Monday, January 26, 2009

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! It is great so far. It's amazing to me how great I feel. This is the lowest point in American history in our lifetime: we're on the brink of a depression, and I see no way to avoid it. Yet, I am more optimistic than ever. President Obama has made me feel proud to be an American. I have greater hope than I've felt for a long time. Get up those pictures. I'd love to see them. I will continue to put up photos of my friends and family.
Take care,
Christina

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Call It Fiction 4

Chapter Four

November 1986
Near when Ruth and Gaines began claiming that Gaines was my father's attorney--It was the evening after I was informed that Gaines claimed that my father came to see him (October 31, 1986).

6:30 pm

I went to the house on Port Road. Ruth came to the door. I said that I wanted to see my father.

She said, "He's busy. What do you want to talk to him about?"

I said, "I just want to talk to him."

She said, "You're upset, honey, and you're just going to upset him."

I said, "I'm perfectly calm. I just want to talk to him."

She allowed me to push past her into the house. I went to one of the bedrooms. He was in there sitting on the bed. He asked me what I wanted. I said I wanted to talk to him. Ruth didn't follow me immediately. She came in after my father and I had said those few words. She began pulling on my wrists, saying, "You have to leave." She whined, "You're going to upset Daddy."

I tried to disengage her grip on my wrist and pull away from her.

I said, "You're the one who's upsetting him. I just want to talk to him." She dragged me closer to the door.

My father said, "Leave her alone; let her talk if she wants to."

Ruth reluctantly let me go and I moved closer to my father. She said to him, "You're going to miss your favorite program. She's only going to upset you."

"What do you want to talk about?" he asked me. "Do you want to go down to the den to talk?"

Ruth hollered, "No!" and ran to the other side of the room barring the door that leads to the door to the den. She also said, "You can talk here."


I asked him if he'd went to see Mr. Gaines. He said, "No."

Immediately, Ruth yelled, "Yes you did! He doesn't remember, you just don't remember."

I asked him again if he went to see Gaines. He said, "I guess so." I asked him why he went and he answered something that I couldn't hear because Ruth was talking over his voice. Then I asked it again. But I don't think he could hear me because Ruth was talking loudly over my voice. She was repeating that he had so gone to see Ken and also said that I would get "a lot more than $400,000" (I supposed that she meant that as the value of 1/2 of Oakwood, 1/2 of Port Road, and 1/4 of Willowcrest).

She said, "Ken told me that I was being more than generous with you."

I said, "Does that mean that you signed a will with Gaines as your attorney." She had been telling me before that Gaines was my father's attorney and not hers. She stopped talking. I asked my father, "Did you sign any papers for Gaines and Ruth?" He said, "Yes." Ruth came over to me and began pulling on my wrists and also pushing me toward the door to the hallway. I tried to get loose of her and stay in the room. I asked my father, "What did you sign?" He said that he didn't know what they were.

Ruth said to my father, "You're going to miss your program."

My father said, "Leave her alone. Let her go."

I asked him if I could talk to him alone. He said, yes and told Ruth, "Can't you leave us alone."

Ruth let go of me and slowly left the room. I closed the door and moved toward the bed. My father told me to sit down. I said, "Please don't sign anymore papers unless I'm there."

He said, "Okay, I won't. Why don't you just go along with her deal."

I said that she hadn't offered me a deal and, if what she signed at Gaines' office was a will, then she could change it at any time. I asked him if he thought she was going to let me have anything after he died. I said that the only reason she was saying this was because he was alive and might try to stop her if she said what she was really going to do with his money after he died.

He said, "Can't you try and work something out with her?"

I said that I would try "but you know how she is." I also said that she would continue to try to prevent me from seeing and talking to him. He said that she couldn't do that. I said that he could see what she was doing right now and I asked him if he ever wanted to see me again. I began to cry.

He was crying, too, and said, "Of course I do. I care about you Mary and I want to see you again." We hugged. Then he said that he didn't want to keep me anymore and that I probably had things to do. I said that I didn't have anything else to do and that I wanted to talk to him.

I asked him, "Why are you helping her?"

Just then she came into the room talking loudly, and saying that I had to leave.

He said, "Because she gets me my pills and lets me stay here.

I said, "But I can get you your pills and you can live anywhere that you want to live. You can live with me if you want to."

Just then Ruth grabbed me and started trying to drag me out of the room again.

"Why can't you leave her alone?" my father demanded.

She let go.

I went over to the shelves where there were several flashlights. I said that I needed a flashlight and asked if I could have one.

My father said, "Sure you can," jumping up from the bed. He walked over to stand next to me and examined some of the flashlights turning them on and off. "Can I have a small one?" He gave me a small one.

Ruth said, "Okay, that's enough. It's time to go."

He said, "Goodbye Mary." We hugged, and I said goodbye.

Ruth kept saying things like "okay, that's enough, it's time to go, you've already said goodbye."

I walked out of the room, past Ruth, and to the front door. As I was opening it, she pushed me away from it, and holding onto it, she looked outside. I tried to get out, but she grabbed my wrists again and wouldn't let me go. She said, "I love you, honey."

"You're a liar."

"I never lie. You just think so because your daddy told you that."

"I know myself that you lie about a lot of things. I know that you've always been a liar."

"You only think that because of something Michael told you."

I managed to get free of her claws, saying, "You're a liar."

As I walked down the porch steps and toward the sidewalk, she said, "I never lied. I love you."