Finding Home by Alicia Jackson (the little red hen read aloud TXT) 📕

don’t know if that’s true but I am proof that my grandparents were at the least persistent. Anyway the city quickly grew and with it this town slowly dwindled. People began to move to the city in hopes of a better life, and those who stayed, did so only because of emotional attachments to their homes. Still this town and its popularity had withered away by the time I was three.
My grandparents had been spenders and so their wealth had run out long before they died. My mom and dad tried to get jobs in the city but neither of them had gone to college, relying on their parent’s wealth to carry them through life. So we were stuck in this town because we had no choice. I winced at Ceiley and set her back on the bed to turn and look out of the window. Her eyes were too much like my moms and I couldn’t bear to look at them for too long. When I was eleven my mom was diagnosed with cancer, we couldn’t afford any medicine or treatments by a long shot. Two months after I turned twelve she died. Those last two months had been horrible. She was a strong woman but in that time it looked as even breathing hurt her. The funeral was small just my dad and I. The fact that he had even shown up to the funeral had been a miracle. Three months after my mom was diagnosed he began drinking and I began to hate him. Every dime he made at work he would spend on liquor the same night, and things got out of hand quickly. I feared for my mother’s already delicate state and so I asked Ms. Anderson, our neighbor, to let my mom move in. She reluctantly agreed and my mom lived with her until she died.

Every morning before school I would run the house long distance that it is between my house and Ms. Anderson’s, to check on my mom. How much land a person owned was a big deal when most of these homes were built. In some areas hundreds of acres separated homes. Ms. Anderson would always ask me to stay longer than I had time for, her husband had died several years ago of a heart attack, and she was lonely. We talked mostly about how much she missed her husband. When my mom died Ms. Anderson prepared the funeral. She paid for everything and when I told her that I would someday repay her, she wouldn’t hear it. She said she did it because she was grateful for all of the time that I had spent with her. Ms. Anderson was one of those people who stayed in this town because of emotional attachment, after her husband died she just hadn’t been strong enough to sell the house, and as far as I knew she didn’t have anyone else. But unlike my grandparents she hadn’t been a spender so she didn’t need to sell her house, she lived comfortably in this little town. Ms. Anderson was there for me even more so after the funeral. My dad’s drinking got even worse and he began blaming me for my mother’s death. My parents argued constantly when my mom was alive. I don’t have a single memory of them ever being truly happy around each other. When I was little I used to pretend that I just missed those parts that maybe when I was sleep or at school my parents would smile, but time proved me wrong. I don’t know if my dad ever realized it but I don’t think that my mom ever loved him, she only married him to please her parents, or at least that’s what she insinuated. When I was little I would ask her to tell me stories about how her and dad fell in love, but the stories were always short and she would always say, “Your grandparents adored him”. Then I would say “Just like you huh?” but she never showed any sign that she agreed, so I eventually learned to sleep without the stories.

After mom died dad began to come home drunk and when he got angry he would break things. Everything seemed to make him angry, and because except for the eyes, I look so much like my mother, he was angry often. I continued to visit Ms. Anderson but I would try to hide the pain and she would pretend not to see it. When I was fourteen Ms. Anderson told me that I was to move in with her, after one night my dad stormed into her house and demanded that I come home. But I continued to go visit her, sneaking around this time. I ate most of my meals there, when I could work up an appetite, which wasn’t very often. School became all I cared about, sometimes after long day I would come home and emerge myself in books.

There was a stir in the next room, my time was up, the sun would be rising soon. I got up from my bed and grabbed the suitcase that had been my mom’s from where I hid it in the closet after packing it with what little clothes I had. I wore a blue dress that Ms. Anderson had made me the day I told her of my plans to leave, a year ago. I had been planning this escape long before Charlie came but once he got here I couldn’t bring myself to leave. This dress was Charlie’s favorite, he always grinned when I wore it. I walked over to the desk and grabbed the letter, trying to fight back tears. I left the room in one swift motion but once I got into the hallway I stopped. I looked over into the next room at my father, thinking of all those horrible nights with him. I hated him, I hated him more than I could ever dislike anyone else. I would be happy to never see him again, I shook the thought and tiptoed down the hall to the steps. I quietly descended and walked out of the front door, the hard part was over.

The hardest part had yet to come. It was emotionally easy to leave my house. It wouldn’t be so easy to go to Charlie’s house, leave the letter, and force myself to leave without waking him and telling him how much I loved him, then I would never leave. Charlie saved me, he was the one and only reason that it was so hard for me to just drive right out of this town and never look back. Getting anything past Charlie is impossible, he could always sense when there was something wrong. He wanted my fathers head when I finally told him about my life in that house. “Why do you stay there, and you don’t deserve this” he would say. The truth is that I was afraid, not of anything my father might do if I left, but of what I would do when I left. I don’t know any of my other family, or if I even have any. But Charlie gave me the courage to believe that no matter where I went or what I encountered, it had to be better than this.
I threw my suitcase into the back of the car, anxious now to be near Charlie and away from here. Sometimes just being near him, just seeing him could make everything better. I backed out of the driveway slowly trying to make as little noise as possible. Once I was on the road headed to Charlie’s I was nervous all over again. The closer I got to his house the more temptation reared it’s head, and the harder it seemed to be able to just drop the note on the door step and walk away. My heart pounded and my stomach did all sorts of flips as I thought of the boy that would be sleeping soundly in that house, only to wake up and read a letter that would break his heart to read as much as it had broken mine to write. Then the worst thought entered my head, what if he wasn’t asleep, what if he was up and getting a drink of water or tossing and turning because he couldn’t sleep. If he was awake and were to see me drive up he would come out for sure, and then I’d be trapped, one look was all it would take to keep me glued here in this town, glued in his arms.
I could remember the day I met Charlie like it was yesterday. I had seen him plenty at school my I kept to myself, and as I liked it, he never bothered to interrupt my silence. It was a Saturday and him and his father had been to the repair shop. I watched from the diner as they headed across the street. I started working in the diner after I turned fifteen, with mom gone I had to find a way to pick up the slack. I was pouring Mr. Floyd, the owner of the grocery store in town, a drink when they walked in. They were both dressed pretty well, the older man stood straight and tall and had a very businesslike look about him. A younger clone stood next to him and I immediately recognized him from school. “Oh what does he want” Mr.Floyd grumbled. The feeling must have been mutual as the father took one quick glance at Mr.Floyd and walked to the other end of the diner. They didn’t seem to be any trouble, but then again this town is full of people set in old ways so new comers with bright new ideas were never really welcomed. I set the coffee pot on the counter and walked over to the booth where they were sitting. The father waited for me to introduce myself and then ordered a cup of coffee. I turned to the boy then and for the first time really looked at him. He had chestnut brown hair just like his father and eyes that danced from brown to green under the diner lights. After I delivered their drink orders I brought the burgers that they ordered. I couldn’t help but steal a glance at them as they sat and ate. They were so comfortable in each others company, there was a warm matter in the way that they regarded each other. The dad surprised me the most he’d walked in like he was going to buy the place and yet there he sat laughing with his son like he hadn’t a care in the world. "You're the mechanics daughter aren't you?" the dad asked as I handed him the check and began to clear the dirty plates from the table. "Um, yea" I replied a bit shocked that he knew who I was. "Did he......" I prompted. "You have his eyes" the boy interrupted. Ugh I thought to myself. I hated any shred of evidence that linked my father and myself, and I really hated that this had been the first thing that the boy had noticed about me. "Except yours are softer, they're warmer" he added with a smile.I could feel my face turn red as I quivered a quick thank you and then turned to walk away dishes in hand. I lingered in the kitchen for awhile trying to compose myself and to figure out why I had even been blushing in the first place. I mean sure the boy had been good looking but so what, he was just some rich mans kid who I wasn't interested in. After a deep breath or two I went back out to retrieve the money from the table but as I came around the corner I could hear them laughing. I