So, Jeanette and Lori had a plan for Lori to go to NYC. They had been saving up for about 1 year and planned for Jeannette to come up after she finished Junior year. They kept all of this money in a little piggy bank; they named the bank Oz.
"One evening in May, when we'd been saving our money for almost nine months, I came home with a
couple of dollars I'd made babysitting and went into the bedroom to stash them in Oz. The pig was not
on the old sewing machine. I began looking through all the junk in the bedroom and finally found Oz
on the floor. Someone had slashed him apart with a knife and stolen all the money.
I knew it was Dad, but at the same time, I couldn't believe he'd stoop this low. Lori obviously didn't
know yet. She was in the living room humming away as she worked on a poster. My first impulse was
to hide Oz. I had this wild thought that I could somehow replace the money before Lori discovered it
was missing. But I knew how ridiculous that was; three of us had spent the better part of a year
accumulating the money. It would be impossible for me to replace it in the month before Lori
graduated.
I went into the living room and stood beside her, trying to think of what to say. She was working on a
poster that said TAMMY! in DayGlo
colors. After a moment, she looked up. "What?" she said.
Lori could tell by my face that something was wrong. She stood up so abruptly she knocked over a
bottle of india ink, and ran into the bedroom. I braced myself, expecting to hear a scream, but there was
only silence and then a small, broken whimpering.
* * *
Lori stayed up all night to confront Dad, but he didn't come home. She skipped school the following
day in case he returned, but Dad was AWOL for three days before we heard him climbing the rickety
staircase to the porch.
"You bastard!" Lori shouted. "You stole our money!"
"What the goddamn hell are you talking about?" Dad asked. "And watch your language." He leaned
against the door and lit a cigarette.
Lori held up the slashed pig and threw it as hard as she could at Dad, but it was empty and nearly
weightless. It struck his shoulder lightly, then bounced to the floor. He bent down carefully, as if the
floor beneath him could shift at any moment, picked up our ravaged piggy bank, and turned it over in
his hands. "Someone sure as hell gutted old Oz, didn't they?" He turned to me. "Jeannette, do you know
what happened?"
He was actually half grinning at me. After the whipping, Dad had jacked up the charm with me, and
even though I was planning to leave, he could make me laugh when he tried, and he still considered me
an ally. But now I wanted to knock him over the head. "You took our money," I said. "That's what
happened."
"Well, don't that beat all," Dad said. He started going on about how a man comes home from slaying
dragons, trying to keep his family safe, and all he wants in return for his toil and sacrifice is a little love
and respect, but it seemed these days that was just too damn much to ask for. He said he didn't take our
New York money, but if Lori was hellbent
on living in that cesspool, he'd finance her trip himself.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a few wadde
dollar bills. We just stared at him, so he let the
crumpled money fall to the floor. "Suit yourself," he said.
"Why are you doing this to us, Dad?" I asked. "Why?"
His face tightened with anger, then he staggered to the sofa bed and passed out.
"I'll never get out of here," Lori kept saying. "I'll never get out of here."
"You will," I said. "I swear it." I believed she would. Because I knew that if Lori never got out of
Welch, neither would I."
How could a father smash (literally) his kids' dreams? Its really hard for me to imagine this. I have to say that these kids are stronger than ever. The hope and faith that Lori and Jeannette have for this move and in each other is completely unreal. It makes me so happy that these kids have someone to talk too. The way that they treat each other is really special too. I am starting to feel bad for Rex. I think it must be hard to not remember half of the events that are going on around you because you are drunk. It also must be hard to constantly be reliant on someone because he can't provide at all for himself. Putting [false] labels on yourself and constantly letting your children down has to leave him feeling somewhat guilty.
Its really easy to just assume that people are completely bad [or completely good for that matter], and then forget to take a look from the person's point of view. Yes, I am guilty of this. (I mean look at my blog posts before)
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