There comes a time when one is forced to see things that they do not wish to see.
I thought that Alex and I were stronger than anything. We had been together for coming up on twelve years. In that time, we have had a lot of bad times. We, as a family, are among the poor. It's not from lack of trying either, despite what my sister PJ wants to believe. We have tried for years to sustain ourselves on our own. Everything was paycheck to paycheck and was held together by wistful thinking and prayer. If it could go wrong, it always did. We've gotten kicked out of places for the stupidest of reasons, and on
the shortest of notices. We've both lost a lot of jobs for the stupidest of
reasons too. I love my daughters, but they weren't planned.
When Alex went to Kentucky, it was with the promise of decent job that would pay our bills as well as the possibility of a house that we could set up to buy from the owner on a Rent-to-Own basis. Things were supposed to get better. It was supposed to be our break.
Well, the job didn't turn out. They fired him because he had gained a nickname among the other recruits and that was "unprofessional". Alex managed to snag another job, but it's only a temporary job with no guarantee of being kept on after the holiday season. It's also Walmart, which is notorious about underpaying their employees.
The guy with the houses that he wanted to sell refused to return phone calls. That's probably for the best. We couldn't afford to save anything anyway. So he's stuck there and I'm stuck here.
In swoops another person who seems to have all the answers. She came out of nowhere and was suddenly planning on living with us. She was going to give money to a broker so that we'd be millionaires before the year was out. That's what he specialized in, after all. Oh, and she would just build us a house to live in--isn't she nice? And she'll pay for me and the girls to come out there too! Why hasn't she moved forward with it? Oh, she just needs to talk to her firm back in Boston. She flies back next week...no, next week...no, next week...
As for her story about the broker, I know someone who has played the stock market and the hard currency market for several decades, so I asked him about it. He said that the odds are better playing the lottery than giving a mere hundred dollars to a broker, no matter how good he is.
Then Daddy came up with a really good lead. It's essentially the same job that Alex went out to Kentucky for only here in Missouri. That means that we could stay in the area that we're familiar with and with our support group. And Daddy's getting out this week! After twenty-five years in prison, he's getting out and we can do things with him and call him and a host of other things that most people take for granted.
So I bring it up with Alex and the rest of the group as a possibility. They refuse to discuss it for the longest time. Then I finally manage to get a conversation going only for it to be knocked back without consideration. I keep trying to find ways to counter the problems they are bringing it up, so that I can tell Daddy that we truly considered every option before turning it down. But halfway through I get cut off with the statement from Annie that things are established out there and I should just drop it.
Established means that things are permanent or settled...which means that things won't change. They are accepted as being valid.
I, like an idiot, denied that the separation was valid, that the situation was permanent. After all, didn't they plan to change things? That's when the cussing started and the name calling. Even when I explained what the word meant, they would not deny that what they are saying was true.
It all spiraled out of control. The next day, they had demanded most of the contingent to stop speaking with me, which they did. My queries into what was going on gained me only a demand that I stop childishly harassing people. Even worse, Alex still thinks that Annie is the best chance of getting out of the hole we are in, even though her story has been disproved and she decided that she didn't want to help anyway.
I've been so careful over the years to never tell him that he needed to decide between the girls and I, or something and/or someone else. Not only do I feel that doing so is unfair and childish, but I would rather not know for certain that I rank below something other than our girls. Thus I avoid the idea of forcing a choice.
But Annie, Kai, and Luna are forcing everyone to chose sides. One by one, all of the people that I have been trying to get to know have cut off communications with me except Raven and Alex. Who knows what tomorrow will hold?
I don't want to know where I rank.
I don't.
