Come Home

Dad Finds Out (Ch 13)

Chapter Thirteen


Dad Finds Out


         We arrived at my Mammal's old house. It seemed empty without her there. Aunt Jen unlocked the door and gave the key to Mom. “This is your home as long as you need it. You will have the electric, water, cable, and phone. All you have to do is pay the bill. If you have problems, we all are here for you.” She hugs our Mother as she went out the door.


         Mom took Mammal's room. I think that she did so to feel closer to her mother. I guess that she needed her mother now as much as I needed mine. Aunt Carol knocks on the door. She brought Less and Sis home. Sis and Less were given the room that my mother grew up in. There were still the yellow ruffled curtains. Someone had put another small bed in the room so that their were room for two children to share. Sis took the things from the bag that was packed. She started putting things away into a dresser. A large dresser with eight drawers and a giant mirror. In the corner was a trunk. Mom said that they could use it as a toy chest. It had been Mom's hope chest. The chest that she placed all her dreams to come true at one point.


         Rose and I did not have to share a room. Rose had the room off from the dinning room that was connected to mine. Mine was off from the kitchen. You could travel a circle by coming into Rose's room, into my room, through the kitchen, and back to the dinning room. There isn't a door between our room. There was a flowered curtain.


         My room had a four panel window. The windows were close to each other to create a wonderful doorway to the sun. In front of the large window is a padded bench. I would be able to sleep there comfortable if I chose to. My bed was a canopy bed with pink curtains. I had always dreamed of sleeping in this bed. It was the bed that my sisters and I shared many years ago when we spent the night with Mammal. I was happy to have this room. I didn't bother putting any covers over the windows. I liked the sun coming in during. I could gaze at the  stars at night.


         That night Mom allowed us to leave the lights on. It was a new experience to be able to have light in the middle of the night. It was also so nice to go to sleep smelling the fragrances of fresh shampooed hair. Things were looking up.


         Dad sits in the dark living room alone. He has read the note from my mother.


         “Dearest John,


         You know that you will always have my heart, but I will not stay here with our children. I know that you will not leave or allow us to. So I had to make plans to get us to safety.


         The children will miss you, and I don't know how life is without you. I am not taking the dog or what is left of your check. All I want is for the children to be safe and confront able.


         I will always love you, but I will never live with you again.


         Your wife Jude”


         Dad was not crying. He held the paper in one hand and her wedding ring in the other. He knew that she was not ever coming back because she had never taken the ring off since he had placed it on her finger so many years ago.


         “Are you going to allow her to take our family away?” a voice asks. “She stole from us!” Said another.


         “She will be back!” Dad screams.


         The voices stop. Sara disappears from the window, and more writing replaces her. “Die, Jude” was written in blood over and over again. Blunder is howling louder and louder. Dad is so angry. He runs out with a broom. He beats the dog until there were no more sound coming from his bloody muzzle. Then he brakes the handle leaving a very sharp wooden spike in his hand. Blunder twitches. Dad looks at the piece of wood in his hand. Glares at the weakened dog. Then without another thought Dad plunged the steak into Blunder's heart.  The dog looks up at who he once thought as his best friends, and he takes his last breath.


         “Go get them!” Says a voice. “Go get your family!” Other voices join in creating a chant. “Go get them!” “Go get your family!”


         Dad leaves the dog. He doesn't even move the body. He carries the pointed handle with him to the river bank where he had tied it to a tree. He crosses the choppy water.


         Aunt Karen hears a banging on her door. She looks through the peek-a-boo hole. She was shocked to see Dad standing on her porch. He waves the weapon in the air. “Where is she?” He yells. No one answers his screams. He begins to scratch the blue Sunbird in the drive. Still Karen did not answer. She had taken our cusins to the celler.


         “I know you are there.” Dad screams in the voice of a demon. “Jude come out or I will burn the house down around you.”


         He picks up a spare gas can that Karen had to fill her mower. He pours the liquid onto the porch and was about to strike his lighter.


         “Hands up.” He turns around. He saw the cops. Karen must have called them when she had seen that it was Dad at the door. Dad laughs and drops the lit lighter. The lighter goes out before it touched the puddle of gasoline. The gun fires. Dad falls to the ground.


         He was wounded in the shoulder. They hand cuff him, and placed him in an ambulance with another cop. He kept laughing all the way to the hospital.


         The police walks to the door. Karen meets them there. “Are you ok,Mam?”


         “Yes,” she answers holding tight to her children.


         “Do you know him?”


         “Yes he is my sister's husband. He was trying to find her.”


         The police reaches the smallest of her children a teddy bear. “Call your sister and tell her to call in her address. We will have cars to patrole her area if he gets out.”


         “Why would he get out?” Karen asks with concern in her voice.


         “We just got word that he is being kept for 72 hours observation at the county Behavior Center. Then he will be released.”


         The phone rings. Mom looks at it as if it would attack her. “Hello.” Mom said in almost a whisper. “Oh hi Karen,” then her voice changed. “What's wrong?”


         Karen told Mom the events of the night. “You need to inform the police where you are so that they can protect you and the children.” Mom agrees and calls them with the information.


         The the unthinkable happened. Mom readied herself to go visit Dad as soon as the hospital would allow visits. I just did not understand this.


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

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