Story Shadows on Crescent Lake

Chapter 15

I really don’t remember much about the drive. I know it was dark. I kinda remember it raining. I know Dad and my brother were talking about serious stuff but not what it was. I think Dad might have dosed me with kids’ Dramamine. I was getting wound up, scared, and just realizing how much things were changing from what they’d always been. Including the fact that my last two stable presences in my life would no longer be around, and I didn’t really know these people that I’d be living with even though they supposedly wanted me.

Tampa to Crescent City normally used to take about two and a half hours to drive, but we took closer to three and a half because we were pulling a trailer and it started to get windy due to some weather stuff. I know it was still dark when we pulled in. I know I was groggy. I know the house was old when it got light enough for me to see but it was done up sorta nice, like an antique show piece. I instinctively knew this wasn’t a place that had been kid-proofed and that I’d need to watch my p’s and q’s.

“Mack, just leave the stuff in the carport. Beau and Gigi will move things in a bit. With her arriving early we haven’t finished moving things around.” Yeah. That’s the story they told anyway.

And then Dad took me for a walk in the neighborhood, ostensibly to say goodbye but there was more too it.

“Rain. Honey. This isn’t exactly what I wanted. I was hoping my sister Delia would take you. She has kids about your age, but their family situation turned out to not be … optimal.” I later learned that Aunt Delia and Uncle Frank weren’t getting along and were in counseling and taking in a kid wouldn’t have been great for them trying to fix whatever was broken which was mostly financial. And Dad didn’t want me used like some financial incentive even if it would have helped them out. Aunt Anne and Uncle Beau were “well to do” in a middle class kind of way and Dad had thought I had a better chance with them. Dad was smart, experienced, but he wasn’t above getting bamboozled by people who were really good at it. Especially family type people.

“Your aunt and uncle haven’t had a little kid in a long while. Gigi is almost 27 but … she’s had her own difficult times and still is in recovery and may be for the rest of her life.”

Rain the Mouth asked, “Recovery? Like in the commercials where they talk about drugs and stuff?”

“No. And what did I say about talking without thinking first? Had anyone overheard that remark feelings could have gotten hurt and … and there isn’t time to find another place for you to live.”

“But you said I could ask if it is a private conversation.”

He gave me a look, checking to see if I was being sassy and then relaxed. “When you’re right, you’re right. But from here on out you need to … to be careful who you have private conversations with. This is not a lesson I want you to learn so young but people … people aren’t always nice Honey. Be careful who you talk to and what you talk with them about, especially if you are talking to them about other people. You never know how people are connected and who they might know. And who they might carry tales to.”

I knew from the look on his face this was one of those “serious conversations” like we’d had to have a few times … about Mom, about Aunt Diane, about how life would be changing, so I answered, “Yes Sir.”

He nodded approvingly. “You keep using those manners, they’ll take you places other kids don’t get to go. You also use those smarts the teachers didn’t want you to have. It’s different on this coast here in Florida. You’re going to get to do something called home school. That means you are going to do your schoolwork where you live and then get to be with kids in other ways.” I noticed he didn’t say “home” but “where you live”. I didn’t think much of it at the time but as I got older and wised up, it seems that maybe Dad knew more than he wanted to about what was coming for me, even if it was just subconsciously.

“Now listen up Rain. I love you. I love you just as much as I do Thunder, as much as we loved Dana. Do not EVER worry about that. Don’t even let it enter your head. I wouldn’t lie to you about something like that. I don’t WANT to leave you and Thunder, but I have a duty. And if I don’t do that duty I will get in the kind of trouble that could mean that I wouldn’t get to see you or take care of you anymore because you’d be a grown up before I was done being in trouble. Do you hear me?”

“Yes Sir. I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

“I know you don’t Honey. You’ve been very brave with all the changes we’ve gone through as a family.” He paused then said, “I need you to put the extra effort in Rain. I know you don’t mean to … to … not always think about how you act and the things you say. I wish you had more time to learn caution. But you don’t. You need to behave. Not accidentally behave because you don’t misbehave, but behave because you are doing it on purpose all the time. Your aunt, uncle, and cousin may not understand you the way you hope so you need to behave in a way they can understand and live with. This living arrangement is the best one that could be arranged and may not be exactly what we all want, but they aren’t bad people. They’ll do their best if for no other reason than you are your mother’s daughter. You hearing me? Do you understand?”

I sighed. “They’re going to be like the people at school. They aren’t being mean, at least not on purpose or in a way they think is mean, but they have checkboxes and expectations and I need to fit into them even if I have to work at it.”

He looked at me closely and slowly nodded. “About the best explanation anyone has a right to expect from a girl that hasn’t even had her seventh birthday yet,” he said trying to lighten the mood. Then he said, “I have to go Rain. We’re taking the rest of the stuff in the trailer to a storage bay in Jacksonville and then we have to get Thunder all the way to Vanderbilt, then I have to get to Ft. Campbell so I can catch a plane.”

Well then came hugs, kisses, and tears and then Dad and my brother switched out. He’s the one that told me that he’d zoom me once a week to keep in touch and that sometimes Dad would as well but it wouldn’t be a regular zoom like with him; at least not until he figured out what his schedule was going to be and how much communication was going to be allowed from where he will be at.

“You can always count on your big brother. Don’t let anyone say otherwise. And I’ll try and see you on my school breaks but, that might not always be possible. They say my accelerated school plan is going to be intense.” And he looked super excited so I didn’t take it to mean anything bad. I knew my brother was really smart. He’d already skipped a grade and graduated high school a year early. The school at Vanderbilt was a really big deal and I loved my brother and wanted him to be happy.

He gave a look back at the house. “Look, Aunt Anne and Uncle Beau are okay people. They want more say than they should have, but that’s kinda just the way they are. Learn to live with it until you can live with Dad again which Dad hopes isn’t long. Maybe just a year or two. But if he can’t because Dad is still overseas, I’ll be old enough and maybe in a position to have you live with me off campus or something. We’ll figure it out. For now … look … we all just need to do what we can so none of us get in trouble. And if you need a friend, Gigi is all right. She and I have been talking but not where Dad or her parents hear. She plans on being a good cousin and protecting you from the people in this world that can be jerks. She knows about jerks because … Rain, this needs to stay between you and me until Gigi thinks you are old enough to understand.”

That’s when he gave me a quick, down and dirty, explanation of why Gigi is going to seem different. He didn’t know the half of it but I took what he said and I did indeed keep it to myself and didn’t even let on to Gigi that I knew that she’d been married the day she’d graduated high school to a guy her parents approved of. Only he was young too and wasn’t who everyone thought he was, not even his own family. He had fast friends and pulled Gigi into that lifestyle – and into hiding what he was into including the fact that he beat her up and tore her down. And then one time he lost control and hurt her so bad that she was in the hospital for a long time and hasn’t been the same since and wasn’t like Aunt Diane as she never wants to marry or “have a man” ever again. But the problems that were left over from her long hospital stay were going to be with her for the rest of her life and that’s why she will always need to live with her parents or some other “special” kind of living arrangement where she wasn’t on her own. But that I could trust her. Or at least trust her about as much as I could anyone when I laid Dad’s words over his.

And then the sun was all the way up and Dad and my brother had to go and I was about to start learning just how different my life was going to be.
 
Chapter 16


Lesson Number One: “You will not cry. Crying means that you don’t trust that Our Lord has you exactly where He wants you and He Is In Control.” Or maybe they meant that He put you under the control of His Chosen Others. In hindsight I know my aunt and uncle had a few things screwy, or they expressed their beliefs screwy. I just know as a kid they confused the heck out of me with what they said the Bible said. I’d already had enough religious training, or whatever you want to call it, to get a sense of it being screwy. But as a little kid I didn’t know how to defend my own beliefs yet.

Maybe I should say that lesson one was that religion meant a lot in my aunt and uncle’s home. A. Lot. And apparently my aunt and uncle were some of the very few Chosen Others that really understood what God was saying in the Bible. And that church activities were more important than anything. Well, that and behaving in a way that reflected well on them. Embarrassing my aunt and uncle was a good way to wind up in worse detention than I’d ever gotten in school.

In all honesty I got a lot of threats in the beginning but their every day rules were enough. They would have broken a lot of kids. They might have even broken me if I hadn’t had Gigi. She couldn’t openly defy her parents for my sake, but that didn’t mean they didn’t know everything that we got up to together. Essentially my aunt and uncle taught discipline and obedience. Gigi taught me acceptance, love (hers and God’s), and her own brand of discipline because ultimately she needed it every bit as much as I did. I had discipline imposed on my by outside forces. Gigi imposed discipline on herself from inside.

That first day. Uh uh. First, I had to help empty out the storage space that was my new bedroom. Gigi and I did it. My aunt and uncle went up to the church for a prayer meeting where they were going to ask for prayers to help them get through the burden of me. They never called me a burden any more than they called Gigi a burden, but we knew what they really thought of us. I didn’t know what to call it then, but I grew to understand they were passive aggressive, controlling, and one of the ways they controlled us was to make sure we understood we were damaged goods and could only function through their strict rules. They also used disappointment as a weapon and made it seem to other people that we were damaged goods without actually saying it like that so that other people were constantly trying to pin us in and up so we wouldn’t create problems. They did Gigi’s parents dirty work for them so they could look better and worthier of praise and support. I see this all in hindsight but at first, I was simply miserable.

“It will be okay Girly,” Gigi told me as I helped to carefully carry all her father’s man cave junk to the guest bedroom and put it away the best we could. She was especially careful of all his fragile antique plane and antique car models. We spent a lot of time arranging them exactly like they had been in his man cave space only for him to come in from church, get fussy, look at us and shake his head in disappointment, and then spend the rest of the day rearranging them completely the opposite of the instructions that he’d left us that morning.

After we had moved all of his stuff out, including his fancy roll top desk and chair, the only thing left in there was a set of built in shelves that Uncle Beau couldn’t figure out how to take out which he then complained about because he couldn’t display his models the way he used to. He complained the guest bedroom was too small despite it being three times bigger than the other space and even bigger than Gigi’s bedroom.

Aunt Anne said, “Oh Beau, we’ll just have to endure until His Plans are made known to us.”

Aunt Anne caught me looking at her weird and she turned into the Wicked Witch of the South and wanted to know exactly the meaning of my look. I thought of the Guidance Counselor and said, “It … it sounds like something scary. Like God … I don’t know. Like God is being mean to you because of me.”

She got a little pinched up but said, “That’s what you get for thinking young lady. Your elders obviously haven’t guided you properly. Just because we don’t understand what Our Lord has in mind doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be grateful for the challenges he presents us.”

“Um … yes ma’am.”

“Now we are going to go through those things your father brought before they come in our home.” She didn’t have to say it for me to understand that she thought my stuff must have something bad – or in Uncle Beau’s words inappropriate – in there somewhere.

My bed was a toddler twin but the only thing that was allowed into the house was the mattress and what passed for the box springs because they thought the headboard and frame were too fancy and inappropriate. The truth was only the mattress part would fit. The only reason I got to keep the small dresser is because I cried that Mom had painted it. I got to keep the chest with the secret hiding place because someone in their family had made it and it was where all my school supplies were kept.

I kept the lamp that had always sat on the chest but the decorative shade was replaced with a plain one that was more appropriate and easier for them to see whether I was keeping the space I used clean. And there it was again, said without being said. “The space I used” not my space or my bedroom.

I was allowed to keep my radio but only because it was a fake one that only played the Bible on Tape. It had been Dana’s and Mom used to play it so I would go to sleep. I was almost like one of Pavlov’s dogs until I broke the habit to keep from getting in trouble at church. Someone would start reading a long set of Bible scriptures and I would start nodding off even if I was just being hyper the moment before. Uncle Beau would have used it as a control on me if Aunt Anne hadn’t worried that it would happen during a church service and embarrass them.

I didn’t get to keep any toys – at least the ones that they saw. The traveling case that held my Barbie and her accessories somehow wound up under my mattress inside the box spring. I didn’t get to play with them often but at least I knew they were there and my aunt and uncle didn’t. That was Gigi’s first real defense of me. She could have gotten into a lot of trouble but one time I tried to tell her thank you but she just said it was something she could do but not to ever say anything to anyone even accidentally because even though she was a lot older than me her parents could still make it really hard on her. I didn’t know how at the time, but I didn’t disbelieve her either.

Then it came to my tablet that I used for school. Uncle Beau in particular called it a tool of Satan.

Gigi once again stepped in. “Dad, I understand your concerns, but she is going to need it for Thunder and Uncle Mack to zoom her. The county is going to require her to have one to take the standardized tests as well. If she doesn’t, she’ll certainly be required to attend public school in the classroom and you know what goes on in schools these days as you have to deal with it with the kids at church.”

Aunt Anne shuddered theatrically and Uncle Beau got a really foul look on his face. Then Gigi said something that made them both blink. “I’m already going to have to ask for Brother Calvin’s help getting the school district’s testing program installed. I’ve never seen parental controls this strict. It must be Uncle Mack’s doing. I understand they didn’t have regular tv in the house, Uncle Mack didn’t allow it.”

Uncle Beau turned his hard eyes on me and asked, “Is that true?”

“We had a tv but Daddy was the only one that could touch the control box. If anyone else even accidentally bumped the box it would make a terrible noise and Mom was the only one that knew how to turn it off and … and then …”. I stopped and sniffed. “Aunt Diane had a tv out in her room, but she wasn’t happy that Daddy said no to having a satellite installed. On the tv inside we sometimes got to have a family movie night if Momma or Daddy thought it was decent.”

“Then how do you know about movies and television young lady, and I don’t want any lies.”

I gave him a wide eyed looked and said, “I’d never Uncle Beau. Daddy said I had to watch my mouth and not be sassy and lying is being sassy. They used to make us watch that stuff in school until Daddy went there and took his permission back because he said if he’d known they were showing some stupid Disney movies with trash talking kids he never would have given it to begin with. That if I wanted to be a princess I could be his princess and not one for some mouse. Um, I didn’t understand that part. That was just the rules until school got out and he said you were going to homeschool me and that you’d explain what that was when it was time.”

Aunt Anne lifted her eyebrow the way Mom used to, only on Aunt Anne it looked witchy. “And if you weren’t watching those … [sniff] … so-called movies, what were you doing?”

“Sitting in the corner of the ISS room and practicing my hand-eye coor … quar … I was practicing my writing so it wouldn’t look like inside out chicken scratch.”

They looked at each other and then nodded. Uncle Beau said, “That’s better than I expected everything considered. And you won’t be watching anything unapproved here either. And what is this locked box?” He asked that as he tossed a thin file box on the bed.

“It isn’t locked,” I told him. “Momma just wanted it to stay closed so everything would be neat and tidy. It is her music books.” I picked up the box and opened the incredibly simple “lock” and held it out as if for inspection.

Uncle Beau flared his nostrils but Aunt Anne reached for it carefully and then slowly sat down. That was the first time I realized that Aunt Anne really had loved Mom, she was just kinda awful in every other way, at least for me, if not to me.

She traced my mother’s elementary aged signature and then looked at me, “Do you play guitar?”

“Not like Momma,” I answered as if it would be an impossible task. “She taught me scales and cords and how not to make the strings squeak, but the only song she taught me was Jesus Loves Me before she got sick. She was going to teach me Trust and Obey but … but I guess it was like that thing you said. It wasn’t in God’s Plan.”

“Hmmm,” was the only thing that Uncle Beau said, like I was being borderline smart aleck, but Aunt Anne got thoughtful.

“The church has a music camp right after VBS. That will be another two weeks of your time taken up in something besides wastefulness. We’ll see after that.” She turned to Uncle Beau and said, “If she is worth lessons, we’ll use the Trust. We are already going to need to get funds for what she’ll need for school supplies. That will be above and beyond the quarterly disbursement for housing and feeding her. This may be Providential.”

And that was the first time I heard about the Trust, but not the last. It just was never spoken about to me, only overheard bits when they didn’t think I understood or was listening. And I really didn’t understand, not then.

Wasn’t much more to that day. Gigi was informed that she was in charge of taking the money Dad had left for me to have new clothes and buying me something appropriate, but nothing new.

“I don’t want it to look second hand, but she doesn’t need to show off in front of the children that do not have the privileges we are providing her. We must be good stewards of what Our Lord puts in our hands. I want the receipts for everything on my desk by the end of the day,” Uncle Beau said with a sigh. “Actually, just enter it into that infernal bookkeeping program the accountant requires. You can at least do that without making a mistake I hope.”

Gigi answered, “Yes, Dad. I’ll take care of it so you only have to review the reports.”

“That’s what I pay an accountant for,” he said with a dismissive curl to his lip. “Why Mack insists that she get an allowance of all things. She’s six years old.”

Aunt Anne sighed. “I suppose it is his way of teaching her responsibility. We’ll use that and she won’t be spending money on inappropriate items or on personal vanity. And she’ll earn it.”

That last statement should have come with a bit of scary music to warn me.
 
Kathy in FL said:

Chapter 8​


I was so tempted to look in Gigi’s paperwork but in hindsight I am glad I didn’t. Things were bad enough as it was. Quill had been right about Gigi’s mortal remains and I was realistic enough to know there’s nothing more I could do about it. Gigi is in Heaven. She doesn’t need her mortal remains no more. God took care of the burying so to speak. I just gotta live with it being in God’s Plan and not let it take my brain in destructive directions. Same thing that military chaplain said when I went to that grief counseling field trip early on. I’m still determined to make a memorial to go in the family plot like we did for Dad, but it is going to have to wait. I’m not being cold; it just is what it is right now.

I got that shelf unit open and had to use my wind-up flashlight to look around inside. I saw a wall sconce that must have been used for beeswax candles when they needed light in there and that’s where I temporarily set my flashlight. Not to mention the mirror behind the candle stand double the light power and made things even brighter.

Wow. Not all of it came from the black market but I bet at least half of it did. Let’s start with the rices that were stored in barrels … Spanish, Mexican, yellow, white, brown, instant, wild (a Florida product), and parboiled. And none of them looked like they had weevils or other bugs which is probably because they were airtight and it looked like a tree’s worth of bay leaves in every barrel. After the rice came dried beans … pinto, chickpea, black, pigeon pea, fava, bayo, canary, kidney, navy and white beans. I know the kidney, white, and canary are from around here as there are fields of them out near the old Sastuma groves on the way to Welaka. Last year I worked a couple of rows on shares to bring them home to Gigi who was starting to freak out about our food storage. I’m guessing that someone took over the fields when the family died in the cholera epidemic but I’m not sure.

Gigi absolutely refused to allow either one of us to leave the yard until the epidemic burned itself out after the feds quarantined the evac zone and sprayed some kind of something or other that is rumored to have been some kind of water sanitizer. Maybe it was just to make it look like they were still doing something for the people in the EZs, maybe they really thought they were doing something, but I’m pretty sure it was to make themselves feel better than really making things better. The cholera outbreak just had to burn itself out.

After the dried beans there was a bunch of grains and flours … dried corn, corn meal, white flour, masa harina (corn flour), maseca (tamale flour), masarica (instant corn flour), harina de trigo (wheat flour), rice flour, pea flour, banana flour (seriously?!), churro mix (almost made me feel hungry), both yellow and white donarepa (precooked cornmeal used for making things like arepas and tamales), blue corn flour, red corn flour, corn starch, oatmeal, oatmeal flour, cassava flour, chickpea flour, and some labeled as things I have no clue how to use. But I’ll figure it out; Gigi and I always did. That stuff will go with the flours I already know how to make. Might not rise, but flatbreads and crackers are still bread.

The commercially canned stuff stacked on the floor were brands that I remembered but hadn’t seen in a long while except hidden in the totes stacked in the suite bedroom at home. Another story that I will tell when it is time. Herdez, Marita’s, Rosarita, La Costena, Pace, El Patio, Old El Paso, and Goya. Great big containers of spices. Long strings of dried peppers that were obviously local. Barrels of oils … corn, peanut, and olive (that was labeled out of Ocala), palm oil and coconut oil that must have come from south Florida, and avocado oil (another south Florida product). I can make my own olive oil and avocado oil but usually only make as much as I’ll use in about a week. The stuff in that room was all commercially sealed so I’m hoping it lasts a long time and hasn’t gone rancid. And there were also buckets of local lard and tallow… beef and deer[1]. Plus, lots of other locally processed food in mason jars … salsas, tomatoes, fruits, nopales, and more. The jars alone were worth their weight on the black market.

There were plastic storage tubs of piloncillo (hard cones of raw sugar), bottles of agave, bags of turbinado cane sugar, beet sugar, and bricks of brown sugar. There was even a few Tupperware-like containers of white granulated sugar that might have been left over from before the evacuation orders because by then most people used raw sugar because of the cost of the processed stuff. A few other bottles of stuff was on a top shelf … stevia, lemon powder, orange powder, lime powder, citric acid, and cane molasses (definitely local stuff). There were nearly a dozen five-gallon buckets of miel (honey). Guess the rumors of a honey operation somewhere along the St. Johns is … or was … true.

There were a few tins and blocks of different kinds of Mexican chocolate, the kind meant to be grated from blocks rather than it coming in powdered form. It made me wonder who had the money to pay for that sort of thing, or were the restaurant owners paying their taxes with chocolate. Hard to say since all that stuff probably moved under the table and off the books. Or maybe it was for protection money. Gigi said that sort of stuff went on more often than anyone knew, even before the evacuation order. There were squirt bottles of caramel as well. Side by side on the floor stood crates of Jarrito brand Mexican sodas and what was obviously locally home-brewed beers, some with corks and some with caps. There were powdered drink mixes like all the weird Klass brand stuff … mango, cucumber mint, melon, hibiscus, etc. There were some silver bags of what was labeled instant horchata (sweetened rice milk). Then there were cases of drink syrups like used to go on snowcones, which just seems a waste if you ask me.

What blew me away when I figured out what it was was the coffee. There was eight crates of green coffee beans. I mean they were the real thing and could probably have bought me out of the Evac Zone and paid for a trip around the world on top of it. Then there were several silver storage bags of what was labeled instant café de olla (coffee with cinnamon and piloncilla). I don’t drink coffee, neither did Gigi because of her meds, but I wasn’t leaving that stuff behind because it might come in handy down the road. For the same reason I decided to take the bags of tobacco and rolling papers I found stored inside a metal chest. I curled my lip at the cans of “dip” that was in there too remembering just how gross the older boys looked when they were spitting tobacco juice while enjoying the guilty pleasure of of a wad of dip where their parents couldn’t see them. Vaping was for sissies, or so they said.

I shook my head to stop wandering down memory lane and looked at the next shelf. There were several containers of what the label said was Heavy Cream Powder. There was a flat of canned creamed coconut and a couple more of table cream and evaporated milk. I could see Gigi dancing a jig over the cans of NIDO and KLIM powdered milk on the next shelf down. Then had to fight back yet more tears and nausea. There were strings of dried chorizo (Spanish sausages) that looked like it came from The Slaughterhouse down the road. And there was home-canned goat’s milk in jars or so said the writing on the jar lids. In a large Coleman cooler sitting on the floor next to the sodas were several flats of fresh eggs with dates that said they were delivered just three days earlier. What freaked me out a little was a case of commodity cans of cheese. That stuff used to be given out by the Red Cross but only like one can per month per family … maybe; and I hadn’t seen any in months and the story goes they were looking to trade it for a donkey.

On the last two shelving units sat all sorts of hard liquor, none of the bottles unopened and a bunch of local “hooch” and wines. I only debated a second before deciding I’d take that stuff too but that I’d keep it locked away in the old half bath that had no windows. I could put a book case in front of the door and no one would ever know it was there. We’d already had to take the toilet out of there when one the main one we used had developed a crack we couldn’t fix during a fit of hysteria Gigi had right after they had declared the area closed to anyone leaving.

I knew that I needed something to get this stuff to the electric UTV. I was wondering how much I could carry when I nearly thunked myself in the head. Grief and shock were making me stupid or something. I ran back to my bike, rode it to Flowing Well and then took care of getting the UTV up and running and snagging the portable charging system just in case. By that time evening was starting to set in. And so were the bugs. I pulled the netting down off my hat and pulled my sleeves all the way down to keep them off me as much as possible. I drove the UTV to the back of Señor Pepper’s and tried to decide what I was doing next.

Looking at what I was taking just from Señor Pepper’s I knew I was going to need a trailer, but it needed to be enclosed. It also needed to be lightweight. I knew right where I could get what I was looking for. Or thought I did. To save the battery I rode my bike to Pierson Feed. To my disappointment everything there was too heavy. Then I spotted something behind the next building over which was a vehicle repair shop except it had been converted over to repairs and maintenance for wagons of various types. There were small ones that could be pulled by the solar golf carts. There were much bigger farm wagons that could be pulled by horses or a tractor. Toward the lower end I spotted an aluminum frame, high-walled utility trailer that used a regular hitch. The bottom and sides were made mostly of flat grill meshing. It was a 5’x10’ and I estimate it must weigh between 400 and 500 pounds empty. Probably about as good as I had any right to hope for. I wish it could have been enclosed but the UTV just couldn’t have pulled it.

I stopped wasting time and left off worrying about drones. Nothing I could do about them anyway right now. I knew my 24 hours was running out fast and I hadn’t even taken the first load yet.

Back to that first stash and in all honesty that was almost the best stash I found. There was other good stuff, but food? Yeah, that was the biggest and best except for what I found at the Slaughterhouse but that wasn’t until the next morning.

I found some old tow straps in the same shop I had found the trailer. I should have thought to look for some at Flowing Well but hindsight is 20/20. I loaded everything from the restaurant onto the trailer after I hooked the trailer to the UTV (at least I was smart enough to do it in the right order) but there was still plenty of room so despite it being dark I went up and down the road seeing what I could find. I tucked the table linens and napkins in and around things to keep it from sliding as I was positioning things.

The Jalapeño Market had some stuff on the shelves but it looked like duplicates of some of the stuff that was from the hidden room. There were also a few other things that people brought in for trade … woven baskets, hats made from palmetto fronds, sandals made out of old tires, some homemade blades and gardening tools. I told myself I’d pick through what was there if there was time. Especially the lending library that took up an entire corner of the store.

The old pharmacy around the corner where the Red Cross would sometimes set up a Doctors Without Borders station was a bust unless you counted the single pair of medi-scissors I found forgotten in a cabinet in the back. I had better luck at the old Pierson Discount Grocery that acted as the area’s trading post but not much of it was food however it was still useful stuff like rope and metal tie-down stakes, fire starters and homemade kindling blocks, and I even found an area in the back with some butane refill canisters. It was a pain to break into, so I made a note to myself to make my life easier and bring the big bolt cutters back with me, as well as the dolly, after delivering the first load. I was about to leave when my flashlight caught an entire case of citronella oil bottles, the kind you can put in tiki torches that will burn for light and run off skeeters at the same time. The food was all local stuff and some of it I was a little leery of when I saw how cloudy the liquid was in the jars. I didn’t bother taking that but if there was time, I would fill any empty space in a haul because the jars would be useful. Then when I went in the back room I found canning supplies. There was a box of used canning lids and then a case of sleeves of canning lids. It didn’t get me excited (my emotional tank was running on empty) but I did think that Gigi would have been thankful for them, so I needed to be too.

That find made me look closer and after grabbing some odds and ends I simply walked the shelves in a grid pattern putting things in a grocery cart before running it over to where I’d backed in the trailer under a still mostly standing carport. That made me realize that it would be good to have a couple of totes but all I found was some recycled multi-use grocery bags so I dumped all the little stuff in those and set them in the back of the UTV.

I just couldn’t stand the idea of stopping because I might fall asleep and waste what time I had. Next “store front” was an old-fashioned kind of milliner shop. There were straw hats, hats and baskets made out of woven pine needles and palmetto fronds, sun bonnets, bandanas, gloves … heavy duty and lighter weight gardening gloves, long gardening gloves for like working around thorny plants and trees … aprons, mostly canvas but some heavier duty, and in the back behind the sales counter I found fabric feminine hygiene “pads” since for serious I haven’t seen the store bought stuff for a long time. I nearly jumped for joy when I found them and made a strategic pit stop to take care of things since I’d been out way longer than intended and I was nearing emergency status.

Next store was all things woven, knitted, and crocheted. You wouldn’t think you would have much use for that stuff in Florida but after two years people were getting desperate for replacement items like socks, “foundation garments” unless you were willing to go commando, and other things right down to dish scrubbers, pot holders, and rag rugs. There were also a few things like Granny used to keep on hand like crocheted afghans and lap rugs for the days the wind could really gets cutting coming off the lake.

I got good at breaking into places but turns out few of them were really locked up because the military or hazmat teams had already done the breaking in looking for bodies. I started pushing a big grocery buggy instead of trying to carry everything by hand and it made it easier to take stuff, especially the bigger items. I went in this one place that I kinda wished I hadn’t. It was next to what amounted to a biker saloon. Man did I need some eye bleach but in the back in an office looking space I found the mother-load of feminine hygiene stuff and other things like deodorant, body wash, make up, styling gel, skin care products, and hair doodads. Most of it was homemade but it still did what it was supposed to. There was also a good supply of baking soda, baking powder, vinegar (and I’m not too sure I want to know why though I can guess since I’m female), and yeah, I took what I will use and left the remainder for the reclamation team and they can deal with it.

I needed a prescription for eye bleach and brain wash before I was finished but Gigi had explained the facts of life and how people managed to mess them up not long after my 9th birthday when my present turned out to be you can guess what earlier than expected by my aunt and uncle’s plans since they expected me to stay “young” a lot longer than I did. They ordered me taken to a doctor to see if it could be turned off until I was order. Yeah, I know, but you have to know them to understand that you can live in the 21st century, have all the modern doodads, but still be ignorant and backwards. I try and not hate them but … anyway, I try. I’ll keep trying for Gigi’s sake. Hopefully Mack deals with them before I ever have to. Or God. Yeah, maybe I better just leave it up to God. God will be better at it than anything I or Mack can do. A more permanent solution that I don’t have to feel guilty about.

I got everything that I’d found for that load onto the trailer and then used some chicken wire held down by the tow straps to keep everything on the trailer. Looked like a weird burrito but it worked so that’s all I care about.

Crescent City to Pierson was about 16 miles. A there and back trip would equal 32 miles. The book said the UTV would get 45 to 80 miles round trip if fully charged. Commonsense told me that the heavier I was loaded the shorter that would be. I decided to run back to Flowing Well to see if there was an extra battery for just in case to go with the mobile charging set up. I wasted more time I shouldn’t have had to had I done things correct the first time around, but I found not one battery but two. Also found some other potential repair parts. I brought everything back on my bike which was a pain and I almost dumped twice barely avoiding potholes, but once I got back to the UTV I set up the extra battery to charge even though it had been dark a few hours by that time.

I headed back to the house with the 2nd extra battery in the passenger seat and on the way I started crying again but kept going. What else could I do?


[1] Three Steps to Deer Tallow that You Can Make at Home | ODWC
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She sure has landed in a rough patch. I am hoping for good things and some karma for Rain! Thanks kathy.
 

Chapter 17​


That first week of living with my aunt and uncle was a misery. Everything was different, almost too different from anything I’d been used to. My bedtime was changed to 7 pm, sometimes even six pm if they thought I needed it. The flip side of that was that I was expected to get up at 4 am even if Uncle Beau didn’t want to hear “a peep out of me”. The only thing I could say that was similar was the coffee maker. It was exactly like Aunt Diane’s.

“Do not tell me your father allowed you to drink coffee?” Aunt Anne asked in near outrage like the neighbor’s fuzzed out cranky cat after she kept catching me looking at the coffee maker in the morning.

“No ma’am. It was my responsibility to make sure the coffee maker came on when Aunt Diane was living with us. It was one just like this,” I answered pointing at the machine. “I had to make sure that the right light was on in the morning and if it wasn’t I was to fix it real fast. I just wasn’t allowed to touch the coffee because it is an adult beaver ridge and not for kids.”

“I should say not,” she huffed, only partially satisfied. “Gigi?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Add that to the girl’s chore list and keep an eye on her to make sure she is doing it correctly.”

“Yes ma’am.”

That’s what I mean. Gigi was like Cinderella and I was one of those mice that got to help her around the house, at least in the old Disney movie that was a cartoon. Of course, I never said anything like that because I’m not crazy and because it would mean revealing that I knew a little more about things than I let on.

Uncle Beau had a death grip on the thermostat and would lecture you an hour for using a light if you didn’t need to or more water than he thought you should. I learned to use washcloths for a whole week at a time, live without clothes softener, get things clean with the cheap cleaning products, how to use a vacuum so there weren’t marks left in the carpet, how to beat the house rugs clean, and how to clean the floors the right way. The grout on the bathroom and floor tiles was cleaned a couple times a week but since it was done so often Gigi had to show me how to do it so that the grout didn’t start falling out.

At the end of that first week, I got my first zoom. It was from my brother. “You know Dad wishes he could have zoom’d too, but he could only send an electronic one so that the security people over there would let it through. Hang on and let me play it for you.”

It wasn’t long, less than five minutes, and it was mostly I love you’s and be a good girl and how relieved he was that Aunt Anne and Uncle Beau had wanted me and were willing to raise me like Mom would expect. He said he would try to contact me in real time but for now this was going to have to do for both of us.

I tried not to cry but my bottom lip did quiver causing my aunt and uncle to really give me a look where they were standing out of view.

“I know Rain. I miss him too. Everything will work out okay. How are things there?”

I wasn’t stupid. I may have been six, but I knew, just like with the Guidance Counselor, that if I didn’t tow the line she expected, I would lose privileges and I didn’t want to lose access to the zoom calls I’d been promised.

“I’m behaving. I make mistakes but I get chances to fix my mistakes.” Technically true, just not exactly like my brother would have assumed. “And next week I’m supposed to go to something called VBS.”

“That’s cool. I went to Vacation Bible School when I was your age. It’s fun if you behave yourself.”

“Then after that I’m supposed to go to music camp.”

He stopped and said, “Well, tell you what, ask Aunt Anne to send the details so I can let Dad know. He didn’t say anything about that.”

“They said it is appropriate and if the teachers there think it is okay, then they’ll see about lessons for me.”

Taking his big brother role seriously he asked, “Where is this ‘camp’ and who are the teachers?”

“Oh. It is at the church, just like VBS. And the choir director and his wife are in charge of it. I’m not going someplace I shouldn’t.”

He nodded. “That’s good, lots better than what I was wondering. You didn’t do too well in regular school because of how the other kids acted. You need to … er …”

“I know. Watch my p’s and q’s and don’t pick up bad habits.”

“Exactamundo,” he said trying to make it funny. “So what else? How’s your new room?”

I sighed and said, “Uncle Beau had to give up his space for me. That’s the bad part. The good part is all my stuff fits, and I keep everything nice and clean like Mom liked.”

We went back and forth like that a little bit with me asking about his dorm and his classes and he got really enthusiastic and kinda forgot about the other stuff. Then he said, “Same time next week. Okay? Love you Rain.”

“Love you Thunder.”

When the call was finished I closed my tablet and stood up. “May I go put this away please?”

“Yes, then get back out here and finish your chore list. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop. It will keep your mind off … off the rest of it.”

“Yes Uncle Beau … I mean Yes Sir.”

He harrumphed and walked out of the room. I turned to put my tablet where it belonged, but Aunt Anne put her finger under my chin and tilted my face up. “You look so much like your mother. But she would have been in tears at this point.”

I sniffed trying not to cry and answered, “Daddy said Momma had a tender heart. But I need to be a big girl, so I don’t cause problems. I didn’t mean to upset … er …”

“You did not. And you were polite, which I expect you to be at all times. Do not embarrass your mother’s memory at church … or anywhere else for that matter.” Then she went off to gossip with the neighbor lady next door or something.

Gigi found me folding the tea towels and said, “Mom wants us to take a constitutional while she has a couple of people over.”

“What’s a constitutional?”

“A walk for our health. Let’s go see the peacocks.” She didn’t say anything else, but I saw a shadow step back. Uncle Beau. I learned that he and Aunt Anne both often eavesdropped on conversations that Gigi had. It is like they were trying to catch her out on something. And they were. But Uncle Beau and Aunt Anne didn’t take constitutionals anymore. In fact, they didn’t do much walking at all anymore. I know it isn’t nice to say but Uncle Beau had a big ol’ belly and Aunt Anne was more than a little bit broad in the backside. That’s what happens when you have other people do all your work for you.

Gigi told me, “There is Orange Avenue and Prospect Street. Those are the two best places to see the peacocks. First thing in the morning when they head out and the evening when they come back to roost for the night.”

“But it isn’t morning or night,” I told her stating the obvious like only a kid can.

“Nope. But it is a good place to walk far enough away we can have a talk,” she said vibrating with that weird energy that I’d already learned was part of who she was. “Look Girly, you did good with the zoom call. I didn’t have to coax you or anything. You didn’t let out that you aren’t happy. It is going to get harder though and you are going to have to work on keeping it to yourself, or find a way to be happy that doesn’t get you in trouble. I know Uncle Mack. He’ll get upset and so will Thunder. But there’s nothing else right now to fix it.”

I looked at her and just plain asked, “Are you trying to get me in trouble?”

She patted my shoulder. “Double nope. Trying to keep you out of it and trying to make plans. And I know you are just a little kid, so you won’t get this right now, but I bet you are a lot smarter than you let on – at least Thunder says you are – so, at least for a while, you need to help to make this work. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”

After thinking for a minute I responded, “I have to follow the rules even if I think they aren’t fair.”

Gigi nodded. “That’s part of it. But there are other things going on that … that … you’re just too little to understand right now. I want you to trust me. I know I’m a lot older than you, but I want us to be friends.”

“Friends?” The idea of being friends with anyone, much less a grown up seemed weird.

“Yep. I’m going to do the best I can to take care of you. And I want you to do the best you can to … er … help me to take care of myself. I’m … I’m … er … look, it is a long story but my brain got hurt and now … now I can’t really do things the way I used to. That doesn’t mean I can’t do things, it just means I have to do them different. And different isn’t bad but different is sometimes hard for people to understand and accept and not treat you like different is bad. But we don’t talk about that. It makes my parents … not always nice and they can … look, we just don’t talk about it around other people. If you have questions about me being different, come talk to me privately. Okay?”

It was so similar to what Dad had said to me that I agreed. Then she said, “Next week is VBS then music camp. After, if I have their plans figured out, they are going to take a week, maybe two, and go up to the mountains in Georgia. Those three things are going to be like a test. Help me to pass the test and I think they’ll leave us alone more and longer. They managed to get enough money out of my medical trust that they can afford a cabin like they’ve always wanted. But that’s not something we talk about either. No one is supposed to know where the money comes from.”

“Uh … okay.”

“I think I’ve talked them into a way that you can save some money up, but you are going to have to trust me.”

“Er …”

“You get survivor benefits from your mom going to heaven. It is social security stuff. She just barely had enough work credits that you and Thunder will both get them too, at least until he is eighteen. Uncle Mack gets something too, but it isn’t much and he’s dumping that back into the money that Thunder is responsible for using for just in case. You don’t need to understand all that, just you need to know my parents were going to try and get that and … uh … put it aside to take care of you with. The problem with that plan was that they are already getting money from your Trust and it is going to look suspicious to Uncle Mack if they take the money from the Trust and all your survivor benefits.”

“Uh …”

“So here is the plan. You don’t say anything about the Trust money. Let my parents braid their own rope on that. The Trust has certain rules that a lawyer is going to hold them to. It might take a year or two for it to catch up with them but by then we’ll be fixed.”

“Huh?”

“We’re going to take that check money, they are going to think that Thunder is banking it for you. Instead, that check is going into an online bank my parents don’t know anything about. I’ll cash it out every month onto a fund card. I’m going to take half that check and use it to fix a plan for us and a stash of emergency digi-money. I think it will work well. You are going to take the other half, and we are going to put it on a fund card and find a super hiding place that only we know about. You’ll save that money for times when Mom and Dad aren’t around. Since they think that Thunder is keeping that money, they won’t have any choice but to release some of the funds from the quarterly allocation to take care of the things you need but we’ll be super careful with it and for the allowance you are supposed to get that Thunder will definitely ask about so my parents … anyway, Thunder will definitely ask about it. I’m trying to make it so that we must report it to Thunder directly, not to my parents. That won’t happen though until Thunder turns 18 which is a year off. You with me?”

“Not … not really.” I was seriously confused but I was also pretty convinced she was trying to help me.

“Well, it is a lot for a little kid to understand. What you absolutely cannot do is say anything about this to my parents. Zero. Zip. Nada. None of it. Play dumb. Act like you know nothing about nothing when it comes to the money. Don’t even talk to me about it in the house. They’ve got cameras but they don’t have sound and Dad is too cheap and tech-phobic to get them upgraded.”

“Er … tech-phoby?”

“Phobic. It means being afraid of something, in this case anything that is tech. You notice they still have old-style telephones.”

“That weird thing on the kitchen wall?”

“Yep. They don’t have anything but an old analog radio that only gets the local Christian station. They only have an old analog tv that they never use. They go to church for all their news. They don’t have computers either. Well, Dad has the one that he used to have for work, but it is about to give up the ghost because it is so out of date and the operating system isn’t supported anymore. And from the look on your face, I’m probably talking in a foreign language.”

I surprised her by saying, “Not really. I used to listen to the older kids at school, and they talked about all that stuff and about how … uh …”

She gave a slow grin. “About how to get around the parental controls?”

I sighed. “Yeah. Am I in trouble?”

“No. Not so long as you aren’t looking at stuff that is not age appropriate. And from the history on your tablet I can tell you haven’t been. All you did was use the public library to read books that were advanced but nothing nasty.”

“I wouldn’t even if I can. Yuck. I just wanted to finish reading books that the Guidance Counselor thought set me too far apart from the other kids I had to go to school with.”

“Don’t I know that feeling. People used to tell me all the things that made me different from the way I was before instead of helping me to find new ways to do things. So, you and me are going to get along Girly. ‘Cause we understand each other. We just need to set rules for ourselves so we stay out of trouble and don’t get my parents thinking we need too many people keeping an eye on us … especially them keeping an eye on us.”

“But you said they aren’t bad. Dad said they aren’t bad.”

“Well … they aren’t. Depending on your definition of bad I guess. I … I just know that they can do things that aren’t exactly … hmmm …”. She stopped like she was trying to figure out how to say something. I’d watched Dad do it too, when he was trying to explain things.

“Rain? I love my parents. I always have and I always will. But they … they believe that they’re right about … about practically everything. But they aren’t, but they also aren’t interested in changing their minds about very much. They weren’t right about having me courted by Bruce and then encouraging me to get married right out of high school, before I’d really had a chance to finish growing up and figuring out who I was. They weren’t right about … about a lot of things where Bruce and I were concerned. They weren’t right about locking me up in a hospital because they thought I was possessed or something instead of my brain not working right after Bruce … did what he did. Then they weren’t right about listening to the doctors that put me on too much medicine and turning me into a zombie.”

“A … a zombie?!”

“Not a real one silly. Just I’ve got … it sometimes looks like I’m something called bipolar. But I’m not, it’s where my brain got hurt. I don’t have any choice to take medicine for the rest of my life because without the medicine my brain doesn’t work right. But that’s not my fault. For a long time I thought it was. My parents … they thought I was faking, but when they stopped thinking that it was almost worse. Now I’m like this huge disappointment and the problems with Bruce were all over that I wasn’t strong enough to get him to turn away from what he was into. And because I didn’t know any better because Bruce had messed with my self-esteem … look, I’m not perfect and I’ve never been. I went along with a lot of what Bruce was into because … well, he was my husband and I thought he knew best. And then I finally grew up enough to know he didn’t after I … after I lost a baby. And that was the end for me, but Bruce wouldn’t let go and one day not too long later he just … snapped. By then some people had started to wonder but it took a long time for Mom and Dad to see how things really were and I think … I think the guilt just turned their own brains a bit and they can’t deal with reality.”

“That’s … that’s kinda what my Aunt Diane said about Mom. That she couldn’t always deal with reality after Dana died and I wasn’t like her. Mom tried to turn me into Dana in a way.”

She slowly nodded. “Mom kinda saw it. I think she likes you better because you aren’t Dana but don’t say I said that.”

“I would never. Dad would get upset about private family stuff getting talked about like that.”

“Yeah, maybe that is the best way to think about it. Just don’t try using that you look like Aunt Marjorie on my mom. It might backfire. She’s kinda strange about your mom some times.”

“Does she blame me for stuff?”

“Huh? No. She … she just doesn’t want to understand God’s Plan. The only other thing I know her to be like that about is my brother.”

“You have a brother?”

“I do but that is definitely not something you say anything about. As in ever. As in they even struck his name out of the family Bible. Or at least Dad did. It all happened right after I got married. Job thought …”

“Job?,” I interrupted. “Like in the Bible?”

“Yeah. And Dad uses that against his memory. Job never liked Bruce. It was over some girl when they were in middle school. Kid stuff but it soured into something worse as they got older. Job joined the military and left home as soon as he turned 18, but came back on leave after he found out I’d married Bruce. There was a blow up and Job and Dad … Job punched Dad after Dad said some stuff that didn’t need to be said. Job tried to get me to come with him but … but I was too scared and wasn’t ready to listen. And then it was just too late and … and none of us know where he is. Dad doesn’t want to know where Job is but I think Mom… she might, she just won’t go against Dad.”

“We could ask my Dad. He might know.”

She sighed and shook her head. “Sometimes, if you love someone you just have to let them go until they are ready to come back. Besides, I wouldn’t want him to see me like this. He’d feel bad he hadn’t gotten me away from Bruce before … before …”

“Before your brain got hurt?”

“Yeah. Let’s … not talk about this,” she said and her face was all twitchy. “I sometimes have a hard time keeping my moods balanced and this always makes me sad.”

“Okay,” I said taking her hand. I must have done the right thing because after looking surprised she started to smile a real big smile. Then she looked at her watch. “We better get back or they’ll wonder if we are getting into trouble and come looking for us. We definitely don’t want to start out on the wrong foot like that. You won’t forget not to say anything about any of our talk?”

“Noooo,” I promised. “It is private family stuff. Us type stuff.”

“Good Girly.”
 

Chapter 18​


And Gigi had been right. Uncle Beau was not happy that we’d gone walking longer than he deemed necessary.

“We were walking off our fidgets,” Gigi told him. “Mom had guests and I knew we’d need to clean the good tea set after they left. Rain needs to learn she can’t have the fidgets to do that. The pieces are delicate. And then we need to check your models to see if they need dusting.”

“You stay out of that room unless I give you permission. I don’t need little girls getting into things that don’t concern them,” he ordered.

You couldn’t tell if he was talking about me or Gigi or both of us. Suddenly Uncle Beau snapped at me, “You have something to say about that?”

“No Sir. I never got into Daddy’s military stuff. I know better than to get into grown man stuff.”

He was quiet for a moment then snorted. “Well stop with the hurt feelings and sour face. I’ll know if you do so don’t disappoint me, or your father and I will be having a talk.”

I heard the threat in his voice but didn’t react to it like he expected. I was already starting to understand that at that time, Uncle Beau made a lot of noise but that it was Aunt Anne that I needed to be careful of.

And speaking of that woman, “You two clear the table and get things put away. Gigi, I want to see what the girl is going to be wearing to VBS this coming week to see if I need to make some changes. I understand you have her in shorts instead of a skirt?” She didn’t sound happy about the choice.

Gigi gave me a wink where Aunt Anne couldn’t see and told me to pick up the napkins and sweep the rug with the Fuller Brush (a non-electric vacuum cleaner) and wait for her to touch the dishes.

“Mom, I heard from Brother Calvin’s wife that they are going to be playing outdoor games and that the songs this year are very … enthusiastic. Until we make sure that Rain knows how to do those things in a skirt, I thought capris would be more modest.”

“Capris? Not shorts?”

“Definitely not shorts. I don’t know all the children in the program this year since they started opening it up to the community until all the slots fill up. About the only family I know on the current list for Rain’s age group are some of the Evanston kids and they are all older than she is by a couple of years unless Darla and her kids are visiting. But you know Darla, she normally only lets her girls participate in things if she is there and she switched her membership to that church she attends with her in-laws over in St. Augustine. If she isn’t a church member she won’t be allowed to volunteer.”

Aunt Anne looked at the kitchen counter and said, “I have an updated roll. Read it and see if you know any of them. I recognize some of the family names but not the children listed. They were all too young when your father and I worked in the children’s program. They came after we retired from the position. I’m trying to give that new Children’s Director a chance but in my opinion her leniency is going to create problems for church leadership. You saw how that last children’s production went.”

Gigi only nodded. It wasn’t until later that I found out that some of the music wasn’t appreciated by some of the older people in the church. And they definitely hadn’t liked the dancing. Sign language and hand movements were apparently tolerated but anything that looked like dancing, especially if it was co-ed, was considered shocking. Only at the same time, I came to understand that not everyone in the church was like that, only the people that Aunt Anne and Uncle Beau were friends with and they were all growing older, moving away, or mellowing out making it a smaller and smaller group of people. They were just a financially influential group in the church.

The next day was church, and I didn’t go with the other children but sat with Gigi in the back while Aunt Anne and Uncle Beau sat up in the very front. That’s the first time that I saw Gigi pull her finger crochet stuff out of her purse to keep her hands busy. She explained it to me later and it just became part of the landscape of my life.

Then the next day was the first day of VBS. I was excited to go until I got read the Riot Act by Uncle Beau; that if I dared to embarrass them, they’d have to reconsider having me live with them and I needed to think about how that would affect Dad and my brother’s lives. It had been a long time since I’d been around other kids, and I was nervous that I’d make mistakes and get in trouble.

Gigi did what she could to try and help me find some confidence, but I just didn’t have any to find. We were in snack time, and I just about wanted to cry. Nothing felt like it was going right, I missed Dad and my brother, and on top of everything else a girl stole my snack, some animal crackers that were my absolute favorite cookies.

“Geez, you aren’t going to cry are you?” I heard a boy say behind me.

Another boy said, “Sure she’s going to. Girls always cry. You know how much noise our sisters would be making if that nasty Nancy Goode had stolen their cookies.”

I shook my head no, and just wanted them to go away so I didn’t look at them.

“Well, that’s something,” the first boy said. “So long as you don’t cry you can have my cookies.”

He’d surprised me so much I looked up. He pushed his cookies towards me. I looked at the cookies and then at him. There were three of them left on the napkin. I took one and pushed the other two back. “Thank you,” I whispered.

“You can have them all.”

“No. I’ll take one. You take two. You’re bigger.”

He shrugged and sat down. So did the other boy that I learned was his year older brother named Daniel. “You live with Gigi.”

I looked at them suspiciously and that’s when the boy said, “Hey, it’s okay. Our mom and a couple of our aunts are friends with her. They told us to make sure no one picks on you. We woulda stopped Nancy but her brother was being a jerk to one of our sisters. Like popping her bra kinda stupid.”

“Um … okay.” I couldn’t believe a boy had said bra at church so casually.

That’s when I heard the lady calling the class I was with that it was time to go to the next station. I got up and pushed my chair in. “Thank you for the cookie.”

“Uh, sure. Just don’t cry. It only makes Nancy and her brother think you are easy to pick on. So don’t be easy to pick on.”

Easy for the boy to say. I went to go stand in line but as we started to head out that girl Nancy tripped me and laughed when I fell down. Some of the other kids laughed too. I knew the routine having learned it at my school of “special needs” kids. The more you reacted the more you got pecked at. If you cried, no matter how bad it hurt, you were the one that got in trouble for causing a scene. But if you could hold out, sometimes the kid that was picking on you “went too far” and the adults couldn’t ignore it anymore and you got some relief, even if only for the rest of the day.

And that’s what happened during story time. Nancy wound up kicking me instead of just tripping me and she did it right in front of three of the teachers… and Aunt Anne who had been there checking up on me and Gigi. And where Nancy kicked my knee through my capris it started bleeding. Like running down my leg messy bleeding. Gigi got sent for from where she was working with the snack ladies. I had to go to the church office for the Pastor’s wife to have a look at my knee. Aunt Anne stood there vibrating just about as bad as Gigi did when she had too much energy.

“I don’t think she needs to go to the Clinic Anne. It’s a pretty good scuff but nothing that a bandaid and some triple antibiotic won’t take care of so long as it is kept clean.” She sighed and I later learned she used to be a nurse in a pediatric office. “And here I thought it would be one of the boys in here first. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them so wound up. We need to put that energy to use some how.” She shook her head.

My aunt wasn’t being put off. She said, “My understanding is that girl’s name is Goode?”

The pastor’s wife gave in to the inevitable. “I know Anne, I know. But you know who she’s the granddaughter of. Her brother is … is similar in temperament. I heard they were in five different schools this past year. Some because the mother was moving around and some because of … behavioral issues.”

Aunt Anne was still pinched up. “Same as for the older ones.”

“Yes. Unfortunately. Will you allow Calvin to handle this? He won’t sweep it under the rug, but it needs to be handled delicately. We need the permit to go smoothly for the Sanctuary’s new roof.”

That didn’t make any sense to me and Gigi broke in quietly, “If it is okay I’m going to take her and see if I can wash some of the blood out of her sock before it stains.”

“Good thinking Gigi,” the lady said. Then she surprised me by saying, “You were very brave Rain. And thank you for not making a scene. Nancy needs our prayers and good examples of how we are supposed to treat other people.”

“Yes ma’am.” And I cut off anything else by saying, “And I won’t be mean back to her. Some kids just don’t understand that, and it only makes them meaner.”

“Well … yes. But I don’t want you to think she can just pick on you. That’s not how Christians are supposed to behave. Turning the cheek yes, but we still need to behave like we understand our bodies are God’s Temple and treat it properly. If you have any more trouble, I want you to tell your aunt and they’ll handle it.”

“Yes ma’am,” I answered without really understanding the whole temple thing. But if it meant they didn’t expect me to get beat on, that was good.

Gigi then took me to the bathroom and took off my shoe and sock to see if she could get the blood out. I could tell she was upset and I patted her hand. “It’s okay. A lot of the kids in my old school were like that Nancy. Dad told me it was a rotten way to learn about people and that I shouldn’t have to at my age but that sometimes we didn’t get to pick when lessons happen.” That’s another bit of Dad’s wisdom that has stuck with me.

Gigi patted my hand back. “Uncle Mack was always smart about that stuff. Thunder is a lot like him but listen up, I’m going to ask Daniel and Quill to keep an eye on you even more in case those two Goode kids get worse. I’m not going to let you get kicked again. Just look at this knee,” she said quietly, like she might be about to cry.

“Don’t get in trouble. You said we had plans and needed to be careful.”

She looked at me for a minute and said, “We do. But that doesn’t include you being picked on and hit and kicked.”

I shrugged. “Some kids are just mean and not even teachers can make them be any other way.”

“You just let Daniel and Quill keep an eye on you.”

“They’re those boys from snack time?”

“Yes. Daniel is the older one. Quill is the one that gave you his cookies.”

“I only took one and gave him two back.”

“Well, that was nice of you. Quill is a bottomless pit and always hungry. So is Daniel but not as much as Quill. It is like Quill has two hollow legs to Daniel’s one.”

“How do you know them?” I asked, not trusting anything a stinky boy had told me, especially one I didn’t know.

“Mmm. Well they’re Bruce’s family.” I made a face. “It’s not like that, Girly. None of Bruce’s family is like he was. Except for his mother and she was never really part of the story. His father had custody of him. In fact, they were really upset and helped me a lot when I was at my lowest. Darla and Dakota, Daniel and Quill’s aunts, have been my friends since I was your age. You let them help. Understand?”

I nodded but thought to myself that I’d decide just how much I would “let them help” once I got to know them.

I got my damp sock and shoe back on and was going to join my group for closing service when I thought to ask, “Will I be allowed to come back tomorrow?”

Gigi blinked, looked at Aunt Anne who looked just as surprised. The pastor lady said, “Of course you are welcome to come back Rain. You won’t want to miss the next part of the story now would you?”

“No ma’am. And we are supposed to finish our craft and learn a new Bible verse for VBS Night.”

“That’s exactly right. Gigi take her on so she doesn’t miss any more than she has.”

I knew that sound. One adult wanted to talk to another adult. I just hoped it didn’t mean that Gigi or I were going to get in trouble. Even now I know some adults can be strange that way. Even now that I’m almost an adult myself.
 
This is a slow developing story. What eventually arrives requires a lot of character development and development of the universe this story exists inside. Hopefully it isn't boring you all out of your skulls. LOL

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Chapter 19​


It was after dinner and I had done my kitchen chores and was waiting to say good night like a good girl and had just started to relax that there wouldn’t be trouble when Uncle Beau rattled the church bulletin he was reading and looked at Aunt Anne. “Rain, come to my sitting room. No Gigi, I can talk to the girl without your help.”

I felt like I was going to my death. Aunt Anne sat down in her high back chair and said, “Rain I would appreciate it if you would look at me when I’m speaking to you.”

I looked up and said, “Yes ma’am.”

She sighed. “Today was … unfortunate. The Goode children are … a challenge. You did correct letting the grown ups handle the situation. Your uncle got a call from Brother Calvin and it was settled on that they are assigning a … hmmm … buddy to each of the Goode children to prevent anything similar from happening. However, I expect you to do your part. For some reason you are being seen as a target. I’m not sure what you are doing to cause it but I’m sure in this instance it is not intentional. I received nothing but good reports on you today. I expect that to continue.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“If you continue to behave, I will see about Gigi taking you to the children’s library at the church and you may pick out a book to read.”

A bribe. A stupid one but I still recognized it for what it was even at my age. “Yes ma’am. Thank you. I’ll be on my best behavior.”

“See you do. You may go.”

I got out while the getting was good and when I heard Uncle Beau say, “Come read this to me Anne” I knew to head to bed and be quick about it.

Gigi caught me and insisted on cleaning my knee and putting a new, bigger bandaid on it. “This should keep it from sticking to your sheets or nightie.” When she was sure her parents were occupied, she gave me a hug and said, “Good job. Now go rest. It’s been a full day, and we have more to do tomorrow. After VBS Mom and Dad have a dinner engagement with friends in Welaka. We’ll have grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner and talk about how we are going to do school and what we’ll need. It’ll be fun.”

I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt since school had never thrilled me and went to bed wanting Bonkey and Poo really bad but all I could do was pretend they were in my arms by rolling a small washcloth up and holding it close. The cloth caught the few tears that I couldn’t stop from leaking out of my eyes and it became a habit that my aunt and uncle never caught onto.

++++++++++

Talking to Gigi about school turned out to be fun. I found out that home school was different from going to school. I’d still learn but the stuff that I learned from would be different. She showed me a website called Ambleside Online and while I didn’t understand all she was talking about it still seemed like it could be better than my old school. I decided it was worth a shot anyway.

The remainder of VBS week was normal-ish. Aunt Anne had been right, and Nancy and her brother had adult buddies the same way some of the kids at my old school had “one on one adult supervision”. The buddies redirected Nancy from acting out and being mean. Her brother didn’t get in near as much trouble because Nancy was the ringleader of the two. Keeping them in separate groups helped even though I heard their grandparents weren’t happy about it. Gigi muttered under her breath, “Too bad, so sad.” I think a lot of the other adults thought the same thing.

On Saturday I got another zoom from my brother, and I got a surprise when it was a three-way zoom because Dad had stayed up to make sure he could join in. Dad got to stay online a whole fifteen minutes – that was the limit all the military personnel had – and my brother stayed on after that to make sure everything was going okay. I realized that by some of the things he said that Gigi and him must have been messaging each other but that was okay. I also figured out that my brother wasn’t telling Dad everything because Dad’s job was stressful and he didn’t need to be distracted by things that could be taken care of another way. I knew that wouldn’t play well when Dad figured things out, because Dad always figured things out, but decided to leave that part to my brother. That became the way things were … Saturdays were zoom calls and sometimes Dad could join in live and sometimes it had to be just an electronic letter sort of thing. I missed them both so bad, but I was a little kid, and I think God must give little kids some mental protections you lose as you get older. I missed Dad and my brother but the idea in my head was that we’d all be together soon, I just needed to believe in that.

That Sunday was the VBS production and I had five different scriptures to memorize and say. I was sweating, but when it came down to it, I remembered my assigned ones without a hitch, and I could see the relief on my aunt and uncle’s faces even from up on the stage. Gigi clapped and gave me a hug. The only thing her parents told her was, “Please watch your energy level. We don’t want people to think you are reverting to the way you were.”

That night it was my turn to tell Gigi, “Thank you. I was scared and needed the hug. And you weren’t too energy. It was just right.”

She slowly smiled and said, “Energetic, not energy. And thank you for noticing.” I think she wanted to say more but Aunt Anne was bustling around and saying it was passed our bedtime and that music camp started the next day and she better not get a bad report because I was tired and out of sorts or not paying attention.

The next morning was even harder than VBS because I couldn’t hide behind other kids. I’d need to prove what level I was at with the guitar. But I didn’t have a guitar. Only suddenly I did. “It’s mine from when I was just a little older than you. Mom had wanted me to play like Aunt Marjorie but the guitar and I never seemed to get along. I played piano instead.”

“The piano? Wow,” I said getting to know the Junior Acoustic Guitar she’d handed me on our way out the door to walk to the church. “Will you play for me sometime?”

“I would except I can’t remember how. When my brain was injured, I forgot how to do some things and had to relearn. I just never relearned how to play the piano.”

“Do you want to relearn now?” I asked as we walked along.

“Not really. I’ve tried a couple of times but all I see is Mom’s face when she sees me trying and not being able to do what I could do before. It’s too off-putting and I think she is relieved I stopped trying. Besides, it was hard enough to learn to drive again, and it still gives me a stomachache, and I can’t drive at night.” She changed the subject quickly like I learned she would do when something made her uncomfortable or nervous. “Now look, there aren’t going to be nearly as many kids at music camp, at least not in the instrument classes. And those Goode kids won’t be there at all. I heard they’re being sent to summer school so they can pass to the next grade and not get held back again so you don’t have to worry about them.”

“Are there going to be other kids I need to worry about?”

Like she was weighing her words she said, “Maybe. Pastor Calvin’s grandkids are going to be there. You didn’t meet them at VBS because they are older. But at music camp you get mixed together by ability and instrument, not by age. I don’t think you’ll have to be in a class with either one of them but just in case you just let them take center stage if they want it. Their dad is the high school pastor and they kind of get away with more than they should … but you don’t say that.”

I gave her a look like do you think I’m stupid? She smiled and when we got to church there were opening exercises and then we were separated out by instrument to get tested if the music teachers didn’t already know what we could do. My luck was at its usual level and one of the pastor’s granddaughters and I were stuck in the same class since she wanted to learn to play guitar instead of violin like her other grandmother wanted her to which I heard about during snack time because her and her friends ran their mouths … a lot. You would have thought a middle schooler wouldn’t need to show up someone my age but sure enough she was just that type. I tried to keep my head down, but first day, when some boy asked me where I had gotten my guitar and I didn’t know any better than to answer him honestly, Lisa had to say something mean.

“Oh. Everyone knows she’s just that drain bammaged woman. Why would she have a guitar? You must be lying.”

I heard a woman snap, “Lisa Rene!”

I tried not to react but in addition to that woman who looked laser beams at Lisa, I saw that Gigi had heard what she said. That made me mad. During snack time Quill – without Daniel who apparently couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket that had a lid on it – told me, “Don’t listen to Lisa. She’s stupid.”

“I know she is, but Gigi heard what she said and that makes me really angry.”

“Er … don’t blow up or anything. Lisa might be stupid but she’s a preacher’s kid.”

“Duh. I got that figured out. And she’s an older girl too.”

“So, what are you going to do about it except be mad?”

I smiled making him look a little nervous and explained quietly, “I’m going to learn all the songs and play them better than her. And I’m going to tell Gigi that I’m learning them for her and no one else to make her happy and not listen to some stupid girl even if she is a preacher’s kid.”

“Uh … okay. But Lisa is older. And her father plays guitar in the church’s orchestra.”

“So?”

He slowly grinned. “I’m gonna wanna see this.”

I shrugged. He was just a stinky boy, but he wasn’t a bad stinky boy and he’d tried to give me all his cookies, not just share some of them so that meant he ranked above most stinky boys.

Music camp lasted two weeks, not just one. Saturday was zoom call day and I played the guitar for both Dad and my brother and they cheered me on. That made me even more determined.

Each instrument group learned three songs, and I already knew basically how to play one of them though I needed to “relearn” it since it had been so long. Jesus Loves Me. Lisa tried to make out she was being treated unfairly because the songs were all “baby songs” but oh well. When she tried to complain and ask to get bumped up to a higher class her father said, “No. You wanted to learn a new instrument, and you wouldn’t take lessons from me. This is the way it is. You start at the bottom and work your way up.”

Hmm. Maybe her father wasn’t so bad. He sounded like my own father when I wanted to go from a tricycle to a bicycle without training wheels or practice. I found out after some bumps and bruises that Dad knew what he was talking about.

Our second song was Amazing Grace. It was harder but I practiced until the callouses on my fingers came back and even Uncle Beau would nod in time when I practiced while sitting outside on the screened in lanai. And the big song we were supposed to practice was This Little Light of Mine. That took a lot of finger movement and chord changes. That one made one of my fingers bleed, but I didn’t care. I just stuck a bandaid on it and kept going.

In class I played well but not like I did at the house. I didn’t want to show off and draw attention. I’d save it for the music recital when Lisa messed up. And she would. Because every day it showed she wasn’t practicing like she should have been. She just complained to the other girls she met up with at snack time how boring and stupid it was for her to have to play with the babies. Lisa thought she was a rock star, but she could barely switch from A to D without squeaking really loud. She wasn’t the only one. About half the kids weren’t really into learning to play the guitar, they had just thought it was cool only to find out it was work and made your fingers sore at first. I’d already learned that part from Mom.

On the recital day I was too determined to be nervous. It was like at school. I had known people expected me to be stupid, but I refused to be because I knew Dad was watching. In a way he was watching this time too because Gigi promised that she’d send a copy of the recital recording the music teachers were making.

They drew straws to see which instrument and level would go first. No one knew what number was coming out of the hat; you just had to be prepared. When it was my group’s turn we all went up on stage and stood in our assigned spots. Lisa tried to hog one of the mics until our teacher got her back in line. Another older boy tried to do the same thing but was given the same treatment. Then we started. Jesus Loves Me was first and came out pretty good for all of us. We’d been practicing as a group for two weeks and it had the fewest mistakes. Then came Amazing Grace. It was still okay but there were more mistakes being made by some of the kids and some of them were just air strumming instead of actually playing because they forgot the chords. Lisa was starting to sweat. Playing up in front of people with mics that blared the sound out was different than playing in a classroom with no one watching. She was forced to hear her mistakes because of the speakers. And she knew we were being recorded too. Then it was time for This Little Light of Mine. By the end of the song only two of us were playing and one kid actually walked off the stage to pout in embarrassment. Everyone clapped and we went to sit back down so the other kids could all take their turns too. Some of them were really, really good and had solos.

I got a surprise that I didn’t know was coming. Me and the other boy named Benji got included in the final performance playing Amazing Grace with all the other kids and instruments from all levels. When it was over, everyone in our class got participation ribbons but Benji and I got ribbons with glittery edges on them.

I still have that stupid ribbon in my keepsakes. I also have a copy of a picture that Aunt Anne took. I was standing in front of the preacher’s podium thing with the guitar that Gigi gave me. She said quietly, “You look like your mother.” The next day she told me that she and Uncle Beau were discussing whether I would get guitar lessons, but it depended on my continued good behavior and whether there was a slot in the music school that the church offered.
 
"This is a slow developing story. What eventually arrives requires a lot of character development and development of the universe this story exists inside. Hopefully it isn't boring you all out of your skulls"

Your stories are the farthest thing from boring. Each one does seem to involve the character and universe development you mention but for me that is also what makes them so riveting and addictive. Thank you for sharing your creativity with all of us.
 
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