I got in back, she climbed in front.
Everything looked tidy. New. And it smelled like vanilla inside the car. I remember really liking the way it smelled.
But after we’d been driving along for a while, the guy reached over and started playing with my mom’s hair.
My mom had beautiful hair. Long and thick and curly. That day it was tied back because it really needed washing, but he didn’t seem to notice. He reached right over and undid the clip.
I remember thinking that was weird. I remember feeling very uncomfortable.
My mom tried to take the clip back, but he just laughed and put it aside. Then he started stroking her hair, which made me really uncomfortable.
My mom whispered, “Stop it!” and pulled away from him.
He clamped a hand around the back of her neck and yanked her toward him, saying, “Don’t you tell me to stop.”
She whimpered, “Please…,” as she looked at me between the seats. “My daughter.”
He looked at me in the rearview mirror but didn’t let go.
“Please,” my mom begged.
“You’re hurting her!” I cried and tugged on his arm, trying to get him to let go of her.
He did let go, but his hand flew back and smacked me in the face. He hit me square in the nose, and I remember being freaked out by the amount of blood that was gushing out of it.
My mom screamed when she saw the blood, and it seemed to set something off in him. He started hitting her with the side of his fist, yelling awful stuff as he beat her again and again and again.
“STOP IT!” I screamed and tried to get in between them. My hands were covered with blood from my nose, and when he saw that it was getting all over his clothes and his car, he slammed on the brakes and swerved to the side of the road. “GET OUT!” he shouted, and before we’d even finished stumbling out of the car, he was peeling away.
The first thing Mom did was hold my cheeks and say, “Baby, did he knock out your teeth?”
“No, Mom,” I told her. “It’s just my nose.”
“Did he break it?”
“I don’t know.” It was tender, but I couldn’t tell if it was broken. I pinched it to stop the bleeding.
Mom looked right in my eyes and whispered, “I’m so sorry, baby. I’m so, so sorry.”
“Why did he do that?” I asked her. “What did we do wrong?”
“We did nothing wrong.” Her hands had moved down to my shoulders and she said, “Promise me something, baby. Promise me that when you get older, you will never, ever hitchhike.”
I nodded, but that wasn’t good enough. She shook my shoulders a little and said, “Promise me!”
So I let go of my nose and said, “I promise.”
And that’s why no matter how tired I am of walking, or how nice or friendly the person acts, I won’t hitchhike.
Ever.
It’s the only promise she ever asked me to make.
I should stop writing now, but I can’t. That day was probably the second worst day of my entire life. The knife fight behind the van. Eddie crashing the van and flying through the window. Hiding in the woods. Seeing my mom so sick. Hitchhiking. Being attacked by a madman…It was a nightmare, and I want to get to the end of it. If I can just get to the end of it, maybe I can get it out of my mind.
So, okay. By the time we’d walked into town, my mother was back to shivering and dry heaving. I remember asking her, “Why are you sick again, Mom? You seemed to be better for a while….”
She didn’t answer. She was too busy concentrating on finding a doctor.
We wound up in a really scary part of town, with barbed wire and graffiti everywhere, and the building she went to didn’t look like a doctor’s office at all. It was a tall brick walkup with bars on the windows and garbage strewn all around.
Inside the front door she planted me in a corner on the floor and said, “Wait right here. Don’t go anywhere, you hear me?”
I nodded and I stayed put, but the corner smelled bad, and the people who went up and down the stairs scared me. They looked mean, and I remember thinking that their eyes looked smoggy. Hazy and dirty and yellowed.
Mom took forever to come back, but when she wobbled down the stairs, she told me that she was feeling much better. I was starving and exhausted, and it was dark outside. “Where are we going to sleep?” I asked her, but she collapsed at the foot of the stairs.
“Mom?” I cried. “Mom? Are you all right?”
Her eyes opened about halfway, and that was the first time I noticed that my mom’s eyes were smoggy, too. “It’s all right, baby,” she said. Her voice was airy. Real happy-sounding. “Why don’t we sleep right here tonight.”
“Here?” I looked around. “Mom, wake up! We can’t sleep here…!”
But she wouldn’t budge.
I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to ask someone for help, but there was nobody around. And I had this awful feeling that the people in that big brick building couldn’t help me, anyway.
I shook her and I did cry some, but after a while I started looking around and I found a closet. It was a broom closet, so it wasn’t very big, but it was better than sleeping out in the hall. So I woke my mom up enough to drag her into it and shut us both inside.
I was very uncomfortable, but I finally fell asleep sitting up.
She didn’t seem to mind. She fell asleep with her head in my lap.
I have no idea what day it is
It’s been another day of endless walking. Walking and thinking. I hadn’t made the connection before, but now I see that the story I made up about Louise K. Palmer has a little of me in it.
Louise waits for her children, and I used to wait for my mom. I used to pretend that she was still alive and that she’d come back for me. I could see her in my mind, arms out, smile big and bright, hair flowing in beautiful curls behind her. “Baby!” she’d cry, running toward me. “Baby, I found you!”
I saw her in my head so often. I heard her voice in my mind. I pretended so hard that I almost believed it. Some days I think I actually did.
Counselors have really tried to get me to talk about my mom, but I’ve always refused. I didn’t like thinking about what had happened or why. I didn’t want to face the fact that she was gone forever. I’ve never talked about any of it, at all, ever.
But now it seems that’s all I’m able to do. I finally let myself think about it a little, and talk about it (well, write about it) a little, and now it’s like a flood that I just can’t stop.
So I walked and thought today, but the truth is, I cried a lot, too. I didn’t even try to stop it, or beat myself up for doing it. I just sat on boulders above the pounding surf and let the tears come crashing through.
I didn’t know she was a junkie. I just thought she was sick. But she was a junkie, and it’s a cold, hard, cruel fact that she loved heroin more than she loved me.
How can anything be that strong? I know she loved me. I know it. She’d cry her eyes out over the thought of losing me. “You’re all I’ve got left. Please, please, please, God, oh please, she’s all I’ve got left.” Then she’d hold me and rock me and whisper, “I love you, baby. I love you so, so much.”
So we stayed together, living on the streets. We slept in alleys, back doorways, over heater vents, and if we were really lucky, inside a filthy, closet-size room of a flophouse.
We didn’t go to shelters too often because they made my mother very nervous. “They’ll take you from me, baby,” she’d whisper. “They’ll take you from me.”
I didn’t understand why someone would take me away from my own mother. So one time I asked her, “But why?”
“They’ll say I’m a bad mom,” she whispered.
I hugged her tight and told her, “But you’re a great mom!” and I meant it. With all my heart, I meant it.
I read any book I could get my hands on. It helped me forget my fleabites and itching scalp. Mom didn’t seem to care now that we had lice or that we were liv
ing among cockroaches and rats. When she wasn’t conked out, she spent most of her energy tracking down “the doctor.”
I stole food. I stole money. I stole watches, CDs, jewelry…. You name it, if it was small enough and I could reach it, I stole it.
“Oh, thank you, baby, thank you!” Mom would say. She’d never eat very much of the food, but she’d take whatever money and valuables I’d snagged and say, “This will help to pay the doctor.”
How could I have been so STUPID? I thought I was helping, but all I was doing was helping her score drugs.
All I was doing was helping to kill her.
7:00 p.m.
I don’t even know where she’s buried.
I don’t even know if she’s buried, or just ashes somewhere.
No one ever told me, and I never asked.
It kills me just to think about.
9:30 p.m.
There’s a voice in my head
“Let her go”
There’s a hole in my heart
crying, “No”
There’s a headwind
A swelling
Strong chains
Demons yelling
There’s a voice in my head
“Let her go.”
The next day, 8:45 a.m.
I had a talk with my mom last night. I don’t know if she heard me, but I felt like she did. I told her I was sorry, and inside I believe that she’s sorry, too.
I cried a lot while I was talking to her, but you know what?
Today I feel kind of peaceful inside.
Like the calm after a big storm.
3:00 p.m.
Eureka! I’ve found BROCCOLI! Fields and fields of broccoli!
I hadn’t eaten in two days, but now I’m full of BROCCO-LA-LA-LA-LA-LI!
Who knows what day it is, but…
I am on the world’s biggest farm! Yesterday I filled up on broccoli, but today I found a field of strawberries. Strawberries! They were yummy with a capital YUM!
Since then I’ve passed by fields and fields of vegetables. Cauliflower, bell peppers, peas, lettuce, spinach, more broccoli…It’s a mind-boggling amount of food!
There are no little farmhouses or poultry or pigs. As a matter of fact, there’s a highway cutting through the middle of this farm. Lots of traffic. Lots of people stooped over in the fields. Lots of irrigation trucks, lots of tractors.
Hmm. I wonder what my dad was doing when the freak tractor accident happened.
I doubt he was harvesting strawberries.
A couple of days later…
My watch stopped working. I think the battery’s dead. I’m bugged not knowing what time it is. Bugged way more than I would have thought. It’s bad enough not knowing what day it is.
So what have I been doing?
The usual: escaping and surviving.
This particular escaping started because I had to go to the bathroom. And since, like I said, it’s farmland around here for as far as you can see, there was no good place to go. No trees, no bushes, no camouflage areas, just fields and fields of vegetables.
The farther I walked down the highway, the more of an emergency it was becoming, so I finally went through a field of (I think) Brussels sprouts over to some portable outhouses. I could see a couple of pickup trucks and a swarm of field workers in the distance, but there were other portable outhouses near them, so I thought I could use one of the nearer ones without being seen.
The outhouses said HUNNY HUT on the outside, which I thought was pretty funny, considering the way they smelled on the inside. But it was an emergency, so I went in, closed the door, and did my business.
Man. It was ripe in there! I tried to hold my breath but wound up having to gulp in a few more. And when I was all done, I tried to shoot out the door, but the door wouldn’t open. I frantically turned the lock every which way, but it would not release the door. I rattled, I shook, I twisted, I pushed, but I was trapped.
Calm down, Holly, calm down! I told myself. I tried the door some more. Tried to be calm. Tried to analyze the situation. But the stupid latch wouldn’t release and it was SO rancid in there. “Calm down?” I shouted out loud. “I came all this way to suffocate to death in an outhouse? Forget it! No way! Nuh-uh!”
So I sat on the seat and bashed the door with my feet. Smash! Bash! Crash! Smash! Bash! Crash! The whole outhouse was shaking!
Smash! Bash! Crash! Smash! Bash! Crash! I whacked it with all my might, and finally, FINALLY the door flew open.
I dove outside, gasping for air, and I landed right in front of a big dusty farmer.
Instead of buying myself some time by yelling at him about the condition of his facilities, I did something really stupid:
I tried to make a break for it.
“Whoa! Whoa!” He grabbed me by the back of my backpack and turned me so I was facing him. “Who are you?”
“Someone who about DIED in there!” I shouted, pointing at his Hunny Hut. “I can’t believe you make people use those! They’re rancid death traps! I got locked inside!”
He raised an eyebrow at me, holding me at arm’s distance. “They’re waitin’ on the sump truck,” he said, “which is behind schedule.” He didn’t seem mad. Just BIG. Big feet in big dirty boots, big hands, big sweaty trucker hat, big fleshy nose…just big.
“Let me go!” I shouted.
But he didn’t. Instead, he walked me over to his big truck and shoved me inside through the driver door, saying, “When I first spotted you, I thought you were a field worker making a bad latrine choice, but you’re a runaway, aren’t you?”
I dove for the passenger door, but he snagged me by the backpack again and said, “How long you been on the run?” That eyebrow went up again. “And what you been runnin’ from?”
I clammed up tight. Like it was any of his business?
He snorted softly and nodded. “Well, it’s plain to see you could use a shower and some clean clothes.” He shot me a sideways glance. “And a hot meal, most likely.”
It’s funny what the words a hot meal can do to you when you haven’t had one in a while. They get your taste buds amped and your saliva flowing. They make you start picturing a table loaded high with meat and potatoes and gravy and vegetables and rolls and butter and pie. And a big pitcher of ice-cold milk. Yes, that’s what a hot meal is. None of this fast food stuff. I don’t care how hot they serve it, fast food will never qualify as a hot meal.
The bad thing about someone offering you a hot meal is that it can make you drop your defenses, and when you’re on the run, it’s important to stay suspicious. You don’t want to get duped by the lure of meat and potatoes and pie.
But I did quit squirming after that. He drove through the field, over to the swarm of workers, and shouted something in Spanish to one man, who nodded and waved like, Don’t sweat it. I got it.
We drove past the workers slowly, then sped up on the dirt road that cut away from the highway between fields. I looked in all directions and realized that no matter which way I ran, there was no place to hide. I was surrounded by fields and fields of low-growing plants.
“I’m Walt, by the way,” he told me, looking straight ahead. “Walt Lewis.”
I said nothing.
“You’ll like my wife. Good cook. Good humor. Good heart.”
I still said nothing, but I could see the farmhouse straight ahead. It was yellow and white, with flower beds at the base of the front porch and dormer windows on the second floor.
I love dormer windows. They’re very storybook. So between the promise of a hot meal and the sight of dormer windows, he didn’t have to yank too hard to get me to follow him inside. And after he explained the situation to his wife, she clucked all over me like a mama hen. “Poor sweet darlin’, let’s get you into the bath!”
I didn’t actually talk to her, but I did turn over all my clothes, then I got in the bathtub. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve soaked in a bath? Forever! I used to hate baths, but I was stupid. Baths are
divine! They’re massage therapy for the soul.
And I really needed one! I washed my hair four times before it didn’t feel matted to my head anymore, and I had to switch the bathwater three times before it stopped being muddy-looking. I wish I could have just relaxed, but I started worrying about my name being in my jacket. Had she seen it? What if she was calling social services?
Walt’s wife came in twice. Once to pass in a change of clothes and say, “I’m Valerie, by the way. I hope these fit’cha. I only had boys, so the choice isn’t great, but I’ve got boxes and boxes in the attic if these don’t work.” The second time was about an hour later when she knocked and popped her head in, saying, “Supper’s about ready.”
I still hadn’t said anything more to either of them, but when I emerged from the bathroom and came downstairs to the kitchen table, the smell of pot roast and biscuits broke me down. “Oh, that smells so good!” I said, and it came out hoarse. Sort of choked up.
Valerie smiled at me. “Well, look at you!” she said, sounding very pleased. “And those clothes fit you fine!”
They did fit. And they were a good choice: regular jeans and a black T-shirt, with a long-sleeved, button-down work shirt to wear over.
“Have a seat, then,” she said, “and let’s say grace.”
But on my way over to the table a border collie with bright blue eyes came padding toward me. She looked so happy and so sweet that before Walt could finish snapping his fingers and say, “Chia, corner,” I was down on my knees, letting her love me up with doggie kisses.
Valerie laughed, and Walt did, too, but they made me wash my hands and face again before eating.
Dinner was great, and they were nice, but I didn’t say a word. I did shrug and shake my head some when they asked me questions, but when they started trying to find out more about why I was on my own, I quit making any kind of response at all. I just ate.
Nobody from social services came pounding on the door, and Valerie set me up in a room, like of course I was going to spend the night. The bed was big and soft, with feathery pillows, and there were all my clothes, clean and folded at the foot of it.