Come Home

New House, New Dad (ch 4)

Chapter Four


New House, New Dad


         The house is so warm. The school bus picks us up in front of the house. There is no river to boat across or fields to tread through to catch a ride to school. We had hot water for baths and washing clothes. It should have been heaven compared to the other house with all the spirits to keep us company.


         However, every evening after Dad got home from working, he was angry. He never smiled any more or spent time with us. His eyes were piercing and cold. When he was home, he would sit in the back yard just staring at the river that we used to live across. It was like he surely did not live here.


         Sis too was always sick. The last time she had to stay in the hospital, the doctors tried to prepare our mother to be prepared to bury her little girl. She is no longer permitted to go to school or play outside. She still smiled with her light pink lips on her pale white face. Her blue eyes looked brighter in the center of the dark swollen sockets. She no longer played with invisible people, but she never played much at all.


         Even I had stopped sleeping with my Bible clenched to my chest. The year we spent in this most comfortable home I had ever lived in, we were as if we had lost something that held us together. Now we have all the luxuries, but each of us were falling a part.


         We go to bed at night listening to the fighting. The same fight every night. "It is too expensive to live here. The electric is high, water is high, and why do these children need television. We need to go back home." Dad states his case.


         "This is home, and I am not moving back to that house with these girls." Mom replied.


         Dad would say something terrible about Mom's mother, and run out the door. Many nights we would go to sleep listening to Mom cry waiting for Dad to come home. Now she doesn't eat anything but a bite and soda. She was small before, but now she is nothing but skin and bones.


Dad was gone days without knowing where he was. Mom withdrew more, and Dad was gone more. One night Dad had come home, and Mom was out of her "cancer sticks" (what school was teaching Sis to call cigarettes). Dad started about the other house. Mom just let him ramble. Then he started toward the back yard headed to his chair facing the river. Mom stops him.


         "John," she speaks with passion for the first time in a long time, "I can not go to that house. It would be too stressful for me to live pregnant." She falls to her knees.


         Dad did not speak for a minute. "Who is the father." He is screaming now. He reaches into the bedroom table. His hand comes out with a gun. Mom wraps her arms around his legs to stop him from leaving the house.


         "I would never cheat on you." She cried.


         "Is it Joe's."


         "What?" Mom did not even  know anyone known as Joe. We begin to get scared. "Where are you going?"


         "To your mother's. She will tell me who you have been with!" Dad was walking with Mom still tightly around his leg.


         Mom keeps herself between him and the door. Rose, Sis, and I stand by the open door. Suddenly, Rose runs and without even giving another thought. She grabs the gun. As she puts her hands on it, it fires into the air. This startles our parents. Mom runs and takes the gun, but she could not stop Dad from leaving.


         Rose is stunned. She looks at mom with tears in her eyes. Mom calls for Sis and Me. She checks all three out. At this time she doesn't know where the bullet had gone. When she was sure that we were o.k, she tucks us into bed with a prayer and a kiss. Then I hear the front door to the house close with a quite creek. I knew that she was going to try to find Dad before he hurt someone or got hurt.


         The next morning there was Dad greeted us with a smile. "Are you girls ready?"


         "Ready?" Rose asks.


         "To go home." He replied with a grin.


         Rose who wanted to be a Daddy's girl somehow had forgotten the events of last night. All she cared about was that in the old house we all were happy. It didn't matter her that we had to pull together in fear. Maybe another reason that she was excited was that, though we lived here over a year, our toys were still at the empty house that we had ran from.


                   Dad was really good to Mom today. When she went to lift a bag to place in the truck, Dad took it from her. “You can not do that in your condition.”  Kiss her and rub her small belly with his free hand.          


         I take Sis by the hand as we get out of the truck. This time Chris drove the truck. Mom and all three of us girls road in the cab with them. The yard of the old house was all well kept. The outside walls we painted a off white, and the windows were trimmed in light blue. There was a flower garden planted by the back door toward the river. And on down the path between the house and the river was a vegetable garden.


         There was something missing. What was not there? The out house. Of course with three little girls, it doesn't take to figure what was missing. Sis pulls my hand. " I got to go." She whispers.


         Not knowing what to say, I ask my dad. He got all excited. Took Mom by the hand and led all of us into a room off from our old bedroom. There was a new room with a commode, sink, and a real tub (like the one we just left). We all were happy about not going out in the dark and stormy nights to do our business. However, it was short lived. He pointed out the barrels outside to catch rain water to bathe and flush the toilet.


         This had to be where our dad had been disappearing. The house was painted just like a painting that Mom had shown me years ago of her dream house. I thought that was so romantic. Maybe this is where we do belong.


         We still have to use candles and lamps. I kind of liked that, but I was uneasy when sun began to fall. We took our old rooms. This time they were different. Our room was painted pink with all our toys decorating our new beds. The ceiling was light blue with puffy clouds painted on it. The wooden floor was shinny as a new one, and the walls had splatters of other colors. Sis loved bright colors. There were enough rooms that we all could have our own, we had never. Rose had her bed on one side of the room. Sis had one at the end of the room, and I was opposite of Rose. This night and all to come Sis and I slept in my big bed.


         The night went well with no noises. The lady did not make an appearance. We slept well. Mom and Dad sat by the fire in each others arms well after we went to sleep. This was the first night here that Blunder did not spend the night scratching at the door to get into the house. Things were very nice. It was almost as though we were indeed home.My words are ways to leave peices of myself behind for my children.

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