by Ingrid Ricks
I heard myself screaming as I leaped out of the tub, threw on my robe, and almost busted the lock on the door leading to the kitchen in my desperation to escape the room.
“Everybody is going to know what’s going on in this house!” I screamed as I flew to the sewing room closet where the phone was hidden.
I grabbed the phone and the church directory, set them down on the kitchen table, and frantically began flipping through the pages looking for Bishop Whitten’s home phone number. I didn’t care that I was getting him out of bed. Someone had to stop this.
“PUT DOWN THAT PHONE!” Earl screamed, rushing toward me.
I concentrated on the phone receiver, desperately punching in numbers. I felt the receiver ripped from my hand and watched as the phone cord was yanked from the wall. The phone crashed to the ground just as Earl’s fist connected with my stomach.
His punch was like fuel, stoking the hate burning through my body. I felt my fingers curl into tight fists and swing back at him, four years of rage packed inside them.
“GET OUT OF THIS HOUSE!” I yelled as my fists flew toward him. “GET OUT!”
Time slowed. I felt his fists smack against my shoulders and an occasional sharp pain when one landed on my ribs. But I also felt the sting from my fists hitting him. And it felt good.
Our plastic banquet table and chairs shot across the room as we crashed into them. Sometimes I felt my body hit the kitchen wall as we collided into each other and anything in our way.
I didn’t know how much time had lapsed. I didn’t think about where Mom had disappeared to, but the hits coming from Earl started to subside. I was exhausted and welcomed the break. Earl turned his attention to the bathroom door. I hadn’t realized that Mom had locked herself in the bathroom until he began pounding on the door like it was his new punching bag.
“I want you to come out of there right now!” he ordered. “Right now! Do you hear me?””
I stared at the door, envisioning Mom kneeling by the bathtub praying.
First I heard nothing coming from the bathroom. Then, after a few minutes that felt like hours, I heard the doorknob turn and watched Mom step out.
Her eyes were swollen but she was no longer crying. She looked strong. She turned to face Earl and I recognized the same burning hatred in her eyes.
“I want you to leave. Now.”
She didn’t raise her voice but her words were powerful and firm.
We both stared at Earl, silently daring him to defy her.
He started to protest and then stopped. After a long minute, he turned and walked out of the house.
The second the front door slammed shut, Heidi and Jacob came running into the kitchen.
“What’s going on? What happened?” Heidi asked, looking from Mom to me.
“Is everything okay?”
Mom didn’t speak. She looked like she was in some sort of a trance.
“Everything’s fine,” I answered. “He’s gone.”
“I’m going to bed,” I added, suddenly drained. I turned and made a beeline for my attic room.
I WAS A LITTLE SORE and bruised when I woke up the next morning, but I felt light, as though I had just been freed from a crushing weight.
I decided to skip my early morning at school and attend scripture reading, figuring that Mom would want to talk about what had happened and discuss her plans for divorcing Earl. But she didn’t say a word about it. She just passed out the hymn books and the Book of Mormon.
“Who wants to pick the opening song?” she asked, ignoring the quizzical looks both Heidi and I were shooting her.
I started to say something, but stopped myself. It was clearly an emotional time for Mom and I didn’t want to remind her of the nightmare we had all just been through. Just knowing that Earl was finally gone was good enough for me.
Two days later, I walked into the house after spending the afternoon with Heather and found Earl standing in the kitchen next to Mom.
Seeing him stopped me in my tracks. I felt my body start to tremble and my fingernails dig into the palms of my hands.
I looked at Mom in disbelief. Our eyes locked for a second and then she looked away.
Fire shot through my body. I felt the monster overtaking me again.
“If he’s stays, I go!” I stammered, my voice half threatening, half pleading.
Mom didn’t respond. Earl just stared at me with his icy blue eyes and smiled.
I stormed out of the kitchen and spent the evening holed up in my room, alternating between panic and rage. My brain felt heavy and I couldn’t concentrate. I just needed to calm down and think rationally so I could figure out what to do.
I couldn’t believe this was happening. How could Mom let him come back? What was wrong with her?
Where was I going to go? What was Heidi going to do? What about Jacob and Daniel? How could any of us live here any longer?
My mind wouldn’t focus. My head hurt and I was too exhausted to formulate a plan. I sat in my familiar spot with my back up against my bedroom door to prevent anyone from barging in.
Think. I just had to think.
That’s when I remembered that the next day was Saturday. Heather and I had both been invited to a birthday slumber party and her dad had offered to give us a ride there. He was picking me up early, around noon, so we could shop for a present first.
That would give me most of the weekend to figure out what to do. Satisfied that I had made some progress, I climbed into bed and let myself fall sleep.
Mom didn’t summon me to scripture reading the next morning and I wouldn’t have come anyway. I woke up late, hurried downstairs to grab a bowl of cereal, and then headed back to my room to eat and pack for my overnight escape.
My immediate shock and rage had subsided and I started thinking through my options. I now had my driver’s license, which meant that maybe I could live with Grandma and still go to my high school. But I was without a car, even though I expected it in a couple of weeks. But my moving in with Grandma wouldn’t help Heidi or my brothers.
I stayed in my room until I saw Heather’s car pull up in front of the house. I sprinted down the stairs and out the door without saying a word to Mom.
“How’s it going?” Heather asked as I climbed into the backseat.
“Great,” I answered, trying to make my voice sound light. I wasn’t about to get into my problems with her dad there. Plus we’d been looking forward to the party all week and I didn’t want to be a downer.
I decided to push my dilemma to the back of my mind and just have some fun for a change. I spent the rest of the day playing games, eating pizza, watching movies, and laughing with friends. We didn’t go to sleep until after 2 a.m. and by the time we woke up, it was past noon—well past church time.
I still didn’t have a plan but I was toying with asking Heather if I could hang out at her place for a couple days. I was so upset at Mom for letting Earl back into the house that I wasn’t sure I was ready to speak to her. But I was also worried about her and I was feeling a little guilty for leaving the house without saying anything.
I decided to give her a call―just to let her know I was okay―and asked to use my friend’s phone. I felt my fingers shaking as I slowed dialed the number. I hoped Earl wouldn’t answer the phone. If he did, I knew I would slam the receiver down.
The phone rang four times before it was answered.
“Hello?”
It was Connie’s voice.
“What are you doing there?” I asked, relief washing over me. I knew she was in town visiting friends for the weekend, but I didn’t expect her to be at the house.
“I saw Mom last night and figured I’d hang around here and help her out a little,” Connie replied coyly.
I wasn’t sure what she was getting at.
“What do you mean? Is everything okay?”
“I would say great,” Connie almost sang into the phone. “Mom’s getting a divorce.”
Her words were so unexpected I
almost didn’t know how to respond.
“Are you serious? Please say you’re serious.”
I pressed the receiver hard against my ear to make certain I was hearing her right.
“Completely serious,” she replied. “Mom’s already told him.”
“So what happened?” I asked, still unable to fully grasp what she was telling me. “Why the sudden switch?”
“Well, I stopped by the house for a visit yesterday afternoon and the minute I looked at Mom, I could tell she was miserable. So I invited her to take a little drive with me so she could get away from Earl and talk.
“As soon as we were a block from the house, I asked her why she didn’t just get a divorce,” Connie continued. “She said she couldn’t because of her temple marriage. She said she couldn’t just go to the bishop and tell him she had made another mistake and wanted to divorce this husband too.”
“Yeah, that figures,” I replied, seething at the thought. “So what did you say to her?”
“I didn’t say anything to her, but it got me thinking. I realized that the only way a divorce would happen is if the bishop told her it was okay, so this morning before church, I paid him a little visit and explained what was going on. When I was done talking, Bishop Whitten told me he knew the situation with Earl was a bad one and said he would have never allowed the temple marriage to take place had he been the bishop at the time. But he added that he didn’t have the right to advise Mom to divorce Earl unless she came to him asking for help.”
“So what did you do? How did you get Mom to ask him for help?”
Connie laughed. “Well, it was clear that neither one of them was going to make the first move so I decided to do it for them. Before leaving the bishop’s office, I told him to expect Mom in his office as soon as Sacrament meeting was over. Then I went to Mom, told her that the bishop was unhappy with her marriage to Earl, and said that he wanted to talk with her as soon as church ended.”
Connie’s story floored me. I couldn’t believe she had orchestrated the whole thing. I wanted to climb through the phone line and high-five her—maybe award her with a Sister of the Year ribbon or something.
I listened intently as Connie continued her story. “Mom was nervous about going to the bishop’s office so she waited in the hall outside his office door. Finally he came out and asked her if she wanted to see him and she nodded her head. That was all it took. When she came out a few minutes later, she told me she was getting a divorce. And with the bishop backing her, there’s no way Earl dares to defy her.”
I said goodbye to Connie, hung up the phone, and sat in silence, letting the news soak in. The relief that washed over me was so powerful that it muted any other emotion I had inside.
Because of Connie, it was over. I didn’t have to find a new place to live.
By the time I arrived home late that afternoon, Earl was gone. So was Connie. She had left an hour earlier to head back to school.
As soon as I walked into the house, Mom called my brothers, Heidi, and me into the living room to talk.
She looked relieved but serious.
“Earl and I are separating,” she said quietly, looking at the ground as she spoke. “He’s already taken his belongings out of the house and he’s going to come by tomorrow while I’m at work to get his tools from the garage.”
I wanted to celebrate, to do a victory dance—something to mark the occasion. But I could tell Mom wasn’t in a celebrating mood.
“Thank you, Mom,” I said quietly, moving beside her to give her a hug. “I know things are going to get better now.”
THE TENSION AND DEPRESSION that had clogged the air in our house was gone as soon as Earl moved out.
The most noticeable change was with Mom. It was like the chains had been removed. For the first time in four years, she moved through the house like she owned it instead of like someone being held in captivity there. Everything from the way she carried herself to the way she interacted with us was different. I recognized the new expression she wore on her face: hope.
That Saturday, Mom drove me to Winchell’s, a local donut shop, so I could apply for a job. A few days later, I received a call from the manager offering me the Saturday/Sunday weekend shift. The old mom would have forbidden me to take the job because it meant working on Sunday. But this new, hopeful Mom congratulated me and even offered to give me a ride to and from work.
“Thanks, Mom,” I said, hugging her. “I really appreciate it. I’ll only need a ride for a week or two—just until Dad brings me my car.”
She didn’t say anything but I could tell she didn’t believe me.
Dad came to visit the first week in October like he said he would. Debbie was with him. My car wasn’t.
“I’m still working on getting your car fixed, Ingrid,” Dad explained when he saw the devastated look on my face. “You know I’ve got that hearing coming up at the end of this month and right now figuring out how to pay that back is more important. Don’t worry, though. You’ll get that car. It’s a promise.”
I tried to ignore the ache in my gut, but it was hard. I could see my car in my mind. I had memorized every detail of it during the hour I’d spent with it in that Fort Worth parking lot. Sometimes I would close my eyes and imagine my hands running along the dark blue racing stripes. I would envision my head resting against the black vinyl headrest and could hear in my mind the music playing from the radio.
Whenever I felt doubt creeping up inside me, I quickly shut it out. Dad had promised me that car and he had to come through. He just had to.
Like he had always done, Dad continued to call home once a week to check in and say hello. I always enjoyed hearing his voice, but it was impossible not to notice the change in our relationship. It had started with his arrest, but it was especially apparent now that Earl was gone. Without the misery at home, I no longer needed to escape my life. I knew Dad no longer needed me in the same way either. He had Debbie now.
In late October, Dad called to tell me his good news: he had worked things out with the court over the bank charge. He told me that he had explained to the judge during his hearing that it was his ex-employee, not him, who had pulled off the check-kiting scheme. But he said he also made it clear that he wanted to make things right with the bank. In the end, the judge waived jail time and agreed to let Dad repay the ten thousand dollar debt in installments of three hundred dollars a month.
When Dad called the next week, he said he had more good news: he and Debbie were married.
“Yup, Ingrid, we just decided to go for it,” he said into the phone. “You know, when you get to be my age and you find someone you are compatible with, sometimes it’s pretty clear what the right thing to do is. And Debbie’s certainly the right partner for me, I can tell you that much. In a lot of ways, she reminds me of you, Ingrid. She wants to support me in anything I do.”
As I let his words settle in, I realized the only emotion I felt was relief. Neither of us had mentioned it, but we both knew our summers together were over. I was glad he had found someone to keep him company and take care of him.
“So is she going to join up with you on the road? Or are you planning on just continuing to work around Amarillo for awhile?”
“Oh, there’s no business in Amarillo, Ingrid. The mom-and-pop shops around there have their own suppliers and don’t want anything to do with the merchandise I’m selling. But that’s part of what makes Debbie so great. She just took a six-month leave from work so she could travel and work with me. Isn’t that something?”
“Yeah, that’s great, Dad. Really great,” I said, meaning every word. “She sounds like the perfect match for you.”
CHAPTER 18
I AWOKE WITH a smile on my face. It was Saturday, but for once I had the day off from work and I planned to kick back and relax for a while and then spend my afternoon with Heather—maybe head to the mall to do some shopping and catch a movie.
I peeked out the dormer window of my attic bedroom and saw that it
had snowed the night before, blanketing the ground with a fresh coat of white powder. Then I noticed something else: a baby-blue Super Beetle with navy racing stripes parked in front of the house, partially covered in snow.
It took a moment for the shock to subside. Dad had told me he was coming up for Thanksgiving, but that was still five days away. I knew it was my car, though. I would have known that car anywhere.
I threw on my bathrobe and skipped down the wooden steps.
“Mom! It’s my car! Dad brought it! It’s out in front!”
“What are you talking about?” Mom asked, poking her head out from her bedroom door.
“It’s my Volkswagen! It’s in front of the house!”
Before she could respond, I was on the phone, dialing the number to Grandma’s house. Dad had to be in town, and if he was, that’s where I expected to find him.
He answered the phone on the first ring, as though he had been waiting for my call.
“So did you find a surprise waiting for you this morning?” he said with a chuckle.
“I can’t even believe it, Dad!” I gushed into the phone. “I can’t believe it’s real. I just can’t believe it!”
Dad’s voice went quiet for a minute.
“You didn’t lose faith in me, did you?”
“No, of course not,” I replied quickly. “It’s just that it’s been such a long time and I know that you’ve been under a lot of stress and I know it cost a lot of money to fix.”
“Well, I promised it to you, didn’t I?” Dad said softly.
“I knew you wouldn’t want to wait to take it out for a drive so I left the key in the glove compartment,” he continued. “It drives fine but there’s something wrong with the power so you’re probably going to have to get that checked out.”
“Thanks, Dad,” I said again, so excited I could barely contain myself. “Thank you so much. You have no idea what this means to me.”