Part 2

I would have been about nine now. It was at the end of my 4^th grade year.

I remember my mom asking me if we should leave.

I said, “YES!”

I always thought it was odd that my mom asked me this question.

Wasn't it obvious what we needed to do.

On our one day off we would wash our clothes at the local laundromat as we did not have a washer and dryer at home. On this day, we hid all our clothes and a few other belongings under our dirty clothes and we loaded the boxes into the car, just as if we were going to go wash our clothes, all while my Dad slept. Then we left town.

I can still remember driving past the laundromat.

I remember a local town kid was out by the road riding his bike. I remember something being said about hoping he wouldn't tell my dad that he had seen us leaving town.

We drove past him, turned off at the Christmas Valley exit, went through Fort Rock and kept right on going.

Gone.

The relief. It was over. The bad man was behind us.

There was fear that he would track us down and find us, fear that we would go back, but mom kept on driving. I am not sure if the thought crossed her mind to turn back, but she didn't. We drove straight to Washington where we stayed with a relative of my mother's.

My mom worked on her berry farm that summer.

I know my mother tried getting a job, but she had no confidence in herself.

I know that we had visited a woman's home. Either help was not there or my mother convinced herself that she wasn't good enough to help. I don't know.

I do know that my mother had picked up some “conviction” that she could not take money from the government. She felt it was a sin.

I know when we left, my dad had gone over to the pastor's house that had helped us in our failed attempt to leave. Supposedly there dad had “gotten saved”.

My dad started going to a counselor that summer.

Soon my mom and dad were working on getting back together.

The counselor had my mother write out everything my dad had done to her.

I remember reading through it.

Really I should not have. There were pages and pages of horrible things that my dad had done to her.

The only thing that stands out in my mind was reading how my dad had threatened to run a broom into my mother's belly when she was pregnant with my brother. My mother had told him if the child was born with brain damage she would kill it. He had put the broom down.

I remember my mother telling me how she was standing next to the deep fryer, just off to the right of it.

She had told my dad “I bind you, Satan”.

My dad picked up the tea pot that sat right next to the coffee pot and threw it at her.

It missed her, but it hit something, the glass shattered and the water fell right into the hot oil in the fryer, spraying oil all over her arm.

I know that she did not suffer any severe burns from that, but I know that it left a question there,

Did God not care? Was He not powerful enough to change this bad man?

At the end of the summer we headed home. My mom's family had a family reunion at the end of the summer so I know we had stopped there before fully heading home. I know when we left, my mother was crying. I don't believe she wanted to go back but I fully think that she had convinced herself she had no choice.

There were a lot of fears of the unknown and fearing that everything would happen again. We hoped that the counseling would help, that things would be different. I remember my dad changing the station on the TV to the “Christian” station when we first arrived home.

I remember thinking that maybe he had changed. Maybe things were going to be different.

I remember the 10-speed bike that I had worked my tail off for had been ruined. I had paid $100 for that bike. I worked hard saving tip money and washing dishes in the restaurant for that bike. It was the first real thing that I bought with my own hard work.

When I got back, the handle bars where covered in grease from a neighbor boy who my dad had allowed to ride my bike. He had ruined my bike.

Two years later though, we were right back in the same situation. Things hadn't changed.

This time was a little different though as my mom was able to get a restraining order and instead of us having to leave, my dad had to leave.

Introduction

Part 1