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A few years passed and most of the kids were grown now. My
older brother, Tom came home on furlough, We were all sitting around
the old fireplace just enjoying the season, it was almost Christmas and we
felt blessed that we could all be together for the holidays.
Tonight we were all reminiscing, I was
remarking how poor Mrs. Brown had been sick for all these years with those
bad headaches and wondered if she was still sick with Mr. Brown taking
care of her. Suddenly Tom started laughing, "Are you
still so naive as to think she was sick every day of her life?"
I said, "What do you mean, you know how sick she's always been, she
never came out of the bed room anytime we were there, and we always had to
be quiet so as not to make her headache worse." Tom just
smiled and said, "You really don't know that she was always laid up
in bed with a bottle or a hangover?" It was the first time I
ever knew the truth about Mrs. Brown, and Mr. Brown was willing to lie for
her and do all the work to keep her from being found out. He must of
loved her a lot.
The conversations around the fireplace
continued as the smell of pumpkin pies and turkey baking was making us all
hungry. How we loved getting together over the holidays. Mom
was about the best cook anywhere. Or at least we thought so.
And when we all got together that big ole kitchen table was filled to
overflow and extra chairs brought in so we could all eat together.
We started remembering times in the past,
when we were all kids and especially the times we spent watching TV at the
Brown's house. It was so funny, we had to take turns standing on a
chair holding the old wire clothes hanger with the tin foil wrapped around
it connected to the old ribbon wire that was used back then. To
this day I don't understand how that all worked. I just know the
picture would be all wavy and pulled in on the sides and top and when one
of us would hold up that clothes hanger, it would straighten up just
enough for us to enjoy the show that was playing. When our arms would get
so tired we couldn't hold it any more, someone would trade places with
us. So that old clothes hanger was always up high enough to bring in
a picture plain enough for us to watch.
Later A big antenna was placed on top of the
mountain and every one had those ribbon wires connected to an antenna on
top of their house and the wires from that were strung up the
mountain. By then almost every one in our community had a TV set,
even us! Annie was the only one of us
left at home now so she was catching us all up on every one.
David
had gone to seminary and became a preacher. Strange, I always
thought God wanted me to be a preacher's wife, but when we were in school
and he had such a crush on me, I refused to be seen with him. But
that was okay because I'd married a wonderful man and was very happy.
Samantha
had married a school teacher, they had several children and seemed to be
doing well. Gloria and Nellie were in
home health care and had such a heart for older sick people, they put
their whole hearts into their work. I had an opportunity to see them
while I was home and told them how proud I was of them.
Then
there was Tommy, who joined the army as soon as he was old enough, he met
and married a lovely woman in Germany and decided to make his home there
so he was seldom home. I couldn't help
but think how well they all turned out, considering their
up-bringing. But I guess a lot of people were praying for them
and they were all determined to get away and do well. They
wanted to get away from our small community where no one knew about their
mom's alcoholism and make something of themselves.
Annie started to cry, she was the youngest
and closest to Little Doll's age so when the rest of us left home, she and
Little Doll became really good friends. We all knew pretty much what
had happened, but as she began to tell the story, the whole house was
silent except for the sound of Annie's voice. Through her tears she
told us this story.
You know Harvey still drives an old church
bus and Little Doll gave up on ever being able to go so she got angry and
bitter and was getting a little bit on the wild side. I tried
talking to her because she was my best friend, but she wouldn't
listen. She'd just say, "they don't care what happens to me so
why should you?"
"She began running around with older
boys and they drank and raced their cars and Doll would go with them and
even ride in the cars with them as they drag raced down the road, taking a
chance every time, of a car coming in the other direction. I tried to
tell her if she didn't stop, she'd end up being killed or crippled
for life but she just wouldn't listen to me.
Doll
was way too young to be doing the things she was with boys and she just
didn't seem to care what people thought of her. She missed you Callie,
when you left home. You were the only one that could do anything
with her and when she didn't have you any more and when her mom kept
ignoring her, she just went a little wild.
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