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The sleet drummed on the window. In addition to depressed, it was making little Opal Williams carsick. It wasn't until she was a grown woman that Opal realized how inappropriate if not outright dangerous it was to send a 7 year old little girl from Vail to Denver by herself on a Grayhound bus. The trip was roughly 3 hours one way. It was winter, 1982. Prior to heading to the bus station, Opal had cried and begged and sobbed to her Mother that she didn't want to leave. The pair were staying in a slope side chalet owned by some boyfriend of her Mothers' about whom she remembered nothing. She definitely remembered the chalet, though. It was lovely, all pine and cedar with a soaring loft containing an overstuffed feather bed. Of course when one is 7 everything impressive seems that much larger than life. The kitchen was all browns and oranges with state of the art appliances for 1982. It even had a blender and a microwave built right into the countertop and cabinetry. A huge TV with cable channels she had never seen before played movies, nestled into a huge hand crafted bookshelf. On the outside the majesty of the rocky mountains was literally lying at the doorstep, beckoning for her to come out and play. She skied until she couldn't stand anymore, then made snow angels and snowmen in snow almost as deep as her skinny little waist. It was Christmas Eve, and Opal's Mother said if she didn't get back home Santa wouldn't come to her house. "He's gonna think you're not home and pass by!" She said, not very convincingly. She strode gracefully across the hardwood floors, gathering the clothes and toys Opal had amassed from her mother to make herself feel better for getting rid of her daughter for Christmas. Opal overheard the conversation over the phone between her mother and her grandmother about an hour before. She recognized the cadence and tones coming from both ends, and knew the fight once again revolved around her. It would most likely consist of her grandmother telling her mother what a shitty mom she is and "Why don't you keep your daughter on a holiday for ONCE?! Has it never occurred to you that WE might need a break, or that she may actually want to be with you!?" Then her mother would hiss into the phone: "No you do not need to come get her, she will be just fine on the bus, and I REFUSE to feel guilty about this, mother. You know I have had this vacation planned for a week!" After the dogfight over the phone, Opal spoke cautiously. She knew she was still in volatile waters, and didn't want to get secondhand wrath over it. "Wouldn't he know I'm here and bring the presents here instead? He'll probably bring some for you and ____!" <insert boyfriend> Austin? Gerald? To this day, she couldn't remember which one. "Wouldn't WHO know you were here? Listen Opal, you have got to get your stuff together now. We can't be late for the bus, your grandmother will be there to pick you up when you get to Denver." "Santa," Opal replied quietly "Wouldn't Santa know I was here?" Opal remembers vividly her mother looking at her for a long time. She looked at her with her huge brown eyes and impossibly long eyelashes. Opal would later come to recognize that behind this prolonged eye contact was a mixture of pity with a hint of distaste. Opal's mother wasn't big on empathy. Or children. "Santa doesn't bring presents for grownups, sweetie. Besides, you don't want to hang out here with (Austin? Joe? Gerald?) and I do you? It would be so boring for you!" Even in her naive mind she understood what was happening. Her throat closed up, and her belly began to feel queasy. She realized that her family was not really hers. Oh sure, they labeled themselves accordingly, and they talked the talk. But when it really came down to it, she was a source of conflict and anger. She would have to get the fuck out of the chalet. Something took root in Opal that day. This was the day she began to see her life from the outside in, like it wasn't hers. Like it was a movie starring someone else. It may be relevant to convey that Opal never knew her father, but she certainly knew of him. He was a federally-imprisoned grade D human. After a couple of bank robberies, an extortion scam against a supermarket chain, and numerous counts of drug charges the feds locked him up and threw away the key. Until they dug the key out of the trash and he was released, of course. As far as she knew he lived out his old age and died unceremoniously. Oh she had looked for him, always with the faraway fairly tale in her mind of a reformed, kind man ready to be a loving and nurturing presence in the life of his long lost daughter. She learned he had died after sending a letter to an address that she knew most likely was his. It was returned to her, stamped "return to sender: deceased". So he was forgotten in a dirty town in the middle of nowhere, Colorado. Forgotten except for some random daughter (probably one of many) who always wondered about him. He was 41 when she was born- her mother was 18. It would be great if, that in spite of all the rejection and abandonment issues she didn't know she had, she would emerge psychologically unscathed. But of course if that were the case there would be no story here to tell. |
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