Come Home

Come Home (ch 6)

Chapter Six


Come Home          


         Dad had to take the row boat and go to work. Mom had to pile all four of us in Aunt Jen's car. It was a crowded ride. Aunt Jen, Mammal, and Mom rode up front. Rose, Sis, me rode pushed together by Less and his car-seat.


         "You look happy and healthy to me." Mammal turns and looks at the smiling face of Less reaching for Sis hair ribbon.


         She looks at Mom, puts her arms around her, and tells her that everything was going to be all right. This is when I had learned that mom (Like Sara) had lost children. The doctors said that Mom was unable to carry and birth live sons. Why did she not tell me this. I would have catered to Less's every need. Is this why Sis has the problems that she faces (not as much any more)?


         "Mom," Rose begins to ask. I nudge her to stop her from interrupting their conversation before I could learn more. It was too late, they became afraid that we may have been hearing what we shouldn't.


         "Yes, Rose." Mom replies.


         "Tell Sis to put her legs down. She is kicking me in the knee."


         Mom smiles. Yes she definably had live and bickering children. That was hard not to notice when they were all pack tight into a back seat. "Girls get along. We are pulling into the doctor's office right now."


         Sis reaches down and gets the shoes that Less had kicked off his feet laughing. She tries to put them back on, but he made a game of moving his feet just enough that she could not catch them. I hold his legs still. She gets them back on him right as the car comes to a stop.  We lift Less to the ground. Have to hold tight to his hand in the parking lot. He wants to brake free and go running.


         Dr. Pride has an old fashion waiting room. He has what seems to be living room furniture. There was a leather couch with two matching chairs, two wooden rocking chairs, and a television set connected to a VCR. Dr. Pride has told us that he doesn't like cable because it sends out the wrong message to children and adults a like. The walls are painted different shades of green (like a grassy field). Yellow, blue, and red dots are there to create what is supposed to be flowers. A big tree is painted by a stream with a bird in a high branch. This side of the waiting room had a plastic picnic table for children with a few coloring books and broken crayons.


         The other side of the waiting room was painted the same green with no specialties. The adult side didn't even have a television to watch the news. Mom allowed us to play with Less at the children's side while she filled out the usual paperwork at Nurse Carrie's desk. Nurse Carrie loved my mom. She had been with grand mother during her kidney surgery, and taught mom how to care for the wound. "Who's sick?" she asks looking the bunch of us up and down.


         "Less has been running a high fever of 103." Mom said. The nurse leaves her desk and comes over to where we were playing. She pretended to play with Less and took his temperature under his arm. That was something that not even Mom could do without a big fight.


         She walks back over to her desk and writes a note in the chart with my brother's name. "He looks good today, and the temp is normal." She laughs and continued. "That is how it goes. A kid can be sick as a dying dog, but when they get here all they want to do is play. It's in their nature. Mine was like that."


         Mom finished writing. She walked over to the adult's side of the room. Mom never read a magazine or got preoccupied with others. She had her eyes on us to be sure that we were behaving as we were taught. If we weren't, we were told. "You will get a whippen when we get home." The only thing that might get us out of it is if she forgot, and that did not happen a lot.


         "Lessily," Nurse Carroll calls. She knows that we all go in together so she has four stickers in her hand. She gives all of us one. "Now big boy lets see how much you weigh." After taking his blood pressure, temperature, and throat, she smiles at Mom and says. "You have a big healthy boy." She leads us into a room where we wait for the doctor to see Less.


         We girls knew to sit still and speak with our indoor voices. We did not want to disappoint our mother and have to cut a switch when we got home. However, Less did not get to go out in public much. I don't think that we had been out but once for his check since his birth. Dad does all the outside errands. So Less pulled on the paper sheet from the table. He ran under the desk that the doctor would sit at to write his notes after the check up. My mother even smacked his hands for opening drawers that may have something in them that could hurt him. Yes he was a hand full.


         When Dr. Pride opened the door, Less was on the other side. The door bumped his head, but Less pushed the door back hard with a slam with both hands. Mom pulls him back onto her lap. I open the door. "Sorry, doctor," she says embarrassed. "I guess he has pent up energy from being sick."


         "You sure that he is sick. He is awful strong to be a sick kid." He smiles at her so that she would know that he did believe her. He checks his ears, nose, and throat. I think that he probably has an allergy that kicks in from time to time. He sat down and writes papers for medicines. " I don't think that you have anything to worry about." He says handing her the pieces of paper. "This one will bring any fever down if it comes back. This one is to fight off any allergies."


         He looks at us. "Does these young ladies need a meanness shot?" He and mom used that when I was little to scare me into sitting still for an exam. She laughs, "Not to day doctor. They are well behaved."


         He smiles at us and leaves the room.  Mom redresses Less, and we head to the door. Will Less get sick tonight?


         On our ride the girls and Less sleep. I guess the little trouble maker wore himself out. We would have never gotten away with acting like that in public. However, I'd have to admit that I have been as worried about him as Mom has. Seeing him so active gives us hope that those hot nights that we have been fighting was over. I started thinking. “Are they over.”


         The ride home was silent, and it was not long until I too had closed my eyes to sleep. The next thing I know is Mom waking us up in our yard, giving grandma a hug, and waiting for Mom to finish chit-chat with Aunt Jen so that she can unlock the door for us.


         After the Mom had opened the door, we rushed right in. "Mom!" Rose yells out the door. She is always the first to enter the house. So we run in after her. Family pictures were in the floor. Not one glass panel in them unbroken. Garbage bag torn and the trash covers the floor. Pots and pans were strewn across the kitchen. The couch looks as if they had been torn apart with a knife. On the windows the word where Sara visits the words "Come Home" were written. The only room in the house that remained untouched was our room. That is where mom sends us as she tries to wash the words off the window. The more she wiped the brighter the words became.          


                   I ask for a drink of water because I had forgotten what I wanted in the commotion. Mom left the bucket that she was putting the glass from the picture frames as she hung them back on the walls. She brings me a glass of water. "Share this with your brother and sisters. " She instructs me as she gives me a hug. "Did not mean to scream at you, but tell everyone not to come in here without shoes, Please." I nod and go back to share the large glass of water that I am not sure anyone needs.


                   We went back to playing. Less and Rose was playing with his cars. They took gravel that they had collected and created roads. Sis and I played with our dolls. I did the talking for them all, but she still wanted to play babies with me. She loved to be mommy to a limp raggedy doll that was nearly as tall as she was. She had this since she was two. She had seen this doll by the side of the road, and cried until Dad pulled the car over. He ordered me out to pick the torn doll from the side of the road. I handed it to Mom. She would not allow Sis to have it until she washed it and made it a new body. This was still Sis's best baby though it had gray hair and wore glasses. So we all spent the evening playing in our room until mom came and called us in for supper. Dad was not home yet.


         Mom lights our lamp and ushers us to the dinning room. Tonight we were just have cold cuts. "Sorry about supper, but I've been busy cleaning the mess that someone made while we were gone. She really tried to put on a show to keep us from knowing what we all do (no real man, woman, or child made the mess).


         "Where is Dad?" I ask.


         "Earlier  the boat came loose from it's rope and drifted down stream with no one to catch it. Your dad has to walk about 10 miles down stream and walk the train train track bridge." She hands us a glass of water. We have become used to drinking water since we moved back. After we eat, Mom sits in a circle with us. I loved what I knew was coming next. When we sat in a circle like this, we always sing with mom. We hear all her stories from growing up. These were the best times. Mom had gone through so much. She is much stronger than she looks.


         She holds Less in her lap, Sis and Rose huddle close on both sides, and I am across from her. I loved to be across from her. I could see the passion that she had when she sang folk songs from the hills and tell stories about the past that we did not get to witness. She sang songs that told stories. Most of them were tragedies. Songs about a drunk driver hitting his kids without knowing it. He had been gone since his wife had died, and his children had to fend for themselves. There was another song about a little def girl that gets bitten by a poisonous snake. There were so many. I loved those songs. When she sang them I could see the story in my head. I guess my favorite was the gospel hymns. Mom put so much of herself and her faith in them. Yes these would become my best memories.


         Before we knew it, we were all asleep around our mother. I open and there is Less going to the window. Sara picked him up. The two started to rock. I could not speak. I wanted to wake mom. I sat up, and Sara vanished again. "Mom," I nudge her to wake her. She notices that Less was now standing in the window. She lays Sis and Rose back on her bed. As she picks him up she looks at me, " Reach me some of those blankets then go on to bed Matilda."


         I was not going to my bedroom alone. I wake my sisters to go to our room too. The lamp had gone out so we felt our way to my bed and all climbed into it. I could not believe that I had forgotten my Bible. As I try to will myself to sleep, my bed rocked as if trying to help me go to sleep. This scared me more. I feared to breathe, I didn't dare to move, and for the first time I did not even hold Sis. I just stared at the place where someone seemed to be sitting.


         Why did I forget my Bible tonight?





My words are ways to leave peices of myself behind for my children.

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