Come Home

Rose Goes Home (ch 18)

Chapter Eighteen


Rose Goes Home


         The next day Rose is released from jail. Her husband picks her up at the front steps. “Take me to my truck.”


         “Where are you needing to go? We can stop on our way home.” Bob questioned.


         “Where I need to go, I need to go alone.” She said. Bob continued to drive. He knew that it was pointless to fight any decision that Rose makes. She is so much like my dad. They are the most head strong people that I could ever hope to meet.


         Rose gives Bob a kiss as she leaves him to get into her own car. He could only hope that he did not have to retrieve her at the front steps of the justice center again or worse the hospital. He continues to drive off after asking her to call him. He instructs her to be home before the children comes home from school.


         Rose drives to a ATV rental Agency. After showing her several models, Rose rents a 3059c-ap with a trailer to pull it. The sells man connects the hitch while we wait for the paper work to print out. After she signed the contract, she pulled out of the lot with a black trailer with a pink camouflage ATV. Though it was late she drove toward the old house.


         Flashing back to the condition of the house, Rose calls her boss. “Timothy, I was wondering if I could use your camping generator for a few days.” She hung up. She had plans, and those plans were coming together. Dad was not going to live out his life in some home.


         Realizing that it was too dark to begin her adventure tonight, Rose decides to spend the night with us. She would not speak to me. She came in talked to Mom and Less. “Can Less go with me to work on the house for Dad?”


         Mom explains that she was not going to have her son in the house that tortured him with the fever. Rose got angry, and slammed the door going to bed. The next morning I was awaken with the sound of running water. “What are you doing?”


         Rose looks at me much like Dad would if he did not want to deal with talking to someone. “I am going to the house. I will have the house ready for him so that they will allow him to come home.” She goes back to what she was doing. She was filling jug, bottle, coolers, any thing that she could fill with water.


         I could see her sincerity. I reach her a check.


         “What is this for?” She asked.


         “Dad has not paid rent for long time. I thought this might help.” I added, “It is not much, but it can help with rent and food.”


         She puts the slip of paper into her purse. “Thanks.”


         I helped her silently place the water and supplies into her pick up truck. She never spoke to me. I really searched my mind for something to say. I felt that if I couldn't find the words to stop her from going. Something inside me was telling that this would be the last time I would get to ever speak to my sister.


         As she starts her engine to drive off, I do find one statement to pour out to her. “I love you.” She looks at me and drives off. It was if my sentiment seemed to be hanging in the air unreceived.


         At the hardware store, Rose picked out colors of paint, hedge hog, weed eater, and flower seeds. She shopped as if in a trance. Going down each isle reaching out and getting item after item as if she were a robot being controlled. She came to the check out. The merchandise kept adding up. $3,500. She scanned her debit card. Though she was the only one working with a family, she still handed the card to the clerk.


         Rose gets to the top of the hill. She drives the ATV off the trailer. It has the same hitch as the truck. She disconnects the truck from it, and drives the ATV to the trailer. She clears out all the things she had brought to work with. Placed them in the trailer. Then made her way down the bumpy road.


         Rose was a tomboy. Anything a man could do, she could do. Most of the time better. This skill came from trying all her life to impress our dad. She even had problems getting the generator to the house. She got out the lawn tools. She cut a path for the four wheeler so that she could drive the 200 pound piece of equipment to the fuse box. She carefully inspected each fuse. She replaced any that seemed to have a problem. After connecting the generator, she filled it with gas. Then went from room to room replacing light bulbs that had been there for decades. Then she felt that it was safe to fill the house with light.


         Rose went back out in the yard that she used to play in. Taking all her lawn equipment and recreated it. This was the first step in a job that begins a journey for Rose that would cost her everything.


         That evening Rose opens her pre-made dinner of meat loaf sandwich and carrot sticks. Even Daddy's little girl could not stomach to eat it in the house. The smell of urine was just too much to handle. She sits on the trailer admiring the work that she was doing. She felt that Dad would be proud of the job that she had done so far.


         She sits thinking and eating. What was she going to do with all those containers of body waste. She knew that she had to get them out of the house before her chores continued the next day. She thought about burning them, but the liquid would not be able to burn. Then the idea of pouring them into the river. Then she would be able to burn the containers. That just didn't seem environmentally feasible. She decides that she would run all down the toilet. She would carry river water to push it all into the sewage tank. This was the way she chose to handle the situation. She went from room to room opening each window. It would need to be aired out once the containers were disturbed. She slept in our parents' bed that night. She was able to handle it with a breeze blowing through the house. She was too tired to even think about the events that had happened in the past. She embraced sleep wholeheartedly.


         When she awoke, she began the chore of clearing out the containers. She covered her nose with a handkerchief.  One after another, she worked. The trips to the river was welcomed for some fresh air. After stacking the containers for burning, Rose set the fire. Then she began tearing the vines from the walls. She placed the discarded plants in the fire with the containers. 


         No one heard from Rose for three weeks. Bob was used to her going out on some kind of tangent. So we just hoped that whatever she was doing that she was safe.


         








My words are ways to leave peices of myself behind for my children.

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