River's End (River's End Series, #1)(56)

Chapter Seventeen


Mother’s Day dawned a beautiful sunny day, with the highs predicted in the eighties. The valley and land were lush with new green leaves and grasses growing tall and full. The pine trees sparkled in the morning dew and the air smelled spicy, of fresh dirt and pines, a scent Erin never quite grew used to. It felt so invigorating and pure, almost as if she were breathing an exotic perfume, and not simply the country air.

She dreaded today and knew it would be hard. She woke early as usual. Sundays and Mondays were her days off at the coffee stand, but her regular, three-thirty wake up usually intruded onto her days off all the same. She watched the sunrise change the sky into pearly colors of peach and orange. It shadowed the mountains in dark, inky lines as the day slowly began to bloom from behind them. Stretching slowly, like a cat, the warm morning rays drew minute-by-minute closer to where she sat on the steps of her trailer, watching.

It was about eight o’clock when she spotted movement at the ranch house. She stood up when she saw all of the Rydell brothers walking along the porch, trailed by the kids. They were all dressed up: each wearing slacks, a buttoned shirt, and clean, polished cowboy boots. Jack even wore a tie. She stared from her trailer steps, still clad in sweat pants and a baggy sweatshirt. Where were they all going?

Sunday. She supposed they could be going to church, although she didn’t know if they ever went. Perhaps today, being Mother’s Day, was why they chose to attend. She almost called out, but refrained. It wasn’t her place. Besides, if they did happen to invite her, she had nothing appropriate to wear.

She watched them piling into two trucks and pulling out. The dust ballooned around them, and slowly settled back. Dust seemed to be everywhere lately, and Ben informed her that it would last until next October. That soon, Ben predicted, the temperatures would become so hot and uncomfortable, she’d wish for overcast days without the hot, scorching sun. She, however, doubted she would ever wish for that. And if Ben had ever spent the months of September through July in Seattle, she had no doubt he’d agree.

She felt dejected today. Much more so than usual. Although she never felt good about herself, what with squatting on the Rydell land, wearing a bikini for work at a coffee stand, still hopelessly illiterate and stupid, while accepting all her material needs as charity; today, she felt much worse than she usually did.

She knew, of course. Duh. It was the first Mother’s Day that should have technically meant nothing to her. She had no mother and could ignore Mother’s Day just as easily as she spent her entire life ignoring Father’s Day.

She dropped her head onto her drawn-up knees, feeling too depressed for words. Though her mother certainly wasn’t the best, she was still her mother. Lorna Poletti was only sixteen when she had Chance, and eighteen when she had Erin. Both children had different fathers. The only reason Lorna didn’t proceed to have another half dozen kids or more was because she wisely had her tubes tied.

Erin could remember her mother continuously having boyfriends over, one right after the next. And when one didn’t work out, her mother cowered in her room for days, refusing to eat, and sleeping all day, while crying all night. Erin quickly learned to stay out of her mother’s way at such times and provide for herself. She couldn’t remember a day when she did not have to fend for herself. From the time she started the first grade, she had to get herself to the bus and home again.

Then, inevitably, after her latest break-up, Lorna always decided they should move. Somehow, that managed to fill the void that always seemed to consume her mother when she was mateless.

Erin didn’t understand her mother’s condition until she was older. She suffered from debilitating depression and manic highs. Erin suspected her mother suffered from bipolar disorder. But her mother refused to seek help or treatment. So they continued to live in this strange, twisted cycle. Sometimes Lorna was crazy fun and wonderful to have for a mother. They did wonderful things together, like taking off in the middle of the night to look for “magic.” Erin didn’t realize until she was a bit older, that the “magic” was really her mother scoring some street drugs to make her feel better. But when Erin was just a kid, they were enchanted journeys that left her mother smiling, as she pretended all the street signals and streetlights were fairies and angels.

Every time Lorna crashed into depression was usually when they decided to move again. She couldn’t hold any job for very long, and they were never well paying. Erin lived on welfare as long as she could remember. She had nothing then, just as she had nothing now.

When Erin hit third grade and still couldn’t seem to grasp the basics of reading; in fact, she couldn’t recognize most of the alphabet, her mother always reassured her that it didn’t matter. Erin was different than other kids, and special. She alone had “magic.” Erin, however, knew she wasn’t special. She was just stupid. So she began her campaign to hide it. With each new school, she learned how to compensate for it temporarily. After she was discovered, and her well-meaning teacher called her mother in to discuss what they should do, her mother simply yanked her from school and kept her home until the next school, where it would all start over again.

Lorna never really cared that Erin couldn’t read. As Erin grew older, Lorna simply did all of her reading for her. At age sixteen, when Erin totally dropped out of school to work, Lorna filled out all her paperwork. She worked until February which was when Lorna killed herself.