CASE FILE #13

SALT LAKE COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT

SALT LAKE CITY, UT

INCIDENT REPORT # 428012

Report Entered:               11/18/2005    13:21:34

Case Title                                            Location

–                                                              –

Date/Time Reported             11/18/2005          13:30:00

1.) DOMESTIC DISTURBANCE REPORT    b972 S316 —

Reporting Officer                               Approving Officer

:  DIAMOND, LOWELL (1944) :   JOSHUA, WILSON K. (1791)

__________________________________________________________________________________

Persons

Name

Linda K. Frammer  

Role    Sex     Age          DOB                Address

Mother    F       31       07/11/1974      14100 S., Cambridge St. W.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Offenders

Name UNKNOWN

Role       Sex         Age        DOB             Address

______________________________________________________________________

Narrative

On Friday November 18, 2005, Ms Linda Frammer was detained for suspect questioning for disturbing the peace claiming a missing child, (Daughter, juvenile name withheld) following a domestic dispute report, called in to 911 dispatch by neighbor, Dean Craig 14120 South Cambridge St.W., 11/18/2005 13:30:00.

Suspect was in a state of extreme distress and was screaming very loudly and making loud noises from within her place of residence causing several other citizens to stand in front of said dwelling in the street resulting in blocked traffic passage and domestic noise disturbance violation, A61 b915 5 —.

On the above time and date, I arrived upon the scene as transferred by ECC dispatch and having entered the above mentioned address, found a white female, later identified as Linda Frammer, screaming out her daughter’s name in an extreme state of emotion and making verbal threats out loud, “I WILL KILL YOU, YOU BITCH. GIVE HER BACK”, although there were no other person(s) in the house at the time that I entered.

There was indication of alleged foul play as the furniture was misplaced about the front room and debris was being thrown about by the alleged suspect. With a strength belying her physical size and stature, she lifted the end of the approximately seven foot long couch and heaved it out from in front of the room’s window, then appeared to search through the items that were previously behind the couch. There was evidence of blood on the suspects clothing.

I announced myself to her, as she had not noticed me in the entryway, and she collapsed and ceased her actions. Since I was the only responding police officer on location I had my back to the door as I spoke with her. She seemed to immediately calm herself as I radioed ECC to request for a medical team and assisting officers and requested that she remain on the floor.

Frammer began crying and became somewhat unresponsive when questioned about the destruction, in response she repeated the statement, “She took my baby”, several times but did not answer to my questions. When I inquired to whom she was referring, the ‘she’ made in her statement, she replied, “You won’t believe me”, and would not elaborate any further.

Upon arrival of assisting officers I began my initial investigation of the premises. In every room the furniture had been piled or had been placed in a manner of inconsistency.  Upon further investigation I found evidence of a child at the residence but I was not able to locate the child in question.

Paramedic attended suspect and provided that she was ambulatory and stable for questioning.

Suspect was taken into custody without incident and transported to Salt Lake County Detention Facility and remanded to Det. F. Handley for subsequent questioning.

It was determined that she has legal custody of a female child, age 8, juvenile name withheld, and living with boyfriend, age 38, James Warren Nixon at above mentioned address, but daughter and Mr. Nixon remain at large, exact location cannot be determined at this time as Ms Frammer states that ‘Andie’, (unknown party to be identified during evaluation), has taken the child and that Mr. Nixon has been ‘missing’ for several days. Drug/Alcohol results: Negative.

Upon additional questioning, suspect provided her deposition and at the end of her testimonial became increasingly agitated, insisting that she be released to conduct her own investigation as to the location of the alleged missing child.

Full recording and transcript documentation of statement provided by Ms Linda Kaye Frammer, attached and included with report.

After brief consultation and statement given with Det. Frank Handley and upon recommendation for psych. eval., she was transported to Salt Lake Valley Mental Health,  East 25^th Street, in police cruiser (Car 210E, Off’s Grey and Liam) where she was processed and admitted as ward without further incident by Off. L. Diamond into custody of PhD. Travis J. Green.

Missing child report filed by Off. Lowell Diamond (1944), 08/15/2005 16:42:13 Salt Lake County Police Department Missing Persons, Case Report # 1169-04M.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

DLH 07-00281                      OFFICIAL USE ONLY                      08/15/2005

TESTIMONY OF

Linda Kaye Olsen Frammer

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Det. Frank Handley:     Is your full name, Linda Kaye Olsen Frammer?

Ms Frammer:       Yes.

Det.:     Are you aware that you have not been arrested, that we just need to talk with you about what was going on at your house early this morning? Why you were so upset, about your daughter?

Ms Frammer:          Yes.

Det.:      Okay then, can you tell me in your own words what happened?

Ms Frammer:      She took her.

Det.:    I see, and who is ‘she’?

Ms Frammer:       Andie. Officer the longer you keep me here the worse my chances are that I’ll find her.

Det.:     Alright, stay calm. May I call you Linda?

Ms Frammer:         Call me anything you want, I don’t care, I just need to get back home.

Det.:     I understand. Can I get you a drink, some coffee maybe?

Ms Frammer:        Look, I’ll tell you. You won’t believe me but I’ll tell you. I promise I’ll tell you everything.  Then will you let me go home?

Det.:     I’ll see what I can do to make this go as fast as possible. Okay? Now the more you cooperate the quicker we can have you out of here. Tell me, who is Andie?

Ms Frammer:        Evil. She’s a wicked evil little thing.

Det.:     Is this Andie one of your daughter’s friends?

(Laughter. Coughing)

Det.:    Linda? Hold on. Let’s get you a drink.

(Sounds of movement.  Quiet sobbing. Door shutting)

Det.:     Here, this will help. Take your time, and when you’re ready, tell me what you know.

(Coughing)

Ms Frammer:      My parents don’t live in town. My dad’s retired and they have a little farm, I guess, outside the city out in Cooper, so they don’t get to visit very much. Sadie, that’s my daughter, she’s their only grandchild so they like to spoil her whenever they get to see her.

Well, they were driving down through Ogden and stopped at a little mall to go, oh I don’t know shop or eat or something. Anyway, my mom found this doll shop. You know the dolls with the perfect porcelain faces and real human hair? And she really liked this specific one and ended up buying it for Sadie.

Her first grown up toy, mom said. She was beautiful, such a sweet little face and her eyes were amazingly real, little eyelashes and everything. Of course Sadie immediately fell in love with her and named her Andie. She took her everywhere with her from then until …

(Silence)

Det.:     Linda, I’m a bit confused, didn’t you say that Andie took your daughter? But you just said that Andie was a doll.

Ms Frammer:      Uh huh. I know. I said that you wouldn’t believe me.

(Sobbing)

Det.:     It’s okay. Try to calm down. Let’s just start over. I’m trying to understand. I want to believe you.  Have your parents visited since they gave her the doll?

Ms Frammer:         Um, no. This is kind of a busy time of year for them. We weren’t expecting to see them again until Thanksgiving. They always come down for Thanksgiving.

(Sobbing)

Det.:      I need you to try to stay calm so you can talk with me, okay?

Ms Frammer:       Yes. I just want to go home.

Det.:      Okay, let’s try this again. Start at the beginning for me, can you?

(Deep sigh)

Ms Frammer:      They gave her the doll on their last visit, sometime in early June I think.  Sadie loved her and would talk to her and played with her almost constantly since the first minute she picked her up. It was really nice to see Sadie happy and acting like normal again. She became so closed off when we moved in the house on Cambridge, she doesn’t make friends very easily.

This doll is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. Not like the porcelain dolls that you usually see with the in the stores you know?  No, she was made with every possible detail. Her clothes were all hand sewn and the detail was amazing too. It’s like you could see that she was really like a work of art. She even had little tiny veins painted on her face and arms and her hair wasn’t a wig like most dolls, glued on, it had been pushed in like real hair.

I thought she must have cost a fortune and I was so afraid that Sadie would break her playing with her like that but every time I tried to put her up, you know to keep her nice, well Sadie would just freak out.

I felt guilty trying to always take it away from her though. Since her father stopped coming around, no more calls from him or anything, and we’ve had to move a few times so she doesn’t really have any friends at the new house. I couldn’t just take her away.  I know I’m a little too permissive with her, Nixy is always after me for it, but she’s only eight years old. She needed something to sort of attach herself to, you know, something that isn’t going to leave or change. It’s just a doll, and I didn’t see the harm in it. Well, at first.

But then Sadie seemed to just fall into a world of pretend with this doll, all the time. She named her Andie. She told us that the doll had ‘told’ that her name was actually Andrea but she called the doll Andie. She talked about her like she was a real person and told us all about their conversations. Nixy said that she probably had invented an imaginary friend like he did when he was a kid and that she would grow out.

But then we eventually had to set down rules about Andie, three rules specifically that I wouldn’t budge about. Dolls don’t go to school, no shared bath time and not at bedtime. I would still find that damn doll in bed with her and I would take her out of bed and put her on the dresser or in the closet. Sadie was obsessed with her.

Once I put her in my suitcase in my closet and somehow Sadie found her. She told me that she had heard Andie crying and that she was scared of me and that’s about the same time that Sadie wouldn’t talk to us anymore. By us, I mean me and my fiancée Nixy. James Nixon, we call him Nixy.  She would talk to Andie for hours but not to us and not to the other children in school or up the street. She just kind of pulled herself into a shell and wouldn’t let anyone else but that doll in for awhile.

Everyone told me, “Oh relax, it’s just a phase. She’ll get over it”. Then weeks later when she did talk to me again she started telling me that Andie said this and Andie said that. It was creepy. She told me stuff like Andie’s daddy used to touch her on her peepee! Sadie is only eight years old, she wouldn’t know anything about that kind of stuff!

Okay, so the first thing I thought is, ‘Oh my God, Nixy’s touching my baby girl’, so I confront him on it. After our week long fight about it and talking with Sadie over and over about it, I honestly don’t think he or anyone else has touched her. She insisted that Andie told her about it but I guess she must have heard it at school or something.

Then there’s the other stuff she would say that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up like, “Andie said that it doesn’t hurt to die”, or “Andie says it’s going to be my turn to play dolly soon”, and things like that.

It started to freak me out, so I kept trying to hide Andie to keep my daughter away from her. I even threw her in the garbage once. But Sadie managed to find her every damn time and then I was the bad guy for ‘trying to hurt her best friend’. I called my mom and told her about what was happening but everyone thinks I always over react, so she didn’t believe me. Nixy saw what was going on, he saw Sadie change, the look on her face, the darkness behind her eyes. He believes me.

I even asked Nixy take her to work with him, he’s a bar tender at Chili’s downtown, and just leave her there. I was thinking that she’s very pretty, someone else would take her home and I could console Sadie back to normal again. His boss Heidi found her and insisted he get her out of the restaurant. So he put her in the trunk of his car. We don’t know how she did it, but the next day she was back and Sadie was very angry with us. It was almost impossible to separate them after that and it just got worse.

My friend Candice suggested that I find the store and maybe return the damn thing. So I called my mom and got the directions. She thinks I’ve gone insane. And then while Sadie was in school Candice and I drove up to Ogden together and found the shop. It’s called The Dolly Hospital. The lady that owns it hand makes or repairs all the dolls right there in her shop and she was very nice but creepy as hell and as crackers as a soup kitchen.

She told us that she doesn’t ever accept returns because the dolls pick the family, not the other way around, or some such bull. She told me that she never ‘sell’ the dolls, she adopts them into nice families.

I didn’t think much about it then but now I can’t stop thinking about the way she reacted when I showed her Sadie’s doll. The lady called her Andie but we hadn’t told her what Sadie had named her. She sat down and asked the doll questions as if they were having a real conversation just like Sadie does with her. A grown woman sat down in front of us and played with Sadie’s doll.

Then Candice got really creeped out when she saw the doll that was, I guess, being made or getting fixed. She grabbed me and said she was feeling sick. All those broken faced and decapitated or limbless dolls started to make me feel, wrong as well. It’s like I could actually feel them watching us. I can’t describe it any other way.

Then she notices that Candice is staring at the gutted doll on the work table and proceeds to tell us that she never knows how long it’s going to take to create one of them. She said sometimes it can take a year, other times it’s not long at all. She looks at me then, with a really weird look in her eyes, and tells me that she can tell that this doll won’t take long to finish.

I tell her, in no uncertain terms, that I am not interested in another damn doll and then she walks back to the table and kind of shows us the head of the doll she’s working on and says something like, “not long now”. It looked like my Sadie! It had her red hair and even the little birth mark she’s had since she was born, exactly like my Sadie! I told her to give me the doll and asked her why she was making a doll that looks like my daughter, she looks at me and says, “I was inspired”, with this smile on her face.

Then she just sits down and starts sewing, ignoring us like we weren’t even there. Then we, Candice and I began, to feel sick. I was afraid that I was going to throw up right there, we practically ran out to the car. I still get chills just thinking about going in that doll shop. Look, goose bumps, she was so disturbing. Something very wrong is happening there all of those dolls, all of those perfect little faces. Listen to me, I’m telling you the truth.

(Bang)

Det.:     Do you remember where this shop is located?

Ms Frammer:       You better believe I do, I can’t stop thinking about that woman. It’s in a little strip mall with only about six or seven stores, right off the exit at Hamden Road behind Denny’s in Ogden. It’s called The Dolly Hospital.

After that the Andie wasn’t just a toy to me anymore. I kept imagining things about that doll like her expression changing, just a little bit like she had been caught off guard. You know what I mean?  That doll started to haunt me and I could feel her looking at me, accusing me. All I wanted was to kill that damn thing, to rip open her little body or smash her into a million pieces, so that Sadie couldn’t find her and I could have my baby girl back again.

Then I noticed that Sadie started acting different too, like she was running out of energy or something. We don’t have any insurance or I would have taken her to the doctor because I was that worried about her. She would lay with that doll out on the grass, just staring up at the sky for hours on end, and whisper. Or if I would make her come inside, she would just sit on the couch holding that doll. Just sit there.

Can you imagine trying to eat a meal with that perfect little face, with that sarcastic little smirk and those creepy eyes watching your every move?  I couldn’t get that doll shop out of my head, all those little faces, just smiling at me. I would have bad dreams about Andie doing bad things to Sadie and would wake up in the middle of the night and find that Andie was back in my daughter’s bed, and she would lay in my daughter’s arms smiling at me with those same never-blinking eyes.

I had visions of that movie ‘chucky’ going through my head. You know, of her running through the house with a steak knife and murdering us all in our sleep. I was terrified of that damn thing.

God, listen to me. I know how this must sound, being frightened of a stupid toy, but you don’t know what it’s been like. I’m not crazy. I am just scared out of my mind and I want my baby back, officer. What did you say your name is?

Det.:     I’m Detective Frank Handley.

Ms Frammer:      Frank, do you have children? I need my baby back, she’s my whole life. God! This is crazy! Nixy’s missing and you won’t let me find my daughter and that god damned doll! You want me to just sit here and calmly talk about….

(Crying)

Ms Frammer:       Nixy decided that the doll had to go away when I told him about me and Candice going to the doll shop, he got really freaked about it.  It was destroying our family and making my Sadie so different, like she was, I don’t know, dissolving or something. So a couple of days ago, he just grabs the doll. He gave me a look and I knew what he was doing, and even though Sadie was having a fit from hell, I didn’t stop him this time.

He took Andie and left. When he called, he said he was going to drive into the canyons and take care of business and that he would call me as soon as he was on his way back home. I was terrified and relieved and I knew we were doing the right thing but I also knew that I didn’t have the strength to do what I wanted him to do. What he was doing.

Det.:    Missing since Wednesday, did you report him missing Linda?

Ms Frammer:       No. What am I going to say in the report detective? That my boyfriend was kidnapped or possibly murdered by a doll? No, I just thought he would be back home when he was done doing what he had to do. I didn’t know how far away he drove or even which direction, I was just happy to finally be rid of her.

The next day Sadie cried all day when she found out that Andie was gone. It was so hard to watch my baby in that much pain but I knew it would be okay. I spent the whole day just loving her and doing things with her like we used to do when she was a little younger and she started coming back. She smiled at me for the first time in months detective, the first time in months.

Last night, I gave Sadie a bath and then she let me read her a bedtime story. She actually asked me to read her a bedtime story. I read to her from Charlotte’s Web, do you remember that book? She loves that story. She was sweet and loving, just like she used to be before that doll came into the house.

She even kissed me good night and told me that she loves me and would miss me. I didn’t know what she meant but I didn’t think for a second that she wasn’t going to be there in the morning. I really didn’t know.

I went to bed, just like any other night, knowing that I was getting my Sadie back and that the doll was finally gone for good. I relaxed and fell asleep so easily. I don’t know how much you believe in these things but I had a very real dream, the kind that you hear other people talk about, but unlike anything I’ve ever had.

I was dreaming about sitting under a tree in this glorious meadow all covered in yellow flowers and then I saw my pretty little Sadie playing with another little girl. They were laughing and holding hands and so happy. Sadie was glowing and so beautiful and the two girls came over to me and she kissed me and told me how happy she was and how much she loved me. I didn’t want this dream to end, it was all so wonderful and serene and happy.

Then Sadie started to skip away on her own and she was getting so far away that it was hard to see her anymore. The other little girl, I realized now, looked just like Sadie’s doll with her long golden hair and pink dress. She just smiled at me and told me that I shouldn’t worry because she would stay with me until I didn’t miss my Sadie anymore, like her Christine had done for her mommy. I started to chase after Sadie, but I couldn’t catch up to her. Then she was gone. Just gone and there was nothing I could do.

I fell on the ground and the other little girl wrapped arms around me and I wanted to hurt that little bitch but all I could manage to do was cry. I cried so hard that it woke me up and I was still crying. The dream about my baby girl leaving me had put such a hole in my heart and in my whole life I have never felt that much pain before detective.

When I woke, Nixy’s keys were on his pillow next to me and I ran down the hall to the kitchen. I ran all over the house but Nixy wasn’t there. Then I went into Sadie’s room.

(Heavy sobbing)

Ms Frammer:        She wasn’t there! She was gone and I knew that Andie had taken her away. I looked through her whole room. I thought she might just be hiding so I tried to find her. She wasn’t anywhere in the house, and then I realized that if I could find Andie, I could ask her. She told me she would be there. I could beg for her to give Sadie back, to just bring her back to me. So I started to look for Andie.

Then the police officer came in and I know it must have looked insane but if I could just ask Andie, if you let me go back home so that I can find her and ask her, then I can prove to you what I’m saying is really the truth and I’ll get my Sadie back.

(Banging sound. Sobbing)

Det.:    Ms Frammer, I think maybe …

Ms Frammer:    No! You don’t get it! You don’t believe me! I need to go home! Sadie will get too far away to come back if I take too long. Please!

Oh my God. I’m such an idiot for not burning that damn doll when I first thought something was wrong. I should have crushed it or something. I should have done something! Sadie was just so happy, you know, and I didn’t want to break that in her again. I should have done something!

(Sobbing)

Ms Frammer:     Andie is still in the house detective. She’s still there, I know she is. And she knows where my Sadie is. I have to get Andie to tell me how to get her back, don’t you understand? There’s still time. I  honestly think I can still get Sadie back, no I know I can, or that woman with the dolls maybe have her too. You know, I’ve been going over it all in my head and I think I know where she’s hiding at now. I didn’t see it clearly before but I can now.

Det.:     Ms Frammer, I think you need to calm down now. Please sit back down. Okay, I think I’ve heard enough now. I need to file some paperwork and make a phone call. I’ll only be gone for a few minutes. I will be right back.

Ms Frammer:      You don’t believe me.  I know how this sounds, I really do. Don’t try to placate the crazy woman detective. I’ve seen the TV shows, I know how this works and you have no real reason to hold me. Please, just let me go home. I need to find Sadie, I don’t want her to become one of those dolls. If I can just get to Andie or get to that lady in Ogden, then you’ll see. You’ll understand and believe me when you see it for yourself. Please!

(Door shutting)

Ms Frammer:    God damn it! Why won’t you listen to me? Please, I just need to go home for a short time and then you can keep me here all night if you want. Hello?

(Banging sound. Heavy sobbing)

Ms Frammer:      Andie, please! God, help me!

Detective! You have to tell people! You have to warn them! Detective Frank! HELLO?

Oh my God!

END TRANSCRIPT

Recording File#: SLCPD30055-W

TRNSCRPT d.o.o. et al.
1:09-cv-00751; filed November 16, 2005 in the District Court of Utah

Josephine F. Alder, Salt Lake County,

Salt Lake Utah Department of Corrections

Appointed recorder by his Honor, Judge Cameron J. Ellis

Federal Notary Seal # W-4559.3 (1998)

JFA: gp
06-15-00

————————————————————————————————————————–

PSYCHIATRIC REPORT BY

DR. TRAVIS J. GREEN,

SALT LAKE VALLEY MENTAL HEATH,

EAST 25^th STREET SLC, UT

on the case of

LINDA FRAMMER.

I am a Doctor of Medicine of University of Utah, and for the past 25 years have worked as a specialist in psychiatry, psycho-analysis and general medical psychology. I am the author of various text books and research monographs on these subjects. I have acted as consultant to various departments of correction in cases of psychopathic incarcerates suffering from disorders of behavior and/or delinquent conduct. My tenured position began 1982.

I have not been afforded the opportunity of a direct psychiatric examination of Linda Frammer but the investigations I have made so far point conclusively to the following facts:

1. THAT WHATEVER MAY BE HER EXISTING MENTAL STATE, AS REGARDS SANITY, SHE IS CERTAINLY A SEVERE CASE OF PSYCHOPATHIC DISORDER OF THE TYPE ‘SEVERE SCHIZOPHRENIA/DEPRESSION’.
2. THAT HER CONDUCT OF LATE IS DETERMINED BY DISEASED MENTAL PROCESSES HAVING AN EXTREME FEAR AND OBSESSION CONCERNING DOLLS .
3. THAT EVEN IF SHE SHOULD PROVE TO BE AWARE OF THE NATURE OF HER ACTIONS AND UTTERANCES, HER BEHAVIOUR IS GOVERNED BY THESE DISEASED MENTAL PROCESSES TO SUCH AN EXTENT THAT SHE IS INCAPABLE OF A NORMAL APPRECIATION OF CONSEQUENCES AND IS DEVOID OF THE MORAL SENSE BY WHICH NORMAL PEOPLE CONTROL THEIR ACTIONS AND UTTERANCES.

I base these conclusions on the following evidence.

SUMMARY OF THE CHIEF SYMPTOMS ON WHICH THE DIAGNOSIS OF PSYCHOPATHIC CHARACTER IS BASED:

1. An equally persistent and unchanging negativism of thought and action (i.e. an automatic refractoriness to all suggestions and to all authority resulting in conduct entirely opposite to that suggested to her). A disturbance of character usually found in schizoid characters or in cases of schizophrenia.
2. Persistent conduct or a bizarre type such as is usually found in psychotic (schizoid) types.
3. Outbursts of unusual excitement and violence together with persistent hyperactivity and restlessness then at times in such contrast, lethargy and unresponsiveness often associated with ‘bipolar disorder’.
4. A marked form of suspicion leading to ideas of a persecutory type, common in schizoid characters.
5. Extreme depression and withdrawn behavior, social disorder

Psychiatric Conclusions

It is in my professional opinion and recommendation that this patient should remain under state custody until a time that she is determined fit to return to society. Medical management to be administered immediately and patient may not be evaluated for discharge before a term of 12 months.

(signed) TRAVIS GREEN, M.D PhD. Psychiatry

__________________________________

File Closed

” Asking a favor “

I have a favor to ask of you, but first I think you should know why I need your help.
I woke up this morning feeling great about today, I was going to get to see ‘her’ and my heart was racing so madly in my chest that it was almost all I could do to concentrate on the simple act of eating.
Without a sound, I ate my breakfast and drank a second cup of coffee without looking at the clock to check the time even though I wanted to, and then while I rinsed my dishes in the sink glancing at the clock on the microwave my heart jumped up into my throat. Time was moving forward at an alarming rate and there was so much yet to do.

I showered and shaved, singing happily the entire time. I chose my clothes with great difficulty and dressed for inspection with enormous care noticing that my hands were shaking as I knotted the tie around my neck, then I forced myself to breathe and calm down. I looked at the clock on the night table and knew that calming down was something I couldn’t do right now and I danced with excitement in front of the dresser.
I straightened my belt and smoothed the crisp white shirt upon my chest, and with shoulders back and standing tall, was very impressed with my reflection when I had finished. Then my overconfident smile dropped from my face as I realized that a dress shirt and tie was probably over dressing for the occasion, this wasn’t a job interview I reasoned even though it felt like I was preparing for one. Besides, I didn’t think she would be impressed by a tie anyway and what idiot would wear this to a park in the first place. I turned to change my clothes for the third time today.

I finally settled for jeans and a t-shirt because we were meeting where there would undoubtedly be a playground and I could play the hero by suggesting we go play together. I could push her on the swing like just she had loved me to do so long ago.
I went back downstairs and sat at my computer, the first natural action I had taken on such an unnatural feeling day. I picked up and looked deeply into the smiling face on a small picture of her that had followed me throughout the years and I traveled back in time to when she was mine and I was her adored daddy. I felt angrier than I had ever been and lonelier than I had could have believed possible, and my mind showed me blurry disconnected images of things that made my soul sick with wanting and anticipation.

I witnessed images of her imploring me through tear streaked pleas as to why I wasn’t there for her first day of school, why I wasn’t there to teach her how to ride a bike, why I had missed making all of her childhood nightmares go away, why I wasn’t there for all of the skinned knees and heart broken minutes that I could have been so gently kissed away, why I wasn’t there to be the first one to tell about a secret crush in school, why I wasn’t there like I had promised.
In my minds eye I saw myself pull her close to me, holding her tightly enough that I wouldn’t ever have to let go of her again and become the embrace of love and the strong shoulders in this world that she could rely on everyday.   My guts began to ache as I could hear her small voice call out for ‘Daddy’ in the middle of the night and then another man standing up to answer her instead of me. I wanted to cry into her little arms and tell her how sorry I am to not have been there for so long in her young life.

My hands were shaking wildly now as they hovered over the keyboard. I sat and cried, feeling the pain of all those years come flooding back in one rushing moment and it sucked every ounce of energy from my body.
All the years of worrying, all the years of tears from longing, all the wasted time that could have been so beautiful and full that were instead empty and cold because of her absence piled up in front of me like an overwhelming tower of pain and regret, and I said her name out loud for the first time in over four years. The release was overwhelming.

The part of me that makes me whole died inside of me the day she was taken for me, this beautiful little precious thing that God had given me to hold in my arms and my heart forever as I introduced myself to her on her first day in this world. I vowed to her to protect her and keep her safe, and then three years and two months later she was ripped out of my life in one thoughtless motion over adult issues that I pray she never has the misfortune to experience during her sweet life.
Her mother, hurt and angry and jealous hated our love for each other had taken her away from me when I had closed the door on our painful relationship. In her thoughtless vengeance against me for that, I doubt she could have realized what she would be removing from our lives, as she stole her and hid her away from me, wanting to wound me over our broken relationship.
My baby girl carries my last name, that would have to be enough for her to find me someday, and I closed that part of my heart on that day forever, not wanting to feel the pain of hopelessness and longing for something that could be taken from me for good so easily.

Not long after I had recovered from the my loss, after I had to tell my heart and soul that my little baby had died, I discovered that it was impossible for me to create a child of my own and although I had complete acceptance that this was my life and the full implications behind my baby girls genetics, I also knew that even though we didn’t share the same blood, we shared something much more important during our brief lives together; we shared a love and a bond that once again made me crave the simple sound of her tiny voice.

I have had a couple of girl friends with children since that horrible night but knowing the power that had been pulled over me by my baby’s mother wrenching my soul in two, my destroyed heart would not allow me to bond with these wonderful young people, these very deserving children, no matter how hard we tried.
My princess is, and always will be, the closest thing I will ever have to having a child of my own and the pain of knowing that I had lost my only child broke me as if she had been taken from me all over again. I learned that her mother had later married the man that shares my baby girl’s genetics and I prayed that he would love her at least half as much as I do, cherish her half as much as I would so that she would grow up with love in her life.

I would see children playing in the street or while out living my life, and every child’s laugh or squeal would bring needles of painful remembrance, the paternal needing of her to be back in my life and knowing still that it would never happen.
Then, in one fateful phone call from an unregistered number, a voice from past had provided me with what sounded like a heartfelt apology and the opportunity to rekindle what I had lost almost five years before. I agreed to meet her again with devout trepidation, would she even remember me? Could I stand the sting if she didn’t? Could I cope if she did and hated me? The dread, the hate, the resentment, the possibilities, the confusion and turmoil that one person had brought back to me in one conversation was more than I could barely deal with as I waited for Saturday to arrive.

The festering hole in me that remained where my baby girl’s love should have been was finally threatening to heal and after all the years of hope and pain and fear in the past, feelings for her washed over me with a crushing force of forgotten and locked emotions, and I slowly began to forgive and welcome my child back into my heart.
My cell phone sang out suddenly, the alarm I had set was letting me know that it was time to go. We had arranged to meet in the park at noon. How appropriate for a show down, I thought as a made my check list. Keys, wallet, phone, sunglasses; I was ready to go. I walked to the front door like a man headed to the guillotine, scared out on my mind and thrilled that the wait would soon be over, then for some reason I still don’t completely understand I turned around and bolted up the stairs instead, needing to put on some cologne right now. I slapped the stinging fiery liquid on my freshly shaven face and told myself in the mirror that I could do this.
She was waiting and I couldn’t let her down, not again.

I don’t remember the drive to the park, I was engulfed in my imagination, she was running into my arms yelling out to me, ‘Daddy’ and crying with happiness to see me again and I was barely holding back the tears and my heart was smiling so hard that there was hardly room inside my chest for it. I watched the vision of holding her again, my spirit was filling up with as much happiness as it did on the day she was born and her tiny fingers wrapped around my finger.
I continued to see her growing, her first bath, her first tooth, her first foods, her first steps. My memories let me hear her tiny voice call out to me in the middle of the night from a nightmare. I could see her trying not to cry as we took her for her first professional photograph. I was reliving these gentle parts of her childhood that I played over and over in my mind.

Then I was opening up the door of my parked car in the park and I could see her for real. She was sitting at one of the picnic tables in the shade with her back to me and instantly my body refused to respond to command. I stood there frozen, wanting her to turn and see me and we would live out my fantasies of reuniting that I had been obsessing over since I had made this date four days ago.

Her soft silky hair was longer than I remembered but wondrously the same and she was much bigger than she had been in my imagination but perfectly healthy. She was busily playing with a toy and I suddenly had the urge to push it off the table because today was my day with her and it was stealing her attention.
I finally found the courage and stepped forward onto the grass, my heart thundering inside my head drowning out the sound of just about everything else around us, and I couldn’t stop my hands from finding each other as I twisted my car keys around and around between my fingers. I felt like a school kid about to go out on his first date with the most beautiful girl in the school and something inside me wanted desperately to throw up.

Her mother sat across from her at the table and she said something, though I couldn’t hear what she said through my beating heart, which made my little girl turn around slowly to look at me. I smiled in response and then she turned back to her toy. Confused, I looked to her mother whom only returned my smile as if something awful hadn’t just happened. My darling, my baby girl, the person that I had yearned to see more than any other person on this entire planet had surveyed me and dismissed me in one single glance.

My heart immediately stopped beating. Where was the little girl running into my arms, the sound of her voice calling out to me, the overwhelming shower of kisses? Then the realization slapped me so hard I took a step back with horror; I was a complete stranger to her, and she couldn’t care less if I was there. I looked at her mother once again and she returned with an uncommitted shrug, she hadn’t told her. She doesn’t know who I am.
My insides curled up tightly as I approached the table and sat on the bench by her, keeping a respectable distance. I had wanted this reception to go very differently, my throat clamped shut at the thought of wanting to hold her but I forced myself to stay back because I didn’t want to frighten her with sudden unsolicited affection and I suddenly found it very difficult to swallow as I prevented myself from following through with my desires.
For the next couple of minutes all I could manage to do was concentrate on pushing the increasing amount of saliva building in my mouth down my throat when gratefully her mother broke the awkward silence. She told us how well my baby was doing in school, how popular she is and about how many little girl friends she had, and making her blush enough to hide her face away from me, her mother bragged about all of her accomplishments.

I giggled in all the appropriate places and was just as embarrassed for her as she was as her mother continued on about her and all the events in her life that I had missed. At cues provided by her mother I asked the little girl about her favorite subjects in school, doing my best to not show how I beamed brightly inside that we like the same things. Then her mother stood and left us alone to talk, it was the most bittersweet moment of my life at that point and I could not think of one single thing to say to my half grown girl, this beautiful young lady was no longer ‘my’ baby girl.

My mind pursued fanatically through emptiness and I became very angry with myself, that as intelligent as I thought myself, with as many times as I had rehearsed speeches of apologies and explanations, that at such an uncomfortable but crucial moment in my life, I couldn’t think of one damned thing to say.
The seven year old stranger looked at my face in an attempt to find anything familiar and then not finding the answers that she was looking for she stated matter of factly that she was going to go play. I didn’t know how to respond; she had unintentionally squashed me into nothingness with her indifference.
I got up and followed her not knowing if I should and tried to rationalize a way to deal with the avalanche of emotion that I was suddenly feeling, but the best I could do was blame myself. Had I done something to disappoint her somehow? My thoughts panicked as I watched her run to the play area where her mother had sat down to wait for us to visit, I wanted in that moment to be someone else far away from this park, far away from people. My first instinct was to turn and run away and never look back, but I as soon as my foot left the ground I resisted.

I watched my little girl at play with the other children and as there weren’t any other seats available I sat next to her mother. She didn’t speak to me as I watched her daughter but I could feel her looking at me, she was a stranger to me also, different hairstyle, different clothing. I had nothing nice to say to her. I had wasted years of my happiness hating this person that had wronged me, not for the reasons why our relationship fell apart but for hurting me so deeply by stealing away the only thing beautiful to come out of our relationship, and now I blamed her for the emotionless distance in my daughter’s eyes when she looked at me.
I had wanted this woman to be my wife, the mother of my children and to share the rest of our days and nights together, not knowing how cruel and heartless she would be. Now I held no feelings for her other than being thankful for the chance to rekindle what she had broken between me and my baby girl in the first place.
I thought that I had prepared myself for the worst possible outcome of today, but as I watched her glance back at us sitting there my heart futilely screamed out to her to love me back even after all the things that must have been said about me while I wasn’t there to defend myself, but something in me knew the cheers and waves were meant for the woman next to me and I realize that I couldn’t have prepared myself for what I was feeling. My entire body needed to hear her call out, “Daddy, watch this,” as she played, but this didn’t happen. The man that she thought of now as ‘daddy’ was someone else.

I had offered a couple of times to push her on the swing or to climb to the top of the slide with her, I just wanted to be near her, but she declined me very sweetly, very shyly and I would find myself back on the bench sitting silently and uncomfortably with her mother. The other children, under watchful parental eyes not far away, seemed more interested in my willingness to play than she did, it was extremely difficult to play this off nonchalantly when her distrust in me cut into my heart so deeply.
I couldn’t stop myself though from smiling and marveling at her cleverness and how easily she got along with the other children, and long before I was ready for it to happen her mother touched my arm, “It’s time for us to go now,   I’m taking her to the fair. Did you want to say good bye?”

What a ridiculous question to be asked on a day like today, of course not! I wanted her to come home with me, to remember the pony rides around the livingroom, relive bubble bath mustaches, to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches together and watch cartoons while having hilarious footsie wars, to tell her bedtime stories again and have her fall asleep smiling to the sound of my voice. No, I did not want to say good bye to my precious little girl, but my body rebelled against every ounce of what I truly wanted to say and I looked at her and nodded.
“We can work something out, I’ll make sure that this can happen again,” she smiled as she called my baby girl over away from play.
I tried to give her the opportunity to run into my arms and beg me to take her home by getting down on my knee, she hugged her mothers leg as I told her that I was very happy to have met her and that I hoped she would want to be friends and maybe meet again soon.

Her smile was pure luminosity with half grown permanent front teeth, and she looked at her mother for approval and then nodded at me. I almost exploded with happiness and I looked at her mother with an unspoken question also.
Then my sweet little girl was cheerfully laughing, I was thrilled to hear that familiar sound, the only thing about her that hadn’t really changed, and I held out my hand to her on pure instinct. We both stood looking at my outstretched hand for a second and then she smiled and put her hand in mine. We smiled shyly at each other and I told her how big she had become, she giggled and thanked me. This, this moment in time, was what I had waited for all week, for over four years, and it was almost over as we stepped off the grass and walked toward her mother’s car.
I patiently waited as I watched her mother lock her beneath the seatbelt. I saw my reflection overlaying hers like an artsy photographic inspiration and the image filled me with dread. What if I never got to see her again? What if this is the last time I get to see her for years, will she remember me as the creepy stranger in the park that mommy took her to visit once, and fear filled me up as I looked imploringly at her smiling mother.

“I’m sorry,” was all she said and then she climbed into the driver’s seat and started the car.
Sorry? Sorry for what? Sorry for the hurt that I’ve put you through, sorry for years of pain, sorry for this being the last time you’ll get to see her all over again? I couldn’t wrap my thoughts around her statement.
A broken smile was soon frozen to my face as I looked at the little girl smiling back at me from her seat and then the car began to move.
I walked along side the car a few strides, the air brushing my face made me realize that my cheeks were covered in hot wet tears, and urgently I held up my hand in a wave hoping she could see.

Then I saw her tiny hand rise up into the air and she waved at me from the backseat window as the car began to drive away. I waved my hand back at her feverishly and then blew her a kiss as my smile and my sunglasses hid the next rush of tears produced from her simple gesture. I kissed the tips of my fingers as softly as I would have kissed her cheek, blinking rapidly, then they were gone.
I watched the road where the car had turned the corner, wanting desperately for them to reappear, but when after several moments they didn’t, I turned away. My day was over, it was two o’clock in the afternoon for everyone one else, but for me this day was over. I had lived the last four days in anticipation of today and now I couldn’t believe it was already done.

Deflated, I pressed the button on the keychain in my hand the doors of my car unlocked. My body running on autopilot now I opened the door and climbed into the driver’s seat blinded by tears of happiness and regret and clamped my own seatbelt into place.
From where I sat with both hands trying to grip the steering wheel, I could clearly see the spot by the playground where we had connected for such a brief moment and she had placed her hand in mine. I replayed the short scene in my head until a smile replaced the tears.

The engine turned over and a performer blasted at me through the radio, I checked the rearview mirror and turned in my seat to back the car out of the parking place when I noticed a small box wrapped in pink paper and a silver ribbon looked back at me mockingly. The little silver locket with my picture inside it that I had bought for this very special occasion had been forgotten in my rush to be by her side. I immediately shot a look in the direction that I had just seen them disappear and slammed my foot on the accelerator.

Speeding down the street I turned the same corner where they had gone to face a busy intersection with what seemed like hundreds of other vehicles all busily going in every direction. I couldn’t possibly know which way they had gone at this point so I let go and allowed my intuition guide me. I slammed the blinker on and turned out into traffic, scanning everywhere around me for the blue sedan that they had driven away in. Once again tears began to pour down my face in frustration as I passed block after block all loaded with people and cars but I couldn’t see the one I was looking for anywhere.

With all the force left in me I drove carefully around the area searching intently for any sign of the car, then just as I was about to give up I caught sight of them. I stepped down hard on the gas and dodged my way through traffic to get to them. I watched as the car pulled into a small shopping center and slipped into a stall between two large trucks. I quickly pulled up behind them and throwing my car into park, I removed my seatbelt, grabbed the little pink box, and was out of the car and on my feet in one swift motion.

With long strides I made my way to the driver’s side window and tapped the glass with my knuckle. The lady inside the car began to scream and flipped the door locks, I had found the wrong car.
Confused and mortified I tried to apologize to the frightened woman now holding a cell phone to the side of her face yelling something incomprehensible, undoubtedly she was calling the police on me, and hanging onto the inside of the door handle for dear life. I looked around and ran back to my car. I drove myself home somehow and sat in my garage clutching the little pink box and beating myself up inside for my thoughtlessness in not remembering to give her the locket.
It was so important to me that she have a small piece of something to remember me with.
It’s been awhile now, since I was allowed to see my little princess. My arms still ache to hold her, my heart begs to hear the sound of her laughter and my very life force craves to hear her call me Daddy, one last time.

I beg this favor of you, if you see her out there playing in the playground somewhere, she’s the pretty little girl without a locket around her neck, would you take the time to tell her that her Daddy loves her and misses her and thinks about her everyday.

…and if you’re her mother, please, Please bring her back to the park to play again, I have a little gift to give to her, if you don’t mind.
Daddy loves you baby girl, he always will.

~Thank You~

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Coming soon:

Thank you for your interest in my work, I am currently working on new projects all the time.  New short story pieces will be posted as soon as I can find the time to post another one for you, so check back soon.

SJEAN FOLEY

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Gift of Devotion “

 

To who may read these pages,                                   June 14^th

My family and I just moved into this house four months ago, my son, my daughter, and myself. After the accident, I felt that we needed to have a fresh start, to try and rebuild our lives without all the old and painful memories. I believe now that we did not come to be in this house by chance, because living here was exactly what we all needed. I fell in love with this house from the first time I saw it. Not just because it’s a beautiful old house, but because for the first time in the longest time, I felt a real sense of Love and Home here.

Like anyone would do, as soon as we had settled in, I began to change little things here and there to help make this house feel more like our home. Fresh paint, new window coverings and a thousand other minor little things that would make it uniquely our own. As soon the weather turned warm and sunny, I set out to tackle the seriously neglected yard. While trimming and clearing out the dead weeds, I discovered the flower garden that wraps almost all the way around the house. I began to dig up the old bulbs, which over the years had been allowed to become wildly overgrown, when I found this package.

It must have been buried there, underneath all those flowers, for quite some time.  The outer wrappings were quite decayed and brittle. I took it over to the table under the big tree in the back, out of the mid-day sun, to investigate the mysterious bundle.

You hear all the time about people moving into an older house and finding fortunes hidden inside a wall or under a staircase and even buried in the yard.

I must admit that the thought did cross my mind that I may have found something of that nature. What I found that day, as I unfolded the many layers of tattered old news paper, was a gift that had once been fondly and thoughtfully wrapped in Christmas paper, then intentionally placed deep under the flowers. Not for me, but for someone whom hasn’t been able to receive it yet.

At the center of this parcel, I found a bundle of letters.   All neatly tied with a bright red ribbon and a plastic sprig of mistletoe tied in the knot.

I sat and read every single letter that afternoon. It was almost as if, for that brief moment, I was allowed to visit another time and to share in the lives of people that I will adore for the rest of my days. What the package contains is truly a fortune. A fortune of the heart and soul.

I will carefully repair and rewrap it with all the original papers and several new layers to help preserve it, so that it can remain the same way that I found it. Patiently awaiting the one that it was originally intended for is where I think it should stay.

Read it and renew yourself. Add to it, but don’t take anything away. Then please, do the same as I have done when you have finished, and let it continue to be the gift of devotion that it was meant to be.

  I will replant the flower beds, so that you will know every time you look at their precious blooms, why love and belonging rests here, and will continue to, for as long as it takes, until the receiver of this package can collect what is only truly theirs.

Know that you too, will also carry with you in your heart, this special blessing, forever.

Thank You,

A New Friend

********

 Dear Mom,                                                        August 28th.

It feels strange to be writing you a letter. I haven’t done this since I was just a kid, but I had better get used to it because I’ll be doing it a lot for the next while, so here goes.

Right this minute, I’m on a train still on my way to basic training camp. The guy sitting next to me is from Chicago Illinois. His name is Martin and he’s eighteen just like me.   He’s got a wife and daughter back home. He’s writing to them while I’m writing this to you.

It seems odd to me that he’s a husband and father already. I can’t imagine what it would be like. I can hardly believe that I finally graduated from Grayson High just a couple of months ago. Martin is real nice Mom. You would like him. I hope we get to bunk in the same dorm together.

My first ride in an airplane was pretty neat. I got a window seat after all. We had chicken on the plane for lunch, and you know how much I hate chicken, but I was so hungry by then that I ate it all anyway.  Yuck. New York was very exciting though. There were so many people there. You wouldn’t have believed it. I don’t think the people there are as rude as everyone says, but the prices are outrageous.

We had a little time before we had to catch the train, so to make up for the lousy lunch on the airplane, I bought a hamburger in the station. It cost more than the dinner special at Tillie’s Diner back home, and it didn’t even come with fries. I’ve only been away from home for a few hours, and I already miss your cooking Mom.

A guy just came in to tell us that dinner is being served in the dinning car. I’m so hungry I could eat a horse. Maybe I did back in New York.  Ha ha.

Give that little brat Kallie a hug for me. Tell her that I miss her and tell everyone Thanks for the great Good-bye party. I’ll write again as soon as I get the chance.

Signed,

Your Loving Son

P.S., You’ll never guess what they served in the dinning car. Chicken! But, they cooked it three different ways. I sure hope this isn’t a sign of the things to come.

 ********

 My Dearest Son,                                                   September 4th.

Your letter came this afternoon while Kris was here.  She was so excited to hear what you had to say, she couldn’t wait, so I let her read it to me, twice.

She has gone home for now. I do hope that you wrote to her, she misses you very much. She has been by the house everyday after school since you left. We can’t believe that you have only been gone a week. It feels more like months. The house is so quiet without you and the boys pounding on the floors and playing basketball out in the drive.

I don’t think I like this much quiet. We miss you the most at dinner I think. Last Sunday was the worst. Kris was here like usual, but your empty place at the table haunted all of us. I’ve had to learn how to cook for only two, now that it’s just Kallie and me. She has slept in your bed for the last couple of nights, she says that it’s because your bed is more comfortable.

If you don’t mind, I’ll let her sleep in there awhile longer, just until she gets more adjusted to things. Okay?

Please try to write to her and reassure her that you’ll be home again soon, and that you haven’t forgotten about her.

Martin sounds like a nice boy. It’s good to know that you’ve made a friend so quickly. You give him my love and the two of you take good care of each other there, so that I won’t have to worry.

Gary stopped by yesterday for a bit. He didn’t have much to say. He played chess with Kallie for a while, and then they spent the whole afternoon out back picking every single apple off that old tree. Fourteen big boxes full in all. I think he is feeling a little lost without you, maybe he wishes that he had gone with you now.

Good gravy son, what in the world am I going to do with all those apples. Maybe I can get Kris to come by to help me can them into applesauce or pie filing or something.

Michael and Josh have finally gone off to college upstate, and Leon got himself a job at the garage over on Coleman Street. Lord in heaven, I can’t believe people are going to let him fix their cars.  I will never forget what he did to the lawnmower.

Ed, over at the post office is going to help me so that I can send you a nice package of goodies. Kallie has made you something special too. I hope you’re all well and I know that you’re making friends.

Maybe this military idea of yours wasn’t such a bad thing after all, but I still wish that there were another way to pay for college. At least you are getting to do some of that traveling that you were always talking about.

Still, I can’t wait until you get to come home for a stay. The coffee just doesn’t taste the same in the morning without you here to share it with me. We think of you all the time and love you and miss you very much. Write again as soon as you can.

Signed,

           Mom

 ********

Dear Mom,                                                        September 22^nd.

How is everyone? I’m doing O.K. The weather here is HOT. It feels more like the middle of July, and the dust is just gross. It gets into everything. Basic training is what they call this, but I think they should call it Pain training, or better still, Humiliation training. I wish I could write to you more often but I’m so tired in the evening I barely have the time or the energy to do anything at all.

My commanding officer, we call him ‘Demanding Officer’ behind his back, is Sergeant Bell. He must hate me or I must have rubbed him with the rough end of a stick somehow, because he has been on my case since day one.  First it’s one thing then it’s another.

Can’t make the bed right. My clothes aren’t done right. Can’t dress a field pack right. He is driving me crazy!

I can’t let him know that it’s getting to me though, because then it only gets worse. I’m trying to deal with him the way you taught me to with coach Danno. I can’t wait till Basic is over though. I’m counting down the time. 76 days to go, and counting.

Martin is doing much better at all of this than I am, but right now he is real worried about news from home. His wife’s been quite sick and he’s written home four times but hasn’t heard back yet on what the problem is. I hope everything is okay. When we actually get a chance to talk, that’s all he talks about.

Anyway, enough about me, how is everything at home? I finally got a letter from Kris today. I miss you all so much. I’ll write to her as soon as I’m finished writing to you.

It was great getting your package. Thanks loads for the brownies.   I shared them with the guys and they all agree yours are the best in the world. But isn’t that what I’ve always told you. 

Mom, please don’t send any more pajamas. I won’t be needing them here and it was really embarrassing in front of all the guys. You see everyone here is so homesick that when anyone gets something like that from home, they all crowd around to watch you open it. I really got a kick out of Kallie’s letter and drawings. They were great.

I’m sending her a letter along with this one. I will let her know that it’s fine if she wants to sleep in my bed, but just don’t let her get into my things, O.K. I also got a letter from Gary yesterday, so I hope I’ll find time tomorrow to write him back. I’m glad he took the job with his dad. It will give him something to do. He sounded bored and lonely in his letter.  He promised me that he would keep an eye on Kris for me, but the more I get to thinking about it, the more I don’t like the idea, so I’m asking you to keep an eye on him.

Well I got to go.  I’ve got at least two more letters to write tonight and lights out in one hour. Write soon, and thanks again for the stuff. Hey, save me some of that applesauce.

Signed,

Your Loving Son

********

 My Dearest Son,                                              September 29th.

I’m sorry to hear that you’re not getting along with your Sergeant, Mr. Bell. Just try to be as polite as possible, don’t talk about him like that behind his back and mind what he tells you. You’ll see, things will work out in the end, they always do.

Kallie is so excited about the letter you sent her. Thank you for being so understanding. She is feeling a lot better about you being gone for so long now. I’m so proud of you. You’re turning out to be a fine young man. But what else would you expect from such a wonderful mother like you have.

It’s all I can do to keep from busting at the seams with pride when anyone else asks or talks about you, and tells me what a smart son I have to be doing things the way you are.

In church last Sunday, the Reverend even mentioned you in his sermon, and Kallie brags all over town about her big brother, the ‘Hero Soldier’.

Kris still comes by everyday after school for a quick visit, but she doesn’t come for Sunday dinner anymore. Her Great Aunt from Cooper is staying with them now, and she says her mother wants her home on Sundays.

We finally got all the apples done, we made so much that it wouldn’t all fit on the shelves down stairs, so I gave two cases of quart jars to the church, for the needy.

You should have seen Reverend Riley’s face. It was worth all the work just to see him speechless, possibly for the first time in his life.

Don’t worry about us saving you some. There will be plenty when you get home. I’ve cooked so many apples lately that Kallie won’t eat anything with apple in it anymore.

How is the food there? You haven’t said anything about it since you got there. Are you getting enough to eat? We both know what a fantastic appetite you have and my growing boy needs to eat well. Make sure you eat some kind of vegetable everyday. Now, I mean it!

Kris is much to busy with schoolwork to be spending much time with Gary, so just put your mind to rest on that. I’m sure you’ll remember what it was like for you last year. More school work than you know what to do with.

We got our first snowfall of the year a couple of days ago. It melted almost as fast as it fell, but at least we know Old Man Winter is on his way. I sure wish you could send us some of that warm sunshine. By the way, how are that nice boy, Martin and his wife doing? You let him know that his little family is in our prayers.

I need to make a cake for the fall bake sale, so I best get busy with it. I think I’ll make an applesauce cake. Well, I’ve got to do something with the stuff, right. Write again soon. We love your letters. We love you too.

Signed,

Mom

P.S., I promise not to send any more pajamas. I didn’t realize that they would supply you with those too.

 ********

Dear Mom,                                                            October 3rd.

I’m still so exited. You’ll never guess what I did today. I jumped out of an airplane and parachuted into an empty field! It was fantastic! I never thought anything could feel so good. It was flying free as a bird. I can’t wait to do it again.

My heart is still pounding.

I wish you could have been here to see it. Basic isn’t really so bad I guess, once you get used to it. I really like target practice. We’ve used some pretty powerful guns and I understand that soon we’ll get to fire even bigger artillery too. I’m even getting used to all the schedules and routines.

At first I wasn’t sure that signing up for this training was the right thing but now I know it was. It’s hard work sometimes, but I’m really beginning to enjoy it here now.

These pictures are of some of the guys in my barracks. The one in the middle with the red cap is Frank. He is the biggest nut I’ve ever met. He is always cracking some kind of joke, as you can see. I think the other guys get irritated with him, especially Sgt. Bell, but I think he’s great.

The tall serious looking guy in the one picture is Grantly. He’s the barracks commander, and proud of it. He says he has been in the military in one way or another, his whole life.

Before coming here, he lived at the Douglas Academy, that’s a military school. His father is a Colonel, his Grandfather is a General and his Mother is a Doctor for the Navy and lives on one of their boats. Pretty incredible, Huh?  He’s a nice enough guy, but I don’t ever remember seeing him smile.

The last picture is of Martin and me. Don’t panic, I haven’t started smoking. The picture was taken on the day that he finally got word from his wife, Alicia. She was very sick for a while, but they found out that it was because she and Martin are going to have another baby. It will be born some time in April, just like Kallie. Anyway, that’s why we have the cigars.

Martin and I have made each other a promise. As soon as we get leave long enough to do it, I’ve invited him and his family to come and stay for a visit with us, I hope you don’t mind, then I’ll go and stay for a visit at his home in Chicago.

While we are on the subject of home, I realized when you told me about the snow, with all the hurry to get ready to leave and everything, I completely forgot to rake the leaves in the back yard and pile them on your flowerbeds.

See if you can get Larry to come round and do it for you. Your tulip bulbs won’t survive the cold if you don’t get them covered, especially if we have another winter like last year.   I sure wish that it would snow here. That’s all for now. Write back soon.

Signed,

Your loving son

  ********

 My Dearest son,                                                   October 10th.

Well, I’m sure you’ve gotten the news by now. Kris said she was going to send you a long letter with a bunch of the pictures. We are all so proud of her. She made an absolutely beautiful Harvest Queen at the festival. I like her so much dear. I just wish that you two didn’t have to spend so much time apart from each other right now.

Kallie and I spent most of the weekend raking the leaves in the yard after we got your last letter. Thank you for reminding me to cover up all my pretty little flowers. Mrs. Parsons saw us outside working and told me that I was working too hard, you know how she can be, so she took matters into her own hands and sent that Olsen kid, Buck, over to help.

I’ve paid him a couple of dollars to do a few odd jobs, but it’s not the smartest thing I’ve ever done because now I can’t get him to stop coming by the house.

I don’t believe it’s the money though, he and Kallie have started spending way too much time together lately. She makes him some hot cider when he comes and they sit and giggle at each other. She says, “he’s kind of cute?” 

  Bill Harrison came for Sunday dinner after church. We had a lovely time. It was fun to talk about old times. We even went through that old box of photos in the hall closet, and we ended up talking till very late. He brought me a potted plant when he came. I do believe it’s the most dreadful thing I’ve ever seen. Just a little lump of ugly, in a pot of dirt.

Bill says it’s an amaryllis or something like that. I’m going to put it in the dining room window. It’s the sunniest place in the house and he says that it will need lots of sun. I’ll water the thing but I don’t think much will come of it. It was nice of him to think of it though, don’t you think?

We just love the pictures that you sent. It looks more like a scout camp than what you have described. They all look like a fine group of boys.

I’m glad your having a better time, but you had better be very careful with all those guns, and I don’t like the sound of you jumping out of airplanes.

Why don’t you ask that Sergeant or someone if they can find something else for you to do? Something on the ground would be nice.

You have always been very good with animals; see if you can train their dogs or something.

Kallie just came home from school, so I’ll stop for now. We need to go get her a new pair of shoes again already. She’s growing up so fast. You both are.

I think we will stop in at the Diner on the way home. I don’t feel much like cooking tonight.

All our love,

Signed,

Mom

 ********

 Dear Mom,                                                          October 26th.

Sorry I haven’t written more, but I’ve been real busy lately.  We are all a bit anxious here. I don’t know where it started but there is a rumor going around that our unit is getting shipped out right after graduation. Things around here have really changed. Everyone is edgy and quiet. Sgt. Bell has been driving us all real hard too. I can’t get a straight answer out of any of the Brass about the rumor.

I think that it has suddenly hit all of us, the real reason why we are here. Training to fight. Training to kill. I gotta make this letter short. We are going out on night maneuvers and I’ve got to finish getting ready. I’m getting very nervous about what’s going on here, we all are. Give Kallie my love and kisses. I hope to see you soon.

Tell Kris not to forget to write. I still haven’t gotten those pictures you told me she was sending. Tell her to send them soon. I want to show her off to all the guys, but don’t tell her that OK.

Signed, Your son.

********

My Dearest,                                                             October 30th.

Kallie and I have spent just about everyday of the last week making her Halloween costume. It’s a beautiful costume, but I’m glad that it’s finally finished. I’ve used most of this morning dipping apples for the trick-or-treaters. I sure do wish you were here to help. You do them so much better than I do. You should just see me. I’m a nasty sticky mess.

Kallie and I came up with an idea at breakfast this morning.   Since it’s your birthday tomorrow, we decided to go ahead and have a party for you, even though you’re not here.

Kallie is going to do the decorations. Kris said she will make your cake and Bill is going to bring his big fancy camera and take loads of pictures. Gary promised to get the guys together and bring them all over too. It will be just like your here with us, but we will save the presents for you to open. How does that sound? I’ll even put a big piece of your birthday cake in the freezer for you.

I’m going to send you a package with all your presents, decorations and all the other goodies so that you have something to open for your birthday. I’m sorry that I didn’t think of this in time to get everything there before your birthday. Will you and the boys be dressing up for Halloween or having a party?

  I told Bill what you had said in your last letter, when he came by to fix the dryer, and he says not to worry. He told me that they would send out the troops only if there were an active war going on, and that they would send out the most experienced ones first anyway.

  You should see the plant that he gave me. I believe that it’s grown over a foot tall already, and there is the biggest bud at the bottom of it. The thing is sprouting so fast that sometimes I swear I can see it growing right before my eyes. It’s just the craziest thing. If it doesn’t stop soon, I’m going to have to set it on the floor and tie it to the back of one of the dinning room chairs just to keep it from tipping right over.

Kallie got her first report card and she is doing pretty well.   3A’s, 3B’s and a C. Not to bad compared to last year. Maye talked me into getting my hair cut at the new beauty shop. I’m not sure if I like it yet. I’ve worn my hair the same way for so long that such a change has been difficult for me to get used to.

Everyone says that it looks great though. When you get the pictures of your Birthday party you will get to see it. Let me know what you think. In answer to your letter, Martin and his sweet little family coming to stay for a visit, well of course. Your friends will always be welcome here, you know that. Besides, it will give me a good reason to give the guestroom a good spruce-up cleaning.

Kallie said that the baby could stay in her room with her. How are our Martin and the little mother to be? How are you eating?  You still haven’t mentioned a thing about the food there. Is the weather still hot? We’ve had over six inches of snow on the ground for about a week now. I think that winter is officially here. Buck and Kallie have built a snowman out front.

I just couldn’t stand to see him standing out there in the cold, so I went to the second hand store and bought him some clothes. Just an old coat, a hat and some warm looking mittens. He looks much better but he still looks like he’s cold to me. Kallie has named him.  We call him Fred.

I’ll go drop this in the mail so you can get it as soon as possible. Be looking for your package and have a wonderful birthday with all your new friends, Darling. Keep your chin up. Only 37 days to go and you can come home for a bit. See, we are counting too.

Love you very much, my Birthday Boy.

Signed,

Mom

 ********

Dear mom,                                                        November 19^th.

Graduation day is December 3rd. I really do understand but I still wish that you and Kallie could be here for it. The Sgt. says that we are going to begin squadron drilling, in preparation for the graduation ceremonies. That’s a pretty high honor.

Only the two best units get to do a special performance at graduation. The base Colonel even came and told us how proud he is of our unit.

  Mom, I’ve been watching a lot of stuff being loaded and boarded out lately.  It’s been going on for a couple of weeks, and three units left in carrier planes a few days ago. The word is that they won’t be attending the graduation ceremonies because they were shipped over seas, where some trouble has been stirring up. When I asked the C.O. about it, he told me that our orders will be posted right before graduation, so that there won’t be any surprises. I don’t dare tell anyone here but Mom, I’m getting real scared.

I don’t want to go to war. Please call someone. Anyone. Let me know what the possibilities are of us getting shipped out too. I don’t want to fight. I just want to come home and be a dentist like we planned. I honestly thought this was going to be a lot of hut-too’s and yes-sir’s, nothing more serious.

Anyway, Thanks for the huge box load of birthday stuff. It was fun getting to open up all the presents and things. I don’t really understand what the jar of water and little pebbles is for though. The pictures of the party were the best. It was great to see everyone again, but I still would have rather been there instead of here.

The weather has cooled off a bit at night but it’s still hotter than anything during the day. I miss the snow. I can’t wait to meet Fred. I hope he stays around long enough for me to meet him in person. By the way, how serious is this thing between you and Bill? You two sure look cozy in a couple of the pictures.

 The food here is OK I guess, but it’s definitely not your home-cooking Mom. Thanksgiving is coming up real soon. Would you do me a favor and make me up a plate full of dinner and maybe stick it in the freezer with my cake. A big piece of pie too, please. I know it won’t be as good as it will be on Thanksgiving Day, but it will be close enough to perfect for me.

I’ve written to Kris several times but she still hasn’t written me back. Is she OK?  I miss her a lot. I miss you and Kallie too. I just plain miss home.

Thanks again for the long distance birthday party. You’ve always had some of the neatest ideas. Oh yeah, I think everyone is right. Your hair does look great.

Signed,

Your Son

 ********

My Dearest,                                                     November 23rd.

Thanksgiving is tomorrow. I’m absolutely exhausted from cooking and getting everything ready.

    The turkey is all stuffed and ready to go. The cranberries are boiled and mashed. Everything that can be done till now is, and everything else will just have to wait.

Kallie has been a very big help. She made all the pumpkin and mince pies by herself his morning. Twelve of them in all. She even made a pie for you of your very own. We didn’t bake it though, we wrapped it up good and tight and put it in the freezer so that you can have a fresh baked pumpkin pie all to yourself.

  We’ve got fourteen people coming to supper tomorrow.  Bill is bringing his sister and her children. Gary and his father said they would be here.

Clara and her two granddaughters also. She said she is going to bring her delicious squash soup again. I hope a few people will eat some of it this year.

Aunt Rachel and Uncle Ted will be in early in the morning. They will be staying for the full four days of his vacation, but at least they are not bringing Angus with them this time.

Thank goodness for that. Didn’t it take days to scrub all his pee-pee stains out of the rugs last year?

Kallie has invited Buck over, only for pie and homemade ice cream in the evening, but you know how that kid is. I had better set out a place for him at supper, just in case.

We had to borrow a table and some chairs from the church, so that there will be enough room for everyone to sit down. It sure does make for a lot of work, but I will be glad for all the company.

I couldn’t be more sorry that we can’t be there for your graduation. It’s so very important to us, but know in your heart that all our thoughts and love are going to be with you.

We are all so very proud of you. Do a good job and know that we will be thinking of you then, as we do everyday. I just don’t know how I could possibly make it through if I thought for just one moment that you wouldn’t be here for Christmas either

Ed contacted someone up at the recruiter’s office about you. He says that they told him that there is no cause for you to be alarmed. If they were going to send troops somewhere like you said, then there would be an official announcement to let everyone know. So, don’t you worry dear, you’ll be coming home sooner than you think.

My Amaryllis plant has really grown since the picture you have of it was taken. Bill says that the bud will be opening up soon, which is exciting but I would like it to stop growing.  I’ve had to put it in the corner by the clock so that it will stand up straight. I’ve never seen anything like it.

I haven’t seen Kris in awhile. Maye told me that her Great Grandmother passed on just recently, so she is probably a bit lost right now. We all know how close their family is. I sent some flowers and a card. Don’t get discouraged if she doesn’t get a chance to write you back for a while. Even if she isn’t able to write to you I’m quite sure she would appreciate a nice letter from you right now.

  That reminds me. The ‘jar of water’ as you put it, is actually a small snowman that Kallie made for you, because you mentioned in your letter how much you missed the snow. I assume that it didn’t survive the trip. Sometimes I wish we could send you all of it, mostly when Kallie and I have to go out in it to shovel it off the front drive.

Are they going to do something nice for Thanksgiving Dinner there, or are you and the guys going out for a fun supper in a restaurant?  You will definitely be missed here tomorrow.

Well, it’s apparently already midnight and I’ve got to be up at the train station very early in the morning to meet Rachel and Ted, so I’m going to go get a little sleep now. Busy, busy day tomorrow.

Happy Thanksgiving, Sweetie. 

Signed,

Mom

P.S., We will be sure to save you a huge supper plate with all the trimmings, including your fair share of Clara’s delicious squash soup.

********

Dear Mom,                                                              December 5^th.

Well it’s happened. I told you it would.   We are being shipped out, tonight. No warning. No explanation. I don’t even know exactly where we are going. The phones are all so busy, with everyone trying to call home, that I didn’t know if I would get a chance to call you, so that’s why I’m writing you this letter, just in case.

PLEASE, get a hold of someone. Anyone. Get me out of this! I don’t want to fight anybody.

I honestly thought that this was just going to be a way for me to get into college. I want to come home Mom, Please. I could get work to pay for college. I’ll work two or even three jobs. I will save every penny. Anything it takes!!!

We are all being held to barracks, which means that now that orders are out, nobody can leave or even move about on base.   It’s been that way ever since graduation. They are afraid that fear will make some of the guys go A.W.O.L. That means run away.

Right now I’m not so sure what I would do if I got the chance.   Got to go.  Do something Mom, quick!

I WANT TO COME HOME!!!   

Signed,

Your Son

********

Dearest Mom,                                                          December 9^th.

I haven’t gotten a letter back from you yet.  Have you been able to talk to anyone or find a way for me to be able to come back home?

It’s awful here! The air stinks from all the fires. These people live like animals. They are filthy, and we are supposed to help them but they would kill you just as soon as look at you.

And the bugs.  I have never seen so many bugs. Everyone in the unit is covered with bites and rashes.

We have to walk around to make a ‘show of force’. You don’t even know who to trust, even the children here are potentially deadly.

Race tried to give a little girl, about Kallie’s age, a soda the first day we were here. Before he knew what hit him, she had reached out with a chunk of metal and cut up his arm really bad. They all spit at us when we walk passed them.

Martin got hit by sniper fire and has been in the Med. Unit ever since. I guess it must be pretty serious. I don’t know anymore about it yet. I wasn’t with him when it happened.

I’m afraid to fall asleep. Two nights ago, while I was sleeping, someone threw a firebomb into the building where we had set up base camp. It burned the building to the ground, and the locals all cheered about it.

Luckily no one was hurt, but you never know where the next thing is coming from. I hate it here.

 I know that I always wanted to see the world, but not like this. I gotta go. I’m on the next watch. Keep trying to bring me home. Give Kallie a big hug and kiss for me. I love you mom.

Signed,

Your Loving Son,

Pvt. 1^st Clss.

P.S., I just got word. Martin is dead. I can’t believe he’s gone. Get me out of here!  I don’t want to die too!!

 ********

My Dearest Son,                                                   December 17^th.

I’m not sure if this will reach you before you make the journey home, but I had to write to you and try to give you the good news myself. Everything is going to be just fine. Just be a little patient Darling.

Bill and I went to see Congressman Richards in person at the Capitol yesterday. He’s a very nice man. After Bill told him about our situation, he explained that because you are the only son in our family, and that you are needed at home to support the family as head of the household, it is considered a ‘hardship case’.

That qualifies you for immediate discharge. I do have to admit that we stretched the truth just a bit more than I like, but Bill said that if we didn’t, they probably never even consider letting you go. Mr. Richards told us that he would start the ball in motion right away.

 That means, YOUR COMING HOME!  He even said that if things work out just right, you could be home the day before Christmas Eve.

 So, you just sit tight and try to relax. You’ll get the orders real soon and then you’ll be out for good. Also, Bill has arranged a very good job for you, managing his store.

He says he was planning on taking more time off anyway, and that he wouldn’t trust anyone to do it better than you. So, you even have a job already waiting for you, if you want it. As for school, we will figure something out and you will go to school. I promise! We have all missed you so much. It will be wonderful to hold my boy in my arms again.

I hope you’re hungry by the time you get home, because the freezer is stuffed to the gills with everything that we’ve been saving for you. You have a lot of catching up to do.

Kallie and I went Christmas shopping this morning and Bill has gone to pick out the most beautiful tree he can find. I also bought the biggest ham that you have ever seen for Christmas dinner. Since it won’t fit in the freezer, we have it in a box and buried in the snow out in the back yard. I just hope that we get to it before the Thompson’s dog does.

Kallie even has Fred dressed up special for the Holidays. They keep playing this song on the radio again and again, ‘I’ll be home for Christmas’, but I sure wish they wouldn’t. Every time it comes on I think of my boy and I get all misted up.

  We are all so excited to see you again. There has even been some talk of a Welcome Home party for you at the church. Just about everyone knows already that you’ll be coming home soon, so be prepared.

  Wait till you see my amaryllis. Six big beautiful blooms of red and white. It looks just perfect for Christmas. Be careful.

I’ll see you soon.

Signed,

Mom.

********

********

TELEGRAM

                                                                        December 22nd,

Department of Defense, Washington DC, United States of America,

It is with the deepest sympathy that we regret to inform you,

Having received mortal wounds during maneuvers,

Private first class …

********

  ********

 My Dearest Son,                                            December 26^th.

 I’m not sure if this will reach you before you make the final journey home. It feels so natural writing to you now that I couldn’t think of a better way to let you know how I’m feeling.

I want you to know how very proud of you. I love you and will love you more with each passing day. I know that I have to be strong right now, but it feels as if a large piece of my heart has been torn out of me. It hurts so much sometimes, I don’t know what to do to make it stop. Bill has been a great comfort to us. Everyone has been positively wonderful. So very kind, so very generous, but I would give it all back, just to be able to hold you and hear your laugh one last time.

Kallie has taken this really hard. In time, I know she will heal and this all won’t be quite so painful for her. You two have always been so close, that this separation won’t be easy for her, you know. She is out of school for Winter Vacation right now. I think that will help her a bit.

It was difficult to get through Christmas day, but we managed just fine some how.

Your funeral was beautiful, Honey. You looked so very grown up in your uniform. What a handsome man you turned out to be. I’ve never seen so many beautiful flowers.

I got to talk with Kris’s Mother for a bit. She says that Kris has been accepted to a very nice University up state. That will be nice for her, to get away, and have something to look forward to.

We have decided to leave your presents under the Christmas tree until after the first of the New Year, but I’m not sure what to do with them after that. Seems silly to hold on to them, but I don’t want to give them away either.

I did give your old basketball to Gary. The two of you spent so many years trying to wear it out together. I thought you would like for him to have it.

I know that I should do something with all the things in your room, but every time I go in there I just end up spending hours going through old memories. It just might have to wait until Kallie and I can do it together.

I got a very nice letter from Lt. Grantly. He must have been a very good friend. He seemed to have liked you quite a lot. He said he would like to come and visit, when everything is over.

When I wrote back to him, I asked him to check in on Martin’s sweet little family for us. The president announced tonight that they are going to send in more reinforcements to help bring an end to this whole mess and bring our boys back home by the end of February sometime.

I love our country, and our freedom, and I know that it costs a great deal to keep these things, but I feel so betrayed right now.   I’m so angry and a bit confused as to where my own loyalties should be. It just about destroys me, heart and soul, to think that the last moments of your short life were spent so brutally and filled with fear. I’ve already cried so many tears, every time that I’m sure that there couldn’t be any left, I start up all over again.

  My precious boy, when you were just a sweet little babe in my arms, I knew that I would only have you for a short time.  That someday I would have to let you go, to try out your own wings, but I believed that in the bargain I would get to watch you soar and see all of your dreams come true with you.

I just wasn’t prepared to let you go quite this soon, for quite this long.

Good Bye my Darling Son.

I will love you and cherish you, forever.  

Always, and Forever

Your Devoted Mother

 

~Thank You~

” My summer Garden “

I was exactly six years old on the Sunday that would change my appetite for cookies forever.
My mother and I had moved across the city to live with my grandmother, I called her Gamma from as far back as the first day I met her because I had a difficult time pronouncing the letter R.

My mom and dad had been arguing quite a lot and then she told me that we needed a change so that we could figure things out. So we left behind friends and everything I knew to be familiar to live with Gamma even though I had no idea what it was that I had to figure out.
Regardless of how we came about it I was thrilled to be living in my grandmother’s house. She always made these thin lemony sugar cookies that are still the best I had ever tasted and living in her house meant to me that I could have them everyday. She also had the most incredible house I had ever seen in my whole life full of memories and exotic things to toy with a child’s imagination. Her house held wonderful memories of holidays and happiness and nothing more.

We moved in on a very cold day and I was told that I could pick any room as my own, so I picked the room with a fireplace that was separated from my Gamma’s room by an unlockable door. I thought that having a fireplace in the bedroom was a very incredible thing, and it made me feel special and even warmer in a small way even though there was never a fire lit in it. My mother was in the room across the hall from mine and we shared a bathroom with an enormous bathtub that had feet underneath and a tall mirror that swings up and down.

There was also an added bonus to staying in my chosen bedroom; when I would lie upside down on my bed at night I could see my Gamma laying on her bed through the open doorway and we would make faces and finger shadows at each other, quietly laughing until one of us would fall asleep.
I would put my pillow at the foot of the bed and cover myself with the blankets upside down so that she was within my sight all night long. This is how I slept every night that year.
My room was painted blue with sail ships in a border around the center of the walls. I had two curtained windows that looked out over the backyard and I could clearly see my favorite spot in the whole world from there.

At some point my grandfather, a man that I had never known but love dearly, had been a builder I think and he had fashioned the most incredibly magical place that I have ever known. He had concealed his creation deep in the back of their yard, this special area appeared more like a discarded portion of forest from outside its high walls, so abstractly in contrast to the rest of the pretty yard.
It was a very large backyard even though it had been made smaller, chopped in half by a rather long line of tall hedges. The lawn and edged flower beds of the open yard were manicured to perfected detail. “Clean and smart”, Gamma would say to describe ‘her’ part of the backyard. My Grandfather’s portion however will forever hold strong memories for me, about adventure and play and very much more.
There was a small brook that snaked its way all the way through the length of the property, smooth round stones lined both sides of the running water, ideal for sailing paper boats which I happened to have tried on more than one occasion. It appeared on Gammas side to be popping out from under the hedge wall making the tiny stream much more mysterious than it actually was.

There was a very fancy portion of the patio with even fancier chairs and a table. This is where Gamma liked to sit and read in the mornings and where she would entertain her lady friends on summer evenings. A large covered area of the patio where, even though there was a couch, chairs and a swing, it was still big enough for me to ride my bike around on. Gammas trimmed lawn was perfect for playing airplane or spinning until I was too dizzy to stand.
But to me the most important part of the whole yard was hidden behind the tall blossoming barricade of shrubbery in a thick growth of trees behind a fence. The only entrance into this magical place was through a small break in the foliage where a short gate made of twisted branches locked the rest of the yard from intruders. Still it beckoned to me with its simple carved wooden sign above the flower covered arched gateway that simply stated, ‘imagine’.
In this part of the yard things grew wild and free as nature had intended. No one came here to prune, trim and polish, nobody would dare change a thing in the paradise that my grandfather had etched out from his own imagination.

The earth was just about as uneven as comfortably possible and flowers of every size and color bloomed simply everywhere. I had no idea whom this place was built for and at first I was terrified to be discovered within the walls that surrounded this place.
There were small areas inside that sparked every possible ounce of imagination within me, with many different types of stone paths that would wind and branch out in odd directions and without warning lead me off on a new adventure then abruptly stop so that I knew if I would find an awaiting surprise close by, I just had to look carefully.
Sometimes I would find small fountains or little hidden sitting areas with benches or chairs made out of branches or carved logs. Sometimes I would find small mossy concrete statues peeking out from under the greenery or a little abandoned gnome village with colorful tiny houses lovingly chiseled out of stone, sitting where the sunshine was barely able to break through the dense trees and illuminate a secret spot almost by purposeful accident.
Deep in a corner one day I even found a sandy pond with bright orange fish lazily swimming just out of my reach. I would wiggle my toes in the cool water on the hottest summer’s days. I feared walking too far into the pond as I easily sank in the soft sandy soil and I just knew that I would never get back out again if the pond sucked me down and the water went above my waist.

But, at the center of the garden was the one place that I spent most of my time that year, in the tree house. Almost completely concealed with forest growth that I had found by accident. High up on the biggest tree inside the nesting of the patch of wonder, hid a tree house appearing so ancient that I swear must have been inhabited by elves long ago.
The narrow steep staircase twisted all the way around the trunk of the very thick tree, ivy climbed the ropes and short railing all the way to the top to a short landing and coated its bottom and sides to almost conceal it completely. There was a small door that opened easily, the inside was big enough for me to stand up tall and along the curved walls sat a bench and table that was just my size.
If I close my eyes and think about it, I can still recall the musty wood smell of that old tree house as I sat eating many of my lunches there and would look out the window admiring my kingdom. It still brings a smile to my lips.
I had claimed the area behind the gate as my very own as soon as I had discovered it.
It was my place to be and do anything.

As a child I didn’t have many friends and I knew no other children in the neighborhood that my Gamma lived so far away from my other home. I felt awkward and out of place with other people my own age, but in this garden, this hidden children’s paradise, I was completely at home.
I imagined that I was a loved and worshiped king, peter pan with his lost boys, a fearfully dreaded pirate, or a respected sheriff, or anything that a small boy could conjure in such a place and I would rush through the morning meals so that I could be back in my own imaginary worlds first thing at the beginning of each day for most of that year.
Gamma would sometimes find me lost in pretend and surprise me with some her delicious cookies and a story book that she would read to me in the sunshine and fuel my imagination even further. We would leave at times when Gamma insisted I go with her even though I tried to convince her that I was perfectly capable of watching out for myself while she was gone, but she wouldn’t have it and I would spend the time away daydreaming of my garden and fretting over missing out on the adventures that I believed were happening back there without me.
As I look back at this moment of my life I believe it was just about the happiest summer that I have ever experienced. This was our life one year, my mother, my gamma, and I in the most extraordinary place I have ever known people to live.
The secret patch of wonderment behind the hedge at my Gamma’s house is probably one of the strongest reasons behind why I am a writer, and creator of undiscovered worlds, to this very day. That wondrous place had opened a door in me that will never close, but to be perfectly honest the characters in my stories have never been as real to me as those that I left behind in that garden many years ago.

Gamma, after a full day of caring for us, took a nap every afternoon at precisely three o’clock, right after watching her show, ‘The Price Is Right’. This also meant that I was supposed to take a nap at the same time, and I would lie quietly on my bed and do my best to pretend that I was sleeping until I could hear Gamma, ever so softly begin to snore, then I had the whole big house to myself. When I wasn’t allowed to go outside I would create new adventures inside Gammas house.
The house was old and built when rooms were connected in a different way than they are today. Rooms of grand sizes with full length windows that children can see the world from and ceilings that climb high over head with giant light fixtures and closets and cubby holes were put anywhere that there was unused space. I was a very curious and imaginative child and there were many areas in her house that beckoned for me to explore them.
To open their doors or burrow through antique drawers and boxes in rooms that had belonged to someone else long ago. The attic frightened me with all the dust and furniture draped in ghostly cloths, but the worst about the attic was the huge mouse traps all along the floor of one wall that had snapped at me when I walked by. I quickly avoided seeking out discovery much in the cramped smelly spaces up there.

The basement was another thing all together, it was a great place to discover interesting things. Cool and dark and a treasure trove of rooms filled with undiscovered belongings, like boxes stuffed with ridiculous looking clothing, memorabilia and photographs of people I had never and would never meet.
Artifacts from all over the world littered many of these rooms, closets and nooks. It was in one of these rooms that I discovered a lost stash of wine in dusty bottles, from which I sampled heavily the acidic ambrosia and ended up wasting the rest of the day vomiting while my Gamma held me gently and cooed about how everything would be better tomorrow.
I also spent the cold wet days of that year running back up the long staircases again and again after sliding all the way down the slick aluminum laundry shoot to land in the basket in the basement, something that back at home didn’t even exist and I found to be amazingly fun despite Gamma’s protests. But as much fun as I had inside the large house the longing to be back outside, even in the freezing cold rain, to play in my beloved playground with my imaginary friends didn’t leave me for one moment. I could feel them watching me from the roof of the tree house and waiting for me to emerge.
Gamma did her best to fill in the time on those lonely days away from the garden and I tried to make her happy in return. There was a large shiny black piano in the room she called the parlor where she and I would sit at the keyboard and try to teach me how to play. Most of the time I would sit in one of the cushioned wicker chairs and listen to her play and sometimes sing along to songs I had learned as I looked out at my place in the yard being washed clean by the chilly Oregon rains and imagine myself in far away places.

Gamma taught me how to play lots of ‘inside’ games, we played hide and seek which one of my favorite games, and card games and board games, and we would play together on the long weathery days. She would also spend hours reading stories to me out of big books with colorful pictures and with great pride it wasn’t long before I was able to read some of the stories to her.
My mother was hardly home, and Gamma and I spent the better part of that year alone in each others company. I later learned that my mother had been working and attending school to become a nurse, and as much as I loved and missed my mother I am still grateful for the time that I spent alone with Gamma.
There were many times when Gamma’s friends would come to visit and on sunny warm days they would sit and drink bitter punch and talk and laugh. That’s when it was easy for me to slip out of sight so that I could go play in the backyard with my friends after dark.
This is how most of the year slipped on, mother working at building us a new life away somewhere else and Gamma and I playing games and doing our own thing in our own places.
Right before Christmas, our entire house was full with decorations and everything appeared to be alive with excitement. There were three ornamented Christmas trees, I was astonished at the prospect of getting three visits from Santa and having three Christmas mornings all on one day, that was also the very day that my Gamma taught me her secret to baking her special cookies.

I watched her add things and measure other things and stir the mix so gently until she said it was time. She had a large stoneware jar with a wide cork topper plugging the opening that she kept up on the highest shelf in the kitchen. She pulled it down and I could read that on the front on this well worn jar had been painted the word, ‘Love’.
I watched her move with intense curiosity now, I had no idea that something like love could be captured but this wonderful woman actually had a container of it in her kitchen and she used it on my cookies.
She opened the jar with a twinkle in her eye then reached in and pulled out a handful of a white powdery substance. She sprinkled this all over the sheet of freshly cutout cookies, and then she touched the tip of my nose with her ‘love’ coated finger.
In amazement I wiped it off and licked it from the back of my hand as I looked at the white stuff in the jar with black sticks in it, I watched her place the sprinkled cookie dough in the old black oven to bake. ‘Love’ was sweet and delicious, and I have not been able to find that flavor since, but it is exactly the essence that every childhood should taste like.

“Cookies must always include a lot of love so that they taste just right, but most especially at Christmas time”, she said in her slight Irish accent, and in my five year old wisdom I couldn’t have agreed more with any philosophy so profound.
The holiday season is hard enough for a child to endure, with the excitement of temptations and anticipation and magical surprises and expectations, but I think it doubles for the child with a birthday close to a big holiday. Such is the case for me; my birthday comes on Christmas Eve day.
I woke up on my birthday morning to find that overnight it had snowed and everything outside looked like a white wonderland.
I jumped out of bed to see all the glorious snow and squealed out loud in excitement. It was like a birthday present from Mother Nature herself. I ran into my Gamma’s room and shook her arm wildly.
“Gamma look”, I exclaimed running to her bedroom windows. I couldn’t contain my self any longer and running back into my room I slid my feet into my slippers and yelling out to my mother that the snow had finally come, and on my birthday! I hurriedly raced down the back stairs and grabbed my coat hanging by the back door.
I was bouncing through the thick snow toward the gate when I heard my mother call out for me to come back inside and warned me that I would freeze to death, which fueled me to run even faster toward my tree house.

I played until I couldn’t feel my soaked feet ay longer and then begrudgingly went back to the house to get into warmer clothes. I decided that I was going to make myself a snowman for my birthday, sort of like a present to myself.
Mom was talking on the phone when I hiked my slushy wet slippers back up the steps and I knew that I was mom upset about the mess, but I didn’t care.
I dressed myself in the warmest clothes I could find, the door between mine and Gammas room was closed, which meant that she was awake and breakfast would be ready soon, and I hurriedly grabbed my boots out from under the bed.
With boots and socks in my hands I headed back down the back steps, carful not to step in the cold slush that I had left before, and sat down at the table where we usually ate breakfast. It wasn’t until I had pulled on both of my socks that I noticed no one else was in the kitchen.
There was no breakfast cooked and waiting. There were no delicious smells coming from the oven. Mother must have gone back to bed, and now I was all alone in the kitchen and it wasn’t even nap time.
I called out to my mother but there was no reply. I guessed that I had awoken earlier than usual and that when it was time Gamma would be down to make breakfast. I smiled and slid my feet into my boots and once again put on my coat and bolted for the snow cloaked tree house.

I made my snowman, gave him sticks for arms and rocks for the eyes of his face. I went back in the house to get a carrot for his nose and noticed that I was still the only one awake. I went back out and had a snowball fight with one of Gammas wind chimes and dug a fort out of a snowdrift at the very back of the yard before I began to get cold enough, and hungry enough, to want to go back inside.
The sun was high in the sky now, Gamma must be awake and worried because she would know that I haven’t had any breakfast yet. I could almost taste the warm sweet pancakes she promised to make for me on my special day as I pushed my way through the snow to the back door.
Inside, the warm kitchen was still empty, the house was dead quiet. I called out for Gamma up the back stairs and as I walked into the other rooms downstairs but she didn’t answer. My mother came down the big front stairs, her eyes red and swollen, I was sure that I was going to be in trouble for waking her up.
She reached the bottom of the stairs and to my surprise she quickly whipped me up into her arms and held me so tight I thought I would suffocate.
I broke her hold on me by saying, “I’m hungry momma, really hungry. Where’s Gamma? She’s gonna make me pancakes for my birthday.”
My mother put me back down and said with a choke, “How about if I make you pancakes this morning champ,” then she grasped my hand and walked me toward the kitchen door.
Being the spoiled little guy that I was, instantly I rebelled against the thought of eating anyone else’s pancakes but Gamma’s for my birthday breakfast, and I yanked my hand away from her. Besides, she had promised she would make them extra special for me.

“I don’t want your pancakes,” I informed her with my chin in the air.
She bent down to look me in the eye and fought with her words before she spoke, “Gamma is still sleeping champ and she won’t be able to make you pancakes this morning.”
Her eyes pleaded with me but I countered in a hurt voice, “Okay, then can I have Gammas cookies for my birthday breakfast then?”
Destroyed now, at the thought that my Gamma would rather sleep on this day of all days instead of making me birthday pancakes, I dragged myself back to the kitchen. Mother put several cookies on a plate and poured me a glass of milk then sat down across the table from me in complete silence.
The cookies were good but somehow they tasted different today. I couldn’t quite enjoy them like I usually did. Today they were cold and different in some way, unappetizing and ordinary like the ones from the store.
Cookies haven’t tasted the same ever since that day and I can honestly say I haven’t liked cookies from that morning up to today.
I had eaten only one cookie, still hungry for pancakes, and once I got down from the table the first thing I did was start toward the stairs when my mother spoke broke her own silence.

“Don’t go upstairs right now,” she warned in a strange tone. Just then a man poked his head through the kitchen doorway and announced that they were finished.
He looked a lot like a delivery man that once brought a new car to the house for Gamma. A delivery man and they were just finished! I could hardly believe it, Gamma couldn’t make me pancakes because she had been busy with a delivery man who must have been delivering me a birthday surprise. How exciting.
I pushed passed the man in the suit and ran into the living room but when I stopped I couldn’t see anything different than from the day before. Christmas tree lights were twinkling madly in the tree, the decorations were exactly the same, even the presents under the big trees hadn’t changed.
I looked at the stairs and remembered that she said to ‘not to go upstairs’. The surprise must be in my room I reasoned quickly and dashed up the steps as fast as I could move.
When I reached the landing I could see into Gammas room and her bed was a mess, which was so unlike her, but she was finally awake and waiting for me to find her and my surprise.

I slammed my bedroom door open excitedly to find my room exactly the way I had left it when I had dressed to go play in the snow.
Gamma hadn’t made my bed or picked up my pajamas, she hadn’t even made her own bed. Then suddenly an overwhelmingly awful feeling seemed to engulf me so strongly that I couldn’t breathe. Something was wrong, something was very wrong.
I called out for my mother as I stood staring at my Gammas empty rumpled bed in confusion, and she was by my side within a second, holding me and saying something softly that I don’t remember.
The next couple of days were quite strange for me as people, lots of people, came to Gammas house and talked to my mother and each other in whispers.
The most amazing thing is that the morning after Gamma had left without us was Christmas day but my mother didn’t seem to remember. I could only wonder at such an absurd thought, how could anyone ever forget that it was Christmas day?

She told me to open my presents whenever I wanted to but I only opened one because it didn’t feel like Christmas. I decided to wait for Gamma to come home and we could all open them together. All day long people came and went and some of them brought food or gifts and others ate the food. It was the quietest party I had ever seen.
The day after Christmas Gamma still hadn’t come home and I was beginning to worry. When I asked mother where Gamma had gone and when would she be coming home, my mother changed her face so that she looked like she was in a lot of pain, I think it might have been her tall pointy shoes, but she never did answer my question.
So I waited by the window and under the Christmas tree and in her room for Gamma to come home so that we could open presents and make Christmas cookies like she promised.
Then it came the time to go to church.
I didn’t like church very much because they make you sit very still and then you have to listen to someone talk for a very long time, and you have to try to not fall asleep and I didn’t want to go so much that I cried all the way to the church. Curiously everyone said it would be alright.
When we got there we sat all the way in the front row, it was my first time to sit in the front and it made me nervous, right in front of a long box covered with a million flowers. People came over to my mother and whispered softly to her about things I didn’t understand so I sat and tore the tissue that mom gave me into lots of little pieces and they fluttered down to the floor.
Then when people got up on the stage and talked about my Gamma and how wonderful she is, now I was sure that she would show up soon. This was all very confusing to me and I was anxious to have it all end.

When everyone had finished talking the big doors to the church opened and everyone suddenly stood up. A man wearing a very blue tie moved the flowers and opened the big box. Then my mother asked if I wanted to say anything.

I thought she must have hit her head or lost her mind, who would want to talk to a box of plants? I was kind of not happy that they would take my Gammas flowers away before she even had a chance to see them but I walked up to the box with my mother anyway to make her happy. She hadn’t been happy since Gamma went away and it was starting to make me sad too.

To my disbelief when we got up to look in the flower box Gamma was laying there inside sound asleep!
“Gamma,” I laughed, “There you are. When are you coming home?” I asked her as relieved as I felt, I really wanted to go home and open my presents.
This must have made my mother very upset because she started crying right then and wouldn’t stop crying for days. Other women in the church started crying too, I couldn’t figure out why everyone was so upset suddenly.
I looked back to Gamma, and asked, “Are you playing a game Gamma? Is this a game momma?”
At this my mother tried to take me away from Gamma by walking out the open doors but I wouldn’t let her. I pushed and pushed until she put me down and I ran back to Gammas box and I climbed up the blocks with flowers on them and grabbed Gammas hand.

If I could just wake her up, then everyone wouldn’t be so upset anymore and we could finally go home and have Christmas and my birthday.
Gamma’s hand was strangely hard and ice cold, I looked at her face and knew something was wrong with her. I hit her on the arm.
“Gamma, wake up,” I yelled at her. I had never been allowed to yell in church before but nobody seemed to want to stop me, “Gamma come on. I don’t like this game Gamma. Please, let’s go home now.”
A lady wearing a black dress and big floppy hat picked me up and walked me back to my mother. It made me very angry and I yelled even louder, “Gamma please. Wake up. I wanna go home now.”
The two big doors closed and my mother must have been very angry with me because she made me stay with one of the church ladies for the rest of the day, the one that had patted me on the head and clicked her tongue at me all day.
I was angry and hungry and I wanted to go home. I was almost sure that Gamma would be awake by now, she had been sleeping most of the day, and they would be back home cooking Christmas dinner and making my birthday cake and baking her delicious cookies. My mouth just about ached with the craving of her tender sweet perfect cookies.
I decided to make a run for it when they finally left me alone in their front room, to meditate, whatever that was.
I silently opened their front door and ran tip-toed across their yard until I got to the sidewalk, then as my lungs hurt so much it felt like I was breathing fire, I continued to run all the way back to Gammas house.

I hit the back door with a thud and grabbed the knob with both hands. They were cold from the chilly air and wouldn’t work right, I couldn’t turn the knob.
I struggled and kicked the door and screamed for Gamma to let me in but the door and the knob didn’t budge in the slightest. I tried to look in the windows but I couldn’t reach. Scared of the dark house, I went to my tree house and curled up inside and tried to figure out how to fix this. Why was Gamma playing this horrible game? Why was my mother so angry that she stuck me with the church lady that everyone makes fun of?
I was so cold that it was beginning to make my face and toes hurt, and then I remembered the box of matches that I had used to light a small campfire during the summer.
I pulled out the small box of wooden matches and pulled together in a pile of the dried leaves and small sticks and bunched then up in the middle of the floor.
If I could just get warm then I would be alright until Gamma and my mother came home from church.

I struck a match but the flame jumped up and startled me and I dropped the match. Fire is very dangerous, mother warned me in my head. The next match that I lit, a gust a wind blow it out before I could get the leaves to catch fire. So I put a couple of the matches on the pile and decided to light the matches instead of the leaves.
I had fire, it was warm and wonderful and I held out my hands to the lovely small heat. I soon noticed that there was a lot more smoke than air to breathe so I pushed the little door open with my foot and pushed myself back away from the breeze coming in as the smoke escaped the small house. I sat in satisfaction at my own resourcefulness and basked in the heat of the flames.
The fire was bright and welcoming, but before long I noticed that it was getting bigger at the bottom and spreading on the floor. Eventually the thought hit my mind; the floor of the tree house was made of wood. I said I was a curious child but I didn’t say that I was bright one as well.
I quickly jumped for the door and flew through the air all the way down to the white crusted ground, hardened from a full day of melting. When I landed I did so with such force that my arm immediately screamed at me in pain.
I looked down at my arm to see blood smearing across the milky surface of the ground where I had landed. Cradling my arm close to me I looked up to see most of the floor of my beautiful little tree house come crashing down right on top of me.
I cried out for Gamma to help me, then in a flash I finally realized that she would never come for me again when I called for her, would never make me cookies again, never read me stories. My beautiful Gamma was gone, gone forever, and I fell mercifully unconscious before the first ember touched the ground.
In only one single day my whole world changed forever.

The broken bone in my arm healed easily, and I still have the scars from the fire that this five year old boy, just turned six, had set with kitchen matches. With a single unknowing action I had completely destroyed my entire imaginary playground.
To this day I have no idea how I escaped that fire. They found me on one of the lawn chairs wrapped in a blanket. I must have crawled to safety in my feverish delirium but I honestly do not remember.
My grandmother and my world inside my grandfather’s garden had become the most important things in my life that year and were now dissolved and gone. I have reached the point in my story where I have explained to you why I want to tell you my story, and why I am telling you about this part of my life in the first place.
I believe that I am the man I am today because of those two important aspects at a crux in my childhood and their abrupt removal from my life that has shaped me into whom I was meant to become.

I have told the stories that I have created out of the thinnest imaginings possible and then again out of the strongest urges imaginable and have made people laugh and cry and yearn for even more, and in doing so you have made me a very wealthy man, but now I feel that I must lay down my pen for much more important endeavors.
I can not begin to thank you for believing in me so strongly and devoting so much of your efforts toward advancing me into such success. In this I regret to admit that I will not be renewing another contract with you or submitting any more manuscripts for you to publish.
I remember because I can not forget, and I tell you this because it is a part of me and I must tell this story.

You see it is important for me to finish a journey that I have realized is my destiny. I have sold everything there and will not be returning. I have moved back to Oregon because after all these years I was finally able to buy back my Gamma’s house.

There is this very bare plot of land at the back of my property that I must tend to and the matter has become quite urgent for me, because my daughter is now expecting a little girl, our first grandchild, and in my heart I feel that she must have a tree house waiting for her to grow old enough to discover and I need time to prepare because I will soon have a very new audience to tell new stories.

I know now what driving force that my grandfather must have had, and my wife is in desperate search to find a recipe for the best lemony sugar cookies in the world, and I have little doubt that they will be smothered in love for her.
You see, I have a lot of work ahead of me and a desperation to finish it which is growing in me at a rate I can not ignore any longer.
Please accept my deepest apologies but I must stop now and go finish my legacy.

*end*

About the author

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Thank you, for taking the time to read through a piece of my work, this short story is one of my favorites.

I am a published author currently looking for new literary Representation for mainstream commercial publication. I have been writing since 1986, with a strong passion for horror fiction. I have several finished novels that that I would love to see in publication, and many more that are currently in the progress of being completed.

Until my ‘big break’ happens I will post a few of my sample short stories in this blog for your reading pleasure. I have written numerous work for magazines, instruction manuals, brochures and periodical publications as well as for other extremely busy bloggers but I would prefer to utilize my talents as a horror fiction novelist. Hey, got to pay the bills right? So read my work, feedback to your hearts content and if you like what I offer then tell a friend and spread the word!