time and then chuckled patronizingly while they nodded at each other.
The director asked me, “Did your mother read you that book, and then you memorized it? That’s not really reading, you know.”
“Why would I want to do that?” I felt that she needed more information based on her knitted brow. “My mother has never read me this book. The lady next door gave it to me. Now, what is this word?”
I pointed again at the word. School wasn’t going quite the way I thought it would. Mrs. Cornfoot asked me to read the words before it. I did. The director took the book from me. She randomly opened pages and pointed at words asking me to read them. After about five times, she took a book from the teacher’s desk and repeated the process. I went along with it, because I thought this was the process to get help.
I loved going to school and learning from Mrs. Cornfoot. She was patient and understanding. Sometimes at recess, she would see that I was alone and she would talk to me. The other children would sometimes play with me, but they always kept a certain distance from me. Maybe they could sense that I was different. It always confused me. I thought I was just like everybody else. I had no idea just how different I was.
The last day of kindergarten was one of those rare, warm days with a cool breeze. The three kindergarten teachers had herded all of us children outside at the same time for morning recess. I had weaved my way through the mass of children and headed straight for my favorite shady spot under the giant oak tree at the back of the playground. I plopped down on my stomach in the soft, warm dirt. I scratched around in the powdery soil and looked for interesting rocks. I heard the footsteps crunching through the cropped grass. Soon there were two sets of shoes standing in front of me. The black, grown up sized, sensible shoes belonged to my teacher. The other set was child sized, white sandals. They were new and hardly scuffed. They belonged to Sandra from my class. Sandra sniffled above me and a small droplet of blood landed on the white leather of the top of her right sandal. It quickly soaked into the leather.
“Darla,” Mrs. Cornfoot called my name sweetly. “I need your help with Sandra.”
I looked up. The sun was behind them. I shaded my eyes with my hand. She had her arm protectively around Sandra’s shoulders. Sandra was cradling her right hand in her left hand. Her face was tear-streaked. She sniffled again and held her hand closer. I scrambled up to take a closer look. There was a tiny rivulet of blood etching its way down the side of her thumb. I traced the flow back to a small scratch.
“Remember how you helped Joanie the other day?” Mrs. Cornfoot asked me.
I nodded.
Of course, I remembered. It had been cooler, so we wore our sweaters when we went out for recess. I was lying on my back under the oak tree watching a squirrel that was bouncing from branch to branch.
The voice that talks in my head surprised me and said “Go see Joanie.”
I sat up and located her. She was sitting on the steps outside the door. She had her arms crossed over her stomach.
“Her stomach hurts. Go and help her.” The voice told me.
“What do I do?” I asked in my mind, as I stood up.
The voice didn’t answer me, as usual. I wondered if the voice couldn’t hear me when I spoke in my mind. I didn’t want any of the other children to see me and think I was talking to myself, so I stood up and turned to face the tree trunk.
As quietly as I possibly could, I spoke the question. “How do I help her?”
“Go to her. Help her.” The voice urged in my mind.
It frustrated me when it didn’t answer my question. It was always doing this to me. When I had asked my mother how she handled it, she had looked at me like I was crazy. I guessed that her mind-voice wasn’t confusing like mine. What if I ignored it? What would happen? Did I have to go?
“Yes. Go.” The voice demanded.
So it could hear me.
I threaded my way through the clumps of kids playing and running around. Joanie sat on the dirty concrete and rocked back and forth. She had her arms knotted over her stomach and was moaning. She was wearing her little brown dress and I saw that her socks matched the yellow collar. She didn’t notice me until I spoke.
“Does your stomach hurt?”
“Uh huh.” She moaned and squinted up at me while she continued to rock.
“Feel her stomach.” The voice told me.
“Let me feel it.” I bent and reached my hand out to Joanie.
She stopped rocking and held her hands out to her sides like she was going to play airplane. I put my hand on her belly and immediately images burst in my mind. I saw a bright red, a doctor with a mask on, and a small strange looking knife. My mouth went dry. It made me feel scared.
The voice told me, “She is very sick. Get the teacher. Say appendix.”
“I’m going to get Mrs. Cornfoot,” I told Joanie.
“I think it’s a little better.” She looked down at her stomach.
I ran across the playground calling our teacher’s name. Mrs. Cornfoot looked around the playground trying to find the little voice that was frantically calling to her. Finally, she identified me when I was just a few yards away from her. She bent down as I stopped in front of her.
“What is it Darla?”
“Joanie...” I had to catch my breath.
“Breathe,” she instructed me.
“Joanie’s tummy hurts. It’s her pendix. She needs help.” I pointed behind me at the steps.
“Oh, my.”
She instructed one of the other teachers to call Joanie’s mother and quickly sprinted over to the steps. I stayed where I was as my body quivered. I felt exhausted.
The next day the class drew pictures to send to Joanie in the hospital. Mrs. Cornfoot told us that her appendix had been sick, but now she would be fine. When it was time for morning recess Mrs. Cornfoot had stopped me just as I was at the door. She had me stand beside her until all of the other students were outside.
She knelt down in front of me and asked, “How did you know it was Joanie’s appendix?”
“My mind-voice told me.”
“Your mind-voice?” She searched me from head to toe. “What do you mean?”
“You know. The voice that tells you what is going to happen or what to do.”
I didn’t know what the right word was for what I was trying to tell her. She blinked a couple of times and shook her head very slightly.
“You have a gift, my child. My great-grandmother was a full-blooded Cherokee. I never met her, but they say she had the gift like you do. Are you Indian?”
I didn’t know what she meant, so I shrugged.
She patted me on the head and stood up. “Go and play.”
On the playground I wondered what my gift was. It wasn’t my birthday and it was no where near Christmas. Maybe she was going to surprise me with it later. I waited for her to give me the gift for a few days and when I didn’t receive one I decided that she had forgotten.
That had been a few weeks ago. Now, it was the last day of kindergarten. She stood in front of me with Sandra, asking me to help her.
“Sandra has hurt her thumb and won’t let me see it. I’m afraid she needs stitches. Can you help me?”
My teacher’s eyes looked a little wild. Sandra stopped sniffling and began crying. I asked my mind-voice what to do. I didn’t get a verbal response, yet I felt like I would know what to do.
“Let me see.” I reached out to Sandra.
She began wailing as she released her wounded hand and held it out to me. I had no idea why, but I felt a need to blow on it like when I practiced learning to whistle. I blew on it. Sandra stopped mid-wail. She examined her hand in disbelief.
“It doesn’t hurt anymore.” She whispered.
My mind-voice told me that she didn’t need stitches.
“It doesn’t need stitches,” I told Mrs. Cornfoot.
“Come on Sandra. Let’s go get that cleaned up and bandaged.”
Mrs. Cornfoot looked relieved. She turned Sandra around and began marching her back across the playground. Over her shoulder, she called to me, “Thank you Darla.”
After naptime, Mrs. Cornfoot stood by her desk and handed us each a small paper cup of apple juice and a single graham cracker on a napkin. After we were all settled in our desks, she perched on the edge of hers.
“It is almost time for school to be out for the whole summer. Then you will go into the first grade.” She shared her smile with us. “I believe everyone’s daddies have gotten their orders. One at a time, you can tell the class where you are moving to.” She pointed at Sandra who sat in the first desk of the row by the windows on the other side of the room. She now had a fresh band-aide on her thumb.
“We’re moving to Alabama. My daddy flies a helicopter.” She said proudly.
“Everybody’s daddies flies a helicopter.” Roy interjected from the desk behind her. “And it’s Ft. Rucker, Alabama, not just Alabama.”
“I know that.” Sandra’s face burned.
“Oh. Is everybody moving to Ft. Rucker?” Mrs. Cornfoot asked the class. “Raise your hand if you are moving to Ft. Rucker, Alabama.”
All hands went up, but mine. Mrs. Cornfoot surveyed the class. She settled on me.
“Darla, aren’t you moving to Alabama?”
I shook my head no.
“Where are you moving to? Do you know?” She encouraged me to speak as if I were shy.
“We are moving to New Port News, Virginia.”
“Her daddy doesn’t fly a helicopter,” Roy accused.
“Yes he does,” I assured him.
“If he flew a helicopter, then you have to move to Ft. Rucker, Alabama. Those are the rules.”
“Those aren’t necessarily the rules, Roy.” Mrs. Cornfoot corrected him. She turned to me for clarification, “Maybe your daddy is moving to Ft. Rucker, and the rest of your family is going to Virginia? Is that it?”
“No. My daddy has to go to special training in New Port News, Virginia. My whole family is going.” I faced Roy. “He does too fly a helicopter.”
“No he doesn’t. If he doesn’t go to Ft. Rucker, then he can’t go to the war like my daddy and fly a helicopter.” He puffed his chest out in pride.
“Roy, that’s enough.” Mrs. Cornfoot tried to get Roy’s attention.
“My daddy has already been to the war once and flew a helicopter. Now he is going twice.” I held up two fingers to reinforce my point.
“Children, that’s enough.” Mrs. Cornfoot stood up.
“You’re a liar. Your daddy hasn’t gone to the war already. My daddy is going first. Before yours. You’re a big fat liar.” He stuck his tongue out at me.
The tops of my ears burned, and my heart almost beat out of my chest. First off, I wasn’t fat, and most of all, I hated being called a liar. My sister always called me a liar, and then I got punished for it. I was not a liar. Liars went to hell, somewhere I never wanted to go.
I jumped out of my desk and yelled as loud as I could while I stomped my right foot. “I am not a liar.”
“Roy, go and put your nose in that corner.” Mrs. Cornfoot shrieked at him while she pointed to the back of the room.
The entire class watched every step Roy took to get to the back corner, and then they turned their eyes to me. They waited for her to announce my punishment. I was mortified. I had never gotten in trouble the entire time I had been in kindergarten. Here it was the last day and I got in trouble. My parents would be very mad at me. I hated the thought of standing with my nose in the corner. I was ashamed. I stared at the top of my sneakers. I felt the classroom’s eyes burning into me. I felt my eyes gathering tears. I didn’t want to cry in front of everybody.
“Darla, sit down please.” Mrs. Cornfoot said patiently.
I sat down quickly and buried my head in my arms just as the tears tumbled out of my eyes. I tasted the salty tears and felt relief wash over me.
“No fair.” Roy yelled from the back of the room.
“Be quiet, Roy!” Mrs. Cornfoot warned him as she sat back down. “Class, everyone bow your head a say a prayer for all the daddies going to the war in Vietnam. Roy, you can bow your head while you stay in the corner.”
I kept my head down and tried to think of a prayer I could say. The nun who taught my catechism class said that God likes any prayers that we say, but I wasn’t sure that I made them up on my own good enough. My ears still burned from Roy’s taunts, and I could feel my heart beating rapidly. Suddenly, I heard the little boy beside me asking God to take care of all of the daddies in the war. I was surprised he was speaking out loud. When I checked on him, I was more surprised to see that he wasn’t talking at all. I heard his voice asking God to take extra good care of his daddy, yet his mouth wasn’t moving.
“Tell him that God will take care of his daddy. He will come home.” My mind-voice told me.
“God will take of your daddy. He will come home.” I whispered.
The boy’s eyes flew open. Before he could say anything, Mrs. Cornfoot announced that it was story time.
When my mother came to collect me, Mrs. Cornfoot asked her if she could speak with her after everyone else had left. Mother and I stood silently by Mrs. Cornfoot’s desk and waited. I was growing more and more nervous with each second that ticked by. I was afraid that she was going to tell my mother about my fight with Roy. Finally, the last child and mother left, and it was just the three of us. Mrs. Cornfoot sat down at her desk and took a small brown envelope out of the drawer. She smiled and held the envelope out to Mother.
“This is Darla’s report card. I have written a note on it recommending that Darla should be promoted to the first-grade even though she is only five-years-old.”
“Oh, that’s good.”
Mother took the envelope and glanced at it before she stuffed it into her handbag. Mother and Mrs. Cornfoot both smiled at me. I smiled back, proud of myself. Mrs. Cornfoot closed the desk drawer and stood up. We walked as a group towards the door.
“If there are any questions or problems have the school call me here. Is she going to start first-grade in Virginia?”
“No. We are only going for the summer while her father attends special training. We should be back here right when school starts in the fall.”
“Good, then there shouldn’t be any problems.”
We stopped at the door.
“Oh, there’s one more thing I wanted to talk to you about.”
Mrs. Cornfoot cleared her throat uncomfortably, but remained silent. I tensed. Now she was going to tell Mother about my fight.
Mother cocked her head to the side. “Yes, what is it?”
“Mmm.” Mrs. Cornfoot shuffled her feet and wrung her hands a little. “There is no easy way to ask this. Are you aware of Darla’s gift?”
The gift. Maybe now I would get it. I did a quick look around the room, but still didn’t see a wrapped present sitting anywhere.
“Well we thought she was pretty smart.” Mother smiled.
“No. Well, yes. She is very smart, but I’m talking about how she can help people.” Mrs. Cornfoot leaned forward.
Mother tried to understand. “She helps the other children with learning?”
“Well, I meant more the way she knows what is wrong with people and how to make them feel better.”
“I’m not sure I know what you mean.” Mother knitted her brow.
“Did she tell you that she knew that Joanie had appendicitis? She told me that was what was wrong with her before Joanie was taken to the hospital.”
Mother pursed her lips and held her breath while she studied my teacher.
“Is there Indian in your heritage?” Mrs. Cornfoot seemed to change the subject.
I wanted to ask about my gift, but knew not to interrupt them.
Mother thought about the question. “Yes. My great-grandmother was supposed to have been Blackfoot.”
Mrs. Cornfoot nodded. “That might explain it.”
“Explains what?”
“Don’t worry. You’ll probably see what I mean some day.” She opened the door. “Have a great time in Virginia.”
I walked with Mother into the sunshine. I was disappointed that I still didn’t have my gift.
“Why does she care that we have Indian in us?” Mother asked herself, more than she asked me, as we walked to the car.
“Where is my gift?” I tried to switch the topic back to what was most important.
“I don’t know what your teacher was talking about. Maybe she is off her rocker.”
I had hoped I could go to school and learn to read. My hoping had happened. However, in Virginia I would have to give up on getting what I wanted no matter how much I hoped, no matter how much I begged God to change things, and no matter how much faith I kept that he would, just as the nuns told us he would in catechism class. Back when I was five-years-old, I thought I was just like everybody else. I had no idea just how different I was, but that summer things changed. I learned to see myself as special instead of strange. I also learned two truths that I have carried with me my entire life: There is a heaven. and somebody on this earth loved me.
~ ~ ~
Chapter 2
The first morning in our new room, I thought I woke up. The sun filtered through the venetian blinds and made streaks of light on the ceiling. Suddenly, in my mind I saw the front lawn of the apartment building. The light was wrong. It was outside, but it was like there were bright light bulbs instead of sunshine lighting everything. Several children had climbed one of the large trees. Ruth was one of them. A boy that looked to be about Ruth’s age was calling to the others that he could climb the highest. He had sandy brown hair. He wore a blue and white wide striped t-shirt. The others stopped their ascent and watched. He clambered higher and higher into the smaller branches. There was a snap as the branch he was on broke. His scream filled the air as he fell from the tree in slow motion. He landed hard on the ground. My mind-voice told me that the boy had broken his arm.
“Are you awake?” Ruth’s voice came from her bed.
The scene was over, and I was looking at our ceiling again.
“A boy broke his arm.” I told her.
“What?”
“A boy fell out of a tree and broke his arm.” I sat up and looked at her.
“Oh. Back at your school.” She stretched and yawned.
“No. It was here. I just saw it. He had a blue and white striped shirt on.” I tried to explain it to her.
She sat up and yawned again. “You had a dream.”
I thought about this. It was like a dream, but I knew I had been awake. Another thing that didn’t make sense was that my mind-voice had talked to me. I didn’t know that it would talk to me while I was dreaming.
“Can you dream when you are awake? I had my eyes open, and I heard my mind-voice.”
“Yes, it’s called day-dreaming. It is like pretending. You’re dumb.” She stood up. “Let’s go find something to eat.”
Mother wasn’t up yet. In the kitchen, Ruth dug through the brown bag of snacks Mother had left on the cabinet and pulled out an opened bag of chocolate cookies. We were used to making do following a move. She took two for herself and handed me one.
“Are we allowed?” I asked her.
“Just don’t tell Mother, and she won’t know. It’s our secret.”
We quickly ate the cookies. We both jumped, startled by a loud knock at the sliding glass door. Ruth pulled the curtain back to reveal Cheryl Norton. She held a jug of milk in one hand and cradled a box of cornflakes and some bowls in the other.
Ruth slid the door open. Cheryl eased her way through the door and around Ruth. She sat the supplies on the kitchen counter and pulled some spoons out of her back pants pocket.
She asked us, “Where’s your mother?”
“Go wake up Mother,” Ruth instructed me.
“Clarise, it’s me.” Cheryl called into the apartment as she sat the milk and cereal on the counter by the sink.
“I’m up.” Mother walked into the kitchen, tying her robe.
“Hey there, sleepy head.” Cheryl greeted her best friend. “I brought you some milk and cereal.”
Before Mother could thank her, there was a loud knock from the front door. Everyone left the kitchen and followed Mother. She opened the door to reveal a big, burly man.
He smiled, checked the clipboard in his hand, and asked, “Mrs. Noble?”
The movers had found us. We each had a packed suitcase with enough supplies until the moving van arrived. Usually, when we moved, all of our belongings followed right behind us, but for this short assignment, we had stored most of our household items except for the television, dishes, and other necessities.
“I’ll get out of your hair, so you can get unpacked.” Cheryl headed back towards the kitchen. “Do you want to do dinner tonight?”
“Yes, let’s send the boys for a bucket of chicken.” Mother waved to her and then turned her full attention back to the man at the door.
“Don’t forget to get dressed,” Cheryl cackled, as she disappeared into the kitchen.
After the movers had unloaded the truck, Mother sent Ruth and me to unpack the boxes in our room. Ruth opened the box with our clothes in it. It smelled like home in Texas. She emptied the box onto my bed, and then separated her clothes from mine. She refolded each of her items as she organized them into her dresser drawers. I wanted organized drawers, too. I tried to put my clothes away neatly on my side of the dresser, but ended up just bundling them up and shoving them in. Ruth pushed her toy box into the closet and began carefully filling it up. I watched her for a moment. She gingerly laid each of her fashion dolls in one end and their accessories at the other. The movers had left my toy box at the end of my bed. I had no idea where else it could fit, so I left it there. I dove into my box of toys and pulled out a handful of small plastic animals. I had a million of them. I loved zoo animals, horses, dogs, any animal I could find. I tried to untangle them and set them up at the right end of the toy box. It was too much work. I scooped a hand of toys out of the cardboard box and dropped them into the toy box. It would take forever to empty the brown box at that rate. I pushed the box over, poured all of the contents into the toy box, and closed the lid. I finished just as Ruth closed the closet door.
“Let’s see if we can go outside.” Ruth waved for me to follow her from the room.
We found Mother in the kitchen rinsing silverware in the sink.
“We’re done. Can we go outside?” Ruth asked her.
“What time is it?” Mother didn’t look up from her task.
Ruth checked her wristwatch. “Eleven o’clock.”
Mother thought about it a moment. “Ok, for one hour, and then it’s lunch time.”
“Come on,” Ruth punched my arm as she ran by me towards the front door.
We stood in a puddle of sunshine on the front sidewalk, while Ruth decided what we would do. I liked how Virginia smelled. The air was spiced with pine trees, something we didn’t have much of in our part of Texas.
“Listen,” Ruth instructed me, while she pointed towards the end of our building on our left. “It sounds like kids.”
A few seconds later a roving pack of children materialized from around the corner. They spotted us and came over to inspect us. There were three girls and one boy. I stood quietly while Ruth and the leader of the pack exchanged names and vital information. They were closer to Ruth’s age than mine.
“Do you want to play?” Ruth asked them.
“Sure. What do you want to do?” The oldest girl asked her.
“I like to play dolls.” I suggested.
“No, I’m ten now. I’m too old to play dolls anymore,” she arrogantly informed me.
“We could play tag,” the next oldest girl suggested.
I hated this idea. Everyone had longer legs than I did. I would always be the loser.
“No. Let’s climb that tree.” The only boy pointed to a large tree out in the lawn.
I realized he had sandy brown hair and was wearing a wide blue and white striped shirt. It was like my daydream from earlier. Before I could say anything, the group ran to the tree. I followed them slowly and stopped in the middle of the lawn about 15 feet from the tree. Just like in my daydream, the boy bragged that he could go highest and began climbing higher and higher. The girls stopped and watched.
My mind-voice warned me, “He is going to fall.”
“You’re going to fall and break your arm!” I yelled up at him.
He stopped and looked down at me. He had a wild triumphant grin on his face. There was a large snap. In the instant that the branch broke, his eyes became enormous round saucers. He screamed as he fell. He landed hard. His screams echoed around the apartment complex. Quickly, the girls came out of the tree. I joined them in a circle around him. He lay on the ground screaming and crying. His arm looked like it had two elbow bends.
“What is it? What is it?” A large woman bellowed as she ran ungracefully from the other end of the complex.
“He fell out of the tree, Mrs. Woods,” one of the girls yelled to her.
“That’s his mother,” Another of the girls informed us.
The large mother squatted down beside him. “Oh, dear God. What happened?”
“I climbed highest.” The boy tried to talk between his sobs.
“Don’t move. I think you broke your arm.” She noticed us crowding around him. “You children move back and give him some air.”
The boy saw me when the girl in front of me moved back.
“She said it would happen.” He pointed at me and cried even harder.
“What? She did it to you?” The mother stared me down. “Did you push him out of the tree?”
I shook my head no, vigorously.
“She didn’t even climb the tree.” Ruth defended me from the other side of the circle.
“No,” the boy hiccupped. “She yelled at me that I was going to fall right before it happened.
“She must have seen the branch breaking.” The next to the oldest girl offered an explanation.
“No. I just knew it was going to happen. I saw it in my daydream,” I explained. “He had on the blue and white striped shirt.”
“Oh.” Ruth looked at me surprised, she blinked a few times and said again, “Oh.”
“It was weird. She warned him he was going to fall.” The oldest girl agreed. “I think she told the future.”
“I don’t believe in that kind of nonsense.” The mother looked like she had eaten something that tasted bad. “I think you girls did something, and now you are trying to cover it up.”
We all denied it simultaneously.
“I’m taking him straight to the hospital. I don’t know what you’re up to, but if I find out you had something to do with this, I’ll be talking to your mothers,” she warned us as she carefully scooped her son into her arms.
We watched as she carried him across the lawn towards the parking lot. His screaming got fainter and then abruptly stopped as she put him in the car.
“We didn’t do anything wrong,” Ruth said.
“How did you know he was going to break his arm?” The girl standing beside me asked.
“She just guessed it,” Ruth answered for me.
“No she didn’t. She said she saw it in her daydream,” the oldest girl said.
I nodded my head. Maybe she understood me.
“Do you have the sixth sense?” She moved in front of me.
“What’s that?” The younger girl asked.
“Someone who can tell the future.” She answered her friend, but didn’t take her eyes off of me. “Do you?”
She towered over me. I had no idea what she was asking me.
“We have to go in now.” Ruth reached across and took my arm.
The oldest girl called after us, “Ruth, you can play with us again, but I don’t want to play with her. She gives me the creeps.”
Ruth shoved me ahead of her and whispered, “Thanks a lot. Now I won’t have any new friends. Why do you have to be so weird?”
Army families create connections as fast as they can. The active duty personnel have a built in support group from the folks they are serving with, but the families must find friends as quick as possible. It was rare and wonderful that we had friends in one post and they actually moved to the next one at the same time as us. We didn’t have to start over from scratch. Yet, there were always new friends made in each new location.
That night when Louis, Cheryl, and their daughter Cindy shared a bucket of chicken with us, Louis told us how he had just met Dad’s double in their new class. Louis sat by Dad on the couch. The ladies sat at the kitchen table with the children.
“It’s uncanny how similar they look,” Louis said. “You would think they were twin brothers.”
“There could be two of you.” Mother teased. “I don’t think the world could stand that.”
“Scary, isn’t it.” Dad said. as he washed his chicken down with a slurp of beer.
I enjoyed listening to their banter. It was nice when we had company over and they were on their best behavior. When we didn’t have guest over, Dad would get drunk, and then yell and scream at us. Usually, Ruth and I would end up being spanked with the belt for something he said we did.
“I have to see this to believe it.” Cheryl wiped her mouth.
“Well, you’ll see him tomorrow. I invited him over.” Dad pointed at her with a drumstick.
“Of course, you did.” Mother rolled her eyes.
Dad collected stray Army buddies. Our home was the weekend hangout. Mother acted like it was an inconvenience, but in reality, she enjoyed playing the hostess.
“We could grill some steaks,” Dad suggested.
“Maybe Clarise will make her potato salad.” Louis winked at Mother.
“I’m going to get jealous if you don’t watch it,” Cheryl chided him.
“Is he married? Any kids?” Mother asked.
“Yea, but they didn’t come with him,” Louis responded. “So it would be just one more.”
“Well, I’ll have to go to the commissary.” Mother was making a list in her mind. “I don’t have any potatoes or anything else for that matter. Do you need the car tomorrow? Where is the commissary anyway?”
She pointedly looked at Dad, sending the non-verbal message that he had put her out. I held my breath. Would they fight in front of company?
“I’ll take you. I have to pick some things up anyway,” Cheryl patted her hand.
I let my breath out. Cheryl had saved the situation.
“Great. Try to find some good steaks.” Dad smiled at Mother charmingly.
“I’ll do my best. You know how it goes.” Mother smiled sarcastically back at him.
The next evening, Dad answered the door to our new guest.
“Come in, come in. Have a beer.” He welcomed him. As he shut the door, he called to the kitchen, “Craig’s here, everybody.”
Cheryl, Mother, and Louis emerged from the kitchen and introductions began.
When it was Cheryl’s turn, she peered closely at him and announced, “He does look like Tom.”
“I told you so,” Louis said proudly. “It’s uncanny. Isn’t it.”
Cheryl checked first Dad and then Craig. “Their hair is the same color. Look, even their eyes are both hazel. What do you think, Clarise?”
Mother was quiet for a moment. She was comparing their sandy blond hair and hazel eyes. “Well, they do resemble each other, but Tom’s eyes are more green and Craig’s are more blue.”
“It depends on what color shirt I’m wearing.” He patted the front of his white short-sleeve shirt.
“Me, too,” Dad agreed with him.
“Oh, it’s more than just a resemblance.” Cheryl pointed at Dad. “Stand right next to him.”
Dad moved next to Craig, and Cheryl stood on tiptoe to inspect them. Craig looked at her a little uneasily.
“Cherrie, don’t you think you’re making him a little uncomfortable?” Louis took her arm.
She came down off her toes. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
Craig smiled at her. “That’s ok. I know it’s strange.”
“Maybe y’all are related somehow. You should see if you have any of the same relatives,” Cheryl suggested.
“Their hair is different,” Mother pointed out. “Craig’s is longer, but Tom used to wear his like that.”
“Go get our wedding photo,” Dad suggested.
Mother went to her bedroom and returned with the black and white wedding photo. It was hard to say which one it was standing beside her in the old photo: Tom Noble or Craig Michaels. She didn’t take it back to her bedroom. She sat it up on the end table at the end of the couch. Throughout the evening Dad and Craig talked about their heritage, but could never find a common thread that linked them genetically.
Craig became a permanent fixture at our house, not just showing up on weekends, but on most weeknights as well. Dad seemed glad to have a drinking buddy available at all times.
But, Craig was strange. Not strange like me, weirder. Cheryl noticed right away. I’m not sure if my mother would have ever noticed if Cheryl hadn’t started pointing things out to her. He said things that other people just never did. He openly told us that he was in the middle of a divorce, which at that time was supposed to be a reason for embarrassment.
“Louis said you were married. Do you have any children?” Mother made small talk while Dad took a bathroom break.
I sat at the table with them. I was coloring in my favorite coloring book. It had beautiful horses prancing and posing on every page.
“Two little girls.” He pointed at me. “They are about Darla’s age.
“Where are they staying?”
“They live in New York.”
“Are they staying with her family while you’re here?” Mother tried to understand.
“No, we are in the middle of a divorce.”
“Oh.” Mother searched for the right response. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”
She stood up and went in the kitchen, obviously embarrassed.
“It’s ok. What really hurts is not seeing my daughters,” he called after her. He turned to me and softly said, “That’s why I like coming over here so much. At least I can be around you. You’re close in age to them.”
Mother returned at the end of his words. She stood beside her chair and looked confused. “Yes, that is what you said.”
I put my crayon down and asked him, “What’s a divorce?”
Mother answered before he could, “We don’t talk about it.”
He laughed. “Ah, the innocence of childhood.”
“But what is it?” I hated not knowing what something meant.
She sat down and spoke to me even though she kept her eyes on him. “It’s when a mommy and daddy decide not to be married anymore.”
“How can they decide that?” I didn’t understand. “Will you and Dad decide to have a divorce?”
She took a quick intake of breath. “Don’t ever say that.”
Dad returned at that moment and took his seat. “Say what?”
Mother flourished her hand at me. “She wants to know if we will ever get a divorce.”
“No.” Dad looked uncomfortable. “Why would she ask that?”
“Ask your new friend.” Mother stood up. “Darla, it’s time for bed. Go brush your teeth.”
She disappeared into the kitchen.
Craig admitted that he was scared of his impending departure to serve in Vietnam one Saturday afternoon over a game of cards with my father.
He asked, “Aren’t you scared to go?”
“You know this is my second tour, don’t you?” Dad shuffled the cards and started dealing them out.
“They can make you go twice?” Craig’s voice cracked on the last word as he picked his cards up.
“No. I volunteered.” Dad fanned his cards and sorted them.
“Are you crazy? Why would you do that? Can’t you get out of it?” Craig sat his cards back on the table.
Dad scratched his head. He wasn’t looking too happy about being called crazy. “Well I guess I could, but I don’t think it would be too easy.”
“If I could get out of it, I surely would. What do you think it would take for me to keep from going?”
Dad bunched his cards into a stack and laid them face down on the table while he considered the question. “You would have to be found completely insane or commit a serious crime and get locked up. That’s about the only way I know of.”
“Those choices aren’t too good.” Craig shook his head slightly.
“What are you so scared about? They trained you just like me. Look. I went once and came back alive.” Dad held his hands out palms up.
“I am scared to death about being captured. I’ve heard that if you are captured, it’s like a slow death. Is that what you think?”
Dad’s lips thinned as he considered this statement. “Well, I guess so. The best thing to do is follow orders, be careful, and hope it doesn’t happen. That’s just about all you can do.”
Dad took the last slug of his beer and headed for the kitchen.
Craig followed him. “I can’t stand the thought of a long tortuous death. I’ll make a pact with you. Promise me that if it looks like I’m going to be captured, you’ll shoot me first, and I promise I’ll do the same for you.”
Dad stopped in his tracks. He turned and faced him. “I don’t know if I can promise you that.”
“I would do it for you. Aren’t we buddies?” Craig’s voice was screechy.
Half-heartedly dad murmured, “Yeah, sure.”
Craig brought this pact up frequently, reminding Dad that he had promised.
A week later, Craig asked him, “Where do you keep your service revolver?”
Dad was in mid-swallow and coughed before he could answer. “I put it away.”
“Where?” Craig took a sip from his gold can.
“Where I keep it, that’s where.” Dad used his “don’t push me” tone. “Why do you ask?”
“I thought maybe if you needed to clean it, I could watch.” Craig’s beer shook a little when he took the next sip.
“What? Why would you want to watch me clean my weapon?” Dad studied him hard.
“Ok, I’ll admit it. I need to clean mine and I’m not too good at putting it back together and I was hoping that if I watched you I could learn. You could help me.”
Dad took his time answering. “Read the manual again. Don’t you still have it?”
“No. Maybe I can bring my gun over, and we can clean them together?” He nodded while he talked. “You would really be helping me out.”
Dad cocked his head to the side. “Oh, ok. Well, sure.”
“When?”
“I don’t know, we’ll see.”
Craig asked Dad several more times that evening to name a time when he wanted to get together to clean their guns. Each time, Dad would be vague or would change the subject. I could have told Craig that it was never going to happen, but Craig didn’t ask me.
Cheryl was the only person that faced her suspicion of him head on. We had a cook out a few Fridays after we first met him. Dad and Louis were already out on the patio getting the fire started in the grill. Ruth and Cindy Norton were in our bedroom playing. They were both the same age, and of course, I was not allowed to bother them. The doorbell rang and Mother went to answer it. Cheryl moved into the doorway of the dining area to see who was joining us. I was sitting at the table coloring and drawing as usual. I heard Craig’s greeting to Mother and then a louder one for Cheryl. He was carrying a six-pack in one hand and a small lime green dishtowel in the other. He stopped by my chair, greeted me warmly, and checked out the picture I was drawing. He looked at my family portrait and then teased me that I had left him out of the picture. I pulled a blue crayon out of the box to match his shirt and begin adding him to the line up. He seemed pleased. He asked Mother where he should put the beer. Mother pointed into the small kitchen and told him to put it in the fridge.