ElleSpeak

The sound of car tires crunching on gravel just outside our tent woke me.  The morning was just dawning and the damp haze of night was still hanging in the air, muffling the sound of chirping birds.  I wriggled out of the sleeping bag sandwiched between my two brothers who were still asleep.  I crawled to the front of our tent where the flaps were lifted to allow air flow during the humid nights in the Everglades campground.

 

As I peered through the screened door of the tent and looked around at our campsite I could see my Mom sitting at the picnic table with her usual morning cup of tea, but she wasn’t humming or singing like she did most mornings.  She was quiet and seemed tense as she sat watching my Dad climb out of the small green Corvair that was our family’s second car.  She didn’t say a word to him as he walked toward her.

 

I had sensed some trouble brewing with my Mom for the last couple of weeks.  Our family had always been friendly with two of the park rangers, Raymond and Pete, who we met a few years ago during our annual summer camping trip to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and were surprised to see them again that December in the Everglades where my family camped for several weeks every year.  A friendship between Mom and Raymond had grown over the years, but this visit he had spent much more time hanging out with us, showing us where he lived in the park, taking us on a boat ride, and then…..I had witnessed a hug between them.  A hug wasn’t unusual, but to the eyes of this 12 year old girl it had seemed to be more than just a hug of friendship.

 

My Mom was a loving, demonstrative mother, but often she seemed restless, and was perpetually discontent.  She blamed her relationship with Dad for her lack of contentment; she felt he could never give her enough of what she wanted.

 

She was frequently preoccupied with sex and inappropriately shared her feelings about sex with me and my brothers, and occasionally she really embarrassed us by talking about sex with our neighborhood friends when they came to play.

 

Years later when society began to label people she would be identified as a schizophrenic, but at the time we didn’t have a label to help us understand her unseemly behavior.

 

The trouble I had sensed brewing with her the last couple of weeks felt different than usual though, somehow bigger, and this morning it looked like I was about to find out exactly how big.

 

I jostled my younger brother awake, and putting a finger to my mouth I motioned with my other hand for him to join me at the door of the tent.  Without questioning me he unzipped his sleeping bag quietly and crept to my side.  He must have felt the tension in the air without me saying a word.

 

I pointed to the picnic table where Mom was sitting and Dad was standing.  They were just looking at each other across the table, eyes locked, not speaking. I heard my older brother moving behind us, and I looked over my shoulder and gave him a warning look.  He squirmed out of his sleeping bag and joined us, sitting just behind the two of us, but still able to see what was happening.

 

I still remember the feeling of moist, sticky air clinging to my skin, and the smell of damp canvas as the sun began to evaporate the overnight dew; and the three of us kids sitting hunched over, clutching our stomachs, sensing that there was big trouble in our world.

 

We had witnessed fights between our parents on and off for a couple of years now, and they usually ended up outdoors, summer or winter.  Mom standing on one side of the yard and Dad on the other, raised voices hurling hurtful accusations at each other, and finally Dad or Mom yelling “I’m leaving!” and turning to us kids and asking, “Who’s coming with me?”

 

It was always the same, and the choices we kids made were always the same.  I chose Dad because I adored him, I think I had been Daddy’s girl since the first time I heard his voice while still inside my mother’s womb.  My younger brother Gene was the baby of the family, and he chose Mom because he was crazy about her and because he was Mom’s favorite and we all knew it, and were okay with it.  My older brother Ron chose one or the other, according to his own criteria of the moment.

 

Dad was still standing on the other side of the picnic table, just staring down at Mom for the longest time, neither of them speaking.  Finally, his voice tense, uneasy, and sounding tired, he asks, “What the hell’s going on Maxine?  Why didn’t you and the kids meet me yesterday?  I waited all day for you and you never showed.  Do you know how worried I was?  I slept for a few hours at the motel last night and then drove straight here, I didn’t know where else to start looking.  I thought something might have happened to all of you, but here you are, nothing packed up, nothing ready to go.  What the hell are you doing?  What the hell is going on?”

 

Mom’s back was to us and I could hear the sound of her voice but not the words she was saying, and suddenly Dad’s voice was raised and he was pointing his finger at her from across the table, “Look, you’re the one who wanted to move to Florida!  I took the leave of absence from work…..I found a job in Orlando…..I just made a down payment on a house for Christ’s sake!  You wanted all this, not me, so why didn’t you meet me like we planned?  It’s been two weeks since I’ve heard from you.  You didn’t even call me at Clarence’s house that whole time.  What is going on with you? Dammit!”

 

Mom was standing now but her back was still to us and her voice was low, so I still couldn’t make out her words.  Dad was listening, and then he wasn’t listening anymore.  They were yelling at each other and the words were all jumbled up, tumbling over each other, and not making any sense.  A butcher knife appeared in Mom’s hand and she started chasing Dad around the picnic table waving the knife out in front of her, slashing the thick air, shrieking at him, “Go away and leave us alone!  I don’t want you here!  I don’t need you here!  Go back to Indiana and leave us alone!”  Pieces of her life seemed to be falling all around her as she ran and ran, slashing her world apart.  Finally she plopped down hard on the earth, sobbing and moaning, and threw the knife away from her.  Dad picked it up and threw it into the nearby stand of jack pines that grew everywhere in the Everglades.  He went over to Mom and helped her up and they walked to the picnic table where they both sat down.  Emotions were still high, both were crying, but their voices were no longer loud and threatening.

 

I was still sitting with my brothers, huddled together behind the screened doorway of the tent, unsure if our parents even knew we were awake yet.  My blood had frozen at the sight of Mom chasing Dad with a butcher knife, unable to move or speak, all I could do was sit and watch all of our lives coming unraveled.  I was filled with fear and felt completely helpless, my whole body was shaking, my eyes brimming with tears that wouldn’t stop, and my heart was breaking.

 

We couldn’t hear any more of the conversation now because they were speaking in hushed tones with one of them raising their voice every now and then, but after a while Dad turned to us and asked us to come out of the tent.  So….. they did know we were there…..waiting to see what would become of us.

 

I crawled out of the tent first, on all fours, and my brothers followed.  We stood and walked across the campsite to the picnic table where they were sitting.  I was cold now, still shaking, stomach heavy with dread, face soaked with tears, and the pieces of my broken heart were clutched tightly in closed fists that wouldn’t open for a long time to come.  I knew Gene and Ron must feel the same, but my eyes were on my Dad and Mom.

 

They waited until we were all three standing together, and then Dad spoke to us.  He sounded exhausted and his voice was unusually quiet, “Mom and I are splitting up.  We just can’t make this work anymore.  Your Mom wants to stay here in Florida with you kids.  It’s a crazy idea.  She’ll have to find a job to support you and that won’t be easy.  She’s never had a job before, but it’s what she wants.  I’m going back home to Indiana today and I want you all to go with me, but it’s up to you.  You decide whether you come with me or stay here with your Mom.”

 

We were stunned, but I didn’t have a second thought about my choice, and in a raspy whisper I was the first to declare, “I’m going with you Daddy.”

 

I wasn’t sure who Ron would choose, but since he had turned 14 this year, he and Mom seemed to always be at odds with each other.  He looked at Dad and said almost under his breath, “I’m going back to Indiana with you Dad.”

 

Gene was standing next to me and I grabbed his hand and held it tightly in mine.  I thought he would definitely choose Mom, but I sensed his indecision.  Ron was a loner, always aloof from his pesky younger brother and sister, but Gene and I were best friends who played together all the time, and did almost everything else together too.  We were very close.  He was my little brother who I loved, mothered, looked after and bossed around.  I didn’t want to live without him.

 

Gene turned to me with tears in his eyes and said, “You’re going with Daddy, Sissy?”  I nodded, squeezed his hand tighter, tears rolling down my cheeks, and whispered, “Yes, and I want you to come too Genie.  Please come with us.  Let’s go home.  I just wanna go home.”  I could see he was deeply torn, and didn’t know what to do.  He and Mom had a special bond, but his big sister and the rest of his family was leaving, and he would be left alone with her in the Everglades, maybe to live in a tent for who knew how long.

 

There were so many unanswered questions here in Florida, and until now our home had always been in Indianapolis on Chester Street.  I had made my decision because I adored my Dad and wanted to be with him no matter what, and maybe because I hoped when we got home things would be normal again.

 

Ron didn’t seem to have any trouble choosing Dad, but he never shared why he made that choice.  I could only guess that maybe he hoped for the same sense of normalcy back in Indiana.

 

Gene was really struggling with this decision and all I could do was tell him how I felt and then wait…..I don’t remember Mom saying much of anything during this choosing of sides, but I’m sure she must have tried to persuade Gene to stay.  He was her baby.  In the end though, he chose to come with me and my brother and Dad, back to Indiana.

 

A couple of years ago Gene and I were revisiting this painful time in our lives, and he confided that he never fully recovered from this split.  I suspect that’s because we all decided to leave our mother behind in the Everglades, alone, with just the family station wagon, tent, and some camping equipment.  We were too young to fully understand the consequences of our actions, but old enough to recognize the pain we were causing as we turned our backs on her and headed home to Indiana without her.  How does a child recover from that?

 

How did our young minds weigh this heart wrenching, life altering decision we were asked to make?  In one hand we held only the small amount of common sense and knowledge we had garnered during our few short years of life.  In the other hand we held the knowledge that our mother had betrayed our father.

 

The bigger, unanswered question is how could a parent ask their children to make this kind of decision?

 

I followed my heart and it led me to Dad, but for many years to come I would be haunted by the choice I made.

 

We returned to Indiana that same day, with Dad driving straight through, stopping only for gas and bathroom breaks.  He soon divorced Mom, and the judge granted him full custody of us children.  That was a very unusual occurrence in the 1960’s.  A couple of years later he would meet the love of his life who would become my beloved other mother.

 

Except for the tent in the Everglades our Mom was homeless for a while, and the serious relationship she was hoping for with Raymond never worked out.  She soon found a job waiting tables in a restaurant, and somehow saved enough money to buy a small home.  Unfortunately, one day while she was at work it caught fire and burned to the ground.  That launched her into homelessness once again, but this time she left Florida, and living in her car she traveled all over the country for many months, finally settling in Gila Bend, Arizona where she lived for almost 30 years…..but that’s another story.