Ron took everything by force. He built our three-story, A-framed house
from the ground up with only my grandfather and uncle to assist. I watched,
spellbound, as the cement truck mixed and vomited the lumpy concrete into the
foundation. At nine years old I felt obligated to help because, even if I was a
girl, I was the oldest. The men let me follow behind them, smoothing the
concrete with a trowel, the only tool I learned the name of. They framed, sheet
rocked, plumbed, and installed the electricity while my mother picked out the
shiny, new appliances. Before the California winter arrived, we cheered as they
added the roof, carefully placed on top by a crane like the long-awaited icing
on a cake. I watched nervously as they nailed down the sand-papery roof
shingles, hammers swinging high into the air and striking like thunder. I
whispered prayers that my dad would not fall three stories as he ascended the
steep pitch of the A-frame like a mountain goat, a heavy tool belt swinging at
his hip, but miraculously, he never fell.
The big house stood like a russet-colored beacon flanked by the
rolling vineyards of the Sonoma Valley and was styled like a ski chalet. I
wondered why my dad chose that design because our family had never been
snow-skiing. My friends called it “the big house” because it was the biggest
home on Maribel Heights, encompassed by two massive redwood-stained decks. One
skirted the ground level offering magnificent views of the moss-covered,
magical curling trees and the narrow, winding streets below. The other deck
flanked my room on the third floor. I might have been the only kid at school
with a private balcony and a breathtaking view that spanned the length of our
sleepy resort town, aptly named Forestville. My balcony was so high up that the
cars looked like my toy Hot Wheels, which I prized. I was a tomboy who would
rather climb trees and race my bike than play with dolls. My dad said it was
okay as long as when I grew up, I acted like a lady.
Once the house was completed, Dad added a separate guest house so my
parents could escape the insanity of three kids when they needed to, and a
large rock pond with a gurgling fountain that we wouldn’t give him a chance to
finish. He never added fish or plants because we were having too much fun
splashing in it, a mini swimming pool. He also built a two-chair beauty salon
in the basement. Mom was a cosmetologist, and soon the old ladies of the town
were crowding our driveway with their long, expensive Cadillacs, lining up to
have my mom back-comb and perm their silver hair, and complaining to my mother
that our rubber balls were hitting their bumpers. My mother would warn us to
keep away from their cars, and I wished she would tell the old bats, Piss
off, lady, it is our house, but she was too polite for that.
The basement was where the beauty parlor was located, and it reeked of
permanent solution, a pungent mixture that smelled like rotten egg and
formaldehyde. My parents did not believe in handing us an allowance; they made
us work for our money, so I claimed the job of cleaning the salon. I wanted to
show my mom that I was responsible enough to handle it. I cleaned at night
after I finished my homework, and relished being in command of the cool, quiet
basement where my younger sister and brother were told not to follow. Even as a
kid, I was most comfortable in solitude when I could let my imagination stretch
out and wander.
I took my time sweeping the shiny floors coated with itchy hair,
daydreaming about my pretty PE teacher who made my heart flutter and who had
the best long hair I had ever seen, with no curls or waves at all, and only a
slight mustache that I didn’t even mind. As I scrubbed the restroom, I would
stare disappointedly at the name of my mom’s shop which was mounted on the
bathroom wall, printed on an oversized hand-held mirror that looked more like a
frying pan. “The Magic Mirror” was the embarrassing name she chose, but it was
the 70s, and my mom was a contradictory blend of cornpone and small-town
glamor, so the sign kind of fit.
I saved the chore I loathed for last: sterilizing the combs and
brushes. Why did the old ladies have such dirty, matted,
dandruff-ridden hair? Did old people not take baths or something? It
was responsible to remove the hair from the brushes before soaking them in the
blue sterile solution. It made me shutter when a mist of dandruff would fly up
and spray me. I’d hold my breath and turn my head so I wouldn’t breathe in the
ghastly flakes and rotting Aqua Net. I was convinced my face would crumble if I
breathed that stuff in. It was disgusting-but it was a living. To this day I
cannot touch wet hair, even my own, without shivering.
While waiting for the brushes to finish soaking, I would flip into kid
mode, laying stomach-down on the white, round manicure stool that adjusted up
and down. I’d push off and go flying across the freshly mopped linoleum floor,
gliding with arms outstretched like Wonder Woman. I giggled, imagining how
dismayed my mother would be if she could see me being reckless in her shop. I
would crank up the radio and croon soulfully, singing to my PE teacher, using a
brush as my microphone. I felt certain that my smooth voice and dazzling smile would
get me invited on American Band Stand with Dick Clark, and I would dedicate my
song to Miss MacArthur.
Unlike my fastidious, beauty queen mother, my father was an obnoxious
ox; a mighty man with a fearsome temper who liked to curse and ridiculed any
sign of weakness. He would have made a fine Viking. He was a big-chested,
hearty man who stood over six feet tall with massive shoulders and arms like
steel, and a beer belly. He had brown eyes and dark hair that he took care to
brush out like a troll doll when he sat in his recliner at night because he was
balding.
“I’m the wild man of Borneo,” he would roar.
He brushed his teeth with Comet cleanser because he claimed it worked
better than toothpaste, and I watched him swallow a live fish once on a dare.
My father was larger than life-strong, loud, and cocky. I both marveled at and
feared him. In my mind he could do anything, except for one thing: he could not
stop drinking, and it became his most defining characteristic. When he drank,
something took him over; a cruel and violent demon possessed him. My grandpa
Orville drank too, but he was careful never to let us see that side of him. My
father, however, seemed proud of the abrasiveness and cruelty that liquor
inspired.
Grandpa Orville was an indulgent grandad who snuck us away to buy us
“softies” when we stayed with my grandparents during summers in Clearlake, CA.
On the way home from the drive-in, Grandpa would ask, “Who wants to drive?” I
did not think it strange that he was asking us to drive his Oldsmobile car with
the crushed red velvet seats. He let us sit on his lap to steer while he
operated the gas and brake. I knew it was against the law, but this was a lake
town where people came on holiday to let their hair down. If we had been pulled
over by the local sheriff, he would have slapped Grandpa Orville on the back,
and they would have had a good laugh about it. My younger sister and brother
and I would fly into the house to tell Grandma Bea, and we always found her in
the same place; in the kitchen with her frilly apron on, mixing up sweet
cornbread, or frying slimy okra and heavily breaded, crispy fish in a cast iron
skillet, catfish that she had caught that morning at the lake. Grandma Bea was
our family’s fisherwoman.
“Orville!” she would say in an exasperated, Texas drawl, “One of these
days you are going to get caught, and they’re gonna take our car! Then we will
be in a mess.” She waved a spatula at him and shook her head, but she never
really meant it. She would scold Grandpa and Dad for their mischief, but she
went along with whatever they said. My Grandpa would respond in a funny, loud
drawl, hands on his hips, standing as tall as his 6-foot, 3-inch frame would
let him. “Nooow Be-aterice, I was just taking these chilren’ to get them a
softie, there’s no harm in a little ice cream. Besides, you’re good drivers,
aren’t ya kids?” And we would scream, “Yes!” and Grandma Bea would scowl and
mumble something to him under her breath.
They had moved from Texas to California, probably following the work,
as my Grandfather was a master carpenter who had taught my dad the craft.
California had experienced a housing boom with the advent of the track home in
the 1950s, but you could still hear a faint Southern lilt as they spoke. My
Grandfather wore a black Stetson, what he called a ten-gallon hat, or a more
casual straw hat if he was kicking around at home, and always cowboy boots that
shined like a new penny. When they went to the Presbyterian church on Sundays,
which they did every Sunday, he wore a snappy striped shirt complete with a
black Bolero tie.
I did not realize until I was an adult that they were Southern
“red-necks,” because, unlike the trailer trash I had seen who were also called
“red-necks,” they kept their home, land, and cars neat as a pin. Grandpa had
OCD, which I didn’t understand until I was grown, which explained the
ever-present broom in his hand. Mom used to tease him by saying that when he
died, he would be buried with a golden broom.
One of my favorite memories was making hand-churned, homemade ice cream at their house. When I saw the cartons of rock salt and heavy cream waiting on the back porch, I’d get excited because I knew at lunchtime everyone would gather, the men swigging cold beers out of a cooler, and the ladies genteelly sipping cold Lipton tea spiked with a modest splash of something a little stronger. We would all take turns cranking the wooden ice cream bucket round and round until it felt like our arm would fall off. As a reward for the hard effort, after dinner, the family would gather again to eagerly slurp up the brain-freezing, soupy vanilla ice cream made with real vanilla bean that tasted like pure Heaven. Another favorite memory was aiming at the naughty blue jays with Grandpa’s pellet gun. We never hit them, but it would make the birds scatter. As they shrieked and squawked my Grandpa would point a finger and say in a resentful voice, as if the blue jays were persecuting him, “Serves you right, eating my crab apples. Serves you right!”
We kept either a ski boat or a pontoon boat stored and would take it
out a couple of times during our vacation. Dad was a strong skier since he grew
up on the lake; he had even taught me to slalom. When he’d had too much beer,
he would pull me too fast and I would go shooting past the boat like a rocket,
skittering over the lake like a nymph. If I could manage to stay on my skis,
I’d slingshot back behind the boat. Dad would whoop with laughter, and my mom
would harangue him until he slowed down. My favorite thing in all the world was
waterskiing, even when my father was driving.
Grandma Bea looked and sounded just like Aunt Bea from the TV show,
“Andy Griffith.” She had a squeaky, wobbly voice, and was portly and matronly.
She gave the best hugs; you felt good all over when she clasped your head to
her bosom, like the entire world was made of soft down or clouds. She was the
queen of the kitchen, but also the queen of worrying. She had depression before
there were anti-depressants, so she spent time in and out of mental
institutions. I watched her wring her hands and pace when she got nervous, and
she would clutch my Grandfather by the shoulder like she was terrified of
something that only she could see. Many days she hid in bed and tried hard not
to cry. On those days I would snuggle beside her to cheer her up. Because I
played the guitar and sang, she would ask me to sing her favorite hymn, “The
Old Rugged Cross.” I got tired of playing that hymn, and I did not understand
why it made her feel better, but it did so I always indulged her.
She made us take naps during the long, hot California summers,
probably to get a breather, and those were my least favorite times. I didn’t
sleep a wink, so I “rested.” On the bedroom wall hung an Americana-type oil
painting of a blacksmith shoeing a horse. I would stare at it, memorizing every
detail and I’d imagine being in the scene. The walls were papered in a 1970’s
small, delicate golden fleur de lis, so that if I squinted with my eyes the
pattern would get fuzzy and change into all sorts of faces and creatures, some
of which spooked me. I tried not to look at the ones that morphed into the
devil. There were a variety of ways to keep my mind busy for the hour that I
lay on the stiff floral bedspread in the demure yellow guest room with the
shiny walnut dressers that smelled of lemon Pledge. When naptime was over, she
would reward me with hard candy bought at Woolworth’s, the kind that looked
like wine barrels and tasted like root beer, served in a purple glass grape
cluster.
My mother’s parents were very different from my dad’s countryfied
parents. They were savvy city dwellers who lived in a small pink stucco home in
smoggy, congested, metropolitan San Jose, CA. It had a patchy, unloved front
yard, and a sprawling backyard with a deck. There was an out-of-control walnut
tree that I named Merlin because it reminded me of a wizard, and my Grandpa
Leon’s workshop which was tucked behind a white picket fence. Grandpa’s shop
was like the holy of holies because you never knew what mysterious project you
would find there so I always approached it with the greatest of reverence.
They lived near Silicon Valley where Bill Gates created Apple
computers in his garage. My uncle Dan was an engineer who worked for a startup
computer company called Hewlett-Packard in Palo Alto, CA. HP needed a computer
chip, and together, my uncle and grandfather manufactured one of HP’s first
chips in his workshop. This made my grandparents and uncle wealthy, but you
would never have known my grandparents had any money at all. Their generation
survived the Great Depression, so they saved for a rainy day.
My Grandparent’s idea of an adventure was to take us to smelly Thrift
stores, or what they called the “As-Is store.” They were penny-pinchers who
reused bread bags to wrap things in, ate their leftovers, reused plastic
containers, and if it could be recycled, it was. They had the same dusty
cabinet television for 50 years, and only after some serious cajoling by my
mother did they buy their first cable TV when they were in their 70s.
They had a long green station wagon that we called “the hearse.” It
looked like an Army battleship; the doors were as heavy as a tank hatch. We
were careful not to accidentally slam our fingers in the door or we would have
been maimed for life. My Grandma was a stickler about safety, so she made us
lock the doors once we were seated, never mind that all 5 kids (including my
cousins) were crammed into the back without seat belts. Because we were
forgetful, my Grandmother would dutifully remind us by turning around in the
front seat and saying in a mild voice, “Mash the button, dear” to me. I would
look up and say, “Huh?” and like mission control, she would repeat, “Mash the
button, dear” until all the doors were locked. I suppose her thinking was, they
may crack heads if we get into an accident, but at least we can keep them
inside of the car.
Rita was my mother. When I asked my Dad why he married her, because I
could not understand why two such opposite people got married, his only answer
was that she was “a good-hearted woman,” the title of a Willy Nelson song. She
was attractive, with stiff golden hair swept up; a well-kept cosmetologist
whose nails were always polished, who never went out without her rich girl red
lipstick on, and whose brown, polyester pants matched her cheap Payless heels.
Everything about her was clip-clip. But there was something in her thin-lipped
smile that made you nervous. She had no sense of humor and looked at you as if
you were breaking the rules. My father found her haughtiness amusing and could
not keep himself from mercilessly teasing her, saying things that would
embarrass her, especially when he was drunk.
My father lost every job. I used to wonder if it was his
insubordination, or if drinking in his truck on lunch breaks was the reason for
his unemployment. Ron wasn’t a man to take anybody’s orders, or “Bullshit,” as
he called it. “No company man is going to tell me how to do my job.”
My mother was working hard to keep our family afloat, doing hair for
12 hours a day while trying to keep three kids under control. Her small salon
was thriving, but her success must have pissed off my father, because instead
of being grateful for her hard work, his jealousy would boil over into rage.
When she would ask him to fix dinner on occasion, to spite her he would make a
disgusting and ridiculous concoction such as cow tongue or chicken feet, then
force us to stay at the table while we tried to eat what was inedible. He would
let us go hungry if we didn’t eat his supper and would excuse us only when we
cried and begged him. I used to think my father was a sadist because he seemed
happiest when we were miserable. It all came to a head on a Saturday when my mom
had a full day of clients. She had asked my father to help around the house,
and he had mouthed off that he wasn’t doing any “women’s work.”
“Then act like a man and get a job,” she shot back as she was getting
dressed. Ron had already started drinking. By noon he would be full tilt
sloshed and hollering at the top of his lungs at us, so I knew that my Mother’s
response wouldn’t be tolerated.
“You don’t think I’m a man?” he shouted. “I’ll show you what a man can
do.”
We were quietly slurping our Saturday morning cold cereal at the table
and witnessed the terrifying scene. He grabbed her by the hair, his giant hand effortlessly
gripping her head like he was palming a basketball. He tried to jerk her out of
the bedroom, but Rita grabbed the door frame with both hands to stop him. Ron
let go of her hair and slammed the door shut on her fingers. She screamed in
pain and let go. He dragged her, kicking and clawing to the top of the basement
stairs. My Mother was holding her hand and whimpering, her pinky bent
strangely. He opened the door that led to the basement stairs, and before he
could kill her, we jumped out of our chairs, howling, screaming, and pounding
on him to let her go. Wordlessly, with one swoop of his giant arm, he hurled
her down the concrete stairs. She tumbled like a rag doll and landed in a
wrecked heap at the bottom.
It occurred to me that we might be next, so I hurried my sister and
brother upstairs, all of us hysterical, and locked my bedroom door behind us. In
a panic, I picked up the phone and called the only person I could think of who
could save us, which was my Grandma Ruth. My Grandparents showed up in a matter
of minutes and my father fled the scene. Grandpa collected my mother and
whisked her to the hospital because she had broken a finger, while my Grandma
dried our tears and helped us to pack.
“You and your mom are coming to live with us,” she instructed. “No
more crying. You, children, get your things now.” She was so calm and matter
of fact that it seemed as if she had been expecting this.
Ruth warned Ron to stay away from us, but my Mother went back to him
in a misguided attempt to be a good Christian. The church elders warned her
that divorce was a sin, but my level-headed Grandparents didn’t believe in
religion and intervened. They pulled up in the long green station wagon, “the
hearse,” and whisked us off to the ocean where my father couldn’t find us. We
camped, using tents from the “as-is” store, and to stay ahead of my father my
Grandparents moved our camp every few weeks. That endless summer we visited all
the best California beaches, barbequing on the hibachi, lounging in the sun,
romping in the ocean, and whispering, sunburned and sandy, in our sleeping bags
at night. I never thought to ask when we would go home; I was having too much
fun and did not want to spoil it by thinking of him. I felt guilty about not
missing my Dad, but I was relieved the nightmare was over.
When we returned to San Jose in the Fall, I had turned eleven, and
things were starting to feel more normal, except we could not return to
Forestville. We were told that we would have to attend the local elementary
school because my Father had moved back into our house. I was angry at him
because I was missing my school and my friends, but we couldn’t go back if he
was there. Mom took us school shopping, and I was excited when she bought me my
first pair of heels, the platform kind that the teenage girls were wearing. I
could tell she was being extra nice because starting over at a new school in a
big city like San Jose was hard on us. Before school started, she said that my
dad had threatened to drive down and force us to go back with him.
“How could he force us?” I asked her.
“He won’t be able to. We would call the police first,” said my
Mom.
She sounded nonchalant, but her face belied unease. Why would we need
the police-had my father become dangerous? Funny, but after everything he had
done, I still did not think of him that way. The adults were not talking, but
danger was in the air. My Grandfather Leon could not protect us because he was
a soft-spoken thinker, not a fighter. He was a dreamer, an inventor, a
scientist who would be no match for my indomitable Father, and my Mother had
never been able to control Ron. He was a wrecking ball, and she a porcelain
doll. One cruel word from him and she shattered into a thousand jagged pieces.
The only adult fit to face him was my Grandmother Ruth, our luminary and
matriarch. It was a foregone conclusion that she would be the one if it came
down to it.
Ruth’s mother had died during the Great Depression. Because her father
had lost his job and had to look for work, my Grandmother raised her younger
siblings, at thirteen. She took a part-time job as a waitress and the family
lived on her tips. When my Grandparents met she was just fifteen, and he was
twenty-eight. In those days, child brides in Kansas were common, and that is
what she became. She married the smart and courteous Leon who was the oldest
son of a preacher man, leaving her younger siblings in the care of her
father.
Leon and Ruth picked cotton until their fingers bled to earn enough to
eat and to move to California where they were told that life would be better.
As they traveled across the country picking cotton, they slept under apple
trees, using wooden crates as their table and chairs. My Grandma told me that
they didn’t believe in a God after that; the moon and stars were their church.
When the Depression eased, Leon found carpentry work, but it didn’t last long.
He fell through a roof and broke his back. Slowly he recovered, but my Grandma
would not let him on a roof again.
To keep them afloat, she went to work for Bank of America and became
the breadwinner. She worked her way up from a teller to a bank manager. In the
1950s, women weren’t managers, they were secretaries, and that was as far up
the ladder as a woman could go. But she had the mental toughness of a man, plus
an amazing ability to calculate in her head. She was the only employee who could
balance every teller to the penny. For her outstanding mathematical
capabilities, they promoted her to the first female branch manager in
California. When I would get discouraged and complain to her, Grandma would
flash her fake, but delicious Marilyn Monroe smile, and say, “Put your Bank of
America Smile on, kiddo, and never let them see ‘ya sweat.” This was who Ron
would be up against-the smartest woman in the world.
We were eating greasy, drive-through chicken from a bucket, a real
treat, as we never went out to eat; my Grandparents didn’t believe in wasting
money like that. We were crammed into my Grandfather’s workshop, eating
chicken, telling stories, and making light, but something was off. The adults
were acting skittishly, and I wondered why we were eating in Grandpa’s dusty,
grimy workshop instead of at the kitchen table. They brought in the sleeping
mats and bags that we had used during the summer and told us to make ourselves
comfortable, that we would all be sleeping in the shop that night. Grandma
flipped on the radio to listen to the local news, and Grandpa brewed a fresh
pot of Folgers coffee. After eating, out of nowhere, my Mother started to cry,
but my Grandma hushed her.
“We’re going to be just fine, Rita. You’re safe out here-he won’t get
past me.”
Then I knew my Father was coming to claim us. My mind was whirling. If
he found us he could force us into the back of his ramshackle truck, and we
might never see my Mother or Grandparents again. But my Grandparents had never failed
us, and if anyone could outsmart Ron, it would be Ruth.
As we passed the time in Grandpa’s shop, he took care to explain the
names and uses of the big tools and table saws, and I milled around like
Sherlock Holmes, admiring his collection of clear glass jam jars full of
screws, nuts, bolts, and washers that covered the walls. I tried hard to seem
like I was interested and knew what I was looking at. There was a sizeable
telescope that he had shown me Mars with one time; he had named and described the
major constellations like a professional astronomer, calling them by their
scientific names. Grandpa had never finished High School, but his living room
walls were lined with bookshelves to the ceiling filled with well-worn hardback
books on every scientific subject, including Astronomy. Visiting them was like
visiting a library that had a very nice librarian. At nap time Grandma would
tell us to pick out a book, and if we did not want to sleep, we could read
quietly. Country music played softly in the background; twangy tunes by Chet
Atkins and Tennessee Earnie Ford that she had listened to in Kansas as a girl.
I mostly read Reader’s Digest magazine, because I had a head full of unanswered
questions that nobody, but Reader’s Digest seemed to care about.
Grandpa Leon didn’t say much, but I knew he loved us because he took
the time to educate us, and I could tell that he was still hopelessly in love
with my Grandma. When he looked at her, his eyes twinkled, and to everything
she said, he laughed appreciatively in rebuttal. Grandpa had a big,
open-throated laugh and took everything in stride. He went to his shop in the
morning to brew his coffee in his flannel shirt with a pipe hanging from his
mouth, and he would pop back into the house at lunchtime for a simple bologna
and cheese sandwich on cracked wheat bread with a sour pickle. He smelled like
a cross between Zest soap and pipe tobacco, and his false teeth clacked when he
chewed his sandwich, or when he bit down on his pipe. He returned to the house
at 5 o’clock to watch the news and have dinner with Grandma. Their schedule was
as regular as clockwork. I could not imagine why anyone needed as much news as
they did; they were nutty about current events, I guessed. However, this was
not any day, as we were about to find out.
When the sun went down, a chill set in and Grandma told us to tuck
into our sleeping bags to keep warm. She cranked up the shop heaters and
pint-sized tv for us. It only picked up a few local stations, but it was an
adventure sleeping in Grandpa’s hallowed shop, so we didn’t care about the bad
reception. The adults were huddling and speaking softly. Being the eldest, I
realized something worrisome was happening, but they were being careful not to
upset us. Grandpa went out first and was gone for a while. I did not want to
think that my Father could be out there, so I put the thought out of my head
and focused on the tv show. When Grandpa returned his Irish cheeks were
flushed, and he looked ruffled; I had never seen him upset before. He was
careful not to raise his voice, but he was whispering something about calling
the police. My mother, defiant, stupidly suggested that she should go out and
reason with him, but my Grandma put a stop to her nonsense.
“And just what are you going to say to him, Rita, that you haven’t
already said? What if he forces you into the truck? Then we would all have to
come after you.”
My Grandma pulled on her coat with a steely look in her eye; it was
like watching a soldier prepare for battle. At that moment I wished that she
had a weapon, one of my Grandpa’s tools-anything to defend herself with. It
never occurred to me that they should be calling the police because my Grandma
was in charge, and she was tougher than any police officer. “He’s not going to
get the best of me,” she said in a low growl of a voice. “I’ll send him
packing-don’t you worry.” Everything she said, I believed.
What seemed like hours passed as we waited tensely for her return. My
mother played the helpless female, whimpering so my Grandpa would comfort her.
“It’s alright, Riti,” he said, putting an arm around her waist, “you know your
Mother, she’ll send him packing.”
I thought that our Mother should have been comforting us, weren’t we
the children? But when it came to nurturing or comforting, Rita did not have it
in her. Huddled in my sleeping bag, I realized that there were two kinds of
women in the world. There were women like my Mother who had no inner strength
and were dependent; women who folded like a flimsy beach chair under pressure.
And there were women like my Grandmother who were made of iron and ice, who
confronted danger head-on. I made my mind up right then that I would never be a
weak woman; I would always be a dragon slayer.
I looked at the clock and worried that my Grandmother hadn’t returned.
What if something had happened to her? Could I rescue her? I could strike a
deal with my Father: let Grandma go, and you can have me. I was ready to
sacrifice myself; Grandma’s courage inspired me. Just then, she ducked into the
shop with a reassuring, calm smile that I knew so well, looking like the cat
who ate the canary. She was carrying a shotgun-the same shotgun that had been
meant for her. My Grandfather rushed over and took the heavy rifle from her
hands.
“My God Ruth, what happened?” Grandpa asked. Wordlessly she produced
bullets from her pocket and handed them to my Grandfather.
“I took them out, it’s not loaded.” With Ruth, it was always safety
first.
We were all stunned; nobody knew what to say. My Mom stammered,
“Mother, how did…how did you get his gun?”
Ruth smiled slyly. “Ron and I made a deal. I bought his gun from him.
I paid him handsomely for it. He’s got enough to start a new life-in another
state.”
My mother embraced her and tears of relief slipped down her face.
Grandma knelt and spoke softly to us, her voice gentle and reassuring. As she
did, warmth seeped back into my body, and I could breathe again.
“Your father was here, but we couldn’t let him take you, so I sent him
away. He will never bother you again, I promise you that.”
Grateful tears welled up. Then, more than any other time I wanted to
rush her and hold her tight. But I couldn’t, because at that moment she was
more than my Grandmother; Ruth was an invincible warrior.
No one knows exactly what was said on that perilous night between the
hunter and the hunted, and Ruth must have paid a tidy sum of money for Ron’s
shotgun. But whatever transpired had worked; my Father disappeared with the
last breeze of summer. Throughout my life, I have replayed that fateful
day, wondering at the terrible things that might have happened if not for my
Grandmother’s invincible courage. All my Mother would tell us was that Ron had
pointed a shotgun straight at my Grandma, and being the tiger she was, she
stood her ground and ran him off. I imagine that Ruth lifted her head and
roared that night, because true to her word, we never heard from my Father, or
his shotgun, again.
I am who I am because Ruth taught me how to roar.