If I was outside, he was lurking under the bushes, pouncing on bugs, or chasing me around the trees. Everyone who met Digger loved him. Well, everyone but Mr. Wilson. One area of the fence had a hole just big enough for Digger to wiggle into Mr. Wilson’s yard. He didn’t find it funny that Digger was named for his worst habit; digging in roses.
“Put Digger down. We have to clean you up. It’s time for your lessons.” Momma didn’t like me spending the whole summer up in a tree like a monkey.
“Aw, rats! Can we color please?” I begged, looking up at her tall frame with pleading eyes. I wrapped my arms around her waist, leaving dirty hand prints on the back of her white t-shirt. It wasn’t nice, but I knew one hug from me and I could have her mind changed. My mother looked down at my freckled face and I smiled back, exposing my missing front tooth. I knew that would seal the deal.
“Ok, Alex,” She signed, shaking her head. “You can color today, but you aren’t getting out of practicing your letters tomorrow, deal?” I nodded with excitement. My mother stuck out her hand to shake in agreement.
“Deal!” I said, bouncing off into the house. “Come on Digger.” I scooped him up in my arms as I went inside to wash off the mud. The rest of the afternoon, I scattered drawings all across the wooden kitchen table. I had aliens in three shades of green and purple spotted giraffes with two heads.
My mother stopped by to check on my pictures. She rested a hand on each shoulder, laughing at my colorful characters and agreed it was the scariest space creature she’d ever seen. The afternoon faded into evening and I heard the front door open. I took off in a sprint to find my father.
“Daddy!” I jumped into his arms as he carried me to the living room couch.
“Ok, Pumpkin, what do you have for me tonight? Another picture for my office?” He smiled as we settled down on the couch. He had called me Pumpkin since I was a baby because my hair was the color of an orange jack-o-lantern. As I described my picture, he smiled in a way that made his face really happy. My father, Henry Tanner, always liked my pictures.
I didn’t understand what my father did at work every day. My mother said he made sure grocery stores had all the items they needed, like broccoli. My eyes always crinkled up in confusion at the details. Why would my father buy everyone broccoli?
Sitting me down, I watched my father grab my mother for a lingering hug then slip an arm around her waist. He kissed her on the lips. I knew my father and mother loved each other very much. He always looked at her the way the Prince did when he danced with Snow White.
That night, after two stories and a glass of milk, my father gave me a big kiss right on the top of my head. “Good night, Pumpkin.”
“Night, Daddy.”
Turning off the light, my mother whispered next to my cheek, “I love you, Alex, more than all the leaves on the trees.”
“Love you too, Momma,” I said over a muffled a yawn.
With the sheets pulled up tight, little Digger jumped on the bed to get settled in for the night. The little brown ball of fur stretched out at the foot of my bed, covering the tips of my toes. I drifted off to sleep dreaming of flying horses.
Chapter 3
Today, 8:42 p.m.
Beep.
The happy place disappears; the happy place with my mother. The words slice through as my first thought in the headache induced confusion. She failed to haunt my dreams for some time now.
Beep.
I will my eyes to open. Something nags in the back of my thoughts just beneath the banging noise in my head. It was Saturday. No, it wasn’t Saturday. I drove from Dallas on Saturday. I try hard to remember the day.
Beep.
My hand feels around for the bedside alarm buttons to kill the incessant beeping. The more I tug, the more my wrist feels caught. The realization hurt my chest more than the pain in my head. I am not in my bed. I am tied to a hospital bed.
Beep.
Panic kicks in as I struggle to move. The slits of my pale blue eyes move just enough to take in my surroundings. The lights glow with halos around each bulb. The beauty queen stares back at me. I want to scream at the sight of her face.
Beep.
“Alex, can you hear me? Just try to be still. I’m sorry. I tried to keep them from usin’ the restraints but they were afraid you’d do somethin’ again.”
Beep.
“Make it stop. Please…please!” I can’t stand it anymore. The sound jabs at me. It jabs in my brain like a knife. I pull at the band on my wrists. I try to kick free. I yank with every muscle, feeling the joints pull in my hands.
“Alex, please don’t make it worse.”
Beep. Beep. Beep.
I scream. I feel the images again, those terrible pictures searing through my gut. They hurt my mind. They hurt my heart. A needle goes into a bag dangling above my head. The sounds become lost in a gentle swoosh, lulling me back down into the depths of my dreams; back to the where it all began.
Chapter 4
When I was eight…
Sitting in my tree, I watched the people in our yard. Anger burned deep inside of me. They were all just vultures, digging and tossing our stuff around without a care in the world. I had the perfect view as they picked apart everything in their sight. None of them were concerned that it was my whole life sitting out on the lawn. It was just another sale to them. It meant nothing to the vultures; no memories or stories.
I watched two men secure our couch to the back of a truck. Their hands fiddled with the ropes, making them so tight, the fabric split open and stuffing blew out across the grass. A man and his wife knocked our table against the trailer and the leg fell off in the street. They had the nerve to ask my father for a discount because it was damaged before it even left our house. My sad father just handed back a few dollars to the mean couple who broke our table.
I hated the vultures. I hated them all!
“Pumpkin? I need you to come down from there and help put the rest of the stuff back in the house,” my father yelled. Without a word, I climbed down into the garden and followed him to the front yard.
I shoved a yellow vase into a box with some old glasses and carried it back into the living room. Dropping the cardboard on the hard wood, I heard the glasses bang against each other. I picked the box up and dropped it a little harder, feeling the prickly anticipation for the sound. The vase vibrated a little harder this time. I continued with another try, putting my arm strength into the throw. A crackling smash came from inside of the box.
Feeling the warm tingle of satisfaction, I looked around the room. The house was empty. According the foreclosure notice, we had until tomorrow morning to be out of the only place I had ever called home. It was hard to grasp how much our lives had changed in a year.
My mother had something called ovarian cancer. The doctors were hopeful at first, but the cancer had quickly spread to the other places in her body. She had spent weeks at a time in the hospital while my father alternated between work and sitting at her bedside. I had stayed with mean, old Mr. Wilson and his wife. The happy days were over; no more mornings playing in the garden and no more laughing afternoons drawing with my mother.
For months, I cried myself to sleep every night, clutching little Digger. I had just wanted it to be normal again. I wanted my bedtime story. I wanted my mother. I was incredibly sad. I didn’t think our lives could get any worse, but then my father came home carrying a box. I knew from his sagging shoulders something bad happened at work. My father said his company had let him go. They’d used some excuse about a bad economy, but we knew the truth. He had missed too many days sitting at the hospital. My father had cried and cried that night. I didn’t know what to do as the big tears rolled down his cheeks. Parents don’t cry.