[title subtitle=”WORDS Sarah Phillips-Burger
IMAGE Konoplystka/Shutterstock”][/title]
Andrea never imagined going back there, to the place where so many painful things happened to her. Yet, here she was, loading up her car, getting ready to go with her son, all for a school report.
“You should pick your dad,” she said two weeks ago when Jack came home and announced the project that instructed him to give a complete life history on a family member of his choosing.
“But I want to do the paper on you,” Jack replied, his blue eyes pleading behind long, dark lashes. It was the same look he gave her when asking for an extra chocolate chip cookie when he was small. Even at sixteen, it still worked on her every time. So, over the next week, they sat at the kitchen table every night, Jack taking notes as Andrea flipped through old photo albums and recounted the most important events of her life.
Jack asked questions along the way like, “What was your favorite subject in school?” and “What year did you graduate?” and “Who was your favorite band?” As the pages in her album turned, she recalled the different places she lived, friends she knew, her part-time job during college, and how she met his father. She chronicled her career changes and the deaths of family members. She talked about having Jack (this part he titled “best day of her life”) and the move they made to be closer to her mom.
Using the pictures and all the information she relayed to him, Jack began his outline. Then yesterday, he came to her. “I’m almost done, but I think I’m missing some stuff.”
“What stuff?”
“I don’t have any information from before you were ten, other than the year that you were born.”
Andrea stopped her dishwashing and turned to him. “I was adopted when I was ten.”
“Right, but that doesn’t mean that’s when your life began.”
“No, it doesn’t, but I don’t see how anything before then would be relevant to your report.”
Jack leaned forward, placing his elbows on the bar, clasping his hands, “Mom, I know it wasn’t easy when you were a kid.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“But what I know about you now is that you are strong. You’re the strongest person I know. And you don’t get that way by having an easy life.”
“I know.”
“So, it is a part of you. It is relevant.”
Andrea placed her elbows on the bar, cupped her face in her hands and looked at her son. “You’re a smart kid, you know that?”
He shrugged, and a small grin appeared on his face.
“I don’t mind telling you about that part of my life. But I don’t have any pictures to show you.”
“Maybe we can go there,” Jack suggested. “That way you can show me where you lived and went to school. We can go tomorrow.”
“Go there?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t you have a game or something else school-related to do?”
Jack grinned, shaking his head, “Nope.”
With no more excuses, Andrea said, “Well then I guess we’re going on a road trip tomorrow.”
That Saturday morning was cold and windy. Even the “Don’t Give Up” signs that sprinkled her neighborhood seemed to tremble right along with them as they waved goodbye to her husband who stood in the driveway. Andrea did not get much sleep the night before. She dreamt of being in her old house, getting lost as she moved from room to room, unable to find her way out.
As she drove south on the interstate, Jack once again took notes as she began her tale of woe. Her birth mother, Patricia, was only seventeen when she brought Andrea into the world. She never knew who her father was, and she suspected that Patricia did not either.
The never-ending line of brown trees zipped by as she told her son about the physical and emotional abuse that she suffered and of Patricia’s drug use. Andrea was left alone for days at a time, never knowing when her mother would return. She watched Sesame Streetin the mornings, fed herself and, when she got scared, hid under her bed. She got herself to school every day, though. She loved reading and math. Both subjects managed to take her mind off of her home life. Once, when her mother had been gone for almost a week, she ran out of food.
With no money or means to buy more, she stuffed extra bread into her sweater pockets at school to save for later. Her teacher saw her do it and questioned her. After that, a woman showed up at the school and took her to a doctor, and then drove her to her aunt’s home, a woman she did not know. In fact, neither of them knew the other existed.
Andrea occasionally paused to weave in and out of traffic as they passed through larger cities, pressing further on to their destination. She noticed that her hands ached from gripping the steering wheel, and so she loosened her grasp as she stretched her neck and took deep breaths. Jack was no longer taking notes. She had his full attention and so, she carried on.
Her aunt, the woman she now calls Mom, was the complete opposite of Patricia. “She hugged me all the time, made cookies for me to eat after school, and she giggled a lot.”
“She still does,” Jack smiled.
“She bought me a kitten and painted my room pink. She helped me with my homework, and we took long walks together,” Andrea smiled. “But at first I didn’t trust her. I didn’t understand that this was how it should be. She never yelled at me, even when I messed up. She would just say, ‘It’s okay, I still love you.’ She cherished me, and slowly, I learned how to be cherished.”
Andrea thought about the “Don’t Give Up” signs. “She always told me to keep moving forward, and that’s what I have tried to do.”
“So, you just went on with your life and didn’t let your past affect you?” Jack asked.
“It affects you, whether you want it to or not,” she said as she thought of her life-long battle with anxiety and the hours and hours she spent in therapy. “Trauma has to be dealt with or else it will just keep coming back to haunt you.” Andrea turned her blinker on and exited the interstate.
“You don’t need the GPS?” Jack asked.
“No, I remember.” That tiny plot of dirt was seared into her brain, branded forever, impossible to forget. She drove, passing rundown businesses, trailer parks, and a small post office, taking deep breaths with every turn. She pointed out her elementary school and the house where her best friend lived.
“Where is Patricia now?”
“No clue. Apparently, she never came back.”.Andrea slowed her car to find the right driveway, and then recognized the red mailbox where she stood and waited for the school bus as a child.
“So, is that why you became a therapist?”
“There are a lot of people out there that have had to live through bad things, things you can’t even imagine. I was lucky. I had a lot of help throughout my life and that made all the difference for me. So, if I can help other people, I will.”
The dirt driveway was almost overgrown with tall grass and untrimmed bushes. Eventually, they reached an impasse, a fallen tree that kept them from driving any farther. They had to walk the rest of the way.
“It’s creepy out here,” Jack said as he jumped the tree.
“Yeah, well, there are a lot of ghosts.”
Jack froze and looked at her.
“The metaphorical kind,” Andrea said, laughing and shaking her head.
They rounded the corner and Andrea saw the two oak trees that once framed the house like pillars. They were larger now, but broken, crooked and bare. The air stilled when she looked past the trees and saw what was left of the little house that held so many bad memories. There was only a pile of bricks and splintered grey wood, barely recognizable under what looked like a decade’s worth of dead leaves. The house had collapsed in on itself. Andrea didn’t know what to expect when she imagined herself here again, but this pile of rubble wasn’t it.
“Whoa,” said Jack.
“I know,” she agreed.
They stood for a few minutes; Andrea did not want to go any farther off the driveway due to the mess of grass and weeds that now overtook the yard.
“Mom?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“If this place holds so many bad memories, why are you smiling?”
Andrea’s smile intensified. “That house crumbled, but I’m still here.”
They stood for a minute more, Jack taking pictures with his phone. The wind picked back up, blowing the naked trees as waves of air flowed over the tall grass and through Andrea’s hair. She turned her face toward the sun and closed her eyes, taking one last deep breath.
I’m still here.
