EARTHQUAKE - Chapter 22

Tomorrow my mother is going to be moved from the hospital in Monroe, Louisiana to St. Vincent’s rehabilitation center in Little Rock. Today my daddy is going to pick me up to go to church. I’m watching the children so that Clifford and Melodie can have a weekend together.

“Jamie, Joy come on. Let’s get some breakfast and then we are going to church.”

Down at the breakfast table Jamie and Joy were talking excitedly about going to church. When we were all living in Victoria, Clifford, Melodie, and the children went to the same Baptist church that we attended in Lepanto. At the breakfast table they were singing the songs they learned in Sunday School. Mrs. Stauer came into the kitchen.

“Granmaw, we are going to church.”

“Why didn’t I hear anything about this? You may be helping with the children, but you are just a twelve year old child. You don’t make adult decisions. I don’t want them going to a strange church.”

“My father is going to pick me up to go to church. If I don’t take the children to church with us, then you will have to watch them until I get back.”

“I didn’t give you permission to go to church.”

“You don’t have to give me permission, my father is taking me.”

The children were crestfallen. I went upstairs to put on my pretty dress.

Daddy picked me up early.

“I thought if I drove out of town a little bit, we could find a church that wasn’t so big and high falooting.”

I giggled. We did find a country church. The people were real friendly. The pastor preached the way ordinary people talk, not a bunch of big words and biggety ways.

On the way home we stopped at a small diner and had fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, and rolls. Afterward, we had a slice of apple pie. Everything tasted so good. The woman who waited on us was also the cook. She said most of the food she uses is grown or raised by local farmers.

It was about 2pm when I returned to the Stauers’. Mrs. Stauer was having a tizzy fit. The children were both crying. Mr. Stauer was hiding someplace. As soon as I walked in the house, she said, “It’s about time.” Then she marched off, not to be seen until Clifford and Melodie returned late that evening.

Mrs. Stauer came into the parlor to meet them.

“Don’t you ever put me in that position again. I had to watch two little children and one obnoxious teenager for two long days. Now I need my nerve medicine so that I can get some rest at last.”

I was shaking all over and trying not to cry. I went to my room. After Melodie had the children put into bed, she came to my room.

“What happened Dana?”

“I watched the children all day Saturday. She stopped me from taking them out into the yard. Then I didn’t see her until supper time when she told  me that she and Mr. Stauer were going to a restaurant to get away from the noisy children. I don’t know how to cook anything. All I knew to do was give them cereal and milk. Today I was going to take the children to church with my father and me. She wouldn’t let me. When I returned both the children were crying and she was having a tizzy fit.

“I’m so sorry, Dana, but it was important for us to get away together.”

Monday, Daddy came by to take me to see Mom at St. Vincent’s. She said the ambulance ride was like lying in the bed of a truck which was going down a bumpy road. She looked pretty ragged. I guess that is why. We can’t see her again until Saturday. Daddy is going away tomorrow, so I probably won’t see him until Saturday.

Melodie saw a sign outside a church about a mile from her parents’ house. It was having Vacation Bible School for children preschool to fifth grade in the mornings and for youths sixth grade through high school in the afternoons. Melodie took the children just to get them out of the house. Clifford is busy figuring things on a scratch pad and on a computer. From time to time he confers with her father. That is how they stay away from Mrs. Stauer. Melodie and I are in her direct line of fire.

When the children go in for a nap, Melodie has been showing me how to crochet. I am working on a scarf now. I guess that is the easiest thing. Melodie has crocheted gloves for the children and hats also. I told her that I want to learn to cook. She said that when she has a home of her own, she will teach me, but in her mother’s home and kitchen, she wouldn’t dare.

Mr. Clifford’s condition makes things strange. He has forgotten things that the children remember that he did with them. Melodie told me that he can’t remember how they met or any of the things they did together. Although he says that he loves her, if she asks him, he doesn’t remember being in love with her or asking her to marry him. I’ve noticed how she flirts with him. She said to me once, “I’m having to redo our courtship.”

Little by little we have worked out a routine that allows us to stay out of the way of Mrs. Stauer and keep the children away from her. I went to the library to get some children’s book to read to Jamie and Joy. I also found some books for myself to read. While there I saw a notice about a Children’s Story Time. I wrote down the day and hour each week; we plan to take the children to that.

On Friday, Daddy and Clifford came home early. They had left Marked Tree as soon as they arose and packed their belongings. They went into the library with Clifford’s father.

Clifford led off the conversation,

“Father we need to abandon the project now before we spend any more money. Karl drove me around. Right now the only way to get to Victoria is to roar up a five foot dune of loose soil and hope that you get to the top without getting stuck. Once we reached Victoria, the sight is really grim. It will take a lot of work and a lot of money just to clean up all the debris. There doesn’t appear to be any farm equipment that escaped the fire and destruction.

“It isn’t possible to reach half the acreage until the roads are repaired. Even though there appear to be crops in most of the fields we could reach, it would be dangerous to cultivate, harvest, or plough in those fields as long as the earth is unstable. If the chasm along National Ditch #6 opens again, we would be cut off from nearly all of the fields. 

“Even if we could repair the roads enough to be useable by us and could get the Army to throw a bridge across where the bridge is out, it would not be a good idea to do so. If we repair a road, the public will begin to use it. The first person to have a wreck would be suing us. They would say that we didn’t repair it according to some specification or other that we didn’t know about. We will just have to wait for the State to repair those roads and it will not be soon. They will have a major task repairing the interstate highway that links Memphis to St. Louis. Then they will repair the U.S. highways. It will be a couple years before they repair those State highways. They won’t even start until they convince the Federal government to give them extra money for earthquake damage.”

Karl said, “I agree with Clifford one hundred percent. I feel bad that I promised the men a job and now there won’t be a job for them.”

Mr. Stauer spoke, “Maybe there is a job for them. We could clean up Victoria so that we will be ready to rebuild when the roads are opened.”

Clifford said, “How can we get equipment into Victoria before the roads are repaired?”

Karl said, “If we have a bulldozer, a front end loader/backhoe, and a dump truck, the dozer and the loader/backhoe will have tracks. They should go right up the dune. The dozer will have to tow the dump truck. We will have to have some sleeping arrangements for the men in Victoria and haul them out and back in on the weekends. Maybe we can take in a camp stove. We’ll have to carry in water and food each week. We will also have to lease a four wheel drive SUV to take the men back and forth to Little Rock on the weekends. I hope that it can make it over the dune.”

The men seemed to have reached an agreement on that.

When Clifford came out of the meeting, Melodie took him aside.

“Clifford before you go away again, you have to make some arrangements for your family. I need a car and I want us to rent a three bedroom apartment. That will allow a bedroom for Dana. Karl will have to get a motel room on the weekends. There is too much tension in the house caused by my mother. She doesn’t like the children, she doesn’t like Dana, and I fear she doesn’t even like me.”

“I’ve been so occupied with this project that your father assigned to me, that I have neglected your needs. I apologize. Give me an hour to get cleaned up and change my clothes. You will have to tell me what bank has our accounts. We’ll go there first, see what our situation is, and from there we will go look for a car. Tomorrow we will hunt for an apartment.

“I’m sorry. I’m having a hard time adjusting to having a family – a wife, children, and in-laws that I don’t remember. It isn’t that I don’t want you to be my wife, don’t think that for a moment. It is just that I don’t remember anything about us before the quake. In fact I don’t remember the quake. My memory starts in the hospital. The other day in the store I was flabbergasted when you were saying, “He likes this, he likes that.” when I didn’t know myself that I liked them.”

He leaned over and kissed her on the lips. She looked surprised, kissed him back and then cried.

Melodie asked me to watch the children until they got back. She said it might be after supper. She said that I was to give the children a small peanut butter and jelly sandwich and tell them that their mommy was going to bring them back a Happy Meal.

That evening Mrs. Stauer came into the kitchen before I had a chance to wipe off the kitchen table and wash the children’s faces. She made a scathing remark about Melodie leaving the children in the care of a dim-witted ragamuffin.

Clifford and Melodie came in then and Melodie said, “Jamie, Joy – I brought you each a Happy Meal.” The children squealed with delight and Mrs. Stauer muttered something about another mess for her to clean up. I was as happy as the kids because they brought me a Big Mac, fries, and a Coke.

Melodie asked me if there was any trouble while she was gone. I said No. She said,

“Clifford and I are leaving right after breakfast tomorrow to look for a three bedroom apartment. One of the bedrooms will be for you. Your father will only be back here on the weekends. He can stay in a motel. Can you watch the children again?”

“My father will pick me up a little after 1 p.m. to take me to visit with my mother.”

“Okay, I will try to come back by 1pm and pick them up. If I’m not here, just go on with your father and leave them for my mother to watch.”

The next day a little before 1 p.m., I changed into my pretty dress and came downstairs. The children were watching television. Mrs. Stauer came into the room and said,

“My, you are dressed up so pretty. Are you going somewhere?”

“My father will be here any minute to pick me up to go see my mother.”

“Wonder who will watch the children? I am going out now myself.”

My heart turned upside down. What can I do? I can’t go off and leave the children. I don’t want to miss a chance to see my mother. If I take them with us, I could sit down in the lobby with them until Daddy came down to watch them. That isn’t a very good arrangement. I hardly ever get to see my father or my mother. If the children are along with us, they require so much attention that my father and I won’t have any time together. I would have cried but Grandad always said, “Crying don’t fix the bucket.”

I heard tires on the gravel in front of the house. It is Daddy and I’ll have to tell him. But, it was Melodie and Clifford.

“We have found an apartment. We just leased it for six months. By the beginning of the year, the project should be completed and your mother and Karl will be ready for an apartment of their own. You will be living with them. We are going to rent furniture. We should be moved in – you, the children and I – before Clifford gets back from Marked Tree on Friday.”

Just then my father came and I ran out of the house to him. On the way to the rehab center I told him how disagreeable Mrs. Stauer is to me, especially when Melodie and Clifford are not there. I told him that Clifford and Melodie leased a three bedroom apartment and that one bedroom would be for me.

Mother looked much better than she did last Monday. I guess part of it is the exercises and therapy she is getting. Also, this time she had a comb, brush, and makeup.

Father told her that the project was probably only going to last until the end of the year. He was worried about a job after that.

“Karl, God has brought us through difficult times this last month. I believe that He already knows the next job you will have.”