Trauma Core CH 9

Quiet as A Mouse

Welcome To Surviving With Panache!

Lessons in survival for inspiration and hope in an unsteady world. We have lived through every hard day so far! Carpe' diem! 🌻🌻🌻

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Mother put me back to bed with a hug promising that everything would be ok. The next few hours were an angry focus of activity for her. Never one to waste a minute, she executed this list just as efficiently as she did everything else.

First, she called her friend Nancy in Lakeside, some 25 miles away, to ask if we could stay with her until a new house was found. Check.

Second, she grabbed the phone book to find a moving company that opened early. Check.

Third, she found a storage facility that also advertised early hours of operation. Check.

Fourth, she then carefully packed our suitcases to more than they should hold. Check.

Finally, she gathered her needed clothes for work that were on hangers and moved them to the trunk of her car as quietly as possible in the darkness. Check.

Only a soft light came from the house, a soft glow from the staircase. It was invisible from outside. No porch light. No garage light. She used the front walk because it provided the most cover in the darkness.  The neighbors knew that something had gone on because the cops always left their red and blue lights blazing wherever they stopped. All was quiet now. She hoped that since it had been several hours past the ruckus that no one would be spying out their windows as she carried out our escape. She was in full stealth mode.

Making sure to get the biggest professional moving truck, she wanted the haul to be accomplished in one trip. She paid extra for additional men to join the crew for the load. She labeled every piece of furniture with a 3 x 5 card that had successive numbers for placement in the truck. This way everything went into the storage unit organized.

While waiting for the movers she drove to the storage facility and got the biggest unit available and left the door wide open to be ready for the moving truck crew to unload just as quickly.

She got all of this done while I was asleep. I slept late. When she finally woke me up, I was ushered into the bathroom to get ready for the day. My clothes were on the towel rack. The rugs were gone and everything else except my washcloth, toothbrush, hairbrush, and roll of TP. By the time I was done, my bed and bedroom furniture were already loaded into the moving van. My room was the very last to be emptied, furniture wise. During the night, mother had already cleared out my closet.

I went down the stairs and outside. She asked me to get in the car. She spoke with the movers once more and got behind the wheel. I asked, “What’s going on? Where are we going?”

She coolly replied that we were leaving Bruce, and we were going to “Jimmy’s Restaurant” for breakfast. Then, we were going to Nancy’s.

 French Toast for breakfast! My favorite!

Arriving at Nancy’s, I was left on the couch to watch television with Nancy’s mom. I took an exhausted nap. Nancy and mother left for a while. I later learned they had gone to a divorce lawyer to file for divorce that same day. Mother wanted nothing from Bruce but to be rid of him. (She’d become seriously efficient at this divorce business.)

Well, almost nothing. She already had the furniture. She also wanted half the proceeds from the sale of the house. She had police reports and statements of Bruce’s infidelity so the divorce would be quick and in her favor. It was a community property state after all. Her confidence in declaring that Bruce would sign the papers that very day was amusing to the lawyer.

Only she knew (well, Nancy and the movers knew, too) that she was holding all of Bruce’s clothing, golf clubs, toiletries, etc. hostage. He would sign the papers that day or get none of them back. She was also confident that he would split the house sale with her or end up with none of it.

Those were her terms. The lawyer just smiled and nodded. Had it drawn up and filed.

That smile turned to amazement when she returned to his offices that day with the signed paperwork.

Now that everything was agreed to, mother gave him a bed, his clothes, and golf clubs. Always having her boss or Nancy’s boyfriend, Richard, present at the exchange. Bruce did not know Nancy’s boyfriend or Nancy, which in mother’s eyes was a little bonus. Both her boss, Tom, and Nancy’s boyfriend, Richard, were taller and broader than Bruce. Never any contest to be had.

The sale of our very big, fabulous house was rapid. With her share of the proceeds, mother bought us a 3-bedroom condominium in a new construction development called Brandywine. She told me that I had to keep our new house and where it was located a big secret since school was not quite let out. She did not want any of the neighbors catching wind of our location from one of my little friends from school.  

I got to select colors for my room. This time going with deep purple carpeting and white with lavender accents in the curtains. It was a smaller room, so I got a new twin sized bed with a canopy. Mother took my queen-sized bed from the pink room. She chose crimson carpet and just as dark curtains for her room. Nancy moved in with us into the third bedroom. Just beige.

It was nice enough and everything was brand new. I love that smell. Weird right?

We stuffed that place with all the furniture out of the storage room and it worked. Mother and I painted the backyard fence together and went swimming.

It was peaceful.