Chapter 5

Chapter 5

(Day 18)

When you remember me.  When you remember me.  I have that phrase stuck in my head.  It’s the name of the poem my mom dictated to me a few minutes ago.  It repeats throughout beginning each paragraph. 

What a strange thought.

It’s hard to put myself in the frame of mind of “remembering” Charlotte Marie Reece.  I have to keep reminding myself that she’s gone.  When I remember Char….

I wonder what kind of things are always going to stand out in my head when I remember Char.

Of course, I remember all the visits when we were little girls before my brothers, “the three mini stooges,” were added to our family.  When Mom and I would go for a visit, we would hang out for a weekend with Tiffany and her girls.  Like the time with that first night terror and supposed spider stories, only that visit stands out in Mom’s memory, not mine. 

I have only a few memories of that old ranch house.  I was still pretty young when they moved out of Fresno and into a different kind of ranch house in the little town of Helm.  It was a newly built Foster Farms chicken ranch.  Most of my memories of my cousins take place there.

The Moms would take us shopping and buy us matching outfits whenever they could find good sale.  We would drive back and forth between Helm and Fresno, swimming at Aunt JoAnne’s house then staying up late at the chicken ranch watching movies till we fell asleep while the Moms sat around the kitchen table talking, sipping wine coolers, and playing Yahtzee.  In the morning, we would indulge in sweet sugary cereal, the kind Mom would never buy.  My cousins’ dad has a sweet tooth, so Tiff always kept their cupboards stocked with Captain Crunch, Trix, and Fruit Loops.

I remember that Char was sometimes nicer to me than her younger sisters, but sometimes she was a huge bully.  I thought she looked like and acted more like our side of the family compared to the other girls.  We’ve all been known to have a little mean streak in us.  I’ve heard plenty of stories of Tiffany bullying my mom when they were little.  But deep down those two adore each other.  We all do.  I love this family.

I can picture us all as little girls.  Alexis looks more like her dad’s side of the family.  Her hair was so blonde back then, it was almost white.  Lexi has the biggest blue eyes I’ve ever seen.  She looks just like her dad’s sisters, Lindsay and Rochelle. 

I remember Lexi hanging out in the garage watching her daddy work.  He was always either restoring his old truck or tinkering on wood working projects. 

Katelyn looks like the Rozario’s.  Aunt JoAnne’s husband, Uncle Harry, the nicest uncle ever, is a Rozario.  He was born in California, but his parents were from Mexico.  Katelyn is the only one who resembles her mother, Tiffany, who’s half Mexican.  Both Tiff and her youngest daughter have dark hair and medium brown eyes. 

I can picture Katelyn sitting in the bathroom watching my mom doing her hair and make-up.  Mom would reach over in the middle of her beauty routine and swipe little Kate’s cheeks with her make-up brush making her giggle.  Then she would run out and proudly show off her blushed cheeks.

Charlotte, however, looked like her grandma, my great Aunt JoAnne.  My mom was also told that she herself looked like Aunt JoAnne when she was a little girl.  But Charlotte resembled her grandmother way more than Mom ever did.  We’ve even seen pictures of family members two generations further back that she had spooky resemblances to.  One time all of us girls thought we were looking at a picture of Char when it was actually our great-great aunt.  My cousin and I had the same thick, wavy, and golden hair, pale skin, and light blue eyes.  

On the ranch, Charlotte would show me the baby chicks in the chicken houses.  It’s not as sweet as it sounds.  They would actually pick up the sick little baby chicks and throw them against the wall to kill them.  That was part of the job of living on the ranch.  Daily, they would walk through all the houses collecting and disposing of the ones that didn’t make it.  You can’t have one sick chick let alone a decaying one spoiling the whole brood. 

Well, at least the adults were supposed to deal with the nasty business of sick chicks.  Charlotte was just showing off and trying to act “cool”.  I thought it was horrifying at first.  But I got used to it.  I couldn’t let my cousin think I was a “wussy”. 

I remember that we didn’t see each other as much when we got older.  Life just got too busy.  My little brothers came along, Mom quit work to stay home with us, then she started home schooling us…yep, we’re one of those families.  When we did go visit my cousins, they were just changing so much.  I loved them so much, though, and just wanted to continue to have that same connection from when we were little.  Maybe I still can with Katelyn and Lexi.

I remember being super jealous that they had two really cool vacations.  They went to Disneyland and stayed at the Disneyland Resort.  They indulged in the complete package deal including breakfast with Goofy.  They also went to Hawaii once and told me all about it, showing off their pictures. 

Aunt JoAnne and Uncle Harry paid for them to go.  There’s no way Tiffany and Will could have afforded those vacations.  Just like my parents couldn’t have afforded them either.  But when my grandma and her two sisters came into an inheritance, Aunt JoAnne and Uncle Harry just wanted to give their grand kids something really awesome.

Every time the girls talked about those trips, it felt like a rock was in my gut.  I was bitter that I had never experienced anything so cool.  I know it’s wrong to think that way, but I was young.  That was back when Gus was a toddler and then again when Mom was pregnant with Walker. 

I don’t feel jealous anymore.  I’m glad Charlotte got to enjoy some really cool vacations, not just driving across the country like I just did.  I’m glad for everyone else’s sake that they got to have that time with her.  At least now, they have those memories. 

The last memory I have of Char is her very, very pregnant…. 

So, my cousins will always have Disneyland Resort and Hawaii.  I have The Grand Canyon.  Woo Hoo!!

O.K., I actually thought The Grand Canyon was really cool.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  The boys had a great time.  The drive wasn’t even too bad. 

(Day 2)

To everyone’s surprise, Mom got into an argument with the tour guide over how the Grand Canyon came about. 

            “So, do you really believe it was a just trickle of water that actually dug this immense canyon?”  My mom asked the young girl who was reciting her memorized speech.

            “Well, yes Ma’am.  It was water.  Maybe it wasn’t a little trickle, but definitely a river and several other factors over the course of 20 million years.  Now if you’ll just follow me over in this direction.”

            “So, how do you line that up with the hundreds of thousands of rivers all over the world that have not carved out any such canyons?”

            “Well, Ma’am, there actually are several canyons throughout the world.  This is just the largest.”

“Has anyone actually seen the process of these canyons developing?”  Mom sounded like some attorney asking a loaded question.  I could tell she was about to push it too far.  Really Mom?  Just let it go for crying out loud!

“I…uhhh…well, no.  People had not evolved back then, Ma’am.”

            “Well then, how do we truly know that it happened just that way?  In fact, how do we know that it’s not going to happen again?   I mean, maybe society should do something such as legislate ordinances that would monitor certain rivers in order to prevent a catastrophic environmental disaster such as the carving of another grand canyon.”  My mother was talking so fast, no one could keep up with her. 

“Huh?”  The tour guide looked pretty confused.

            “Come on.  Don’t you think it’s possible that this remarkable wonder was actually created by a whole lot more than a river in a relatively short span of time?” she pressed one more time.

As soon as that poor park employee started talking about millions of years like she was taught, Mom started challenging every word she was saying.  The young girl didn’t know how to handle such arguments, and the entire tour stopped midway while an underpaid 22 year old college student tried to make sense of my 33 year old mother’s knack for arguing.  Before long others were getting bored and angry. 

            “Hey, lady!  We’ve all paid for this tour.  You’re holding things up and no one’s interested!”

            “I’m interested,” Mom politely responded to the 50 something year-old balding man.  But the hot guy wearing shorts and tank showing off his muscles, who was obviously interested in the attractive guide, chimed in.

            “No doubt, dude,”   He said, referring to the grumpy old man, then he turned to Mom, “Sorry, ma’am, but leave the poor girl alone.  She’s working hard to educate us, you know?  And she’s so cute…she would never steer us wrong.  I’m sure.”  He winked at the young girl who seemed quite perplexed at Mom’s comments and clearly did not know how to get things back under control.  I think the hero who came to her defense made her feel even more flustered.

Sometimes my mother is quiet when she should speak her mind.  Other times, she doesn’t know how to keep her mouth shut.  This was one of those times…embarrassing.

Whatever conversation there was after that, I missed it because Walker skipped over to one of the ledges and threw a rock over.  I ran after him.  Horrified at the sight of him leaning over trying to see the rock hit the bottom, I grabbed him around the middle making him cough and react to my rescue in his little bratty way.

            “Hey Letti!  Why’d you do that?   Now I can’t see where it landed!”

            “Don’t be stupid, Walker.  Ya trying to kill yourself?” 

I pushed him in front of me telling him to get back to the group.  We arrived just in time to hear mom apologize for disrupting the tour.

At least she knew that her arguments weren’t going to change anyone’s mind in this group.  We finished the tour, and it was truly one of the most beautiful sights I’ve ever seen. 

After the tour, we went to the cafeteria to eat.  In true cafeteria style, we had to grab a tray and move along the buffet counter indicating what we would like.  At the end, Mom let all four of us pick out sodas.  She was about to grab a soda for herself when Grandma pointed out the bottles of Zinfandel.  Small in size, it appeared the bottles could maybe fill a couple glasses each, so the two of them each grabbed their own.  Then Grandma paid for it all.  I figured it was the least she could do since she won all that money, and no doubt my presence brought her some good mojo. 

We were sitting in our seats for a good 20 minutes enjoying our meal when the dinner show began.  The place was filled with plenty of people to watch as people watching goes.  There were lots of families with kids (some having tantrums that Cole seemed fascinated with), mostly college aged groups sporting their hiking outfits, one special needs group…good for them, and the whole place was dotted with elderly.  They must belong to the bus tours.  The spectacle in front of us totally outdid the rest. 

A fairly large lady dressed in an interestingly clashing style was struggling with balancing her tray of food and her bags of souvenirs, all while fumbling through her purse.  We were sitting at the perfect distance from her to slyly watch without her noticing us.  I caught sight of Mom curiously glaring in our direction.  With her back to the woman, she was clueless as to why we were so entertained. 

Watching this woman, who had by then dropped several things and knocked over a good half dozen miniature sized chip bags off the shelf behind her with her rear-end whenever she bent over to pick up what she had dropped, Walker and I could hardly keep our giggles under control.  She even kicked a few of them out of her reach attempting to retrieve the chips.  I love slapstick humor.  I was just waiting for some passerby to accidentally rub up against her back side resulting in a slap in the face, or a good trip and fall, Chevy Chase style.  It took every ounce of strength to prevent ourselves from an embarrassing laugh out loud scenario. 

Finally, Gus, after giving us a look of disapproval, got up and walked over to the poor thing. 

With Mom and Grandma now clued in, we all watched as the eight year old rescuer picked up the chips to replace them on the rack and took her tray of food off her hands, exchanging a few words in the process.  She smiled at him then finished paying the cashier.  Finally, Gallant Augustus followed her to her table.  He placed her tray down just as she opened her pocket book and handed something to Gus.  Head held high, he walked back to our table smiling from ear to ear.

Mom was beaming with pride at her young hero of a son.  Grandma looked at Walker and me and made some comments about us sitting there gawking at this woman while Gus took it upon himself to save her from humiliation.

            “You’re right, Gramma.  That was just tearble’vus, right Sissy?”  Walker had a pathetically guilty look on his face.  Wow!  He’s only 5 years old and already an impressive actor.

            “Yes, Walker.  We should be ashamed of ourselves.”  I was still struggling to not laugh while attempting to sound humble to Grandma.  She knew it.  She continued for several moments staring at me with eyes squinting more and more communicating to me that nothing will get past her.  Not that I ever thought anything would. 

I wasn’t proud of myself for succumbing to such demeaning entertainment.  I guess I felt a little guilty even though I thought the perfect finale would be the fat woman herself singing.  Maybe it was the innocence of a five year old giggling at what was obviously funny that made me laugh more so than her awkwardness.

Gus sat down across from us after Mom echoed Grandma’s rebuke to Walker and me.  Before long, the two of them lost interest in us kids and found themselves wrapped up in some other conversation, so I leaned in to my brother and asked him a question.

            “You really didn’t think that was funny?”

            “Of course.  I thought it was hilarious.  I was just laughing on the inside; and I thought helping her would make me look good.  I never expected her to give me this.”  My little brother pulled out a ten dollar bill and waved it in front of Walker’s face brushing the tip of his nose.

            “Aw, man!  That’s not fair!”  It was a typical five year old response.

The next thing I know, Mom called Walker over and handed him some water bottles from her backpack.  She whispered instructions, and he took the bottles over to the planter boxes in the corner of the cafeteria.  Emptying them out, he gave the plants a nice watering, and brought the bottles back to Mom.  Then He climbed up onto the table and sat there blocking Mom and Grandma from the view of the center of the room where the cafeteria workers were busy with food service and transactions.  One by one, Mom filled the empty bottles with the Zinfandel Grandma had just bought.  Recapped, she then tossed them back into her bag.

            “What are you doing, young lady?”  I asked Mom, smiling as I walked around the table to her. 

            “Shhh…just making sure nothing goes to waste.  I can’t drink wine right now; I have to drive us back to the hotel.”

            “Really?  You’re gonna sneak this out of here?”  See?  And I thought I was sneaky.

            “Well, it wasn’t my idea.”  Grandma put her hands up as if she’s innocent.

            “Oh, give me a break, Mom.  You know you don't want your money go to waste.  And we both don’t want the wine to go to waste, right?” Mom added while zipping up her bag and slinging it onto one shoulder, “Besides, we can finish up at the gift shop, go back to the hotel with our leftovers, and enjoy it there.” 

“But Mom, the sign says that you can’t take any alcohol out of the cafeteria.”  By then I was standing with my arms folded across my chest and tapping my toe as if I was the mother and she was the child. 

“Exactly, Letti, hence the water bottles.  We just weren’t thinking about the fact that we have an hour and a half drive back to the hotel when we bought the Zin.  That’s all.  I'm actually doing the cafeteria a favor by not 'drinking and driving!'” 

So, with my Mom the wine smuggler, her five year old accomplice, the old lady rescue-hero, and the rest of us innocent bystanders, we finished up at the Grand Canyon.  I looked back at the planter boxes as we walked away.  They were plastic plants and were now overflowing with water that was never soaked up by soil. 

Looks like we’ve made our mark on this place, I thought to myself, we better get out of here before someone slips on the water.

           

Though I didn’t expect it to be, it was definitely an enjoyable part of the vacation.  I got tons of pictures, and Grandma also bought us some souvenirs in addition to paying for dinner.  Cole said his typical, “Where we doin’k,” when we got back into the Suburban.  Exhausted after walking around in the sun all afternoon, we fell asleep with the TV on at the hotel.  I don’t even think Mom and Grandma finished their Zinfandel. 

It was a good thing we conked out early too, because Mom got us up at 6am the next morning.  We had a big day ahead of us.  On day three, our goal was to drive the rest of the way across Arizona, all the way through New Mexico, and just into Texas, making plenty of pee stops along the way before reaching Amarillo, especially for Cole and me.  The cranberry juice did help; that and Mom making me go every hour or so. 

After a while, the boys started arguing once again over the DVD player.

“Walker, that’s enough.  It’s Cole’s turn to choose.”  Mom interrupted the battle.

“But Mom, he wants to watch something stupid.”

             “Is not stupid!”  Cole belted out at his bullying brother then stuck his tongue out at him.

After they settled down, I was left listening to Mom and Grandma’s conversation.  My mother was back on her controversial arguments of our “world’s beginning”.  Oh brother…. 

After the encounter with the guide at the Grand Canyon, Mom got Grandma thinking.  As soon as we started driving through the Petrified Forest, the topic came up again.  I lied there with my eyes closed listening to the things I’ve heard Mom teach me over and over again that would go in one ear and out the other.  I believed it all; I just didn’t care that much about the details.  I doubt if I could pass a test on it.  But Grandma had not really considered much of the debate.  When Mom asked her what she did believe, Grandma responded that she just never thought much about it. 

It wasn’t the topic of the conversation that interested me as much as hearing the sound in Grandma’s voice.  It was her interest in what Mom was explaining about both sides of the argument that perked my ears.  They were two of the smartest people I’ve ever known.  I know that because they usually make me feel dumb; hopefully, not on purpose, but who knows.  Most of the time, however, Grandma was enlightening Mom on issues, not the other way around. 

Their words started to get lost in my head as I opened my eyes, turned toward the window, and searched that great expanse of land outside dotted with the ancient looking wood and rock formations.  Some looked piled up and others were scattered.  Every now and then I saw something that resembled a giant’s leg bone sticking out of the ground all broken and jagged at the top.  None of it seemed very impressive.  Maybe you have to actually enter the Petrified Forest Park itself to find the good stuff.  Not much to see from Hwy 40. 

I did wonder, however, what side of the debate wise old Grandma would take. 

(Day 18)

Thinking to myself about Mom and Grandma, and how that conversation led to questions and comments about the Bible, I wonder what my grandmother will think of Mom’s poem?  The whole thing is full of scripture.   

Grandma used to attend the same church we go to now.  She raised her two children to love Jesus, but in all my fifteen and a half years, I’ve never been able to picture Grandma as being gung-ho about God.  I’ve heard at least a dozen times my mom referring to herself as Gloria Walker’s Daughter when trying to explain to some long time church-go’er who she is.  She must have been well known there.

Lately, my grandmother’s found herself having to step foot inside the building she walked away from years ago.  It’s been less than five months since Papa died.  Only a month before Papa, Miss Betty died.  She was a long time family friend and like another grandma to us kids.  Both of their funerals were at our church.

Miss Betty lived across the street from my grandparents in Livermore.  When the Walker family moved in to their neighborhood back in the spring of 1976, Betty and her husband, James, invited the young family to join them for a Sunday morning church service.  Grandma took them up on their offer and brought her two little ones.  Red stayed home. 

My grandma and her sister-in-law started going regularly bringing their own kids.  But some huge church-split occurred when my mom was a teenager.  That’s when they stopped going.  It was never explained to me what caused the split, but Mom always assured me it was just the building Grandma left, not God.  A few years later, Mom came back.  Grandma didn’t.

My parents were married there, all of us kids have been dedicated there, and all but the youngest two have had our momentous day of boldly declaring our faith in the church baptismal.

Several months ago, due to two sad losses for our family, there was my grandma sitting amongst us all in those old familiar pews.  I know Miss Betty always said that she prayed and prayed for Grandma to come back to church.  Maybe it took her death for that prayer to be answered. 

On the other hand, I’m really getting tired of death.  I hear Grandma say all the time that they come in 3’s.  I know it sounds superstitious, but I wonder ever since Miss Betty and Papa, if Grandma’s been waiting for the third.  Why did it have to be my 16 year old cousin?  Then again, when I think about what almost happened to me in New Mexico on the way back from Arkansas, I know that I could have been that third.  Mom said God was protecting me.    

Looking over at Mom, I wonder if she’s gonna tell Dad about all my antics on that trip.  I really hope not.  I hate it when he's disappointed in me.  

On the other hand, why can't I have just one exciting 15 year old mischievous adventure?  Other kids I know have enjoyed their experiences of sneaking out and getting away with it.  But not me…nope…I have to do things all wrong.  It's not like I want something dangerous, just something fun.  

Mom says that God just won’t let me get away with stuff.  He loves me too much.  So, if God protects me, the way Mom says, how come God didn’t protecting Char? 

I think I’m done with sneaking out.  But I’m just so confused about all of this God’s love and God’s protection garbage.  I just want to scream at Him.  Did He ever really love Charlotte?  I mean Charlotte believed in Him.  We talked about it the last time she came to visit.  She got excited when we talked about God.  Now this happens, and I just don’t get it. 

Couldn’t you have gotten her attention too, God?  Couldn’t you have done something to prevent this?  What makes me so special that you saved me and not her? 

It’s not like she was some sort of a sick baby chick.  But it seems like she was just picked up and thrown against a wall.  She was removed from our brood by what...a bunch of arrogant bastards…who thought they were cool….this just sucks!

Written by Amie Spruiell

Amie Spruiell After the Event © 2016