Freedom is not Always Sweet

I was really at the end of my rope of hope.  I was praying my life away just to reach that day that I was free. No one knew how unhappy I was.  I couldn't share this with anyone to include my family.  Everyone thought I was just this happy little housewife.  I'd send greeting cards to Killer when I was  on the road, like young lovers do.  I did not let on to anyone the plans I was preparing. Killer started inviting me to donuts and coffee when he would go out with the Stewart's.  They were about ten years older than Killer.  In my life, I always gravitated to those who were considerably older than I was, I don't know why.

One day as I was preparing to get ready for work, I pulled out a pair of shoes.  New shoes.  Shoes that had never seen real feet, or so I thought. As I was putting them on, I noticed the outline of a foot inside.  I was taken back as I wear a size eleven and back then this was a very difficult size to find, but inside, this imprint of the foot and toes, didn't even come close to reaching the end of the shoe.  If I had to guess, Cinderella was sitting at the end of the hall and I'm betting she had taken these shoes to school and worn them as the imprint looked to be about a size nine.

Down the hall I traveled.  My anger slowly growing.  I knew what she was going to say.  Why even bother asking her?  I should just walk in there and end her life so I could start mine.  This child! She tested me at every corner, she stretched my patience until I thought it'd snap and all hell would break lose.

Opening the door to her room, I held the glass slipper.  "Do you want to tell me about this?"  "What?"  Lord, give me the strength to stop just before she is to take her last breath so she would live to tell this story! Again, I had to introduce logic.  If I were to have worn this shoe, the imprint would be one of big foot, but if she were to wear this shoe, it would appear someonewho was trying to FILL MY SHOES!

My own Mother had cursed me!  She had prayed that I would be blessed with a child who challenged me just like I did her, but I knew that was never going to happen, I had no desire to have my own children.  And here before me, stood this challenge that just kept giving and giving and giving!

She was sneaking things to school in her school bag.  OY, now I have to do a body check and a bag check every morning before you go to school?  You think going through airport security is bad today? I put this child through a scan every morning that would put modern technology to shame. She was going to learn that she did not have a thing up on this chickie!  I may just be eight years older than she was but I had already lived and survived my teenage years.

It didn't  matter what you did, you could beat her, starve her, ground her and she still kept ticking me off!  I kept taking longer road trips just to stay away from the stress of the homestead.

The first of the year, 1986, the year of major changes, Killer agreed to a vacation to see my parents.  Killer didn't vacation. His  ideal vacation was a week home mowing his lawn and working on his cars.  I had to keep things there to keep Worm motivated to work toward.  A trip to Florida, driver's education and then graduation!

February had arrived, four months until the big graduation day.  Worm came home late and it was at the end of a string of her thumbing her nose to simple rules.  We had gone through skipping classes, stealing, sipping of the alcohol samplers that were in the dining room from days that her Mother had flown and saved those cute little bottles. Every day something had to be addressed.  Killer saw my head spinning.  Could I just have ONE day that I came  home and I didn't have to address some thing that happened where she was at the core of it.

Killer took her into her bedroom and it was very quiet.  Very quiet.  I could hear whispering but I was so livid I didn't care what he was saying to her.  The evening went on as any other evening would.  The next day, body scans and bag checks were completed.  I came home that night in February, just three weeks from our planned vacation and no Worm was waiting.

She had lost her mind!  She was really going to put me in a grave and I wasn't even twenty six yet.  I drove up to the school No Worm. I went to her locker and opened it, hmm, surprise, lots of contraband.  She was on my last nerve.  Worm never showed up that night.   She didn't  have any close friends that I knew where she might go to their house. Killer acted like nothing was wrong.  Did he kill her and not tell me?

I was worried sick.  Where could she be, but at the same time I was angry.  How dare her not to show up or call.  I was up all night wondering where she had disappeared.  I called the school the next day and asked them to call me when she showed up for class.  She showed up for first hour and they called me third hour to tell me that, but by third hour, she wasn't in class.  She didn't keep a schedule,but she did keep going to school for a few days, just not on a schedule that I  could catch her.

We were getting ready to go to Florida.  I was sure, she'd be home, she had no where to go, but still  no Worm.  Then the phone calls started coming in. About every three to five days.  A family would call to tell us she  had been there staying at their home and she had told them the horror stories, but then she would steal or lie and they would kick her out.  They had no idea where she was.  Another call would come and the same story would be repeated.

In late March, we had returned from Florida.  I had expected her to break into the house, but she didn't.  Still no word and then one day at work the phone rang and it was Worm.  She told me she was OK. She was living with a family on the north side of Lansing and working at the McDonald's on US 27. She had met a boy and she was living with his family.  The mother was making her go to school to get her GED.  Well, thank God for small miracles.  She  needed some clothes.  I agreed to meet  her.  I took her clothes to her and her bicycle. You could see the relief in her face from not having to face the day to day drama of the Homestead, but she was not free just yet. Nor was I.