Molly's Eternity

         The pond was small, but to look in it was like looking into eternity. At least that’s how it felt, staring into that deceptively crystal blue water. I was never the same after that. I don’t think any of us were really. I mean losing someone is hard but we all knew how to deal with people leaving, just walking away. None of us had dealt with this. Yes, death was different, completely different, than leaving your child on a doorstep, like Mia; in an abandoned car, like Mike; in a mailbox, like Jamie; or even in a trashcan at the end of a road. That’s what happened to me. I was four and so scared. I still dream about it sometimes.
         That’s how I ended up here at Molly’s. She was our foster mother—Mia’s, Mike’s, Jamie’s and mine. She owned this huge ranch house, with enough bedrooms for us each to have our when we were old enough, lots of open fields and three dogs: Spike, Roscoe and Droopy. Oh…and the pond.
         On summer nights, we would sometimes go out and have a little picnic. That’s where some of my favorite memories were. Well, before that day anyways. They taught me how to swim there. I was so scared of the water at first. I thought that it would swallow me up and I would never get to come back. That was also the place to go if you needed to think. The four of us kids were always out there. We would sit there and talk about our dreams and our fears. Molly wouldn’t go near the water though. I’m not exactly sure why. But for the most part, that pond was our living room. Except, that changed so suddenly.
         It had been such a normal morning. Molly had made us our usually breakfast of Eggo’s and orange juice and the four of us gave her a rundown of our after school activities. Then we were off to school, we were all seniors at Perchlie High School.
         Since it was Wednesday, Molly had to work at the bank and Jamie and I had to work also. Mike had football practice. (The Fighting Flames were going to state this year!) It was Mia’s day off so she would be coming home and cooking dinner.
         Jamie, Mia and I worked at the Perchlie City Mall…well actually Jamie and I worked at The Clothing Super Store while Mia worked at the Mega Slurpee in the food court. Mike had a job also. He worked at the gas station down the street, part-time. Mike wasn’t working much, at this time, because of football. The five of us had it scheduled so that one of us was home each night. It was great. Over the years…we became our own little family.
         When I had first come to live there I was fast becoming a mute and I was distant. Then one night I had one of my nightmares and woke up screaming. Mike, being my roommate at the time, ran and got Molly. By the time she got there I was crying so hard that my whole body was shaking. She sat with me all night and held me in her arms as I slept. After that I began talking to her and eventually the other three. I secretly always said that Molly was my real mother, and I know that we all loved her as one.
See Molly was so kind and loving to us. One evening, by the pond, the four of us kids were talking. We were about nine or ten, I think anyways, and we were discussing our various pasts. Eventually the subject came to Molly and the ways she had helped us.
         Mike told me about how he had wanted to join the peewee football team. “That was what all the normal kids did and I wanted to be normal,” he said. The problem was that apparently he didn’t know how to play football. So Molly helped him learn and train a little. According to Mike she would come home from her job, cook dinner for them and afterwards she would go out with him and help him practice. It didn’t matter that she was barely over five feet and in her late forties. She still got out there and helped him in anyway that she could so that he could have what he wanted.
         Jamie explained to me how she came to believe that Molly wanted. I guess Jamie tried to become the maid of the house. “I thought that if I made myself so useful that they depended on me to do everything, Molly and Mia wouldn’t get rid of me,” she said. She got sick one day and didn’t do any of the housework. Molly came home, angry because of a bad day at work, and lost her temper at Mia who wouldn’t do her homework. Jamie thought that it was because of her and ran away. The police didn’t find her till the next evening. She was rushed to a hospital. Molly stayed with her the whole time and when she woke up she was the first person Jamie saw. After that she believed.
         Mia’s story was a lot less dramatic. Mia was Molly’s first “ward.” She was about a year old when Molly got her. At the time, Molly worked full time at a day care center. So she would just take Mia to work with her. Mia just grew up knowing no one but Molly as her mother figure. She was a distressed child though. “I wouldn’t go to sleep. I don’t know why, but sometimes I would have this dream, when I was younger, where this woman puts me, well a baby me, to bed and then she takes me on a ride. I know that I’m never going to see her again but I go to sleep anyway!” She told me that she believes that her dream isn’t just a dream but a memory of when she was abandoned and that she was afraid that it would happen again. Molly let her sleep in the bed with her, so she would be able to tell if Molly got up. They spent a lot of nights up just because Mia refused to go to sleep but Molly stuck through it and never yelled at her…or well that she can remember anyway. So eventually the dreams stopped and Mia could sleep.
         That’s why it hurt so badly. That day Jamie and I got home about an hour and a half early with Mike coming in soon after us. Molly, working at the bank that night, wasn’t due home till at least 8:30, so the four of us decided to make Molly’s favorite dinner, steaks cooked in mushroom gravy, peas and mashed potatoes. Mia was glad for the help. She hated cooking steaks. She said that she never could get them right.          But she never came home
Mike found her, in the pond, as he went to check on Droopy. She was just floating there. When the police her out she was purple and…and…soggy. Her beautiful and loving face was bloated so badly; we could hardly recognize her. The police told us that she fell in. But we still aren’t sure.
         She didn’t like the pond. She said that it was creepy. The way that you could see into it but not really see what was at the bottom. Molly was so afraid of what was down there that she couldn’t see, what could catch her off guard. She didn’t even want them to teach me how to swim because of it.
         So staring at that pond…it all comes back. I guess that pond really is eternity. Molly’s eternity.