Chapter 4 #2
“Then I hate to disappoint you, because I’m more typical than interesting. I lost my parents at fourteen, got pregnant at sixteen, dropped out of school, lived at a rooming house with Jimmy and worked at a food kitchen, then graduated to a one-bedroom apartment and the job at the animal shelter.”
Ouch. I squelch the automatic flinch at her harsh words. Her harsher life. It’s a lot to digest and I take a few beats, a few puffs of cold air, to let her words settle into an understanding of her horrible reality. The aloneness strikes me.
“How did you get the animal shelter job?” I decide to skip over the tragedy of her life and focus on how she got herself from there to here because I think she needs to realize how amazing she is for doing it.
I find myself admiring her more and more with everything I learn.
Plus, I don’t think I can take hearing the details of her tragedy.
It just might break my heart. And the last thing she wants or needs is my sympathy.
She smiles and the edge of sadness leave her eyes.
“Good story. I was out for a walk with Jimmy, he was two years old at the time, and we found a scrawny stray kitten. The animal shelter wasn’t far, so with Jimmy on my shoulders and the kitten in my arms, we walked there.
Annamarie was running the place then same as now.
The minute I walked in I was captivated by all the animals, and by Annamarie.
I loved the place and she showed us around, while I gushed at how wonderful it must be to work there. ”
“So Garino offered you a job on the spot?”
“Yes,” she says on a laugh. “I don’t even think she had an opening, but somehow she squeezed me in and suggested I bring Jimmy with me.
I was in heaven and so was Jimmy. He was only two then.
We still lived at the rooming house. I worked both jobs—at the food kitchen and the animal shelter on my off shifts, but the animal shelter job paid better and… ” She shrugs.
“It had a better clientele?”
“A little bit. Don’t get me wrong. I appreciated my job in the food kitchen.
I worked there in the evenings seven days a week and it provided most of my food and paid for Jimmy and our room.
I could walk there from the rooming house and knew the people who worked and volunteered there.
They had a policy of hiring people who ate there—as long as they weren’t on drugs. ”
With her eyes intense with expectation and her chin high, she waits for me to respond. My heart thuds unnaturally, torn between wrenching sorrow and blind admiration. This girl. She’s so powerfully strong and decent and she doesn’t even get it.
“I recognized there was something about you that I admired besides your pretty face,” I say, keeping it light in spite of my fingers curling into a fist with the need to hug her close again, to make everything right for her, to ease her burdens.
She blushes and purses her lips. “Survival instincts. I did the same thing everyone else would do in the same circumstances.”
“Except take drugs,” I say. And give your child up. But I’m not about to mention that.
“What about Jimmy’s father?” I ask, my words soft. I need the explanation from her for selfish reasons even though Garino already assured me he was gone. She doesn’t owe me any explanation. Far from it. I’m being a pushy bastard and I hope she doesn’t blow me off.
“What about him?” She raises an eyebrow in challenge.
“And the sass comes out.” I laugh.
“Sorry if I’m defensive, but it’s personal, you know. And you’re a stranger.”
“We’re working on that, aren’t we?”
“Fair enough.” She blows out a breath and turns away, but she talks.
“If I’m going to tell you about Jimmy’s dad, I’m going to have to tell you the whole sad story. Get out your hanky.” She sneaks a look at me and I see the bravery blazing from those vivid eyes. I settle closer to her, holding her with one arm because it’s getting chilly.
Jimmy’s still running around with Dasher, his cheeks pink with energy induced warmth.
“Give it to me.” I steel myself.
“I started out life as Veronica Lynch, cherished child with a rosy future getting all the way to eighth grade before things got derailed. On my fourteenth birthday my parents got killed in a car crash on their way home. I had a cake waiting. My mother and I used to bake cakes.” She glances at me and I smile, smitten with her bravery.
“After that I was sent to live with an aunt and uncle who I barely knew and they already had four kids and a small house. I slept on the couch. My aunt and uncle seemed to work all the time but never seemed to make enough money.
“I never knew how that was possible until overhearing them fighting one night after I’d been there a while.
Apparently, Uncle was a gambler. As time went on, I realized the house was always in danger of foreclosure and one day two years later, when I was a sophomore in high school, on the brink of getting my driver’s license, my aunt and uncle said they were leaving town and they packed the kids in the car and left. ”
“What the hell?” Outrage rises up, killing my ability to keep quiet and listen. She’s been telling the story as if it happened to someone else, but I’m acutely aware that this tragedy is her life, where she came from, what she had to go through.
“Whoa, there. Calm down Sherriff. I should clarify. Technically, they gave me the option of going with them. But in actuality, they encouraged me to stay and live with one of my friends. I was about old enough, I’d be alright.
That’s what my uncle told me. My little cousins wanted me to come with them and they were a cute if unruly bunch, all too young and impressionable.
“But when my uncle told them to shut up and he stared me down, he made it clear the suggestion that I stay behind was more like a demand.” Ronnie shivers and I’m not sure if she’s aware of it.
“He says ‘You can stay in the house for a few days, but I wouldn’t linger if I were you. There may be some bad dudes showing up. Can’t tell you where we’re going.
’ My aunt says, ‘Maybe in a few … months I’ll call you.
Let you know. You can come join us then.
’ Then my uncle says, ‘Yeah, sure. That makes sense.’ But I know it’s half-hearted.
He tells me, ‘You can hang out with a friend until then.’
“I saw the guilt in his eyes, remember it still in my dreams sometimes, but the jumpiness in him and the fear far outweighed any crisis of conscience he might have had. So I said my good-byes and went back inside the house. And even though I could sleep in one of the vacated beds that night, I slept on the couch. No need to get attached.”
“Ronnie…” My voice rumbles, emotion and the longing to help that sixteen-year-old girl churn through me. I tighten my hold, but she pulls away. When she faces me there’s an angry glint in her eyes, but it’s not meant for me. At least I don’t think it is.
“You asked for this story, now let me finish it.” She stares me down, challenging me to be tough enough to take it, as tough as she is. I nod and shore myself up.
“It wasn’t long after my aunt and uncle left when I met Jimmy’s dad, Lorcan McNamara.
Everyone called him Mack. Contrary to my uncle’s advice, I stayed in the house and hid or took off whenever anyone came by.
There were realtors and bankers and someone from the town based on the signage of the vehicles, but after a month and no visits from the leg-breakers, I figured I was in the clear.
I made sure the neighbors didn’t know I was still around, leaving for school super early.
At school, I tried to pretend everything was fine.
It was hard since I ran out of things like shampoo, toothpaste, soap and laundry detergent pretty quick.
“Finding food was a challenge, but one I had to deal with. That was when I first went to the local food bank. I was so ashamed, I wore some old sunglasses I’d found in a drawer and walked there.
It was over a mile. The woman gave me a big heavy bag with canned goods and I despaired about carrying it home.
And despaired about cooking the stuff since the electricity and gas had been turned off.
So next time I went I asked for the kinds of things you could eat without cooking.
The lady did the best she could to accommodate me and then suggested I go to the local food kitchen and gave me directions.
I went because my stomach dictated it and I was starting to turn into a skeleton.
“Enter Mr. Charmer. He worked at the soup kitchen and was a recent immigrant who lived in a boarding house. He made me laugh and he knew my big dark secret about living on my own. Except I lied and told him I was eighteen. He loaned me the money to get my drivers’ license and forged my parents name.
He borrowed a car so I could take the driving test. Eventually, I invited him over to the house and he helped keep me warm at night so I let him stay.
That’s when he tried talking me into getting married.
And that’s when I needed to tell him I wasn’t eighteen.
He was angry but his devious mind went to work.
He said he could get me forged documents, but I told him no way.
I wasn’t a criminal. I was lying about my circumstances at school, but there was a line I wouldn’t cross.
” She scoffs, letting out a chortle of self-ridicule.