Good Intentions

Dad's POV

I woke up that morning as with every morning, looking for another adventure. I start to get out of the bed and I hear crying as if someone were in great pain. I sit on the bed and wonder if I should go and investigate. I tip toe out of my room and make my way down stairs slowly so as not to draw attention to myself. As I near the part of the steps where I can look into the living room and see what is going on, I stop and bend down slowly and take a look. There in the middle of the living room floor is my mother sobbing uncontrollably. My dad is trying to comfort her but it doesn’t seem to help. I decide to investigate further and continue my descent down the steps. I walk to my mother and put my arms around her and rest my head on her shoulder. She continually says my eldest sisters name, while clutching a piece of paper. She looks up at me and I see red swollen eyes, pain that I don’t understand. She pats me on the back and gives me a kiss on the cheek and I head into the kitchen.

One of my older sisters has made breakfast and my other siblings are around the table eating quietly. After we each finish, our plates are scraped out and put into the sink for one of the sisters to wash after everyone is finished. There are twelve of us kids. I’m number ten. My eldest sister, the one my other is crying over is twenty two. The two just ahead of me are twins, the two below me, one is six the other two.

I’m still just young enough that I still sometimes get in the way on the farm but I still have my chores to do and I do them first thing. The faster and earlier I get the done, the faster and earlier I get to play. I get changed and head to the chicken coop to feed them and collect the eggs, careful not to break any. I take them back to the house and put them where they belong. I next go to the barn and feed the horses and make sure they have plenty of water. I do all this running at full speed. I pull enough hay out of the barn for the day and place it where it needs to go. I check on the cows and make sure all are accounted for before opening the gate. I look for the bull, he scares me and when I see he is a distance off, I run across the pasture to get the other side to open that gate.
I go over my list of chores to make sure none are forgotten and head back to the house to see if the twins have finished their chores. They are always good at new adventures.

I step into the house but am pulled back from going into the living room by one of my sisters. She then takes me, the twins and another brother out and explains the situation to us. Our elder sister has run off with a band. She had fell head over heals for one of the members and they were going to Vegas to get married. Being the age I was, I didn’t understand why she had to go to Vegas, wherever that was. She had left my parents a note on her bed and snuck out during the night. I thought she was plenty old enough to get married, to which I got a quick slap on the back of the head and was told never to say that out loud again.
The year was 1970.
I was raised in a rural part of the state where our way of life resembled that of Mayberry. We had no need for what was considered modern conveniences. Most of the families didn’t have the money to afford them anyway. I often wondered what happened to my sister. I never recall being told what happened, and I never asked. What I do know, is my mother was never the same. I was her pet up until that day. I was the one who held the yarn up for her at night as she knitted, the one that was always there to dump out water or to take something outside. Not any more. She walked around as in a trance. She did everything with out saying a word. At one time she had to go the hospital. She was there quite some time. One of my aunts and my grandmother came and stayed with us while she was there. It was a hard time. My grandmother was very strict and ran a tight house, my aunt, well, all my sisters would say was that she needed to get married.

When Mother came back home, she was different. She had to take pills all the time and I didn’t understand why, she wasn’t sick. I just grew to accept that there were some things I didn’t know.
I pulled up to the hardware store in town and pulled out my list of things I needed. I also had a couple more errands to run so I turned to the left to do those first, knowing the hardware store would take up most of my time.

I walked in front of the electronics store and I stop as my eye catches sight of a band preforming on TV.
I never knew the name of the boy my sister ran off with, but I would have imagined he looked like him.
My hands tighten into a fist, my knuckles turning white, the piece of paper I held in my hands now a crumpled ball. Every emotion from that day as a ten year old boy come flooding back into my memory. The only thing that brings me back to the here and now is the sound of the church bells signaling noon. I am snapped out of my trance and go about what I need to get done.
I determined in my mind that day, driving back home, no mother would go through what I watched my mother go through and become

Notes