Leaving Cloud 9

by Ericka Andersen

  Rick sat frozen, unable to move for a moment. He could barely comprehend that after so many years he was a phone line and two feet away from his mother.

  The friend told her that Rick was on the line and pushed the phone in her direction. She shook her head no. She said she couldn’t talk to him. He coaxed her and said, “Come on. It’s Rick on the phone.” No, she wouldn’t do it, and she told the friend to leave.

  Despite the awkward beginning, things progressed positively. Rick now had her mailing address. Rick went straight to Barnes & Noble, found a greeting card, and sent it off to her with a nice message. She had been awful to him in so many ways, but he sent her a message filled with love and forgiveness.

  The only way to explain this is that Rick has the love of Jesus in his heart. He is loved by Him, and Jesus has given him the capacity to love even the unlovable. You can imagine why I fell in love with him.

  Weeks later, a card arrived with sloppy cursive written in pencil. “Sylvia” was written on the return address, postmarked from his hometown in Arizona.

  Rick didn’t hurry to tear it open. He was conscientious, wary, hopeful, emotional. There, on two pages of white notebook paper lined with blue stripes, his mother spoke to him for the first time in more than ten years.

  Apologies, gratitude, and shame for what she had done shone through the scrawled words. She was all over the place, but who wouldn’t be after hearing from the son you believed you’d never hear from again.

  The words were tinged with crazy, the letter growing more unreadable by the sentence. But the overall message was clear. She was sorry. And she wasn’t dead. And as he read that letter, a small part of Rick’s fragile, broken, beautiful heart started to heal.

  Rick and Sylvia exchanged letters for several months. He sent her photos of our wedding, told her about his travels around the country, and offered a few details about Jenny, who had no interest in communicating with her mother. She was curious about Jenny’s family and what had become of her.

  In time, Rick realized he wanted to go to Arizona. He hadn’t been there in years, but now something compelled him to visit his mom. When he thought she was dead, he had been distraught that he’d never gone to find her, but now he had another chance. I confirmed with him—yes, you have to go now. It felt like the right thing to do.

  We decided this was an important step for Rick to find closure and move on with his life. He had to see her—that much we knew. But the trip couldn’t be just about her. What if we couldn’t find her? What if she shut the door in his face? We wanted this trip to matter for him and for us even if Sylvia was a huge disappointment. We knew, in many ways, that was a given.

  I had never been to Arizona to see his childhood home, the place that shaped him so powerfully and whose mountainous beauty he often craved. So we planned a real vacation, the epicenter of it being two days in one of the most beautiful places in the world, Sedona.

  And so off we went to Arizona.

  CHAPTER 35

  MEETING SYLVIA

  Entering Arizona, Rick was immediately transported to the past, feeling that strange nostalgia that overwhelms anyone when entering a place of great significance after years away. The years disappeared into the backdrop of symmetrical blue mountaintops beneath a cloudless sky, the golden wasteland of the desert, with its sparse cactus, and the speedy highways with eighty-mile-per-hour speed limits coasting toward the Mexican border. The gas prices were lower, the people were friendlier, the service slower than in the fast-paced metropolis of Washington, DC.

  Crossing into the city limits of Rick’s hometown, we passed the tiny local airport that twenty years before he had flown out of on one of the scariest, saddest days of his life. Flying away from the city where he’d lived for ten years, from the mother who’d done so much damage, from the only woman he’d ever loved, and toward an uncertain future in the army. The drive-by was quick, but the memories were fierce, and they got closer and closer to the center of so much pain.

  Rick had an address that he knew was correct. A letter had been sent and responded to in just the past month. His mother, whom he hadn’t seen in more than a decade, was a mere fifteen minutes away.

  He extended the drive as long as he could, showing me all the bits of his late childhood in a city that seemed depressing and barren. There wasn’t a good-looking building in sight. All around us were stores with hand-written signs. An “entertainment superstore” where Rick used to work still stood, but looked as if it hadn’t been remodeled since the 1980s. We went in and found a showcase of DVDs and books. We felt like we were in a time warp before iPhones and Androids.

  We drove to every corner of the tiny, military-inhabited city, where many “fancy” new places like Chili’s, Target, and a Marriott had been built. Hovering over the city was an infamous border blimp, reminding residents and drug smugglers alike that they were being watched at all times. Diamond-shaped yellow signs warning of illegal immigration crossings dotted various roadsides, and formerly buzzing shopping centers were barren with cardboard in the windows or labels stripped from the glass.

  There wasn’t a thing to see in that town besides the glorious backdrop of natural beauty the mountains provided. We drove by the high school where Rick had skipped class, fallen in love, and barely graduated. It’s a big school with Southwestern pink and blue shapes outlining its main sign.

  The stories Rick had told me started coming back as we drove around town. We pulled into an ugly parking lot bearing three stores, spaced out with barren buildings between them—one a rundown German restaurant. Rick recalled the night in high school when he and his friend shot multiple BB-gun holes at the windows, not realizing they would shatter and send them running for their lives.

  We drove past the old video store where he had worked—and stolen hundreds of dollars. The elderly owners had caught him but let him go without pressing charges. The significance of that time hung in the air. That was the day he could have gone to jail. It was that day that could have kept him from joining the army. It was that day that could have changed the course of his entire life—after a stupid teenage decision, an elderly couple gave that kid another chance.

  Next we drove past the “nicest restaurant in town,” which had a hand-painted sign and looked like an antique house that needed to be repainted. Rick been a busboy there and gotten a bad reference that prevented him from getting his next job. The Der Wienerschnitzel restaurant, where he’d worn a felt hat with a hot dog protruding from it and said “Have a Weinder Dude Attitude!” [sic] had been torn down, replaced by a realty office or some other nondescript building that made the town seem like a place where no one would want to live.

  We drove by the bars Sylvia used to frequent every night, where she’d make a fool of herself, get into fights, buy drugs, find a man for the night—places she’d gotten kicked out of, passed out in, or been banned from. They were still there, looking as sad, desolate, and depressing as what went on inside them.

  We could only patrol the streets of this small town for so long before Rick had to face what he’d come to Arizona to do. For many years the memories and thoughts of Sylvia had tormented him. All the thoughts, stories, anger, abuse, and words were whirring in his head. Every drunken episode, abusive partner, suicide attempt, arrest, and embarrassing action came roaring back. Even memories he’d forgotten emerged, things long trapped in the recesses of his mind. It wasn’t a pleasant experience.

  We drove by the place where the bus used to pick him up and drop him off for school—the big yellow bus—and he was reminded of being sent off to kindergarten without knowing what school was or where he was going. And he remembered another day when the bus he was riding pulled up in front of his house. His mom stumbled out their front door, squatted in the yard, and peed in front of the entire bus full of kids. He’d never been more embarrassed in his life.

  A close second to that episode was the day a car full of high school girls accidentally tapped the back of his mom’s car at a sto
plight when leaving the high school. The tap enraged Sylvia, who jumped out, and yelled, “B——, what do you think you are doing?” in a scratchy, drunken, slurred scream. The girls started laughing, and that made her more mad. She yelled louder and then nearly fell over. She stumbled toward their car for a physical altercation, but they sped off, still laughing, while Rick sat in the car, mortified.

  This was the woman he was about to see for the first time in eleven years. The woman who had broken his heart over and over and was breaking it again as he relived these awful moments, but whom he still loved, somehow, unconditionally. The woman he’d dreamed of seeing and hadn’t been sure he would ever see again. He didn’t know if coming here was the right thing—who could say? But now he was five minutes away, and there was no more asking—it was happening.

  Soon we curved around the street corner to the Cloud 9 Trailer Park, where Rick spent years living in two different rundown double-wide trailers. One of them was now gone, with nothing but a wooden board marking the spot where so much abuse, turmoil, and sadness took place.

  We stopped so Rick could visualize the place. It was here that he’d spent one winter night outside after being kicked out of the house. It was from this exact spot that he’d walked ninety minutes another night to a friend’s house to escape his mother’s drunken wrath. She’d known where he was going and driven there after him. When he saw her truck, he’d turned around and walked the ninety minutes back at two in the morning just to avoid her.

  The trailer park was ten times more rundown than it had been in the 1990s. Many of the trailers were torn down or unlivable. The ones that were still occupied were propped up on concrete blocks and had windows covered by rotting wooden boards. Rust dressed the corners of abandoned trailers, and weeds sprouted through broken poured concrete. Some fairly nice cars were parked outside dilapidated homes—cars that no one inside could have afforded. Rick said it had been like that when he lived there too.

  A lone, rusting basketball hoop peeked out from the side of the broken-up concrete path through the trailer park. Only a few people were outside, seemingly just awaking at eleven in the morning, wondering what this couple was doing making laps around their park. The contrast between the dismal trailers and the stunning mountainscape behind them was striking. It was as if the beauty of the mountains held hope of something better, representative of a life that could be had if only the people who lived there would have the courage or the strength or the opportunity to start climbing them.

  We drove slowly toward the address. There it was, but there was no trailer there, just a repair shop and a woman walking alone down the street. We couldn’t see her face, but I asked Rick, “Could that be her?” It didn’t seem likely, and we thought maybe we were on the wrong side of the road. We drove down to the south side of the park, but that wasn’t the right place either.

  The tension was mounting in Rick. His heart had sped up, and his guts were churning. He gripped the steering wheel as we again drove slowly past the address. This time we noticed a trailer to the side of the repair shop that was clearly what we were searching for. The lone woman was walking back toward the trailer. She was thin, with dirty blond hair, and she was moving slowly toward the gate. “There’s that woman again,” I said, this time seriously wondering if she was Sylvia.

  To the side of the trailer, inside the gate, were a couple of plastic tables holding colorful flowers. Others were in pots on the ground. The effect was quite pretty and almost festive looking, certainly not what I was expecting.

  We parked across the street and watched the woman enter the gate. As she walked, Rick said, “I don’t think I can do this.” He had finally realized she might be his mom.

  Then two fierce-looking pit bulls gathered near the woman’s feet and it hit him: “White pit bulls . . . That’s her.” She’d always had a strange love for that particular breed, and the sight of the dogs was all the sign he needed.

  Getting out of the car was like slow motion. Every cell in Rick’s body vibrated with anticipation, expectation, fear, and all the emotions he had ever felt in his life. His stomach was queasy, but he barely noticed. Waiting for the cars to pass so we could cross the street was like a noose inching closer to his neck.

  Finally the way was clear and we crossed the street, walking slowly toward the gate. The woman had disappeared behind the trailer for a moment. Rick stood in front of the gate, not sure what to do or where to go or what to say or how to proceed. She came back around within seconds, finally noticing that someone was standing there. The flowers blocked her view as she came closer and ducked around them saying, “Can I help you?”

  It was unmistakably her, deep grooves on a tired, worn face that resembled the beautiful woman she had been when she was young. That nose that his mimicked so clearly, the familiar eyes—the resemblance couldn’t have been more clear even from the fuzzy photos I’d seen of her.

  She stopped cold—fearful, seemingly in denial of what she thought she saw. Her mouth opened, her eyes blinking in shock as she brought her hand to her throat and ran out the gate. They embraced, both of them in tears as she repeated, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” over and over again. Rick comforted her, saying, “I love you, Mom. I love—it’s okay, it’s okay.”

  I’ve never seen a moment so real in my life—a reunion unexpected, undeserved, but happening nonetheless. She ran to embrace me after a moment and covered her mouth, embarrassed, saying, “I don’t have no teeth.” Rick told her it was fine, and she smiled as she probably hadn’t smiled in years.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked. “I thought maybe another letter, but . . . what are you doing here?”

  After overcoming the shock, she led us into the gate and introduced us to her pit bulls, Emily and Chewy, and to a little Chihuahua named Popcorn. The shaky steps up toward the trailer door were homemade and she told us to be careful as we climbed them.

  We entered a stuffy little room with no windows. It smelled of stale cigarettes. Colorful blankets in various symmetrical designs were hanging from the ceiling. Baskets and framed homemade drawings were everywhere. Old, wide-eyed dolls sat atop mountains of books, DVDs, broken appliances, and other random items. A naked Cabbage Patch doll stared directly across from me. An old TV with the scratchy image of a football game on the screen sat beside us, and a broken computer held together with duct tape anchored the floor. There wasn’t an inch of wall, ceiling, or floor that wasn’t adorned with something. Rick remembers that for no apparent reason she started decorating like this toward the end of his high school years.

  Sylvia welcomed us in, saying that she hadn’t had time to clean and that all the items we saw were from the Dumpster where she went every day to collect things for the house. She’d been collecting the dolls for years, she said, adding that she heard them crying from the Dumpster and had to save them. After awhile, she said, people started leaving their old dolls in front of the Dumpster for her because they knew she wanted to keep them. Her home resembled a light version of a Hoarders episode—and who knew what lay beneath the stacks.

  Sylvia confirmed that she had no photos of her kids—that she’d given her only photo album to Rick. He said he’d left it in storage in Tennessee years ago. So every photograph—outside of the two he had kept—of his childhood was gone forever, though memories remain crystal clear in his head.

  She was fifty-eight years old but looked to be in her midseventies, with deep wrinkles and sagging skin and a body wasted away by years of hard living. Faded scars were barely visible up and down her wrists, but nothing new seemed to be there. It was hard to know what to say, sitting on her little couch while she sat on the floor next to the computer. No other seats were available. Rick was smiling, happy to see his mom. She was here, she was alive, she was glad to see him—he couldn’t have asked for more.

  The conversation was awkward. Sylvia admitted she’d been a bad mother and put Rick and Jenny through unthinkable misery. She hadn’t known what to do with kids, s
he said, and blamed her own mother for what she became—the same thing her mother used to say about her mother, at least that’s what Sylvia claimed to us then. She described a long, sad cycle that Rick was determined to end, that his sister had done a good job stopping as well.

  “I was an alcoholic, and it was poison—and I was going to have my drug,” she said with a nervous laugh, then suddenly took another tack. “I wasn’t that bad of a mother . . .” Her mental instability was evident as she jumped from subject to subject.

  Somewhere, it seemed, she had gotten a dose of religion in the years since Rick had seen her. She told us it was the end times but she wouldn’t be going with the Rapture because of the awful things she had done in her life. She said she would stay behind and help the unbelievers. She asked if we were saved and reassured us that we would be going with the Rapture when it came.

  Through it all, she kept saying she was sorry and that she hadn’t been good to Rick. He continued to reassure her that it was okay and all that mattered was that he was here now.

  “I never did heroin,” she insisted. “No, I never did it . . . even though I know you think I did.” Rick can’t confirm if she did heroin or not, but he believes she did. And he knows undoubtedly that she did other hard drugs.

  The conversation continued to jump back and forth. Sylvia told us she’d had some kind of cancer and the radiation had made her teeth fall out. She also said the bank had been stealing her money and that she’d heard our country was the one that instigated 9/11. Rick told me later that she’d often claimed the government was spying on her and over time had become excessively paranoid about every person she came in contact with.

  “You look like you’ve lost weight,” she said at one point. “Either you’ve been working out or you’re on drugs.” She tossed the comment out casually as if either one could be the case and moved abruptly on to a new subject.