Listen to Me, We are fighting the Same Battle

My Dad had been retired since 1982. He and Mom had bought a motor home and did some traveling to decide where they might want to retire beside Michigan.  They ended up in Haines City, Florida. They took advantage of a free offer to stay in this manufactured  home community built around a golf course and the next thing I knew they were buying one and planning on spending winters in Florida. This decision was made in early 1985 and they were preparing to be a two home family again.

My brother and his wife had delivered a boy in late 1982 and made my parents grandparents.  They adored their grandson.  Dad was retired so he had time to spend with his grandson.  Nothing made them more happy than to have the grand baby visit with or with out his parents. My brother though was my Mother in a male body.  He had to keep control of everything and as he moved away from the family unit, he would do things to crush my Mother's  heart.  

I was thrilled to have a nephew as my plan all along had been to let my brother have all the children and I would spoil them.  Getting my dose of children but not having the full responsibility of them.  All in my plan book that had to be thrown away when I married the Devil.


Killer didn't like children and he did not like babies! Christmas 1984 was just around the corner and I wanted to have Christmas at my house.  I loved Christmas.  I loved to decorate.  I loved to bake.  I loved to cook.  I loved to shop and wrap the package all up in a special wrap and bow.  But Christmas was a difficult time at the Henshaw Homestead as Mollie Belle had died at Christmas time.

In 1984, I was sewing more than animals.  I was sewing clothes. I even made my own patterns to make Worm clothes.  I made little frilly dresses for a "friend" of Killers who had sole custody of his daughter. She called me the Cookie Monster as I always had cookies at my  house when she came to visit and a surprise for her which was usually a new dress or an animal.

I had sewn a bunch of holiday place mats and table clothes.  I had baked sugar cookies and spent hours decorating them.  Killer did not like people over on Christmas Day. Not a problem. My family always celebrated Christmas Eve.  I convinced him to let me have my family over for the  holiday.  My nephew/Godson had just turned two.

I decorated every inch of the house to include the toilet.  I  had Christmas toilet paper, soaps, you name it, it was decked in Christmas Cheer.  It was the last Christmas we would get together as a  family.  In 1985, my parents went to Florida the day after Christmas. I am not sure if they saw their grandson that year, but Christmas would never be the same for me after this.  I miss the celebration of Christmas and I still have so many decorations, but my  heart is just not into any longer.  Perhaps that will change some day.

My first Aunt died January 1, 1986.  I got a call from my cousin early in the morning.  She had lung cancer and she was my mother's second oldest sister.  Although I was expecting it, it still came as a shock.  I laid in bed that one morning wondering how my Mom was doing.  She had just left for Florida and I knew they would not travel back to Michigan for the funeral.  I would have to represent our family as I usually did after this point in life.

Killer asked me who was on the phone and when I told him what had happened he somehow felt this was an opportunity to get frisky.  I was so appalled.  I just got news of a family death and he wanted to have a little horizontal refreshment? My head must have spun as he told me that sex  after death made you feel alive!  Killer, you need a check up from the neck up! Really? SEX after death proves to you that you are alive?  WOW!  I had to write that one down. I'm thinking pinching myself proves the same thing, but I was not about to get into this conversation with him as he was always right.

Things with Worm were not getting better.  I had sent her one night down to the corner grocery store for a gallon of milk.  She was timed.  I knew how long it took to get down there and back and I gave her five dollars.  She came back right on schedule and gave me the change.  But whenever you take the shackles off the prisoner, they will stretch their muscle.

Later that evening I went in to her room and looked down in the wastebasket.  I don't know why I did, I just did and there in the basket was a candy bar wrapper.  Kudos to her for not hiding it like she normally did, but where did this come from.  This child did not have money.  She did not have an opportunity to "get" money so where did it come from?

Of course, Stupid had been tattooed back on to my forehead and had to be removed.  I asked Worm where the wrapper came from.  Her response did not surprise me, "I don't know." Like I hadn't used that a million and two times in my youth.  I had to draw her a picture of logic, how I knew that this paper wrapper didn't just materialize in her basket like a magic trick.  After what seemed like eternity, she confessed, she stole it from the grocery store.  Forty cent candy bar.  She had money in her little scrawny hands to buy the milk. Why didn't she just tell me that she bought herself a candy bar when she gave me back the change? I don't know why children lie, they just do.

I think what I did next surprised  her.  I told her to get dressed and we were taking a trip to the grocery store and she was going to confess to her sin.  I was rolling the dice as this could have been enough to throw her back into juvenile and I'd be right there next to her.  But I could not look the other way.  What message did that send?

We drove up to the store and she asked for the manager.  She told him that she had stolen the candy bar and apologized.  I was standing there waiting for the  manager to decide what he wanted to do.  This store sat across from MSU, I am sure they were the target for many a five finger discount every day.

He thanked her for the apology and said all she had to do was pay for it.  What? She looked at me for the forty cents and I looked at her like she'd just sprouted a third eye.  I told the manager that SHE did not have the money to pay for the candy bar and so now what was his plan.  I was hoping she was shaking in her knee  highs wondering where this was going to go.  He said he could call the police.  Please do, I'll dial the phone for you.  What did I have to do to get this girl to understand that you just didn't pick up whatever you wanted and put it in your pocket without consequences!

He called the police and they came to the store.  We ended up driving down to the police station and I could tell she was nervous, but they pulled her record and made a new report.  She was seventeen at the time.  He told her she could do this as many times as she wanted to as a juvenille, but  once she turned eighteen they could take action and arrest her.  But for now, they just made a record and it was locked up after she turned of age. 

It is a wonder I didn't cold cock this young officer who thought he was being nice.  All the "threats" of the juvenille court dissipated with those words.  She could do this time and time again for close to another year and just get her hand slapped.  We left the station and I reinforced in a rather stern voice that if she tired that again, she'd be dealing with me.  We didn't tell Killer of this incident. He would have buried her that night. But I was so angry with her.  I was fighting to keep her in school to graduate. I was counting my days to freedom and I was so tired of being in this mix of chaos between this child who wanted to fight me every step and the man who wanted to control my every step.