The phone rang. When I answered it the child's voice on the other end said "Hey Pappy, you gots company. Can I send her over?
"OK, Shrimp. Did she say what she wanted?"
"Nope, she just asked for you."
"OK. Tell her I live in the little red house about a half mile down the road."
Shrimp is my grandson. His Dad is my son Billy. They live in the house where Billy grew up. Well, from the time he was 4 anyway. We moved there because the neighborhoods in our former town were too dangerous to suit us.
After a while we had a daughter. Loretta and her husband live 3 hours away, and do not get back as often as we would all like.
I needed to move out of that house and sold it to Billy and his wife Susan for a song. I had too much time and money invested in the old place to just sell it to a stranger. I bought a smaller house up the road a piece. I don't avoid the old place, but memories of the place made continuing to live there too depressing.
Now we are working on a new set of memories in that house that are much more satisfying. They include Shrimp and his little sister Rosetta. They are good memories.
I had just gotten out of bed when I had a feeling that my day was going to not be one of my better ones. There was no particular reason, just one of those "Oh my" sort of things.
I had been puttering around the house for a bit when the phone rang. The feeling was getting stronger.
I watched as the car pulled up my lane. A thin, gray haired woman slowly got out and moved toward the door. From a distance she looked familiar. As she got closer I could make out her features and my day went right down the toilet.
The first thing I recognized was the funky scar on her right knee, and then I saw the one that matched on her other. The second was new; at least I had never seen it before. I knew the first one well. She now had 2 replacement knees, her hair was no longer brown and to her waist and she lost a lot of weight.
I guess you are wondering what I am rambling on about. We need to go back 6 years to begin the story.
We had been married for 24 years, they were pretty good ones too. We lived for the children as well as ourselves. We did not have a lot of money in the bank, but we were rich with experiences. Hardly a week went by that we didn't go to one place or another. Museums, and parks were the favorites; it could be local, state or federal. We went to carnivals, church suppers, concerts in the schools and any other thing that sounded like fun. They were encouraged to participate in band and sport activities at school. We embarrassed them when we cheered louder than anyone else. That is what family is for, isn't it?
My wife and I were both retired earlier than most. We are both disabled. She had bad knees and could hardly stand. After teaching for years and carrying some extra weight from having the children, her knees were shot. My back was bad enough that I could not lift any more, my knees were also shot. I loved her to death and thought she felt the same about me.
I worked construction for most of my life. To do the job correctly you need a good set of knees and a good back. I worked for the same company for 28 years when they brought in a new manager; he, in turn, brought in a group of buddies from his last job. They were slow, not too good and had no pride in their work; then work became harder and harder to find and there were layoffs. The senior people were the first to go. The company has since gone under.
I do small home improvement jobs to help make ends meet. The terms are that I will work when I can, I will take a break as often as I want, but the work will be the best available. People like my work and my prices so I do all right. I even have a waiting list.
I put the company in my son's name. He gets paid and gives me the maximum I am allowed to earn on disability. What is left over goes into a school fund for all of my grandchildren. Sorry I am rambling again, what do you expect from an old fart?
Well, 6 years ago we were both retired. One morning I woke up a little later than normal and walked out to the kitchen to see what my wife was doing. She was not there, I looked in the drive and her car was gone. I figured she went to the store.
I let the dog out and went back into the kitchen; there I found a small stack of papers on the counter. On top of them were her cell phone and rings. I looked at the papers; they were all of her monthly bills. There was no note or anything else to say what was on her mind. I spent a long time that day calling her friends, no one knew anything. I was beside myself with worry.
When she had not returned by supper that evening I called the police and reported her missing. They asked if she had taken anything with her. I looked around and found her medications were gone and some of her clothes. They wanted to know if she had taken any money. I looked at the accounts; there was a recent cash withdrawal of $900 about a week ago, that was it.
After the police left I checked her e-mail account to see if there was any indication as to what was going on. I found none. Facebook showed that some of her friends had recently sent her their addresses; I copied them to give to the police.
When she had been gone for a few days I started to closely watch her bank accounts and saw no activity other than a small amount on her charge cards for the first 3 days and then that stopped too. The locations of her purchases indicated she was moving to the west. The last activity was in Missouri.
I gave the police the information I had and settled back to wait. All I could do is watch her credit card statements, bank accounts and email.
About 6 months after she walked out the police called and said they found her car at one of the addresses she had received on Facebook. The woman who had the car wanted it removed. It seems my wife visited her and left on the train. She said she would take care of the car a little later. I brought the car home and parked it in my garage; I drive it every Sunday just to keep it up. It is actually a nice vehicle and a classic. There I go, getting ahead of myself again.
Every day I cleared the spam she got and responded to her friends, when they emailed her, telling them she was gone and I would let them know if I heard anything.
Soon the only things to show on her account were her monthly bills and what I and the children sent to her. I noticed she did not take any money out of her bank accounts, but I could see that someone was looking at the accounts every now and then. Our bank list the last time the account was accessed.
About 15 months after she left I hit the lottery for about $300,000. I paid off all the credit cards and the house then put the rest in savings.
Once a month I sent her an update on what was going on in our lives. I asked her why, did she not love us, and was she living with someone else. I guess she read them but she never responded. After about 18 months she started to use her cards again, nothing big though. I could tell by the activity on her bank and charge accounts that she was somewhere near Dallas, Texas but chose to not look into it any further. After all she left me and chose to stay away without communicating; she needs to contact me now. I had tried.
Every so often she would charge something and then pay the bill from her bank accounts. All of the activity was within 60 miles of downtown Dallas. She now had a nice amount of savings in her accounts. She was getting $1300 each month, from disability, and hardly spending $500 in 6 months.
