SCHOOL IN SOCORRO

          Large windows on the north wall gave brightness to the otherwise typical classroom of twenty-five fifth grade students.  Everyone was a stranger to me except Mr. Douglas.  He was writing on the blackboard in front of the room.  He had not brought attention to me, and I remained detached from him.  It appeared we had a silent agreement of keeping our kindred secret.

          At recess, I stood aloof and watched the other girls jump and skip across the hopscotch squares.  No one spoke to me, and I didn’t make an effort to join in.  Before, when I started a new school, I had been sure of myself, but this time I lacked confidence, and the other children may have sensed it.

          At noon, Mom had tomato soup and tuna fish sandwiches ready for lunch.

          “How’s school?” Mom asked hopefully.

          “Okay,” I lied.

          “I’ll go to school next year,” Bronco piped.

          Boy will you be sorry, I thought as I bit extra hard into the sandwich.

          I made my feet cross the street and return to the grade school.  I had decided it should be called, “Socorro Alcatraz Elementary!”

          The afternoon was just as lonely as the morning.  After school, when the other kids were laughing and walking home together, I ran across the pavement, through the fenced in yard and into the duplex.  I had made a decision.  I hated school and all fifth graders, and in that order!

          The following day, at recess, one of my classmates walked up to where I was standing, watching the other girls play.

          “Hi,” she said, “I’m Joy,” she invited me to join in the hopscotch game, and for the first time I talked to the some of the other girls.  I could see a glimmer of hope.

          After school, Joy ran up to me.

          “Can you come over to my house?” she asked.

          “I’ll have to ask my mother,” I responded.  I was hoping Mom would say yes, and she did.

          Joy and I made an effort to converse as we walked to her house, but there were long periods of silence.  We didn’t know each other.

           At Joy’s house, her mother was very nice and said she was glad to meet me.  She hoped I was getting acquainted at school.  Joy took the saucer of cookies her mother gave us, and I followed her into her bedroom.  I was sitting on the bed eating a cookie when Joy said abruptly...

          “It wasn’t my idea to invite you here.  I only did it because Mother said I should be nice to you since you’re new at school.”

          Joy’s tone was catty, and I realized she didn’t really want me for a friend.  My heart sank and the glimmer of hope died.  My throat tightened and I fought back tears.  I felt vulnerable and desperate!  Without Joy’s friendship I would be alone at school again.  I listened incredibly to my own voice as it spoke meekly...”Thank you for being nice to me.”

          As I walked home, I kicked a rock out of my way and wiped angry tears from my eyes.  My face burned with shame every time I remembered thanking "that girl" for being nice to me.  My self-esteem and pride had been dealt a blow.

LIVING BY EMOTION OR LOGIC...DECISIONS BEYOND MY CONTROL

“Don, I’m going to sell the house and move to Socorro,” Mom announced to her older brother.  A little over a month had passed since Dad’s funeral.

“Now wait Wanda,” Uncle Don protested, “You should give this more thought.”

“The house is full of memories, and I can’t stand it! We have relatives in Socorro and a change might help.”

“You need more time before you make a decision,” her brother replied with a frown, “You might decide from emotion rather than logic.”

“I don’t have a lot of time,” Mom said, “School begins in less then a month, and we need to be settled by then.”

“If you decide to move to Socorro, don’t sell the house: rent it out,” Uncle Don advised.

The moving men carried our furniture and boxes into the duplex.  I stood on the screened in porch and stared across the street at the one level grade school.  Life had played a trick on me.  I would be starting school in Socorro instead of Magdalena or Albuquerque.

Butterflies whirled in my stomach at the thought of school.  Mr Douglas was the fifth grade teacher and he was a shirttail relative.  Mom said this would be to my advantage, but in my imagination I could see a host of mean fifth graders pointing their fingers and chanting, “Teachers pet.”

        Every time we went to Magdalena we had passed through Socorro.  Dad’s sister Florence and her husband Eldon had lived here for years, and we have visited them often.  But, I had never expected to live in Socorro.

          I left the porch, dodging the couch propelled through the air by two pairs of legs, and explored the fenced in yard.  Mom had chosen the duplex because it was close to school.  She said I would be able to come home for lunch every day. 
         With another thought of school I felt like running from the future.  But, where would I go?  Back to the house on Childers Drive?  Back to Philipsburg?  I had the feeling I wanted to go home.  But where was home?  No place was home with out Dad.  He had been the one stabilizing force in our lives.  Without him, we were like sifting sand, unsettled and without foundation.

SECRETS REVEALED

IDENTITY CRISES…LUCKY'S CHILD

          The mid-afternoon sky was blue with soft, billowy clouds.  Bronco and I climbed into the back seat.  We were tired and dirty from exploring the field next to our grandparent’s house.

          Dad backed the ford onto the street, and we waved at the older couple standing by the chain-linked gate.  I looked out the back window as we drove away.  Grandma made her way to the side of the house to check the chicken pen.  Grandpa Williams, with his hands stuffed in the front pockets of his brown pants, resembled an artist’s character.  He strolled back to the front door; his beige Stetson hat rode faithfully on top of his head.

          We turned the corner onto Main Street and Dad stopped the car in front of Benjamin’s grocery store.

          “I’ll be right back,” Dad said as he got out of the ford.

          “What’s Dad getting?” I asked Mom.

          “Just some things we need...huh...Gloria, I want to tell you something.” Mom’s voice was low and subdued, as if she didn’t even want the Ford to hear.  I glanced over at Bronco; he leaned against the upholstery, his eyelids heavy with soon approaching sleep.  I scooted to the edge of the backseat and leaned my arms and chin on the back of Mom’s seat.

          “When I was sixteen years old”...her voice began.

          Oh good, I thought to myself.  I loved Mom’s recollections of her “long ago” days.  They were full of brothers and sisters, funny pranks, laughter; taking baths in an old washtub, with two children at a time sharing the same bath water.  There were tales of depression days when they traveled cramped in an old car: of Grandpa Underwood searching for work, and painting billboard signs for money to survive; and of Grandma Underwood cooking pancakes over a campfire for her large family.

          I focused my attention back on Mom’s voice.

          “Uncle Don introduced me to Kenneth Bolding.  Actually, his full name was Warren Kenneth Bolding, but his family called him Kenneth.  To his friends in Magdalena he was known as "Lucky".  He was new to Magdalena and he took a fancy to me, probably because I didn’t fall all over him like the rest of the girls in town.  He was very good looking, with black hair and blue eyes.  I dated him for a while.  During this time, life at home became unbearable, and I wanted to leave.  Lucky suggested that we get married, so we drove to Albuquerque and...And... Got married.”

          “I never knew that,” I said in surprise.

          “I was waiting until you were older to tell you,” Mom continued, “You were born when I was eighteen...Lucky...Kenneth Bolding is your real father.”

          I sat perfectly still, my mind unable to comprehend what Mom was saying.  It was foreign to everything I knew about myself.

          I finally found my voice, “How can that be?” I asked in unbelief.

          “We were divorced when you were three years old.  I married Slim and he adopted you.  Kenneth didn’t care about you or he would have contested the adoption.  He gave up all of his rights to see you again.  Lucky...huh...Kenneth was married before me, and he had another daughter by that previous marriage.  Her name was Linda Lee.  She was four years older than you.  In baby pictures, you both looked a lot alike.  She...”

Mom’s voice halted abruptly as Dad walked down the sidewalk carrying a grocery sack.  He put the sack on the back floorboard and slid behind the steering wheel.

          “Sorry it took me so long, we got to talking.  Cy says to tell you hello and stop in next time we’re in town,” Dad said light heartedly.

          Dad didn’t know that a little part of his world had changed.  I stared at him as if seeing him for the first time.  Sadness stirred inside me.  If he wasn’t my real father, then why did people say we resembled each other?  Why did we both have dark hair and hazel eyes?

          My mind moved slowly like a large locomotive pulling a heavy load.  Thoughts, like boxcars linked together, began to gain momentum as they passed one by one.  Alice Birmingham came to mind.  Just a few weeks before she had confided in me as we walked home from school.  She had been told that Mr. Birmingham was not her real father.  Her words echoed in my mind.

          “I just don’t see why I should have to call him Father any longer; after all, he’s only my stepfather.”

          “I can understand how you feel Alice,” I answered sympathetically.

          Later in the day, I told Alice’s problem to Dad and Mom.  Neither of them made a comment, and at the time I gave it no thought, but now I remembered the expressions on their faces and everything registered!  They must have felt they were being confronted with their own secret.

          A light dawned in my mind...that’s why Mom felt Grandma and Grandpa Williams didn’t accept us.  The light slowly dimmed, and I felt another wave of sadness as I realized I wasn’t special to them.  I didn’t belong. Bronco lay near me on the seat.  As he turned in his sleep his arm fell on my leg.  I looked down at him and emotions choked inside me.  My eyes brimmed with tears.  This morning I thought I was a whole sister, but now I was only half of one.  I believed I was a real daughter, and now I was adopted.  Somewhere there were other grandparents to whom I did belong.  There was Kenneth, although Mom said he didn’t care about me.  And there was Linda Lee.

          As we approached Albuquerque, I realized I had spent the entire ride deep in my thoughts.  A multitude of lights twinkled into the dark night.  I had always loved the lights of the city and would pretend they were all my jewels, sparkling and shining just for me; but tonight I was too engrossed in the realities of life to imagine and dream.