Exiting

The news that we would be returning to California wasn't shared with me until the day before we started packing.  Sister shared the news with me during the bus ride home from school one afternoon in early Fall, which I immediately denied.  "We can't be moving," I explained carefully to her, as she was clearly too young to even understand what moving meant.  I mean, first of all no one had told me.  Second, we hadn't even started packing.

But it was true.  Mom had purposely kept the news from me because of how I had reacted just 2 years prior when she had divulged the move out of California.  More and more I felt less a part of the family as Mom revealed less and less about her decisions, but I was just happy to be moving away.

I had spent the summer following the Mt St Helens eruption riding my bike around our neighborhood, spending time with my buddy Jennifer and her family, and staying out doors whenever I could.  The volcanic ash had transformed that year's crop; apples now weighed over a pound while potatoes could weigh in at nearly five pounds.  It was exhilarating to hunt for the biggest fruits and vegetables at the farmer's markets.

That fall, back at school, I had found my place.  Boys had started to notice me, and I had become aware of their attention.  But when my closest school friends inquired as to why we were moving, I was too ashamed to tell them the real truth.  Sitting on the playground, confronted by a group of curious girls, thoughts formed in my mind but I couldn't actually say the words:  because my step dad is an alcoholic.  I mean, would my friends even know what that meant?  I had thought that most likely none of them had ever experienced anything so terrifying as a midnight call from the jail, or a screaming match between parents just outside the bedroom door, or the stink of boozey breath in a cold room.

Grandpa flew up from California to help us rent a Uhaul truck which would transport our belongings back down south.  He and my grandmother had been able to retire early, when he was 55, due to his pension from having worked at Mare Island in Vallejo.  They had built their home in the Sierra foothills, near the Gold Country, in an area that often snowed in winter.  I think it reminded Grandpa of his childhood in Minnesota in many ways.  

Upon entering our house in Moses Lake, he folded his hands to his hips and shook his head.  Clearly, something was wrong.  I was highly attuned to adult's mood changes and quickly picked up on his disappointment.  "What's wrong?" I asked.  "I just figured you guys would be further along," he explained, surveying the empty boxes.  "Don't blame me," I had wanted to say.  I just found out we were moving 2 days ago.

The drive from Moses Lake, WA to Alta, CA took us about 2 days to complete. For most of the way I rode with Grandpa in the truck, while Mom and sister followed behind in the powder blue Pinto.  During the drive, Grandpa would periodically inquire as to what life was like living with Joe.  I could feel my face flush and my typical nonstop chatter come to a grinding halt.  Telling Grandpa about all of the horrible ways in which Joe made our lives misery would be like betraying Mom.  I couldn't betray her, she was the only link I had to security.  By this time, at 9 years old, I knew that my real mother wasn't going to come and rescue me from this life and that I had better make the best of it.  And that's exactly what I was determined to, at any cost, once we arrived at our new home.  For the time being, that new home also happened to be my grandparent's home.