A True Love Story 4g3m4b

A True

Love Story Katie Harris

ISBN 978-1-63814-048-1 (Paperback) ISBN 978-1-63814-049-8 (Digital) Copyright © 2021 Katie Harris All rights reserved First Edition All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below. Covenant Books, Inc. 11661 Hwy 707 Murrells Inlet, SC 29576 www.covenantbooks.com

Table of Contents

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

1

Karla Harmon grew up in a rural community. Her family lived on a farm. Her parents rented the house she and her siblings shared with them. James and Maggie had four young kids all under five years of age. The home was only three bedrooms for the family of six. Three of James’s siblings also lived in the cramped house. His parents divorced early in his life, leaving him to look after his minor brothers and sister. James was only nineteen years old himself when he and Maggie got married. She was still a minor, being a mere seventeen-year-old. However, despite their tender ages, the couple saw the young teens needed a place to stay to avoid being put into the system. Naturally, James and Maggie Harmon gladly opened their doors to them without hesitation or question. After all, Maggie’s childhood had been quite tragic as well, so she had firsthand knowledge of being bounced around from pillar to post. There just were not enough family who had homes large enough to take in four orphaned children. Maggie’s family was small compared to James’s mostly due to the fire that destroyed her family home and killed her mother and baby brother. Such tragedy left the young children traumatized and unable to cope with the real world. Maggie was already a shy and introverted child, so being thrust into such a big living nightmare just about destroyed her. The Pruitt family was now merely existing, and the small children were left with feelings of abandonment and fear. They had to find a new normal. Clyde Pruitt felt so much guilt because he knew he should have brought water up from the well for his beautiful family before leaving for work that horrible day, but he didn’t. He was running late for work and just neglected to do so. Clyde was prone to stopping off for a beer or two after work with his buddies and maybe playing a few games of pool before heading on home to his family. Had he just gone home right after work the night before his nightmare began, none of this would have happened. He would have gone to fetch the water from the well before leaving for work as his wife had asked him to do.

The horrible events of that day were now burned into Clyde’s memory with deadly accuracy. If losing his wife and son in the fire that consumed his home weren’t big enough horrors, the folks in their small mountain community simply refused to let Clyde heal from the nightmarish event. Everywhere he went, he could hear the whispers about how he just left for work without regard for his family’s need for water. It seemed the whole town blamed him for the deaths of his wife and son. It serves as no surprise that Clyde turned into a serious alcoholic. He’d already had a bit of a problem with drinking as it was. Clyde was diagnosed with cancer at nineteen years old and given a six-month window to live and get his life in order. Clearly, the doctors got it wrong. Clyde grew into an adult and went on to have a family of his own. But the psychological damage had been done. Hearing that kind of prognosis at such a young age would most likely cause any teen to throw caution to the wind. Clyde became irresponsible and took everything as a dare. He began acting out and doing all kinds of things he had been taught not to. He drank too much, partied too much. In the end, it was much too late to undo the damage of his actions by the time he realized how wrong they were. Not only would he suffer the consequences of his choices; but his small children, his family, and his friends would feel the backlash of his actions too.

2

Maggie met Beth Harmon through a school friend. They were instant friends since both their families were somewhat dysfunctional. Maggie’s life seemed, on the surface, to be more tragic, but the Harmons were just a different kind of difficult. Beth was the oldest daughter of thirteen children, and her family was living in poverty. They lived quite some distance outside town, and the children had to walk to school each day. They lived down a gravel road which was more like a muddy creek bed most days. It didn’t take much more than a sprinkle to cause the stream flowing through the Harmon’s property to overflow its banks and to turn the dirt in the road into a muddy mess. James, being the oldest of the kids, felt the biggest responsibility to make things easier for his family; and his father agreed, pushing James almost to his breaking point every single day. He had to wake at 4:00 a.m. to help with milking and preparing the animals on the home farm to move on with their day. After doing all the morning chores, James also walked to the two-room schoolhouse to start a fire in the potbelly woodstove so that his classmates wouldn’t arrive to a cold school. For his efforts, James received ten cents a day. He used his earnings to buy clothes for himself. He had to use his own money to purchase them, but he was glad to have clothing to wear. By the end of the school year, James and his siblings would have to wear clothes with holes in them unless Lilian was able to repair them with patches and such. Gil was a farmer like most men in the community. He worked hard and did the best he could, but there just never seemed to be enough for such a large family no matter how many hours he worked. For starters, he had to work extra hard to raise enough crops just to feed his family. Everyone was expected to pull their weight. The boys were in the fields, helping with the crops after school, while the girls completed inside chores, such as laundry, cooking, and cleaning. Lillian worked as a nurse’s aide which simply meant she did all the grunt work like changing bedpans and changing soiled bedsheets.

Maggie’s was a small family, so being surrounded by all these people after marrying James suddenly felt a bit overwhelming. She was brought up in a strict Christian family, however, and ionately believed the man in the family to be the head of the household. She did love her new family as well and would never hope to see any of her sister or brothers-in-law wind up in the system because no one wanted to give them a place to live. The fact that her home was only a sixroom house didn’t deter her in the least. It was a farmhouse after all, and the bedrooms were big. The boys shared a room, and the girls shared a one, discussion closed. James got up at 3:30 a.m. to go to work in the morning. When he got home, he always worked in the garden and milked the cow. There was always something to be done on their farm. Maggie would freeze or can the food from the garden. The kids even got into the action by churning the cream from the top of the milk to make butter. They also had chores which they were expected to do, but they were rewarded with a slight allowance. The older kids got part-time jobs mowing lawns and such but really couldn’t do much of that either due to lack of transportation. They were able to do work for the landlord to make just a little spending money of their own. It wasn’t much; but it kept them out of trouble, and they were able to go out with their friends to the movies or to a ball game. The Harmons did the best they could to raise their big family on an extremely limited income and in a really cramped home. Despite the less-than-desirable situation, the children were happy most of the time, and the parents saw to it that everyone had more than they needed. In fact, Maggie had such a big heart that she had an open-door policy. She believed that no child should go hungry or homeless; so if a child needed a place to sleep or food to eat, her door was always open. James’s parents eventually reconciled, so the older children moved back home with their parents. Although everyone was glad to have the kids back together with the family, it left James, Maggie, and their children with feelings of void. Their house felt empty.

3

A short time later, James left his job for a new one, some two and a half hours north of his family’s hometown. He would be logging for a company in a small town near Kentucky. He and Maggie moved with their four young preteens in the middle of the school year. They were to stay in Smithville for less than a year before the logging company went bankrupt. James lost that job and found himself looking for work again. The stress of having to find employment for the first time in his adult life put undue stress on him. Luckily, James’s old boss, Sonny, readily hired him back as a butcher at his market. After all, James was one of Sonny’s best butchers. He’d been with Tallman’s Meat Market for nearly thirty years. Consequently, the Harmons had to find a place to live closer to Northport where Tallman’s was located. Not having much income, even with the new job, finding a place to live was a challenge. Rent was always expensive, and living close to the city made it even more costly. It took quite a long time finding anything that they could even begin to afford to rent. Eventually though, James did find an old farmhouse to move his family into. It was an old colonial house that was almost one hundred years old located in Northport. The ceilings were falling in. The floors were warped. The wallpaper was peeling. In short, the house needed a lot of work. The Harmons moved in, and James agreed to do work on the house in exchange for rent. He wasn’t really a carpenter, but he did the best he could. There wasn’t much he could do for the lack of hot water or an indoor bathroom. However, James put up ing, refinished the floors, and painted. The Harmon children were only ten, eleven, thirteen, and fourteen when they moved back to their home area. They liked Northport, but they weren’t at home. They weren’t in the same school district as before the move to Smithville, so they would still have to make new friends, and the home they were moving into was leaving much to be desired. This, combined with the fact that they were relocating in the middle of the school year, again made the children a little

nervous about the move. Relocating in the middle of the school year is never easy, so Maggie allowed the children to stay home a week to get settled and unpack before going and ing for school. Although the Harmons were quite poor and accustomed to being without material things, these new surroundings did present the teens with obstacles they weren’t sure they were prepared to face. They had just made friends in the new school up north, and now they were going to have to face yet another new one. Not only that but they had to move into a house that was going to take a lot of work before they would feel comfortable even bringing their new friends to. Although they had running water inside the house, not having an inside bathroom meant that to bathe, you’d have to warm water on top of the stove before you could “sponge off.” Since the house had no heating or air conditioning, in the summer, it was hot; and in the winter months, bathing was done very quickly because it was as cold inside the house as it was outside. Since the house had no insulation, the water often froze, so the Harmons went days at a time with no water. It made cooking difficult, so the family would have to make do with sandwiches or whatever else Maggie could drum up out of the kitchen cabinets. The Harmon family didn’t really mind eating sandwiches though. They just enjoyed their family time together, always ing one another at the dining table and sharing stories of their day.

4

The two oldest daughters reached middle-school age and were bused nearly twenty miles to the nearest school shared by middle and high-school-area students. Patrick High School was a large scary place in the middle of nowhere. Kids were literally bused for miles to fill the school, coming from farming communities all around the area. The positive side was that it pulled from every class without discrimination. A student from a poverty-level home may have been riding the bus to Patrick High right next to a student from an upper-class home, especially since there weren’t many private schools in the area at that time. Jeannie Harmon was an outgoing girl. She was a bubbly, extroverted person who loved to be the center of attention. Never mind the fact that most people in her social circle would have shunned her under normal circumstances. Jeannie was such a fun person to be around that no one had the heart to tell her that she didn’t belong. Despite fitting right in with the jockeys and cheerleaders, she felt left out because her family never had enough money to buy all the pretty clothes, jewelry, or makeup her friends wore. No matter how much she was accepted, she felt awkward. Being the oldest child of the four, she also was very overprotective of her siblings. Karla, Jeannie’s little sister, was constantly being picked on, and Jeannie always felt like it was her responsibility to watch over her. Karla was the second daughter. She was a pitifully shy girl. She was pretty enough in her own right, looking like her father. In fact, many people thought she was quite beautiful. However, when she was young, she shied away from other children. She had strawberry-blonde hair and big blue eyes. Her eyes, in fact, were much too large for her face. They were the focus of much teasing from most of the other kids in school. Karla had no idea that her eyes would someday be her best feature, so the mean-spirited teasing she endured in middle school just pushed her deeper into her shell. Making friends was not something that came easily to her the way it did for her beautiful sister. She depended on Jeannie to help guide her through her day. She was insecure in

their new setting. She and Jeannie were in middle school. But the high school and middle school were attached, so Karla was kind of afraid of the transition. The sisters were close, but it was apparent that they just didn’t run in the same circles. But the athletes did grow protective of Karla too because of Jeannie. They too thought of her as their little sister. Since Karla was still very shy, she was content to be accepted in this manner. After all, her adored big sister was with this “in-crowd,” and they were letting her hang out too! What could possibly be better? Jamie and Maggie Harmon only had one son. He was about a year and a half younger than Karla. James Harmon proudly showed off his new son, Todd, to the world. It didn’t take long to determine that their new baby boy had developmental problems. The new parents were heartbroken, to say the least. Here they were, young new parents with three small children, and they had just learned that their baby boy had cerebral palsy. The doctors told the young parents that Todd may never walk; and even if he did, he would likely end up in a wheelchair by the time he was twenty-five years old. In the meantime, he would have to endure many painful surgeries to slow the growth of his left leg so that the right one could “catch up” with it. He also had many exercises for his legs which were not only time-consuming for Maggie but were very painful for Todd as well. These were done several times a day and continued for years until his last surgery when he was about fifteen years of age. Gwyn was the youngest of the Harmon clan. She was a beauty even when she was young. Her hair was honey-colored, and she was very slender. She always had long legs that made the young men do a double take. She didn’t even have to work at capturing their attention. It just happened naturally. The men seemed to know instinctively whenever Gwyn walked into the room. However, like Karla, Gwyn was really the quite type. She was more comfortable spending time alone rather than with other people. She could read for hours, getting lost in the lives of the characters in the books she read.

Books somehow made Gwyn feel safe. Her parents didn’t know it at the time, but she suffered from severe anxiety disorder. She had terrible panic attacks at the slightest provocation; and at times, it would take hours to recover. Sometimes, the aftershock could hang on for days and cause her to become reclusive and seem odd to her peers. Some of the other kids even talked about her strange behavior behind her back, not that it mattered because Gwyn really didn’t much care what her peers thought of her anyway. She didn’t have many friends, nor did she want them. She could probably count the few friends she did have on one hand. Her closest friend, Nancy White, lived right down the street from the Harmons, and her family was in the same income bracket as theirs. So Gwyn and Nancy were a perfect fit from the first time they met! They spent most of their free time together. Right from the beginning of their friendship, they were almost inseparable. When they got older, it was reported that Gwyn told Karla in confidence about often hearing voices in her head. In those days, people didn’t speak of mental illness, so it was rare that anyone got diagnosed with it, much less treated for it. All in all, the move back to their “hometown” proved to be okay, but it certainly wasn’t without trials and tribulations. Being children and young teenagers, the Harmon kids got testy when it came to some of the things they were faced with. They weren’t aware that most of the other families in the area were almost as poor as they were. At least 40 percent of the homes in the area were without indoor plumbing at that time. Prior to moving back to the area, the Harmons may not have had much, but at least they always had each other. James came home early enough to play a game of softball or kickball with the children after he picked the beans from the garden. They would often spend time telling stories about funny things that happened during their days at work or school. They loved to share excerpts from their days. But then things began to change, slowly at first, almost unnoticeably. Karla was too sheltered to realize that the girls she thought were her friends, although they were few and far between, had begun to whisper behind her back. The few Karla had invited over to her home after school to hang out had gone to school the next day and run their mouths to everyone in their circle about the conditions of the home the Harmons were living in.

It was of little consequence that most of those pointing and laughing behind Jeannie and Karla’s back weren’t living in homes in much better shape themselves. They went right along with the crowd and taunted the Harmon kids to the point that the Harmons pretty much only showed their faces when they absolutely had to. They got on the school bus, attended classes, and only spoke when spoken to. In short, life in Northport had become unbearable. The children, who had managed to find their way in Northport by skin of their teeth, were now barely hanging on for dear life!

5

Maggie and James Harmon loved each other dearly. They didn’t agree however on religion. Maggie was brought up in the church. The Church of Christ is where her family worshipped and attended on a regular basis. Her father was well versed in the Bible, and he had read it several times. In fact, by the time James had asked for Maggie’s hand in marriage, Mr. Milton Parrish had already read the Bible from cover to cover no fewer than thirty times. He tried to instill right from wrong in his five children and expected them to live Christian lives. What he didn’t expect was that he would lose his wife and both his young sons while he was young himself. Not only that but he would be told by doctors that he had six months to live, and he needed to get his affairs in order before he was thirty. Obviously, this was a misdiagnosis, but it set a priority for Milton Parrish and the way he handled his affairs from then on. He was just not careful anymore. Life didn’t seem to be precious or long enough. Milton was somewhat of a drinker and often stopped off after work for a beer with his buddies before heading home. Taking care of their family weighed heavily on Beatrice Parrish’s shoulders. The Parrish’s now had five small children all stair step in age, with only two of them being in school. So on the day that tragedy struck, it’s no surprise that it was largely due to the fact that four of the children were left far enough away from their mother’s sight to get into trouble. It was in no manner the children’s fault since after all, they were only children, nor was it their mother’s fault. She had a difficult job taking care of her family. It simply was. Beatrice had walked to the well about half a mile from the house to fetch some water for the day, not thinking for one minute that she was leaving her children in any sort of danger. They were not normally children who got themselves into any kind of trouble. They, by nature, were very well behaved and followed all the rules of the house. Beatrice had been down to the well on numerous occasions to fetch water with no problems, and it was much easier and faster to go get the water without the children. Besides, it would only take a few minutes, fifteen at the very most.

Surely the children would be okay for that long by themselves. Surely, they’d play with their toys or read a book till she got back. Beatrice couldn’t have been more wrong, dead wrong! She was returning from the well, carrying her bucket filled with fresh water to use for the daily chores. She was accustomed to hard work as were most young women of her generation. She was not concerned about having left the children unattended for the twenty or so minutes she was absent from her home either. This was a daily occurrence. The Parrish children were accustomed to having their mother disappear to walk down to the well once a day and knew what the rules were in her absence. Unfortunately, the two youngest Parrish girls managed to find something to get into, something that they shouldn’t have on this day. It was a day which inevitably changed the course of, not only the Parrish children but the entire family, for the rest of their lives. For on this fateful day, the two youngest children, Barbie and Brenda, found a box of kitchen matches and apparently were playing with them and some candles. The girls were a mere three and four years of age at the time, so it comes as no surprise that the children accidently turned the candles over and caught the floor of the house on fire. By the time Beatrice returned to her home from fetching the water, the house was engulfed in smoke and flames, leaving her almost helpless. However, she couldn’t simply stand by and watch while her home burned to the ground with her terrified small children trapped inside. She had to try to get the children out safely. So Beatrice did the same thing any mother in the same position would have done. She dropped her buckets and ran into the burning home she had shared with her husband and family throughout her entire married life. Frantically, she ran from room to room searching for the children, silently praying as she did so. Her frantic neighbors stood in stunned silence, not knowing what else to do, while they held hands and prayed for the young mother and her small children whose lives hung in the balance. Meanwhile, Beatrice Parrish’s only concern was to find her children and to get them out of the flaming inferno that, at one time, was a cozy home to her beautiful family. Now it was a terrifying nightmare. Only Beatrice was wide awake and living right in the middle of it. She could feel the heat burning her skin and thought the flames may try to reach

out and scorch patches of skin from her tiny body just for the sport of it. She knew the older children would most likely be huddled together in the girls’ bedroom. They were just that kind of children. Whenever one felt threatened, they all did; and since Jamie was the oldest as well as being the big brother to three young sisters, it was just the natural thing for them to do. Besides, the only other son in the family was Paul, and he was just a baby. He was much too young for Jamie to play with. Finding her older children huddled together in their bedroom closet was no big surprise. Coaxing them out of the closet before the flames totally engulfed the room was more than Beatrice expected. Time was not something they could afford to waste, however, so she simply had to be sterner with her children than ever before. She had to get them moving in the right direction and out into the yard where her friends and neighbors were graciously waiting to keep watch over them. The children obediently followed their mother out of the burning, smoke-filled house with tears of fear running down their faces. As soon as Beatrice was assured that the children would be looked after, she rushed back into the already unsafe home she had once felt so happy in. She had to get the baby she had left sleeping so peacefully in his crib so that she could fetch water for her family for the day. The fire and smoke had grown thick by now. It was in fact so thick the neighbors grew afraid for Beatrice. They were unsure that she should go back into the home. Some felt it was too late to save Baby Paul. They felt that Beatrice was simply walking into her casket if she reentered her home. She knew where her baby’s crib was, however, and she was not going to leave him in that house alone. Beatrice felt her way to the baby’s crib and carefully lifted him out of it. She cradled his tiny body up next to hers as she made her way to her back door to make her escape from the heat and fury of the nightmare in front of her. Just as she reached the threshold of her back door and began to step through into the early spring air, Beatrice heard the horrifying sound of splintering wood and crackling sparks as the fire overtook the kitchen. She had literally just struggled to walk through the door with her tiny baby in her arms. Beatrice Parrish somehow found the strength needed to reach the safety of her lawn before the house completely collapsed on them.

The crowd had grown large outside the Parrish home by now, and word had finally reached Milton Parrish that the home he shared with his family was burning but that apparently everyone had gotten out in time. No one was sure about injuries or how severe they might be. Since he often worked long hours, he was completely shocked by this news and had no way to know what was going on in his home. As soon as he got the word, Milton told his boss what was going on and that he would have to leave. Little did he know just how bad things were going to get before his world would ever begin to turn upright again. Beatrice collapsed on the ground, having spent all her energy rescuing her helpless little children from the imminent danger surrounding them. The concerned friends all ran to Beatrice’s side to help in any way they could. She was barely alive and was in dire need of emergency medical care. She was burned over more than 80 percent of her body; and of course, breathing was a chore to say the least. The nearest emergency medical treatment center was at least a half hour’s drive, and that was on a good day. Some of the men loaded Beatrice and Baby Paul into their pickup trucks and started for the emergency centers. The men didn’t want to tell Beatrice, but things weren’t looking good for her baby. His tiny body had just inhaled entirely too much smoke and fumes. His little body also had burns on his skin; but thanks to his mother shielding him, his burns were minor. The doctors didn’t think he would be able to overcome the damage done to his little lungs though. In the end, they were proven right. Little Paul died a few hours later in the hospital. Beatrice Parrish lay in a hospital room of her own, clinging to life by a thread. The doctors knew it would be touch and go for a while and that a lot would depend on the willpower of Beatrice herself. They also knew that once she heard of the death of her youngest child, the chances of her having enough willpower would be greatly diminished. Once she was told that her beautiful baby had not survived the fire, Beatrice felt herself falling into a dark place that she just couldn’t climb out of. She was slipping away, but it didn’t seem to matter. The severe pain caused by the burns covering her body was nothing in comparison to the emotional pain left by the realization that her baby was gone. She wasn’t alert enough to that she still had four small children who still needed her. She was barely more than comatose, barely more than a shell of herself. Losing her baby had simply

thrown her into her own private realm of torture. Even thinking of her beautiful little ones was simply not enough to drag her out of her self-ordered coma. The fact is Beatrice Parrish held on for only about a week after learning of the death of her beloved son. She just didn’t have the willpower to pull herself out of the darkness to a place where she could physically heal. Milton Parrish buried not only the love of his life but his youngest son too. He felt so guilty for not bringing up the water before he left for work that morning. Something that would have taken him about fifteen minutes out of his morning ended up costing him dearly. No one in the community openly said to his face that the fire was his fault, but they didn’t have to. Milton placed enough blame squarely on his own shoulders, where he felt it belonged, to make up for what no one else wanted to say aloud. If he had only taken the time out of his busy morning or had he just gotten up a few minutes earlier, maybe, just maybe, his baby and wife would still be alive and sharing his life instead of lying in a cold grave half a mile from his home.

6

Milton Parrish felt like a broken man. He had four small children at home, and now his wife was gone. He had no idea how he was supposed to take care of his children and hold down his job too since it kept him away from home for hours at a time. Two of his children were not even in school yet, so they could not be left at home alone. The Parrish children were bounced from pillar to post, often staying for short stays with one aunt or another while their father tried to put the pieces of his life back together. Just as Beatrice Parrish had done the final days of her life, Milton soon found himself spiraling into the trenches of despair. He was soon so depressed that when he got off work, he would quite often stop off at the local bar and drink until the bars closed. It was easy to do since his family lived close by and was willing to watch his children for him. They all knew the trauma Milton had been through and what a difficult time he was having working through his loss. No one was aware of the severity of his drinking problem, however. It had started out innocently enough. He had never really drunk much and was a good family man. The fire changed all that though. Alcohol dulled his senses. He didn’t have to all that he lost. Suddenly Milton was drinking heavily and was just drifting through his life. His children were good kids, but they were psychologically damaged from the fire and the loss of their little brother and their mother. Now it seemed they were losing their father to another kind of death. Milton was once a wonderful father figure who was God-fearing and could quote the Bible, as well as any preacher behind the pulpit. He was raising his family in the church and wanted them to realize that God had laws and rules set up for men and women to follow. This earth-shattering change in his life was certainly testing his commitment, and he didn’t know if he would be able to stay true to the way he should go. As the children reached their teenage years, they grew especially tired of all the moving around, bouncing from one school to another.

Milton grew tired of all the moves as well, and soon he found himself searching for a stepmother for his four living children. This was going to be a more difficult task than he had realized since the children had grown angry and resentful. They were tired of having their lives in turmoil and not having a clue where they would be laying their heads down at night. Milton soon met a lady who was only a few years his oldest child’s senior. In fact, she was only eight years older than JC, but she seemed quite interested in Milton Parrish when he first approached her. They met at the local pool hall where she sometimes served beer on the weekends for extra cash. Nina was a diabetic; and although she wasn’t unattractive, she wasn’t necessarily drop-dead gorgeous either. She was somewhat overweight, so she didn’t get asked out on many dates because most men her own age simply couldn’t see past her physical appearance. What they were missing was the beautiful person Nina was on the inside. She had the most amazing, outgoing personality in the world! Nina rarely ever got angry; and even when she did, she did not ever raise her voice. She believed in talking out your disagreement with other people and working together to find a suitable solution. She had grown up in an abusive home, so she wouldn’t allow such behavior in her own home. This was a trait shared by both herself and Milton and drew the two together. Milton Parrish was known by everyone as Shorty due to his rather short stature. He claimed to be five foot two inches tall, but most people believed him to be more like five foot nothing. Unlike Nina, Milton had a temper problem. His stature probably had something to do with this since he was teased quite often because of him being short. He endured this all the way through high school and soon learned if he wanted other boys his age to leave him alone, he would have to be able to defend himself. Fighting became second nature to him, and his peers learned not to start anything with him unless they were prepared for war. They also learned not to let Milton Parrish’s stature fool them. He put the true meaning behind the expression “Dynamite comes in small packages.” In fact, some in his hometown believe to this day that it was in his honor that this phrase was coined. He was attracted to Nina’s infectious laughter and love of life. Despite her illness, she was determined to make the most of every single minute of her day.

Dancing was probably Nina’s most-loved pastime! She and Milton started meeting at the bar where she worked as a server so that they could dance and enjoy one another’s company for a while. They had a whirlwind courtship of sorts. Both Milton and Nina were looking for something that the other could give them. Neither of them went into their relationship with blinders on. Nina knew right from the beginning that Milton wasn’t in love with her. She also knew that he might be her only chance to marry and to move out of her father’s house. If that meant that she had to sacrifice love, then so be it. Maybe she would get lucky, and Milton would grow to love her with time. It wasn’t all one-sided, however. Milton was getting a mother figure for his four children. This meant that he would no longer have to move them from one school district to another, as one relative or the next kept them for a few weeks before the burden became more than they could bear. Milton would finally have someone at home with his two children who were not yet in school while he was busy making a living, and then in the afternoon when the older children arrived home from school. It was a win-win situation. It was still far from a perfect situation, however. The children were having nightmares; and as anyone would expect, they resented taking directions from someone who wasn’t their mother, especially if that someone was young enough to be their sibling. And so it was that the new Mrs. Parrish found herself in way over her head with four children she was ill-equipped to care for. She felt that she just may have to throw in her hat and move back in with her daddy, no matter how abusive he was. Anything started looking more promising than being in a home with children that resented her and a husband that got drunk every night. Unfortunately, Nina Parrish’s father was of the old school; and he believed if you made your bed, you had to lie in it. Personally, she wasn’t so sure if he was all that convicted of his beliefs or if he was just glad not to have to worry about taking care of his daughter since her mother had ed away years ago. This was another thing she and Milton had in common. Maybe that’s why she was so determined to stay and give 100 and 10 percent of all she had to give before throwing in the towel. She knew firsthand what the Parrish children were living through and how difficult their lives were yet to become. She could physically feel their pain just as surely as if she had lived it with them.

7

When Nina Parrish lay down at night, she could swear she heard the screams of the first Mrs. Parrish as she struggled to get herself and her baby to safety. It started haunting her at night. This is when her heart began truly melting for the young children now in her care. The children she was having such a hard time connecting with grew to take up a space in her heart. She was so afraid that if she didn’t reach them fast, it might be too late. They might never let anyone into their lives again. Milton tried to start coming home earlier. He too saw that his children were drowning in depression and were having a hard time at home and in school. He wasn’t much help though because by the time he made this realization, he had become a fullblown alcoholic. Even when he was at home most nights, he was dulling his own pain with booze. As much as he wanted to help his new wife, Milton’s family was falling apart before his very eyes. The two oldest children were more than ready to get out of the sad living conditions at home. Jerry was now sixteen years old and was tired of all the hard-living conditions. He missed his mother more than he could even it to himself. He couldn’t seem to find his footing back in society with the kids his own age. His mother and brother’s deaths were just too much to bear. How could he ever return to be a carefree kid? The other kids just couldn’t possibly understand what he had been through. So after too many hours of crying into his pillow in the dark and lost hours of sleep, Jerry finally made the biggest decision he would live to make in his young life. Since he had nothing else to do, Jerry decided that he had no other option but to the service. He had a small problem, however. Jerry was not yet eighteen years of age, so he technically wasn’t old enough to the service without his father’s signature. He knew that his father was in no shape to give his blessing for him to at that time in his life; so instead of approaching him for permission, Jerry left school early one day. He took the GED exam to graduate high school early. Afterward, he simply walked the five miles into town, where he knew he would

be able to enlist in the army. It was easy enough. He just told the recruiters that he was eighteen years old, and they didn’t question his altered driver’s license too closely. By the time that Milton Parrish discovered what his son had done, it would take so much red tape to undo the enlistment that Mr. Parrish decided to let a sleeping dog lie, as they say. Since his son had already seen so much trauma anyway, Milton felt the army might just be good for the boy. He would always tell his children that it is better to leave well enough alone, and he kind of assumed that Jerry would stay out of trouble if he was in the army and not out chasing women. Jerry stayed in the service for three years and did a lot of growing up while he was there. He certainly wasn’t the innocent young boy who grew up on a farm with nothing when he returned to his childhood home. In the army, it doesn’t matter who you are or what kind of family you come from. You are just another private. You do what you are told, when you are told, and how you are told to do them. For Jerry, this was the perfect fit. He didn’t need to stand out. Jerry simply wanted to fade into the background but to be accepted by his peers. He was tired of being picked on by those who thought they were so much better than he was.

8

When he walked out of the service, Jerry was a new man. He was still the sweet man his younger sisters ed him to be, but he was longing for a family of his own. It came as no surprise to anyone that Jerry got involved with the first girl that gave him a second glance. When Abigail first told him that she loved him, he was flattered. It wasn’t long before he was falling head over hills in love with her too, or at least he thought he was. Jerry asked Abigail to marry him just six short months after they met. Of course, she was thrilled to be getting her own home too. She truly felt like a grown-up. She didn’t know that she was just a little girl playing house. Abigail and Jerry had three children together while they were married. Jerry’s family had always questioned the paternity of the children. Abigail had a bad reputation in town, and she had been known to run around on Jerry from time to time. Jerry would never know that there was a question as to paternity. He was killed in a boating accident not long after his daughter was born. Jerry was a family man, and he adored his children. This news would surely have devastated him.

9

Maggie was the second of Mr. and Mrs. Parrish’s children. She was lost after Jerry left, though she grew to love her stepmother. Nina was so close to her own age. After all, that they were more like sisters in a way than daughter and stepdaughter. Nina taught her all she knew about cooking and cleaning. What she didn’t know, they were content to learn together. Maggie and Nina grew to be remarkably close friends, as well as stepmother and daughter. Then something happened that Maggie thought never would. She grew to love her stepmom. That was a good thing too because after losing his only living son, Milton sunk even more into depression and alcoholism than ever before. Most nights, he would get off work and head straight for the pool hall where he could drown his sorrows in the bottle. Then he would drive home for a late dinner and spend precious little time with his family before heading off to bed. He wasn’t in any way mean or hateful to his new wife or family. He was just absent, and that wasn’t exactly what Nina had signed up for. Well, not that she really had any idea what she had signed up for. Her sights hadn’t been set any further than getting out of her father’s house. Mission accomplished. She really didn’t have any ideas what she wanted after that. Nina was happy, most of the time anyway. She was well aware of Milton’s problem with alcohol and his proclivity of stopping in at the pool hall after work to drink his memories away. She had long since learned to accept this as the norm. She simply planned her evening around him arriving home from work much later than when he got off. Maggie, however, had a much more difficult time adjusting to life after the fire. She loved her stepmother. But after Jerry left, the void simply widened, and she felt like a ship without a sail. As luck would have it, Maggie was close friends with Betsy Lou Harmon. Betsy Lou wanted Maggie to go out with her brother, James. She needed someone to double with. It was the only way Betsy Lou’s father would let her date.

She had been invited out to the town dance, and she really wanted to go. Maggie felt sure her daddy wouldn’t let her go; but to her surprise, he did. It was nearly an hour’s drive to get to Louisville. Her guess was that it had something to do with the fact that she would not be doing the driving; and it was, after all, a double date. Maggie needed to get out and have some fun. She had been moping around the house, and he was worried about her since her mother’s death. She had no way of knowing that her father had been, as it turned out, misdiagnosed with tuberculosis. This was probably why he was trying to find husbands for his teenage daughters who he otherwise would have thought too young to be dating.

10

James and Maggie only dated for about a year before they married, and they knew precious little about each other. Maggie’s father was still pretty much an absentee parent, so he didn’t get to know much about his soon to be son-in-law. Although he loved his wife and daughters, Milton Parrish just couldn’t seem to overcome the trauma. His friends and family wanted him to snap out of it, but he just seemed to be stuck. He couldn’t find a way out of the darkness that threatened to swallow him up. James’s family was a stark opposite from Maggie’s. He had twelve siblings, more than he cared to count. Three of his siblings died by the age of two, and his family was living near poverty. They were migrant farmers, so they moved around a lot, and Jerry longed to have a stable home. His parents fussed and fought all the time, so Jerry longed for one who, at the very least, could spend a full day together without raised voices. Maggie’s father made rather good money; but by the time he got home on payday, chances were good that he wouldn’t have money for groceries and bills because he had stopped by a bar on his way home. The children didn’t know whether they would have money for anything extra. They were almost always afraid to ask. They did usually have everything they needed though, even that was often scarce in James’s home.

11

It didn’t take long before Maggie and James were married. They settled in and tried to adjust to one another’s upbringing. James knew from the start that it was going to be a huge adjustment for his new bride. He didn’t expect the change to be instant. After all, Maggie’s family had money, something his family had never had. James knew he would never make the kind of money he felt Maggie deserved. He wanted to give Maggie a beautiful home and all the things he knew a young bride must dream of having. He had five sisters after all. He grew up listening to all the things they told each other their husbands would give them when they got married. James wanted, with all his heart, to give Maggie the things he heard his sisters tell each other they wanted. James and Maggie Harmon struggled financially right from the beginning of their marriage. James’s family had always had to make ends meet with little to nothing. He was accustomed to doing without, but he didn’t want his beautiful bride to do without anything. James worked from daylight to dark just to keep a roof over their heads. He was a hard worker. The couple was proud of their home; and they were, for the most part, a happily married couple. They started their family within the first year; and by the time they had been married five years, they had four children, Jeannie, Karla, Thomas, and Gwyn. Life was hard for the Harmons. They struggled, but they were happy together. James’s family was somewhat dysfunctional, and his younger siblings depended on him and Maggie for a stable homelife. Quite often, Maggie and James had as many as seven children and themselves living in a small three-bedroom house.

12

Randy and Julie Harris had three sons. They lived in Frankford, Pennsylvania. They were a wealthy couple, and Mrs. Harris enjoyed all the perks associated with being a socialite. Perhaps it was because Randy was a well-respected businessman in the community. Most of the adults in town were well aware of just who he was. Julie got bored with life as a socialite, so she decided to start her own business. She was a particularly good seamstress, so she decided to put that talent work. She began making puppets and selling them at street fairs and festivals. Yes, life in the Harris home was good! Randy and Julie Harris met another couple, Jorge and Mildred Ricco. The two couples hit it off right away and were instant friends. Since both couples were into the festival business, which required quite a lot of work and travel, they would often pack and travel together. The couples and their families soon became almost inseparable. Had they not met through their careers in the festival business, they would have nothing in common whatsoever. Jorge and Mildred Ricco were barely middle class, and the real reason they were doing the whole festival business had less to do with loving the job and more to do with Jorge’s ability to work only when he wanted to. Jorge apparently thought if the electric and water companies didn’t turn their services off, all was right with his world. Mildred got tired of Jorge; and since the couples were together all the time, she had the perfect opportunity to throw herself at Randy. Randy Harris really did love his wife, so he tried to wave off Mildred’s advances. They were friends after all. Surely, she couldn’t be serious. She wouldn’t expect him to step out on his wife of sixteen years to have an affair. She didn’t think he would risk everything for sexual gratification. Mildred was seeing dollar signs, however. She was tired of living week to week. Jorge had a great personality. He was a fun guy to hang out with, but he was not much of a provider. They had three daughters at home, and Mildred wanted them

to have everything the other kids had. Oh, and she wanted to rub elbows with all those rich people she saw at those ritzy department stores she simply couldn’t afford to shop in at Christmas. Mildred never truly expected her plan to lure Randy away from Julie to work as well as it did. She expected to have to fight to capture his attention. Mildred didn’t think she would have any power of persuasion over Randy at all. He was an attractive businessman who was surrounded by women all day. He probably wouldn’t even give her a second glance. But Mildred wanted more than just friendship from Randy. She wanted what Julie had, and she was willing to throw herself at Randy to get it. Randy was not strong enough to stand up against Mildred’s attacks. He couldn’t fight her off. She was just more than even the strong businessman in Randy could fight off. He had taken on million-dollar corporations and won; but when it came to women, Randy just didn’t have the strength to say no. He left his wife and moved Mildred and her children into his home. They were married within a few months.

13

When Randy and Mildred betrayed them so badly, Julie and Jorge turned to each other for comfort. Their friendships were beyond repair, and the trust that once was beyond reproach no longer existed. In the end, Julie moved out of her beautiful home, taking almost nothing with her. The memories were just too much for her to bear. She simply wanted to start over with a clean slate. Jorge and Julie began consoling one another and spending a lot of time together at the festivals. Julie started throwing herself into her small business, trying to deny the fact that her once happy marriage had been torn apart and was irreparable. Jorge and Julie were becoming close friends. Since they spent literally all day together, they had learned one another’s life stories. It seemed that they came from opposite sides of the tracks, but they still had a lot in common. Jorge always made Julie laugh, and of course had the festivals; but more than anything, they were both alcoholics. Those closest to the Harrises and the Riccos couldn’t believe it when Jorge and Julie also decided to marry. Their friends and neighbors could often be heard whispering behind their backs with jokes. They were heard saying things like “You’d think they were from Mississippi or somewhere. They expect those kinds of things down there!” No one really knows why they did it, but Jorge and Julie packed up all their belongings and moved to a small hole-in-the-wall down in middle Tennessee. It was bad enough that they moved into this horrible small town. The place was full of cliques; and the locals didn’t invite new people in, not even children. Randy and Julie’s boys were eleven, thirteen, and fifteen years of age. Their oldest son, Brad, chose not to move to Tennessee with his mom and stepdad. He was fifteen and so, by law, was old enough to make that call for himself. He ultimately decided to stay in the home he grew up in. Eleven-year-old Tad and thirteen-year-old Sam weren’t so lucky! Due to their ages, they were court ordered to move with their mother to Tennessee. In actuation, Mr. Harris was secretly glad that he didn’t have to try to accommodate

six children in his house.

14

Jorge and Julie settled into the small town of Cornersville, Tennessee, that must have felt like it was a million miles from sunlight. Jorge and Julie didn’t have too hard a time settling in. There just wasn’t that much to do. You were miles from your nearest neighbor, and the Riccos lived a long way out in the country. They lived on a small farm, though neither Jorge nor Julie had spent one day of their life farming. However, Jorge was fooling himself. Buying a donkey and a couple of chickens did not magically turn a home in the country into a farm. There were parts of the home that were so primitive that if anyone were visiting, they would swear they had just stepped back in time, not that many people visited anyway. Their home was simply too far from town, and Jorge and Julie never invited anyone over. Jorge was an extremely strict stepfather. Maybe it was because he had so little control over his daughters that it gave him a rush to have that control over Julie’s sons! Anyway, Julie was so busy with her new career that she simply didn’t notice the power war between Jorge and her sons. Unfortunately, the boys caught the worst side of their new stepfather. It was bad enough that they were now living in a home they didn’t want anyone to see. Now Jorge thought he had slave labor at his beck and call, and their own mother was too wrapped up in her new business and husband to even notice. Things just kept getting progressively worse for Julie’s boys. Tad was fifteen years old and had gotten a job as a busboy at Shoney’s Restaurant in the town of Lewisburg. He needed clothes so he would fit in with the rest of the kids in school. He was already having problems with his peers, and not having decent clothing just made matters worse. Tad and Sam were from the city, so they hated being in the country. There was absolutely nothing but grass as far as the eye could see. For most of the kids in Lewisburg, that was great. They just stayed outside until dark and climbed trees or explored the woods. They did anything to get out of the many chores their parents could find for them to do if they didn’t.

The Harris boys didn’t have that option. Jorge was hard on them, and folks often wondered what possessed Julie to put up with Jorge’s treatment of her sons. It was well known that Jorge had a short fuse and a bad temper. He was always the life of the party; but in his everyday life, Julie’s boys always caught Jorge’s wrath. Jorge’s daughters were spoiled brats who didn’t appreciate a single thing their dad ever did for them. All he ever got out of them or their mother was constant criticism. Mildred never once praised her husband in front of her children, and they learned at an early age that Jorge was only there for their amusement. He was determined not to let his stepsons pick up where his daughters had left off. He and Julie were living in a farmhouse that was falling in, and he needed Sam and Tad to help him to take care of things. There is a lot of work to do on a farm, and the house itself was barely inhabitable. It was cold in the winter and hot in the summer. It had a wood heater, but there was no insulation in the walls. So it didn’t really matter what kind of heat the Riccos used. The house was never comfortably cooled or heated. Jorge thought Sam and Tad should come straight home from school and get to work on the “farm.” He was a city man who didn’t know the first thing about being a farmer. He didn’t let that stop him though. He planted a huge garden, bought a few chickens and some goats. It didn’t really matter what he did to his property since he was clueless anyway. He did precious little on the farm. The thing Jorge did best was to shout orders at Sam and Tad. They worked in the garden and took care of the animals. The goats and chickens had to be fed daily. Then Tad gathered the eggs while Sam milked the goats. It really didn’t matter how much they did. It was never enough. Jorge was never happy, and he rarely did anything to help. Julie was always busy as well. She did her best to make the farmhouse seem like the home they had left behind. It didn’t quite measure up though. Julie churned the goat’s milk into butter, and her family always had fresh eggs. She spent her days sewing puppets and stuffed animals to take with her to the festivals. She stayed so busy in her own little world that she scarcely noticed how miserable her two sons were. Things were getting progressively worse for Julie’s boys. They had been living in the old farmhouse for two years; and Jorge’s drinking was getting out of hand,

making him even more cantankerous than ever. Tad was fifteen years old and was still at Shoney’s Restaurant working as a busboy, starting right after school until closing around midnight. It was often after two in the morning when he got off work, and he was having to balance school and work. He was trying hard to fit in with the rest of the kids at school though; so he needed to have nice school clothes, which his job allowed him to buy for himself. Tad had to catch a ride into town since he was still too young to drive; so he was determined to buy himself a car by the time he could get his driver’s license, and he did! He bought it before he could even drive. Of course, it wasn’t anything special. It was a used vehicle, which was quite old and barely ran. But it was his, and it was paid for! It was a monster of a car and was a bit of a gas hog, but Tad couldn’t have been prouder of it than if he had just walked in somewhere and paid cash for it off of the showroom floor. He was finally going to be able to do what he’d dreamed of for so long. He waited until he knew his mother and Jorge would be at a festival, selling Julie’s puppets, where they were still a big hit. When he was sure his mother and Jorge were gone for the day, he quickly packed up as many of his personal items as he could into his new car. Knowing how upset his mother would be, Tad quickly scribbled her a short note, telling her not to worry about him. He wanted her to know that he had a job and that he would be okay. Tad remained at Shoney’s and worked hard nearly every night. Since he was well liked by the managing crew there, he parked his car in the restaurant parking lot. He lived out of his car for nearly a year. He was going to school during the day and working at night. He would get a shower at school in the boy’s locker room before heading to work. Tad graduated a year ahead of his class at Connersville High School in 1980. If the hard life he’d lived up to this point didn’t do anything else for him, it taught him that if he wanted something, all he had to do was to work hard and he’d get it. He felt unstoppable, and it was a wonderful feeling. Tad had been at Shoney’s approximately two years when Jeannie started her job there. Her story was almost tragic. She had married young to get out of the home she had grown up in, just as Tad had done. Her homelife had been much

different from that of Tad’s; but it made her feel the need to escape, nonetheless.

15

Jeannie’s family was considered poor, and they rarely had money for the extracurricular activities that everyone else seemed to have. She couldn’t stand being poor and having her peers looking down on her family simply because her daddy didn’t make the kind of money her friends’ dads did. Jeannie met Mitch at the Baptist Church she and her siblings had been attending for a couple of years. Although Mitch was seven years older than herself, Jeannie was flattered and thrilled when he started flirting with her and eventually asked her out on a date. Since Jeannie was a mere sixteen years of age, she was afraid that her father would not allow her to go out with him though. However, she was shocked when her dad allowed her to go, under one condition. Jeannie would be allowed to go out with Mitch only if her younger sister went too. So what was intended to be a romantic first date turned into a double date with Jeannie’s little sister and another boy from church. They had fun nonetheless, and Jeannie and Mitch soon turned inseparable. They dated approximately two years before they were married. The honeymoon didn’t even last two weeks. Mitch showed his true colors on their honeymoon. He got extremely aggressive on the honeymoon when Jeannie seemed too nervous about having sex with him. Mitch hit Jeannie out of frustration. They did have sex of course. They were married after all, and Mitch had no intentions of taking no for an answer. This set the course for their marriage which would last less than five years. Mitch and Jeannie had been married about two years when Jeannie gave birth to their baby girl. Joanne came into their world on a cold January morning. She was a healthy and happy baby. Joanne grew quickly and was soon walking and getting into everything like all babies do. Naturally, she was a handful for the young married couple. It didn’t take long for Mitch to begin losing his patience and temper with his new baby daughter. While Jeannie was accustomed to his temper loss toward herself, she simply could not tolerate it with their new daughter. Joanne was just an

innocent little baby. She didn’t do anything to deserve his wrath, and Jeannie simply would not tolerate his outburst with their baby. She did stay with Mitch longer than she should have though. Joanne was sick and as babies do when they don’t feel well, she wouldn’t stop crying no matter what her mother did. It seemed like she was crying twenty-four hours a day. On the third day of hearing Joanne cry, Mitch lost his temper. He hit his daughter who was nine months old. She was much too small to defend herself, and Jeannie couldn’t stop her husband’s rage. Their baby wasn’t badly hurt, but Jeannie knew it was only a matter of time before he hit Joanne again. So when Mitch left for work the next morning, Jeannie set about, packing up her car to leave before Mitch got back. She took only what would fit into her midsize car. She knew she was leaving most of the things she and Mitch had accumulated in their short marriage, but it didn’t matter. She also knew that if she didn’t leave, the next time Mitch lost his temper, she or Joanne might not be so lucky. Mitch might kill their innocent baby in his fit of rage. It was one matter to hit her, but it was another thing when his anger spilled over to Jeannie’s baby! This is what led Jeannie to move to Lewisburg. Her mother’s sister, Bobi, lived there and agreed to give her and her daughter a place to live until she could get her feet under her. She gladly accepted her aunt’s offer, and she began looking for a job immediately. Jeannie had come from a very hardworking family, so it was not long before she stopped into Shoney’s Restaurant to apply for a job. She had experienced working as a server since she had to work the entire time she was living with Mitch. She went to Shoney’s in the early afternoon between the lunch and dinner hours. The staff was just preparing for the dinner rush. They were filling condiments and wiping down tables. Sam could sit down with something to eat and take a breather for a minute. He was in the middle of doing just that when Jeannie came in. He noticed her immediately. She was just beautiful; but she looked completely lost, like she hadn’t had a minute’s rest or a good meal for weeks. Sam couldn’t help but to be curious about the young woman and her little child. He was wondering if the young mother even had a place to sleep that night. He recognized desperation when he saw it. He’d been there himself. Sam told one of his servers to go ask Jeannie if she would like to have a bite to eat while she was

filling out the application he’d seen her ask for and if she needed milk for her little girl. Jeannie was touched beyond words by Sam’s act of kindness. He could not possibly know that she had not eaten a bite in the last twenty-four hours or that she was just about out of milk and food for her child. Nor could he have known that she had escaped an abusive situation with her ex-husband, and the reason she had ended up in his store was because she had left him with only the clothes on her back and things she could fit into her small car. Sam hired Jeannie on the spot. She needed a job, and he needed a server. It seemed like the perfect solution to both their situations. Jeannie found a sitter for Joanne, her daughter, and went to work that very night. Her prayers seemed to have been answered. Sam was so smitten with Jeannie and Joanne. He tried to keep things professional. He tried to see Jeannie on only a professional basis. After all, Sam was a good-looking and hardworking man. There were many young women in Lewisburg. He could get all the dates he could stand, but that wasn’t what he wanted. He couldn’t help himself. What Sam wanted was Jeannie. What he wanted was Joanne. He wanted a family with Jeannie. He realized what most people would think. They would see that Sam and Jeannie only knew each other for a few weeks before they moved in together, but he didn’t care. Sam asked Jeannie to move in with him after only knowing her two months. For him, it had been love at first sight. He couldn’t keep his new girls off his mind! He thought about them constantly. He wanted to make sure they were taken care of. He didn’t want Jeannie to have to worry about anything ever again.

16

Life on the farm was extremely hard. Day in and day out, there was work to be done. Jorge was relentless with Tad and Sam. He had no comion on his stepsons and didn’t allow them to be kids. Tad grew reclusive and stayed locked up in his room most of the time. He only came downstairs when his mother demanded he do so. Jorge soon learned it was better to leave the boy alone than to hear Julie’s wrath for upsetting her son. She had finally reached her threshold of tolerance for him picking on Tad. She felt he wouldn’t harm a flea and couldn’t defend himself against the bully her husband could become when he was drinking. Sam was sick of his stepfather. He was sick of a lot of things. Sam wanted to go back home. He wanted to go back to his father’s house. He knew that wasn’t going to happen though, so he did the only thing he could think of. He got a job as a busboy at Shoney’s Restaurant in town. Since he was only fifteen years old, it was the only job he could do. He couldn’t work in the kitchen due to liability and was not allowed to work as a server because he had to be at least sixteen years old. Sam went to school every day and then went straight to work, closing most nights at midnight. He worked every weeknight except Friday since he allowed himself Friday nights for football games at school. He made up for not working on Friday by working the rest of the weekend. Sam saved every penny he made. By the time he was sixteen years old and able to get his driver’s license, Sam bought a used car of his very own. He was excited because now he would finally be able to move out of Jorge’s grasp. While his mother and Jorge were away, Sam packed everything he owned into his newly purchased automobile. He still didn’t have enough money saved to rent an apartment, not to mention that he wasn’t old enough anyway. He would figure out where he would sleep that night when he got off work. He had friends he could stay with for a day or two. Sam worked hard that night, and it was way past closing time before he was able to clock out. He hadn’t been able to talk to any of his coworkers about crashing with them for the night, and he was dead

tired. Since it was a warm night out, Sam decided he would just sleep in his car for the night. He could figure out what to do about a shower in the morning. In the meantime, his car was parked behind the building so no one could see it from the road. Lewisburg was a small town. Nothing ever happened there. Heck, the town rolled in the sidewalks after eight o’clock. Sam felt entirely safe sleeping in his car. If he was concerned that his mother might worry about him, he didn’t show it.

17

The next few days, Sam did begin to feel quite guilty for leaving his little brother on the farm all alone. He knew that Tad must be miserable. He also knew that he should have told his mother of his plans, instead of sneaking out when she wasn’t home. Sam just couldn’t bring himself to move back to the farm, however. He knew nothing was going to change there. He did go to visit his mom and brother out at the farm. He knew that was important, and it was the least he could do. His mother was understandably upset. She first pled with Sam to come back home, then resorted to threatening him. It was obvious that neither she nor her son were in any mood to be reasoned with. Sam was almost sorry he had come, but then he reminded himself about how it would feel to be in the shoes of his family. When they had both settled down, Sam explained to Julie that he had gotten a job in town. She could see for herself that he had bought himself a car. Sam assured his mom that he was still in school and that he was still on the A honor roll. He was taking care of himself and would graduate with honors. He promised his mother he would keep in touch with her. He simply could not live under the same roof with Jorge anymore. The two of them were like oil and water. They simply did not mix. Julie was not happy with the arrangement, but she knew her son. If she demanded that he move back out to the farm, he would simply wait for the opportunity to run away again. The fact was things were much calmer around the house without Sam and Jorge at one another’s throats. She could only hope that Sam would soon find a friend’s house to stay at so that he wouldn’t be living out of his car. Sam’s life eventually fell into a routine. He got up early enough to get to school before classes started. He hit the gym so that he could use the showers in the locker room. Sam not only kept up with his schoolwork. He also played football on Friday nights, as well as working his job. He was tired and didn’t have much

of a social life, but at least he didn’t have to put up with his stepfather.

18

Sam graduated ahead of his class in Lewisburg. He started working more hours at Shoney’s. He was a good worker and was well-liked. It wasn’t long before he was promoted to assistant manager. It meant more money on his paycheck. Pretty soon, Sam was able to rent a nice house and was able to furnish it with some used furniture of his own. Life was better for him now than it had been living under the same roof with Jorge. Sam was working hard one Saturday morning when Jeannie walked in the front door. She looked exhausted and had a baby with her. Jeannie had married quite young, and her husband was abusive almost from the honeymoon. She got pregnant after a year of marriage; and when the abuse didn’t stop, despite their new baby, Jeannie felt she had no choice but to file for divorce. She had not finished high school, much less gone to college, before getting married, so she was unprepared to go to work. Jeannie was tired from the long drive with her irritable baby in the backseat of the car. She had no money and didn’t know where she and Joanne would stay the night. Jeannie used what little cash she had managed to save and bought milk for her daughter’s bottle. Then she managed to scrape up enough loose change and bought a glass of tea for herself. Business was slow, and Sam couldn’t help but to notice the pretty girl and her baby. They just captured his attention, and he would later tell his friends that he fell in love with Joanne long before he did with Jeannie. Sam watched them sitting at the booth for a while before working up enough nerve to walk up and introduce himself. Pretty soon, the two were talking like old friends. It was obvious that Jeannie probably had not eaten all day, so Sam offered to buy her dinner. That’s the way Sam and Jeannie met. One could almost say this was their first date. Jeannie was hired on the spot as a server too. Sam could see she was desperate for a job and he needed a good server. They were soon spending all their time together, and Sam found that he enjoyed

spending time with Joanne too. It was really against corporate rules for management to date the staff , but Sam didn’t let that stop him from becoming seriously involved with Jeannie amazingly fast. Within a couple of months, he found himself asking Jeannie if she wanted to move herself and Joanne in to live with him. Jeannie was not always known for making the best decisions where men were concerned. She always seemed to need to have a man in her life. It didn’t really matter how good they treated her. She just had to have a man there. It was like a security blanket. She felt that Sam was different somehow. Jeannie felt an instant connection to him. She thought they had probably had similar backgrounds. She wasn’t exactly sure what it was, but she could just feel it. Besides Sam was, well, cute, and he liked her! Jeannie and Sam had been dating a while when Brad decided to come to Tennessee for a visit with his brothers and his mom. Since it had been a while, his mother decided to make his visit extra special, and she got reservations for dinner and a play. This was to be an amazing opportunity for Jeannie since her family had never been able to afford anything such as this. She was so looking forward to the evening. Knowing that it was a semiformal event and that everyone else would be going as couples, Julie set about finding Brad a date for the evening. Jeannie’s younger sister, Karla, wasn’t dating anyone at the time, so Jeannie asked her sister to go with Brad to the dinner theater. Karla wasn’t as enthusiastic at the idea of going to dinner with Brad as Jeannie had imagined she would be. She had imagined Karla would look forward to having a nice evening out, so it would be no problem convincing her to go. She didn’t count on her sister’s natural shyness being a problem. Karla just didn’t want to go out and entertain anyone she didn’t know anything about. What if they didn’t have anything to talk about? What if they just didn’t like each other? Karla was afraid that Brad would be a drag, and she would be stuck with him all night. She was afraid he would be a real bore. She would frankly rather be stuck in her room all night with a book than to be somewhere with a guy she didn’t know who might bore her to death. It didn’t make her a bit of difference that Brad was Jeannie’s new boyfriend’s brother. She didn’t have to impress anyone. Karla told Jeannie, “Thanks for the offer but no thanks.” She thought she would sit this one out.

Jeannie did not know anyone else to ask to go as a date for Brad though, and she just refused to take no for an answer. She kept on at Karla, asking every day or two until Karla finally gave in. Karla knew her sister, and she also knew she’d get no rest until she agreed, so she reluctantly agreed to go as Brad’s date. She and Jeannie decided right away they would have to go shopping for new outfits for their dates. They had a lot of fun trying on new outfits and talking like little girls playing dress up.

19

Brad arrived in Lewisburg around lunchtime on Saturday. Jeannie and Karla were inside, putting on their makeup and finishing touches for their dates that evening. Karla was still a little bit nervous about her decision to go to the dinner theater with her sister. It’s one thing to go along as an extra but to go on a blind date? Well, that was a whole other game plan. Jeannie really didn’t know anything about Brad. The only thing she could really tell Karla for certain was that he was Sam’s older brother. She couldn’t even tell her what he looked like. Okay, to be fair, she couldn’t or she wouldn’t. Karla wasn’t sure which, not that it mattered. Karla hadn’t really dated much; so to be fair, she probably couldn’t afford to be too picky. Anyway, she was too nervous to notice much what Brad looked like. The girls heard the cars drive up into the driveway and all the talking as everyone started pouring out of them. Julie and Jorge had pulled in behind Brad, so they were all just getting out of cars at the same time. Everybody was happily hugging one another and saying how happy they were to be there. Secretly, Brad just wanted to know about the girl his brother had found for him to go out with while he was there to visit. Karla and Jeannie gave everyone time to say hello and then went outside to introduce themselves too. Introductions were swift, and then the cars were unloaded. Everyone was soon relaxing and just catching up on lost years. So much time had ed since Brad had seen his family. Eventually, the day settled down, and Karla and Brad had a chance to take a short walk on their own. They just seemed to click. The couple just seemed to have so much in common. Once they started talking, they just could not stop. Possibly for the first time in his life, Brad had found someone who listened to him. He felt he had truly made a friend. He was falling for Karla, and he was falling hard. That was okay. Karla was enjoying Brad’s company way more than she ever expected to. She was shocked by it. She and Brad spent every possible minute together. They knew that Brad would

soon be leaving to go back to Pennsylvania, so they really wanted to do everything they could to get to know each other. Brad had only been in Tennessee a few days, and she felt they had known each other forever. The week flew by; and before they knew it, Brad was packing to return home to Pennsylvania. Karla had no idea she could be so disappointed to see someone leaving whom she had known for such a short time. She and Brad had spent every possible moment together, but they both knew it would be months before they would see each other again. The best they could do was to exchange addresses and phone numbers. When Brad left early the next morning, he promised Karla he would call and write every day. It was with many hugs and tears that Karla saw Brad off that morning. The thought of being separated by nearly seven hundred miles was more than either of them could stand. Karla was always quite good at letter writing, so naturally it was easy for her to keep her promise to keep in touch. She sometimes mailed two or three letters a day. Brad loved hearing from her, and she really poured herself into those letters. Brad was a typical young man and wasn’t nearly as adept at writing. Karla usually received a letter from him about every couple of days. It was through these letters that the two love-struck youngsters truly got to know one another. They grew to be best friends and eventually fell so much in love that being apart was more than they could bear. Brad was a mere twenty-one-year old when he decided that he had to make the seven hundred mile move to be closer to the girl he had grown to love. To say that his family was shocked would be an understatement. However, things were not exactly kosher at home in Pennsylvania anyway, and Brad was all too glad to have a reason to leave. He could not have been more excited to finally have someone to love in his life, someone who would return his love. His stepmother and stepsisters were counting the minutes until he finally packed up his car to leave. There was certainly no love lost among the girls in the Harris home when Brad announced his plans to move. It was with all the excitement of a first love that Brad and Karla began their new relationship. Brad found a nice apartment in Nashville and began the difficult task of finding a job. It took him a little time; but through perseverance, he was finally able to find a job and to

settle into his new life. He was happy, and life was good. Brad and Karla saw each other at least two or three times a week and spoke on the phone almost nightly. Before long, it was as if they had grown up together. They could finish one another’s sentences, and each knew what the other was thinking at almost all times. Their love grew so deeply that they could scarcely stand to be apart. There was one tiny part of Karla’s life that she failed to share with even Brad. It was just too painful, and she kept it locked up inside. This ended up costing her everything she held dear, everything she loved.

20

Sam may not truly have loved Jeannie when he first asked her to move in with him. He was lonely and was just looking for companionship. He loved her company and her friendship; but most of all, he loved Jeannie’s baby girl. Joanne had grabbed at his heartstrings from the first moment he set his eyes on her. She was such a happy and beautiful child. Sam never would have thought he’d want to be a father at the age of twenty, but he just had to ask Jeannie to marry him. He had to take some of the stress from Jeannie’s life to make things easier for her. He wanted to make her happy again. Jeannie was probably happy for the first time in her life. Naturally, she said yes! Since she had been married before, she and Sam decided to keep their wedding small. They were going to be married at Mr. and Mrs. Ricco’s home with just family and a few friends present. Sam asked his older brother, Brad, to be his best man. Who else would he ask? His brother was the one who took care of him when he was young. Things may not have been perfect growing up, but they were brothers. They’d had to depend on each other when their parents were having problems. Surely Brad would be proud to share this important day in his life. Naturally, Jeannie asked her little sister Karla to be her maid of honor. It only seemed the right thing to do since she and Brad had been with them at their wonderful date at the dinner theater. It was Karla that Brad had moved to Tennessee to be near. That is something that no one else had managed to accomplish up to that point. Brad, Sam, Jeannie, and Karla were like a team, and it only seemed right that they would all share in this beautiful event. These would only be more wonderful memories for Karla and Brad. It was a time to be cherished not only by the bride and groom but by the best man and maid of honor as well. Throughout the entire event, Brad and Karla were secretly seeing wedding bells in their own lives. They both dreamed of a day when they, too, could be together

forever. It was in their daydreams and night dreams too. Sometimes they just spent their time together dreaming about what their lives would be like if they didn’t have to leave one another at the end of the night. Visions of waking up in each other’s arms were a constant in their minds.

21

Life for Sam and Jeannie proved to be difficult from the beginning. Sam absolutely adored his little stepdaughter from the moment he first set eyes on her in Shoney’s. He often joked that he fell in love with Joanne long before he did Jeannie. She just looked adorable and vulnerable too. She was a cute little nine-monthold full of piss and vinegar, as they say. She was just so easy to love. Jeannie and Sam decided to have a baby of their own, so they stopped using birth control and soon were expecting. Sam was ecstatic at the prospect, but he was living in a dreamworld. He had visions of butterflies and rainbows. In his mind, he and Jeannie would add their baby to their little family, and everything would be perfect. Sam had no idea how difficult his life could get simply because he and his new wife wanted to have a baby together. William was born prematurely and was in the hospital six weeks before being released. His lungs were not fully developed, so he was on a ventilator and was in an incubator. Jeannie and Sam didn’t get to hold their baby because the docs wanted to limit the germs introduced to his immune system. The Ronald McDonald House provided housing for Jeannie so she could spend as much time as possible with her new baby. Sam, however, had to return to work after the first week. Being a manager at a restaurant meant he had to be in the building. So he went back to Lewisburg while he left his family in the care of the hospital staff. William had so many health problems caused by his premature birth. He had so many ear and respiratory infections his young parents seriously thought they should rent a room in his pediatrician’s office! Unlike most new babies, William struggled to sleep. He wasn’t just awake every four hours to be fed. He didn’t sleep at all unless he was lying on his daddy’s chest. He couldn’t breathe if he were lying flat on his back. The respiratory problems made that impossible; so if he weren’t lying on Sam’s chest, William would cry for hours. He was clearly in pain. The doctors assured Jeannie and Sam that the infections were only temporary.

22

Sam was having to work long hard hours to pay all their bills. The doctor and hospital bills had piled up. With William having been a preemie and having had so many dire issues associated with that, the doctor bills seemed insurmountable. Sam was feeling the pressure to keep up. He worked six nights a week and long hours each day. Twelve-hour days were the norm, and the work was exhausting. Sometimes Sam felt like he was living at Shoney’s Restaurant. He seriously thought he had stepped back to the time when he was living out of his car. What was so sad about this situation was that the hours at work almost felt like a relief to Sam. It gave him a break from the stress of having a sick baby at home and all the floor walking and wall climbing. Sam knew that he should hurry home to his wife who never got a break from taking care of their two-year-old daughter and sick baby boy. He knew that hearing a baby cry for hours on end was much harder than managing adult-aged servers in his store. At least if his servers or cooks weren’t doing their jobs, Sam could fire them and hire people who would do theirs. He had a way out. Jeannie didn’t. She just had to figure it all out if William was crying for hours. She still had Joanne to care for, and she was a highly active two-year-old. This would prove to be a problem for the couple in months to come.

23

Meanwhile Brad had left Tennessee and returned to Pennsylvania to the home he had grown up in. He was still living with his father and stepmother. His life was hard because his father was so enamored with Mildred that he was blind to how badly she and her daughters were treating his oldest son. He allowed them to treat Brad as their own personal servant. It must have felt normal. After all, they treated Randy just as badly as they did his son. Brad and Karla kept in touch for months. Their letters were constant, intimate, and sometimes risqué language. They were both love starved and felt like kindred spirits. They were both filling a void in each of their lives. Brad had lived with emotional abuse for years, and Karla was just so shy and introverted that she faded into the woodwork and missed out on nearly everything life had to offer to young teens. So the two young people lived through their letters and daydreamed about what life would be like if they could only be together. They dreamed of having a life together like their siblings. They were seeing everything like rainbows and butterflies. They never once dreamed that their lives would be anything other than perfect together. It never crossed their minds for a single minute that their lives would take a turn and flip their dreams upside down. After six months of living through love letters, Brad took a leap of faith and moved down to Tennessee to be closer to the young lady he had fallen head over heels for. His mother felt eternally grateful for the gift she had given her. Brad moved in with Jorge and Julie. He hoped it would only be temporary, but it was the only choice he had. He had been living on a shoestring in Pennsylvania while he was in college. Although he’d been living with his dad, Brad had been expected to pay his own way. He paid his own car payment, insurance, and rent. His father didn’t exactly cut him a break either. Brad paid for his own groceries and enough in rent to cover what Randy considered to be his share of the household bills. He felt like he was teaching his son to become a successful businessman like himself.

Randy didn’t hold his stepdaughters to the same standards as his son though. The girls spent money like it grew on trees, and it wasn’t money they had earned themselves. Their mother, Mildred, handed them wads of cash without regard to what they wanted it for. They all had so many clothes that many of them hung in their closets with tags still on them. They also ate lunch or dinner out at the ritziest restaurants almost constantly, usually running up tabs to a hundred dollars or more. Mildred and her daughters simply felt entitled despite having lived on the other side of the tracks most of their lives. They didn’t even bother to give Randy credit for the beautiful things they now had.

24

What Randy didn’t realize was that the only thing he was really teaching his oldest son was that he didn’t want to be like his dad. Brad worked hard to finish school and to make his own way. But he wanted his work to mean something. He wanted to have a nice life but not at the cost of his family. He wanted to have stability and to be able to provide for Karla when they got married. He just knew they would be married someday. Brad knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Karla. She was everything he ever dreamed about. He thought Karla was just about perfect. He had visions of their lives together. That is what Brad was envisioning when he left Pennsylvania to move to Tennessee. He did not want distance to be a hindrance for himself and Karla. He wanted Karla to have the kind of life he grew up with, without all the drama of fighting with their children. Brad knew in his heart that Karla was the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. He knew that he could provide a good life for Karla and the children he envisioned they would someday have together. He was dreaming of a forever life that would not be the nightmare living with his father and stepmother had been.

25

Brad had no way of knowing how badly things were going in Karla’s life. She had not shared this part of her life with Brad and suffered in silence, so he had no way of knowing that she was living on the edge of depression. So when Brad went to see her that night, he planned to ask Karla to marry him. He loved her with all his heart and could not possibly imagine his life without her. He thought they would marry and have the perfect family. Brad went to pick her up for their weekly date, and they went out to a nice restaurant for dinner and a movie. Their night was perfect. They talked for what seemed like hours about everything and nothing. It seemed as though they had known one another forever! Brad never dreamed their evening would end any way but perfectly. He had planned everything down to the minute detail, dinner at their favorite restaurant, followed by a romantic movie, then a walk in the field behind Karla’s home. Brad planned to ask the love of his life to marry him and spend the rest of her life with him. He had no idea what turmoil lay within her. There was just no way he could have anticipated that him asking Karla to marry him would be the end of their fairy tale. He never imagined that she was teetering on the edge of a breakdown. Brad thought he had planned everything. He was dreaming of how perfect their lives were going to be together. So it shook his whole world when his night ended in disaster. After the movie was over, Brad took Karla home, and they took a short walk in the moonlit night. It was a warm summer evening, and it was perfect for what was to be a life-changing stroll. Brad loved Karla with every fiber of his being. He simply could not imagine living his life without her. Karla had become his reason for getting up in the morning. She gave him a reason for living. Every minute of his day was filled with dreams of Karla. She had made Brad feel less like a misfit and gave him a feeling of being loved for the first time in his entire life. That is why he had such great confidence when he asked her to take that ill-fated walk with him. He and

Karla walked hand in hand to the field behind Karla’s home. Karla seemed a little more quiet than normal that evening, but she was always the quiet type, so Brad did not think too much about it. He was too engrossed in his plans to notice. He couldn’t wait to propose to the young woman he had fallen head over heels in love with. When Brad found the perfect place to sit down for a moment, he found himself to be almost shy. The words he felt so sure of just moments before suddenly felt stuck in his throat. Though he knew how much he loved Karla and that she loved him, he was afraid of rejection. Brad had lived his entire life in a family who spurned him. He had memories of being treated like a paid servant or an afterthought, so he was afraid of losing the woman who had changed all that. He did find his voice, however, to ask Karla to become his wife. He wanted to spend the rest of his life making her happy. He wanted to give her everything she didn’t have. Brad just knew that he could give Karla the home she always dreamed about. So when they had found the perfect place to take a break from their walk, it was with confidence that Brad asked Karla the question he had been carrying around with himself all night. He looked directly into his true love’s eyes and asked her to marry him.

26

Broken and sad, Karla’s eyes filled with tears as she gently told Brad that she simply could not marry him. She just sobbed as she let the man she loved more than life itself down and broke his heart. Brad had no idea how badly Karla’s homelife had gotten. Her parents, James and Maggie, had been having marital problems brought on by having to struggle so hard just to make ends meet. Not having enough money to survive on had finally proven to be too much for James. He had become a bit of a tyrant. Maggie was always very reserved and followed her husband’s lead, but his temperament had become incorrigible. He couldn’t control the outburst brought on by the stress of providing for a family on a shoestring budget. The tension in the Harmon home was palpable. Maggie had never worked outside their home, so she never dreamed she could move out of the family home she had with James. She loved him after all and was taught that a woman was to be silent in the family. Women obeyed their husbands and did as they were told. But she had all she could take. She knew that James was a great man, but she could not take the stress of watching her husband struggle for one more day. James was becoming unhinged as he tried to care for his young family. These were the things Karla was thinking about when Brad asked her to marry him. She saw how her parent’s marriage was falling apart before her very eyes. The two most important people she had looked up to her entire life were now in distress. Karla felt her world was crashing down. She thought that if her parents couldn’t stay together, then it would be pointless for herself and Brad to marry.

27

James and Maggie did ultimately separate for a short while. Maggie moved out of her family’s home and moved herself and her children in with Jeannie and Sam. She and Karla found jobs in Lewisburg. They worked hard to restore some semblance of normalcy to their lives. Life got better for them as they settled into their jobs and had an income coming into their family. Maggie was working in a cosmetics-making company and was proud of having found her own way, but she had a huge void in her heart. She was lonely, and she missed her husband. James too was lonely, and he hated coming home to an empty house. He missed Maggie horribly and wanted her to move back home. He was a proud man and found it difficult to swallow his pride to call his wife. However, Maggie had changed. She wanted to be courted and chased. She wanted James to what had attracted them together. She not only wanted these things, she needed them. She had been so young when she and James married and had moved into a family that was so dysfunctional that she scarcely knew how live with him. So James agreed to date again. He wanted to make Maggie happy. He seriously wanted his wife back home with him. James made the hour’s drive to Lewisburg to take Maggie out to dinner or a movie. They talked like schoolkids and laughed like old times. James took his time to let his wife realize he had changed. He wanted Maggie to know how much he wanted her back. He really wanted Maggie to feel his love for her. They had been married a long time. James wanted her to know he thought she was worth fighting for. Eventually both he and Maggie grew tired of the dating game, and Maggie moved back home with her husband. They needed each other, and their lives were intertwined to a point of no return. One simply could not survive without the other. That’s why Maggie decided to return to their home in Northport. She missed her husband and wanted to be back in his home where she felt she belonged.

28

The turmoil in her family drove Karla to tell Brad she could not marry him. She was heartbroken over the troubles with her parents. They had been her role model her entire life. She had looked up to them and could never have imagined them having problems in their marriage. Karla had no idea how drastically her choice would change both Brad and her own lives. Their lives would take turns that would affect them forever. They both were broken and beaten by the turn of events. Brad was broken to a point that caused him to make a decision which changed the course of both their lives. Brad was so broken down by the breakup he could not even think. He let his life spiral as he fell into a deep depression. He thought he had lost everything and that no one could fix his broken heart. His mother was worried about her oldest son. She thought he would do something drastic if she did not intervene. Her concern prompted her to speak to her best friend about his condition. Julie talked to Rhonda often about Brad’s mental state. She was seriously worried about her son. She even wondered if Brad might become suicidal. He loved Karla so dearly he could not imagine his life without her. So it was no wonder that she and Rhonda devised a plan to pull Brad out of his depression. Rhonda told Julie that what Brad needed was a diversion. She said she knew a young woman from church that they should set Brad up with on a blind date. She said she could talk to Valerie on Sunday after church. She was almost giddy at the idea of being a date fairy. This was the plan that solidified the turn of events that would change everything for both Brad and Karla. It would change the tide in their lives and would last a full thirty-five years before turning around. Brad had already hit rock bottom, so he agreed to take Valerie out. He thought it couldn’t hurt to have a woman to talk to. He was lonely and wanted to fill the hole left in his heart from the breakup from Karla. Unfortunately, he was not aware of all the upset in Karla’s life. He had no idea

that she was dealing with the realization her parents were having all that trouble in their marriage. He didn’t really speak with Karla about why she refused his marriage proposal. He was just too hurt. His broken heart was leading his decision-making and overriding his brain. So he reluctantly picked Valerie up for their first date. Valerie was five years older than Brad and felt marriage had ed her by. She was already past the age where she would be considered an old maid in the south. She wanted nothing more than to be married. She wanted to have a family of her own. Brad didn’t know her motives when she threw herself at him. He didn’t know what she was hoping was to snag him by giving him her body. Brad had been a bit of a geek and didn’t have much interaction with girls growing up, so Valerie’s attention had its desired effect. He and Valerie had sex on their very first date. She knew exactly what she was doing. Brad fell into her snare. He was filling the void from Karla with the physical touch offered to him by Valerie. He attributed sex to love; and after only six months, he asked Valerie to marry him. He wanted the family he had tried to establish with Karla. He wanted someone to come home to and to share his days with. If Karla did not want to marry him, Valerie was more than eager!

29

Brad and Valerie had a simple wedding in the church where Valerie was a member. There were many guests from their church, along with of both sides of the couple’s family. The wedding was done on a shoestring budget; but it was quite beautiful, nonetheless. Church helped with the decorations and reception. They decorated the church and brought food for the guests. The young couple was overwhelmed by the number of people willing to help them and the love shown to them. They were so happy to share this special event with so many people who clearly loved them. Their wedding was beyond their imagination and felt like a fairy tale. Neither Valerie nor Brad could have imagined what the future held for them. Though Brad’s mother and her friend had pushed the two lovebirds, Valerie would be a good wife, and he could be happy. Brad didn’t realize that one woman could not replace another no matter how much he loved her. He was not purposely being unfair to Valerie. He loved her after all. He truly felt that love would grow enough to make him forget what he had with Karla. He had no idea how ridiculous that hope was. He just loved Karla too deeply. Brad did grow to love his new wife though, and she was soon pregnant with their baby girl. Valerie had a difficult pregnancy from the very first trimester. She was extremely sick throughout the pregnancy and was ordered to bed rest in about her fourth month. Though Valerie’s weight gain was steady at first, when her blood pressure skyrocketed, she began losing weight, and soon her baby’s life was in jeopardy. Brad and Valerie became alarmed when the doctor advised them that Morgan might not survive if Valerie were to deliver too early. However, the choice was taken out of the young couple’s hands when not only Valerie’s life was at risk but the life of Morgan as well. Valerie was an older expectant mother, and her health hadn’t been great in a while. She was hospitalized at four months so her doctor could monitor her health up until delivery. At only twenty-six weeks, Valerie was whisked into surgery for an emergency cesarean section.

Morgan came into the world weighing a mere one pound and eleven ounces. She was so tiny, and even her skin was underdeveloped. It was almost translucent. The young parents were not even allowed to hold their new baby. The risk of infection was just too great. So it was with a heavy heart that Valerie checked out of the hospital and moved to the Ronald McDonald House so she could stay with Morgan as much as possible. The doctors continued to warn Valerie and Brad that she wasn’t likely to survive. Morgan stayed in the hospital for a full six months and showed the hospital staff and her family how much will she had to live. She fought with everything a tiny baby could possibly have and grew stronger each day. Ever so slowly, her body began to get stronger, and the doctors were finally able to let her breathe and eat on her own. It took several more weeks for them to release Morgan to go home with her fearful parents. She was still colicky and had some other health issues that would have been normal for any other new baby. It had changed how the new parents viewed taking care of her would be done. Brad and Valerie were struggling to adapt to caring for a new baby. Morgan had way more needs than other babies, and they were just like other new parents. They had to learn as they went along; so even with Morgan’s extra needs, they just took things as they came up. They had friends from church and family to help them, but the couple wanted to do as much as they could on their own. They soon got into a good routine and were able to navigate parenting well. Morgan grew stronger with each ing day and was soon as healthy as other children her own age. Being a preemie did have some lasting impacts though. Morgan wasn’t nearly as emotionally developed as other children, and sometimes that showed in how well she interacted with other children. She had only one close friend, and she preferred it that way. Children can sometimes be cruel to other children whom they fail to understand, and Morgan was highly intelligent. She loved books and was often found losing herself in the story of the characters she read about in them. Morgan poured herself into those people. She was a geek by most people’s standards; so she was awkward around normal kids, and they all knew that. No one said so to her face. But she knew it, nonetheless. Brad and Valerie was aware of the situation; but since they were both a bit awkward themselves, Morgan just seemed like a normal kid to them. They were proud of their little girl and the fact

that she was almost a little genius.

30

Valerie found herself feeling sick and had a loss of energy, so she made an appointment with her primary doctor. He did an exam and listened to her lungs. They were filled with fluid, and Valerie was diagnosed with pneumonia. She was put onto antibiotics and was given steroids to help her breathe better. The steroids should have sped up the recovery process. Instead, Valerie had a bad reaction to them, and they almost cost Valerie her life. She eventually recovered but was left with mental illness, which made her life difficult. Her ability to care for her own child became almost impossible. She practically ignored their daughter, leaving that responsibility solely onto Brad’s shoulders. It put a lot of extra stress onto him, but he quietly endured Valerie’s episodes. She became pretty much a burden onto her husband and often took him for granted. Because her family had always done everything for Valerie, she automatically expected the same from Brad. He was supposed to do everything around the home and bring home a big paycheck too. He thought he might die from the stress of it all, but he just kept going and provided a home for his family. The stress of the situation finally took its toll; and Brad found himself a house to rent, then moved out of his home with his wife. He and Valerie found themselves more content living separate lives but chose not to get a divorce. They only saw one another when Brad went to pick up their daughter on the weekends. This arrangement went on for six years, and they had no intention of changing it. But sometimes fate has a way of changing the course of a person’s life. It steps out of right field and smacked Brad right in the face. Karla Harmon, or whatever her married name was, called him out of the blue. He was at work in the children’s hospital at the time. She didn’t come right out and tell him who she was. It was more fun to make him guess. She and her mother and two sisters sounded exactly alike on the phone. Literally no one could tell them apart when they were talking to them. So it came as no surprise when Brad didn’t guess who she was when she asked him if he could. He first guessed that she was both her sisters. Then he guessed she was her mother, Maggie.

31

Karla’s heart was broken when Brad and Valerie got married. She had hoped the two would break it off and Brad would find his way back to her. She had complete confidence in Brad’s love for her. She always believed he would be back. Karla had no idea he could find love with another woman. She didn’t know how much he needed a family of his own. She didn’t know that Brad was also filling a huge void in his own life. After Brad and Valerie’s wedding, Karla knew that she’d have to move on with her life without the man she loved with all her heart and soul. While her parents were separated for a short time, Karla had found a factory job making circuit boards for IBM. She really loved the job. It was rewarding, and she had learned how to solder there. She had only been working a short time when the business slowed almost to a crawl. People had begun being laid off, and Karla was moved to a different department in quality control. She inspected the boards just before they left the building. She was looking for poor work and to repair the board before it left for the customer. The boards were put under a microscope to see if the solder had air holes in it. If she found any, she had to repair it before ing the board on to shipping. Karla loved the solidarity of the position. She was nursing the wound left behind by Brad. She was doing this when a young man approached her. He seemed so confident and full of himself when he walked right up to Karla and said, “Hi, my name is Alan! I’m here to take you out.” Karla first blew him off. She wasn’t ready to date anyone else. She was still so hurt. It was the week before Christmas, and Alan was leaving the next day for vacation in Pennsylvania. He was a little mad by Karla’s disregard for his chivalry. But he didn’t have time to dwell on it. His plane was leaving Nashville early the next day, and he had to be up at 5:00 a.m. When Alan returned from his vacation with his family, he swallowed his pride and approached Karla again. He was hoping that she was having a really bad day the first time he talked to her. So Alan walked up to Karla confidently and asked

her out for dinner. He picked her up at her aunt’s home at 7:00 p.m. He took Karla out for dinner, where they talked for hours to get to know one another. Alan was accustomed to swooning the ladies, and Karla was no exception. Alan had moved to Tennessee just a few short months before meeting Karla, and he still had a northern accent. Karla was intrigued by it. She loved listening to him speak and hearing the stories he told her. His life seemed worlds apart from hers. Karla was soon able to get beyond the pain associated with her breakup from Brad. She still yearned for the man who was her first true love, but he was married to someone else now. It would be a moot point to pine away for a man who was now unavailable. So when Alan asked her out again, she naturally said yes. The two were soon inseparable, and Karla could envision her life without Brad. She had dreams of being married to Alan instead. Alan could also see a future together with Karla, so he asked her to accompany him to visit his family in Northeastern Pennsylvania. She had never been to the state, so that invitation sounded incredibly alluring. She excitedly packed her clothes and got ready to meet the family of the new love of her life. It was an eighteen-hour drive from Lewisburg, so she and Alan would have plenty of time to get to know each other better.

32

They left Lewisburg promptly at four o’clock directly after getting off work. It was always a hard drive simply because of how long it was however having someone to ride along on the trip made it easier. Alan, always the storyteller, kept Karla entertained with stories from his childhood. He was extremely close to his grandparents and spent many hours in their home growing up. He was the apple of their eyes, so he got very spoiled. He was the first grandson, and they showered him with everything a little boy could dream of. In fact, the other grandchildren were mostly in Alan’s shadow. Mr. and Mrs. Marshal loved the other grandchildren, but they simply adored Alan. He could do no wrong in their eyes. It is no wonder Alan grew up to be self-absorbed. He truly felt that if he wanted something, all he had to do is say so. Karla heard stories of the mischief Alan got himself into as a child and teen. He’d pull silly stunts like locking his grandmother into her attic when she had gone upstairs to store her Christmas decorations. She had beans cooking on the stove top, and they promptly burned while she was imprisoned by her young grandson. The list of things Alan had pulled growing up was long, and his family enjoyed telling stories associated with them to his new flame. Granny Marshal still had a little fire inside her body about the attic incident and said so as she retold the story that had ed down from generation to generation. Alan enjoyed showing Karla around the small mountain community where he grew up and introduced her to his childhood friends. As with many mountain communities, most people never moved from the only home they ever knew. His hometown was extremely small too and was once a thriving coal mining town. There were a few mines still up and operating, but they were few and far between. Alan’s Grandpa Marshal worked in them for many years, and he was one of many men who became ill with black lung disease. It can be a debilitating illness, and a person can suffer many years with complications. Breathing is the hardest thing for a person with black lung. It can feel as though one is suffocating, and the cough is unbearable at times. There really is no treatment for black lung, and it is just something a person must learn to live with. It not only affects the victim but their family as well.

Karla had led a sheltered life, and Tamaqua left her culture shocked. There was a bar on every corner, and they had customers till all hours of the night. One night, Karla and Alan left the home of Alan’s parents to meet one of his high school buddies at one, of the fifty-two bars, in their small hometown to shoot the breeze and to play catch-up. Men and women alike would spend hours on a barstool, drinking shots or beer and eating the free peanuts. The first time Alan took Karla to one of these establishments, they stayed till closing at 2:00 a.m. There wasn’t really anything else to do, and they were listening to stories from an older gentleman about life with Alan’s grandfather. The visit with Alan’s family was so much fun the week seemed to speed by. Soon it was time to leave Pennsylvania and return to Tennessee. Alan fared his family goodbye and left with promises to return soon. Hugs and kisses were exchanged all around, and Betsy invited Karla to come back anytime. Their family seemed to really like Karla, and she felt almost like family. Their trip was long going back home, but it wasn’t nearly as bad having company along the way. The time slipped by easily as Karla and Alan explored each other’s lives. They had a full eighteen uninterrupted hours just to ask questions about anything they wanted to know. By the time they returned to Lewisburg, it felt as though they had also grown up together. They dated three years before Alan finally proposed to Karla. He often teased her that he had told his mother if he weren’t married by the time he turned twenty-six, he would just stay single forever. He was twenty-six when he married Karla; so in his book, she barely made the deadline! Since Karla’s family was mostly poor and would not be able to come for their wedding, Karla agreed to have the wedding in Pennsylvania. Alan’s parents wanted to pay for the wedding; and since it was too far for them to go to help with the plans, Mrs. Cot and Alan’s sisters planned the entire event. They were to be the only two women in the wedding party. The whole thing went off without a hitch and was so amazing that Karla felt eternally grateful. The happiness she felt sharing this once-in-a-lifetime event with the people Alan loved just about made her heart explode.

33

Alan’s parents were also generous with money to put down on a house. The young couple was married a short six months before purchasing their first home together. The home was on the outskirts of Lewisburg in a small community lovingly referred to as Yell because one can yell as loudly as they can without being heard by another human. They bought a two-bedroom, one-bath home on a twenty-eight-acre farm. The property was simply breathtaking. It was twenty miles outside of town, and the nearest neighbor was half a mile down a gravel road. They had cattle and a garden. Karla canned or froze the vegetables they grew. Both Karla and Alan loved spending time outdoors. They thrived off the land they loved. That first two years were good for them. Then things went south for the young couple. Alan’s job got unsteady, and he never knew if it was going to still be there when he got up in the morning. So Alan created a resume for himself, and Karla started a job search for him. Alan ed a job recruiter and sent them a copy of the resume. Karla searched classified ads for QC jobs. Alan had worked in quality control for about ten years, and he was good at it. Karla sent out many resumes, and then they waited to see if anyone called to set up interviews. Along the way, Alan went for so many interviews they lost count of them. Many times, he would return home to Karla feeling the interview went very well only to be disappointed not to get a return call from them. After much frustration and shed tears, Alan finally got called in for an interview down in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. The interview lasted several hours; and both the owners of the small company, the HR manager, and the other owner’s son were all present. It was a grueling interview and lasted long enough that the HR manager offered to take him out to dinner. Of course, Alan decided to go to see if he could schmooze Charles. Charles loved five-star establishments and made no exception when he and Alan went out. They talked late into the night, and Charles told Alan all that the Shoals area had to offer. He offered that if Alan were a water person, he would love the area. It’s

good for fishing and boating. There were also some extremely nice campgrounds and parks in the area. It seemed to Alan that Charles was grooming him to accept a job offer. In fact, by the next week, Charles was calling him back for a second interview. Finally, it appeared that Alan and Karla might be moving out of the tiny town of Lewisburg. Charles invited Alan’s wife to come along so she could have some input into a decision about moving to Alabama. Again, Charles treated the couple to a luxurious dinner and answered any questions they had regarding life in the Shoals area. Following dinner, Charles gave them a pair of tickets to the local theater for a play and told them he would be in touch. Alan and Karla thoroughly enjoyed their evening and left Muscle Shoals with feelings of excitement. They were not disappointed as Charles called Alan early the next day. He told Alan that he was privileged to offer him a job with his family business. Alan would be manager of the quality control department. It was an important job since the company had just purchased a new piece of equipment used to measure dimensions to exact measurements. No one else in the company had even seen this beast much less knew how to use it. It cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and was a must in the automotive industry. Alan had never even heard of the machine; so clearly, he didn’t know how to use it. He lied through his teeth and told the owner of the plant sure he could run the sophisticated machine. He was hired on the spot. Alan turned in his two weeks’ notice immediately and told Karla to begin packing their household items to prepare for their move. Movers were hired, and the search for a home for rent began. Alan was being paid more than he could have imagined; but of course, Charles was under the impression that he knew how to use their new measuring machine. Alan knew he had better learn how to use it in a big hurry. Otherwise, his new position would be short-lived. He poured over the machine’s manual and locked himself in his own office to check it out. He stayed at the plant long past everyone else to try figuring out what made the monster piece of equipment tick. In short time and through somewhat of a miracle, Alan was able to have the thing up and running and could pinpoint a part’s measurements precisely. The president and vice president were so impressed they gave the young man a raise almost instantly. He’d only been at the company six short months, and he’d already set a record in raises.

Alan was somewhat of a Narcissus who thought he was smarter than everybody else, and this turn of events simply poured fuel onto a slow burning flame that was his ego. Never mind that he was a simple mountain boy who’d just lied to his new employers about being able to run the monstrosity of a machine. He’d just been able to figure it out all alone, something no one else had been able to do. That feat had made him feel superior and pretty much like a pure genius. In most people’s minds, it would have made him lucky to have not gotten caught in his own lies. Alan had no inkling how much he had risked in being dishonest. Self-confidence is one thing, but to think that everyone around you is stupid is never complimentary and put Alan into a bad light. He was very discreet in his criticism of others though, so it kind of went unnoticed. He would come home from work with stories of how his coworkers performed their jobs. He was always a knight in shining armor who jumped in to save the day. His wife listened intently and ired his abilities. She loved him so deeply that she did not even notice how often he berated his coworkers and even the very bosses who had given him a chance to learn more than he ever would have in a classroom. This job had given him an opportunity he simply would not have gotten otherwise. His position with Muscle Shoals Manufacturing Company propelled him into such a high management position it opened many doors for him. His employers were so grateful to him for getting their expensive piece of equipment up and running that Alan was given free rein to run his department. He was put in charge of the entire area and had many people working under his command. Naturally, Alan attributed this to how intelligent he was. He wouldn’t even it he had barely scathed by getting caught up in his lies or that the company was so desperate to find a person to tackle the beast sitting on their manufacturing floor was his saving grace. Alan’s job required quite a lot of traveling, and he was able to take Karla along with him on most of his trips. Alan would often extend his trip so he and Karla could explore the cities in which he was working. They were able to see so much more of the country this way. They felt like their lives were so exotic because of the places they were able to see. The costs of these trips were greatly reduced since the company paid for his plane fare and the part of the hotel expenses associated with his job.

34

Alan and Karla made many friends in Muscle Shoals, and they loved the area. They always had other couple friends to do things with, so they were extremely happy there. They eventually bought their second home in Florence, Alabama, just across the Tennessee River from Muscle Shoals. It was a modest threebedroom, two-bath home sitting on an acre lot. They had wonderful neighbors and became friendly with the older couple next door to them. Their children were born in Florence and enjoyed living directly next door to a couple who were old enough to be their grandparents. In fact, William and Janice became surrogate grandparents to the girls as they got older. The girls often migrated next door to watch Disney movies and to enjoy the snacks Janice gave them. Janice and William became surrogate grandparents to Alan and Karla’s small children, and they welcomed the children’s visits. The girls often went next door while Karla was in the shower, and Karla would call next door to have Janice send them back home. Janice and William grew to love having the young children and their visits. Karla and Alan Cot enjoyed having a couple living next door whom they considered family since both their families lived at a distance. They even accompanied the Haimons as guests to their property in Florida. The Haimons were wealthy but lived rather frugally. There would be many trips in which they included Karla and Alan. The couple was also close to most of the management people in Muscle Shoals Manufacturing Company. Many of Alan’s peers were around the same age as Karla and Alan. The group enjoyed spending time together and doing the things most young couples do. Mostly they did things as couples; however at some point, the young men began having a guys’ night that did not include the wives. Most of the wives were okay with that arrangement. They simply accepted it as a “boys will be boys” situation. They did not consider that most of the guys in the group were not married or what turmoil that could have caused.

The situation was of little consequence though. Karla and Alan lived in Alabama approximately ten years before his small plant started experiencing difficulties. The automotive industry was on a downhill roll, and the orders for auto parts, of course, was negatively impacted. Chrysler, Muscle Shoals Manufacturing Company’s main customer, was no longer placing orders. No orders meant massive layoffs. Alan knew his job would be safe if Mr. Ram could afford to keep him, but his days were numbered. He knew he needed to begin searching for a new place of employment immediately. That’s how he and Karla landed in the state of Virginia. Alan had ed a headhunter to help him find a new job. He had more than ten years’ experience under his belt, so finding employment elsewhere was much easier this time. He was eventually hired by a manufacturing company in Southwest Virginia called Marley Moulding Company. They manufactured refrigerator gaskets. It was in the small town of Marion, Virginia, and was one of the main places of employment for the small town. There were approximately three hundred employees. Alan adjusted to the change of companies rather easily. The area felt like home to him since it was also a mountainous region. In fact, the landscape was pretty much the same as where he grew up; and his coworkers reminded Alan of his hometown, so he was happy to be there almost immediately. Karla had a little bit harder time adjusting to what the small town had to offer. It was a full hour’s drive to get to anything other than a Walmart, and Karla was always within a stone’s throw from shopping and other forms of entertainment. The mountains were breathtaking though, and Karla was determined to make it feel like home. She enrolled her oldest daughter, Brooklyn, to the cheer team for the Indians. The girls were able to make many friends this way, and Karla met some of the other mothers too. It was a good way to get her foot into the door of their new community. The residents there were not known for being too inviting to newcomers. They were mountain people after all, and mountain folks are known for being closed to outsiders. They tend to stay to themselves; and if you want to be a part of their family unit, you must become like minded. That was a huge problem for Karla. She was married to a northerner after all. Yankees too want to be heard and are very outspoken about issues they feel strongly about. You never have to worry about what they think. Northerners insist on telling you what they think about any issue.

Karla didn’t realize how much she had changed since being married to Alan. She had adapted to her in-law’s bluntness and had forgotten how rude they came off as. She simply felt honesty is the best policy. She didn’t realize she was coming off as arrogant. That was certainly not her intention. She simply felt if someone asked for her opinion, she owed it to them to be completely honest. This tactic backfired on her, however. She was at cheer camp with her oldest daughter, and the coaches’ children were misbehaving right in front of her. She kept her mouth shut for a while; but when the other mothers around her started to complain, Karla got up and told the young ladies they needed to quiet down and pay attention. Being the coaches’ daughters, they should have been setting an example for their fellow cheerleaders. The other parents did not appreciate Karla’s intervention with their daughters. It did not matter that most of the other mothers were irritated with the girls’ behavior. Karla was an outsider, plain and simple. She did not belong; and therefore, she had no right to say anything to their children. By addressing the girls’ misbehavior, Karla suddenly became an outcast. The town folks suddenly looked down on her and treated her like she had leprosy. Karla thought she’d at least have from her husband, but he was so self-absorbed he didn’t even notice how badly she needed him. She was lonely and missed her friends and family. Life in the mountains was far different from what she could have ever imagined. She felt she could not do anything right in the eyes of the people she was now surrounded by. She was under a microscope, and the people she lived around let her know it. Alan, having been raised in the foothills of the Pocono Mountains, felt right at home with the locals, so he made friends with the mountain men. That’s what started the problems between Karla and Alan. Alan enjoyed hanging out with the male friends he had made in Rural Retreat. He looked forward to weekends when they would all gather at the pool hall for a few rounds of pool and beer. He and his friends often neglected their spouses, preferring each other’s company to that of their wives. Unfortunately, though most of his friends were married, they lived like single men. They often gathered to play poker late into the night. They would drink beer and often ordered in pizza. Alan often lost track of time and forgot about his

wife and children who were waiting at home for him to come back to take them out. Karla would find herself eating dinner and watching a movie with their two small children. Alan would often come home wreaking of alcohol. In the beginning, Karla simply accepted this as part of their lives because the other wives were dealing with the same situation, and she wanted Alan to fit in with their new friends. However, this situation became a bone of contention with Karla. She grew tired of playing a single mother to their two children while Alan was out till all hours of the night. He was having the time of his life while Karla was still being scrutinized and unfairly judged. The young couple began arguing and became resentful of one another. Alan was no longer a hands-on dad and husband. He was only there on paper. Karla accepted that he had checked out as a father and husband. Everyone in Rural Retreat grew to expect her to be alone at school events. They noticed how Alan had grown cool toward his wife. But Karla did not believe in divorce, so she kept putting up with Alan’s dismissive behavior. She just made a couple of close friends and spent her free time with them. Though they noticed Alan was not spending time with his family, no one spoke of it. They did not like how he acted like a single person and how he treated his family like an afterthought. After a while, Alan stopped giving Karla any money for herself and their daughters. He told Karla that he went to work every day while she sat on her butt at home. He never took into consideration that Karla kept his home so spotless you could literally eat off his floors or that Karla drove their children all over town for the many activities they were involved in. These things made her schedule every bit as demanding as his was. It was of no consequence to Alan. He’d long since decided he was much better than Karla was. Alan told Karla she was from a family of hillbilly bumpkins. Never mind that his own family were every bit country as was hers. Both families were from rural areas and were proud of it; but Alan made it sound as though Karla’s family, being from Tennessee, made them less educated and less intelligent than his.

35

Alan soon began telling Karla how she would never amount to anything and how worthless she was. He did not even give her credit for her of him while he was in school working on his master’s degree in business. This was especially unfair since she had been the one to write most of his papers while in school. Without her help, Alan would never have completed the requirements to earn that degree. He would have still been in Lewisburg had she not helped him with finishing his papers. Alan was not notorious for giving credit to anyone. As far as he was concerned, only God was better than himself, and he was a close second to even Him. Alan honestly thought he had accomplished everything in his life with no help at all, and anyone who contradicted that idea must truly be delusional. Life was good for the Cots, and he only credited himself for their good lifestyle. When they had relocated to Virginia, Alan’s life revolved around other men who stepped out on their wives. He was living proof that people do change into the ones they surround themselves with. Karla was so in love with him that if he had said the sun sets in the east, she would have believed him. If he swore it was daytime when it clearly was the middle of the night, she would have thought it was everyone else who was crazy not to know this. So when all his friends covered for his indiscretions by claiming to be with Alan on business trips, she fell for it time and again. Karla would have continued tolerating Alan’s hostility toward herself. His temper tantrums and verbal abuse didn’t come often, and she loved him too much to leave. He was always so remorseful following an outburst, and he never got physical. Karla genuinely wanted to keep her family together. She didn’t want her daughters to deal with a broken family. She simply did not realize the lasting damage staying with Alan was doing to their children. Alan’s cruelty grew as the years ed, and he got more selfish too. He no longer worried about providing money for his family when he went out of town. He would have his buddies pick him up at the home he shared with his family. He’d lied to Karla, telling her he was going on a business trip, and his friends

would back up his tales. They would travel to other towns where no one knew who they were. The men would then pick up women and wine and dine them. It was easy to keep the farce up. Those women didn’t know anything about the businessmen who were picking them up, nor did they care. They were probably cheating on their spouses too. This behavior would probably have continued indefinitely had Alan not discovered that Karla had acquired a credit card to use when he and his friends were out of town. Her getting a card had started out innocently enough. She had simply gotten tired of being left alone for a week at a time without any cash. She had never been resentful of Alan’s trips with his friends, but she was beginning to be resentful of his control over her having no cash while he was away. So she had gotten a card to use in his absence. When he discovered it, he did not even let her explain her reasoning. He did not care. He just lost his temper and screamed at her. He demanded a divorce without even a blink of his eyes. He never thought for a second that his actions could have been what drove her to getting one in the first place. Karla just got tired of being alone with their children for a week at a time without even having money to take them out for a burger at McDonald’s. Alan, however, took a coward’s way out. He didn’t discuss the situation out with Karla. He didn’t offer her a chance to change the way she was handling things. Nothing. Karla had gone to work one day and came home to find a “dear Jane” letter on the kitchen counter. He knew that their children got home from school before Karla got home from work. He knew that their home was a favorite hangout before ball games and such. He knew but he just didn’t care. So it was no big shock when Karla got home from work, and all the neighborhood kids were gathered in the kitchen. Karla could hear all the chatter from the kids when she opened her front door, then deadly silence. All the girls’ friends suddenly scattered. Karla soon learned the reason behind their quick exits. She walked up to Brooke and Paige to the kitchen counter and saw a handwritten note addressed to herself. The looks on her daughters’ faces told her the note was not good news. The girls were clearly upset; and when Karla read the note, she knew why. Her husband of twenty-six years had demanded a divorce. He accused her of being irresponsible with money and that she was just running up credit card bills without having a way to pay them off. He declined to it to having contributed to the situation at all. Nor did he acknowledge having been a selfish husband and father.

He didn’t care that Karla had only worked the last five years when all this had happened. She and her daughters had lived well but only as far as Alan would allow. Alan controlled the purse strings in the marriage, so Karla was at his mercy. ittedly, she should not have gotten a credit card. She should have never run up such a large amount on it. She should have been able to go to her husband. That’s the way it should have been, but it wasn’t. Alan had been taught from an incredibly young age that what he wanted was the only thing that mattered. No one else’s wants or needs were important. If Alan got what Alan wanted, all was right in his world. Karla was very much in love with her husband, however, so she was devastated when she read the note. It pretty much destroyed her. She was all but incapacitated. For days, she didn’t do anything except sleep and go to work. Things would probably have gone on this way forever had Alan not written out a separation agreement and badgered his wife to sign it. It was very much onesided, but Alan once again assured Karla that it was only temporary since everything would be decided by the judge in court. Karla proved how much she loved and trusted Alan by g that agreement. In the end, she lost about $100,000 in her divorce that she was entitled to and had earned by putting up with Alan’s emotional abuse for all those years of marriage.

36

Brad stayed with his father, stepmother, and stepsisters when his parents split. Randy and Mildred were both alcoholics and were rarely sober. Mildred had chased Randy while he was still married to Brad’s mother. She wanted the lifestyle he could offer her. Randy was very well off financially, and Mildred wanted that life for herself and her daughters. She did not care that she was ripping a family apart. Mildred was often confrontational and mean-spirited. It seemed she was incapable of loving anyone except herself. She honestly did not love Randy. She just wanted the lifestyle he could offer herself and her daughters. So as soon as he married her, she set out to spend as much of his hard-earned money as possible. She and the girls went shopping often and had closets full of clothes with the tags still on them. Also, all three of her daughters were bought automobiles as soon as they were old enough to drive. Mildred and her daughters not only mistreated Randy. They also treated Brad badly too. They all felt so entitled that they took for granted everything in their house. If any of them wanted new bedroom furniture, they purchased it on Randy’s credit card. Anything they all wanted was within their reach. It did not matter how much of their wants they already had. Mildred’s daughters had jewelry boxes full of expensive gems but never ed a jewelry store without stepping inside and making a big purchase. It wasn’t unusual for them to drop a couple hundred dollars per purchase. Randy stood by and watched helplessly as Mildred and her girls spent thousands of dollars. He was rarely sober enough to confront her about it. Also he was hooked on the sex he enjoyed with Mildred. She knew she held this hold over him, so she took complete advantage of that. If Randy dared to call her out on how much money she was spending, Mildred simply withheld sex from him. He would quickly fall back into line. The girls all figured out in a hurry this would work. Mildred would come to use sex as a weapon to gain whatever she wanted. It worked like a charm, and she knew it. Brad, however, was not nearly as fortunate as were the girls. His father was

extremely strict on him. He was expected to hold down a full-time job while going to school. He was also expected to pay his own bills. Randy believed the only way to teach a child responsibility was to make him practice taking care of himself while living at home. He cooked his own meals, washed his own clothes, and did his own grocery shopping. His food was kept separately from his family, and he was expected to only use his food when cooking for himself. In short, Brad was renting a room from his own father and was treated like any other tenant would have been. As soon as he was able, Brad found a way to move from his father’s home. He went away to Long Island, New York, to go to college. But because of the added expense of living on campus, his father insisted he move in with his grandparents. He was still expected to hold down a job though, so he could pay his own expenses. His father felt he was teaching him responsibility. Brad felt his father was just being a hard ass. The two men would not live to agree on this point. It was much easier to do what his father said than to try to convince Randy how hard it is to work full-time and go to school. Somehow Brad managed to keep an A average and hold down a full-time job. His schooling was extremely important to him since he knew it would be the only way out for him. He was proud of his accomplishments. He graduated with honors against all odds. You could not have guessed it based on his father’s reaction. His father was less than happy with Brad’s degree in journalism. Randy wanted Brad to get a “real job.” Randy’s disapproval of his son was only magnified when Brad wanted to return to school to major in computer science, which had only begun to bud in the early eighties. Brad felt strongly that computers were up and coming, so he wanted to get a head start on learning the ins and outs of them. He had a strong feeling that if a person knew about computers, he would always have a job. His goal was to get ahead of the game. So Brad went against his father’s wishes and studied computers. It would eventually pay off, but not for many years; and in the meantime, Brad had to endure his father’s criticism. His father went to his grave believing his son had wasted all those years in college and the money it took him to get his degree in information technology.

37

So it came as no surprise that he was starving for affection when he met Valerie following his breakup from Karla. He jumped too fast when his mother and her best friend set him up on a blind date with her. He did not take time to get to know her. They were married within a year and were expecting their baby soon after. Had Brad only taken his time to get to know Valerie, he would have known how spoiled and distant she was from her family. Valerie was the youngest of several children. She came from a large family. She was treated like royalty by everyone. She truly expected anyone in her life to do the same. If she saw something that she wanted, she expected someone to buy it for her. If she felt like a person had done her wrong, she expected that someone in her family would confront that person and make them apologize. This had been the way things were done in her family her entire life. Unlike Brad, Valerie was not expected to do any housework or cooking. Her siblings did everything for her. It was believed that Valerie couldn’t even fry an egg for herself. She was treated like royalty and grew to expect that from everyone. It never occurred to her that this was anything special. Her entire family had always done everything for her. She had no reason to believe that Brad would not do the same after they were married. Valerie had become a narcissist and could not fathom anyone not wanting to treat her like a queen as her family did. She was a rather lazy person by nature, and her state was intensified when she had a bad reaction to steroids. They left her seriously ill, and she almost died from them. So her family, who had already created a monster by their tolerance of her, added fuel to the situation by allowing her to manipulate them out of fear. They were afraid they would lose her if anything like this were to happen again. Valerie was content to live in squalor rather than to keep the house she and Brad lived in together clean. She refused to do any laundry and often wore the same clothing for days until Brad finally had a day off so he could catch it up himself. The only time Valerie washed any dishes was if every dish in the house were dirty. It did not bother her if the sink were piled up, and the stench was so bad it

could be smelled outside. Brad finally got tired of dealing with her illness and insisted that she get help from a professional. Valerie was eventually diagnosed as bipolar. Her doctor put her onto medication designed to control her roller-coaster moods and hopefully to help her outbursts of anger. While the medication did help, it made Valerie feel almost lethargic some days. She sometimes felt like she was living in a fog and could not think for herself. She was much easier to live with, however, and Brad didn’t have to walk on eggshells around her anymore. She was much easier to live with—that is, while she was taking her meds. However, Valerie felt like she knew more than the doctors did. She would only take her medication for a short while. Then she stopped taking them after she got to feeling better. Brad was never able to tell when Valerie would go off her meds until she went into a fit of rage. His life was spiraling out of control because of it. He had such a ive personality. He lived this life for twenty-five years before getting fed up. He finally decided he had to leave for his own health. So Brad packed his belongings and left the home he had shared with his wife and daughter. He left almost everything he owned for his wife though and rented a house in Nashville. He chose not to move furniture and instead depended on the goodness of others to furnish his new place. His new place was a hodgepodge of mix-and-match furnishings. It didn’t matter though because all Brad could bring himself to do was to go to work, then to come home and sleep. He struggled with depression and could not seem to snap out of it. He felt guilty for being unable to live with his wife any longer; and her family would not allow him to forget that he had promised to love, honor, and take care of their sister for the rest of his life. They really did not blame him for being unable to deal with Valerie’s erratic behavior. They just knew that it would mean the responsibility for her would then shift back to themselves. This is what ultimately made Brad do the unimaginable. He took all the marital debt in the dissolution of their marriage. That included any purchases, any loans, and any credit-card bills. Between himself and Valerie, they had accrued over $100,000 in debt. Moreover, Brad agreed to pay off the marital home as well. He would have to declare bankruptcy, but he felt obligated to do so. Therefore, in

the end, that’s exactly what Brad did. He filed Chapter 13 bankruptcy. He still had to repay every dime of the debt, but it would now all be in one low-monthly payment. Plus he had five years to pay it off without making any more negative marks on his credit. The home he had shared with his now ex-wife was also included in this transaction. This move just proved to everyone what an honorable man Brad was.

38

However, it also caused Brad to struggle for the next five years while he was paying back all the money from his bankruptcy. While Brad had an amazing career and had climbed the corporate ladder to director of his department, it was taking a long time to get above water financially. So Brad didn’t go out much. He pinched his pennies and just rode out the storm his life had become. He was feeling a bit desperate and lonely when he got the call he had not dared to hope for. He was sitting in his office alone surrounded by paperwork and his computer. He was trying to find the mistake someone had made causing the entire hospital’s logbook to be miscalculated. When one mistake in the system threw everything else off it could take days to figure out where the problem was. Brad felt he was drowning in computer talk when his office phone rang. Hearing the ringing of his phone usually annoyed him because it disrupted his work. However, the day of the call from Karla, Brad was excited to have a reprieve from the tedious work he’d been doing all morning. Little did he know how much that innocent phone call would change his life for the better. It would be an answer to his dreams and would turn his life around. “Hello, this is Brad.” The voice on the other end of the phone was like splashing cold water in Brad’s face. “Hi! Do you know who this is?” asked the voice on the other end of the phone. Brad answered, “Jeannie?” She was Karla’s older sister, and she sounded exactly like Karla on the phone. “No, try again.” Brad then followed with Gwyn, Karla’s younger sister, and Maggie, her mother. He just knew the person on the other end of the phone sounded just like Karla but that she was married to Alan and would never disrespect her husband by calling another man, much less one she had dated and fallen in love with before marrying him. He had no idea that she too was divorced.

He was very shocked when the reply came. “This is Karla! I heard that you are divorced too, so I thought I’d call to see if you want to take me out to dinner.” Brad nearly ed out from his shock. He never expected to hear from Karla again. He thought that ship had sailed. The couple made plans to have dinner together for two nights later. Brad didn’t get another thing done at work the rest of the day. His colleagues couldn’t believe how much he acted like a schoolboy going on his first date. When he shared the story about himself and Karla’s history, they absolutely absorbed every single detail. Then they wanted to help him prepare for the first date he would be on in almost four decades! He almost did not sleep or eat anything for the next two days because he was too nervous about meeting his first love again. Before he knew it, date night had arrived, and he was on the way to pick Karla up for their date. He was almost giddy on the hour’s drive. He called Karla to say he was on his way, and they spoke for the entire trip. They were able to reminisce about their past and the things they had experienced with their ex-spouses. Neither of them had all bad experiences in their marriages, so they were able to tell one another what had ed in the past thirty-five years. It was almost inconceivable how much time had ed, and yet it felt they had been in a time warp. They went out for a nice dinner and drinks. Dinner lasted a good four hours as they picked up right where they had left off nearly forty years before. They were no longer young kids who were experiencing their first loves. Now they were two adults going into a relationship with their eyes wide open. They knew the other was not perfect, but each of them was willing to live with the issues. They figured nothing would match the war zones that were their marriages. They each thought things could be like before. Brad and Karla started dating again and continued seeing each other for the next half year. They simply reconnected like a jigsaw puzzle. The pieces of their life fit perfectly together. It felt like they were made for each other mentally and physically. They talked almost daily and sometimes late into the night. They reminded one another of their likes and dislikes, their children, and their careers. They also told each other about their dreams and aspirations. They wanted to travel the world together to see things they couldn’t see in the states. They made plans to always use their time wisely because they knew how

easily things can change and how the course of their lives can change too. They had lost nearly forty years, and Brad once again asked Karla to marry him. He had loved her his whole adult life and did not want the past to repeat itself!

39

Brad and Karla decided to save on the cost of a wedding since they had both been married before. So they went to the Justice of the Peace with only their parents and Karla’s little sister present. The excitement of the couple was measurable and could be felt in the air. The entire group stood before the court to witness the second chance given to Brad and Karla, knowing full well they should have been together all these years. The couple shared a modest lunch with their families before going their own way. They were still recovering from their divorces and reestablishing their separate lives, so they decided to wait a while for an official honeymoon. Instead, they just went to the home they would be sharing as a married couple. They knew there would be times that would be trying and difficult, but they also knew together they could face anything life threw at them. They faced the task of merging the two families because although their separate children were adults, they were from different backgrounds and upbringings. The coming years would prove to be filled with trials and tribulations; but for Brad and Karla, the hard times simply made them appreciate those times. They would live to have many stories for their grandchildren. Their paths began when they were just kids. The journey took them on many travels and molded them into the couple who would meet again and turn it into a fairy tale.

About the Author

Katie Harris is a new author that has rediscovered her ion for writing. She is a devout mother and wife who has had a tumultuous life full of ups and downs, traumas, and experiences in which she translated to the written word. Katie grew up in a large family that embraced and enjoyed life despite the struggles of daily living in rural America. By most people’s standards, their family was poor, but you would never know that by the way they lived. Rather than growing hard and resentful, Katie embraced all the good times and used her experiences as a basis for her writing and healing.