Lounging on the back patio in the shade of the cool evening, I soak in the relief of the heat dropping away. My attention drifts from the dogs playing in the grass and the tall, cool glass of lemonade in my hand to the story of my past. I can’t help but pinch myself. How is this my life? I didn’t come from a family with a back patio. Instead of watching dogs play in the grass, I’d often hide from a pack of strays fighting on an asphalt road chock-full of potholes. And I never had the indulgence of lemonade. But I did always find my way to the splendor of the shade.
Mama left me with a co-worker when I was seven. Mama had said her name a lot in my bedtime stories. The name Trixie was familiar, even if I didn’t know her. Mama said she would be just a few days while she went on a road trip with a guy she had met the night before. He promised her a life of luxury, but she’d had to decide “right now,” and his Peterbilt cab-over wasn’t big enough for the two of them and a kid. I have to say, she did pause for a minute, asking twice if I could come along, promising I was a quiet kid.
Before she left, she handed me a twenty-dollar bill and told me to be good for Trixie. It was more money than I had ever held at one time, so I didn’t realize right away that she hadn’t said goodbye or I love you or I will probably never see you again. She just turned on her heel and walked out of the swinging doors, never looking back.
When I looked up from the cash in my hand, Mama was gone, and there was no one around. Loud music thudded in the bar along with clanging bottles and someone cussing. Not knowing what else to do, I went out the same door we came in, looking for Mama. Stepping into the bright sun beating down on the gravel parking lot, I squinted, but there was no sign of her or that guy or his big truck. In fact there was only one car in the parking lot. A beat up old red chevy truck, parked at the end of the building under a tree.
Looking down at my feet, I wondered what direction I should point them to walk. But then I spied the twenty dollars wadded in my hand. Worried that someone might see it and try to steal it from me, I shoved it deep in my pocket. Desperate to hide from anyone who might come by, I squatted down into the tiniest bit of shade made by a garbage can just outside the double swinging doors. And waited.
To this day, I relish the shade. It’s the only bit of comfort I can acknowledge from that day. The building attached to the swinging doors turned out to be a roadhouse bar along Hwy 14, frequented by all sorts of people throughout the night, not one of them looked safe. The good thing about a garbage can is no one pays it no mind. So as long as I stayed tucked in close, no one noticed me or my money.
Once the sun went down, I felt a little more hidden until someone came barreling out the doors. No one was walking straight, and no one was quiet. I made myself as small as possible, hoping they wouldn’t see me curled in the corner. Even when one big guy with beady eyes and a huge crooked nose emptied the contents of his stomach into the garbage, I stayed. I closed my eyes and put my head between my knees, hoping he couldn’t see past his own problems, and would miss the seven-year-old kid. I watched cars pull in and stay. They stayed until I was cold. They stayed until my legs tingled from being curled up for so long. They stayed until I knew Mama wasn’t coming back.
My eyes were heavy, afraid to close. But I was too tired to control them. I wanted to sleep to escape what my heart told me. I wasn’t sure what time it was when all at once, the double doors slammed open. The yelling, cussing, and laughing shook me to my core. Like the contents of that guy’s belly, everyone who had walked through the doors now poured out all at the same time. Everyone except Trixie.
It took a while for all of the cars to leave. I never once peeked around the garbage can, still afraid that someone might spot me. I could hear yelling and laughing and the crunch of the gravel, and then finally silence. Well, not silence but frogs, a lot of frogs off in the woods behind the red truck. That’s when I finally released the breath I was holding.
I didn’t feel safe, but at least I wasn’t in immediate danger. It took a while, but finally the doors squeaked open one more time, followed by the clunk of a deadbolt being locked. A woman, who I had to assume was Trixie, stepped out of the doorway just enough so I could see her through the crack between the garbage can and the wall. She looked exactly like Mama had described her in my bedtime stories. She stood there gazing at the sky, arching her back as she stretched. Letting her arms fall to her side, she swept the parking lot with her eyes. Whispering my name, so quiet I almost couldn’t hear her. Then she dropped her shoulders even further, took a step forward, and said my name a bit louder. I couldn’t decide if she wanted me to answer or not.
Silently, I stood, wiggling out my legs, and shoving my hand deep in my pocket where I wrapped my fingers around the twenty-dollar bill. I took a deep breath and stepped out from behind the garbage can. I still am not sure if I saw relief or fear when she reached for my hand. Not knowing what else to do, I took it and let her lead me to the red truck.
You would think that that was the worst day of my life, but it wasn’t. I was scared when I didn’t have any money, and I was scared when we did. The only difference was who or what I was afraid of.
Trixie tried to take care of me the best she knew how. She was young, just nineteen, homeless, and using a fake ID to work behind a bar notorious for biker gangs and long haul truckers. I had no idea this was where Mama had gone when she left for work. It was always after I was home from school, and she didn’t come home until late at night after I was asleep. I knew I had to keep the door of our one-room apartment locked, and I wasn’t allowed to do anything except watch TV in her bed. Most nights, dinner was dry cereal out of the box while I flipped through the channels until I fell asleep. But then even that was gone.
I’d thought Trixie was willing to babysit me for a couple days to make some extra money, but those two days turned into the rest of my childhood. And there was never any extra money. I wondered every day when she was going to tell me I had to leave, that she was done with the babysitting job. I tried hard to be quiet, stay out of the way, and not eat. I’m not sure when I finally accepted that Mama wasn’t coming back, but Trixie says it was almost a year exactly when I started calling Mama Denise.
Over time, Trixie and I figured out a routine of sorts. I stayed out of trouble, never drawing attention or answering questions directly. Trixie forged Denise’s signature when needed for school, and I made excuses about a single mom who worked hard to cover the missed teacher conferences. We made a good team.
When Trixie worked, I spent most nights in the tree on the side of the bar over the truck. It wasn’t much different than when Denise had gone to work. I knew I was expected to stay out of sight for my own good. The only real difference was it wasn’t as comfy as Denise’s lumpy bed with her musky perfume scent on the pillow. Trixie and I didn’t have a home to stay in, just the beat-up red Chevy truck. So the tree felt safe. No one had any reason to think I was up there, hidden in the branches.
Trixie was cute, like the girl next door. She was lean and toned, probably from lack of food and lugging those beer kegs around. She had long blond hair that was almost always pulled into a ponytail. And she never wore makeup, not that she needed it. Her sky-blue eyes and long dark lashes gave her everything women tried to pay for. Every night, she had to fight off guys trying to have their way with her. Most of the time, she was capable, but sometimes those guys would get hauled out by another patron or even the cops. I knew I needed to stay especially quiet then. Those were the people that could cause us big trouble. Denise had taught me that.
I, on the other hand, was mousy. No one paid me no mind when I was around. Nothing about me stood out. My stringy brown hair was neither long nor short. It had a cowlick that caused my bangs to stick out just above my muddy brown eyes. I never had an abundance to eat, yet I always seemed to be on the plump side. I have to wonder if that was because I spent most of my childhood sedentary. As long as I could remember, I had to hide, and I was good at hiding. I was never sure who or what was going to find me if I came out and was seen.
To say nothing extraordinary happened in my childhood is an understatement. Trixie and I passed the years together, never marking a birthday or a class promotion. I never did a school play or learned to ride a bike. We did every day the same. I got up early, cleaned the bar bathrooms, and mopped the floor before school while Trixie was asleep in the truck. After school, I stopped at the library to exchange my books, consuming anything I could get my hands on. When I was limited to the children’s section, I would pick my books by their covers. I loved to escape into any story and be away from my real life for a few minutes. My adventures were always fun. I could run away with the circus, spend the afternoon at the zoo, or my favorite, roam the halls of a fancy hotel.
Eventually I got braver and would sneak into the adult part of the library to find books on life. I would read anything I could find the courage to check out. I especially loved the encyclopedias that gave me a little bit of information about everything. I would scoot through the library as quickly as possible to get back to the roadhouse and sneak up into the tree without any of the customers seeing me. I stayed out of sight until Trixie was off work, often dozing until I heard the lock clunk closed, the sign I could come down. We both moved slowly as we crawled into the truck at 3 a.m. Me trying to work out the kinks from balancing on a branch for so long, and Trixie was always exhausted from the hours on her feet. Most nights, we climbed into the truck, never talking, not about our day or about anything, both of us just wanting to sleep.
Summer and Saturdays were the same as any other day. Trixie would be asleep when I left the truck in the morning, knowing I needed to stay out of sight. After cleaning the bathrooms and floors, I spent as long as possible at the library. I never sat at a table, always finding a corner to hide with my stack of books. I can’t remember anyone ever saying a word to me, and I liked it that way. I was good at being invisible.
Sundays were the only day that had a little bit different routine. I’m not sure when Trixie ever took a bath, but she made sure I washed in the creek on Sunday morning. Even when there was snow on the ground, we would follow the trail behind the bar down just a little way to the creek bed. We often didn’t have soap, but she always made me put my head underwater, reminding me to wash my privates and pits.
In the summer, I loved every second of Sunday mornings, lingering in the cool water. I was afraid to play or draw any attention, because I was naked, but it was hard not to relax as the water seemed to wash away everything for just a few minutes.
In the winter months, I dreaded Sunday for the entire week. I hated the cold that went deep into my bones. Knowing that I was going to have to strip down to stand on the ice at the edge of the creek, exposed, while I worked up enough courage to step in. If I tried to drop down into the water to cover my nakedness like I did in summer, I was sure my lungs would collapse. I could not get enough air, and panic would set in. I learned to move slow, wrapping my arms around my body to hide as much as possible, cautiously stepping in.
Staring at the giant oak tree that now spans the great width of my back lawn, I hold back a little sob. I would have given anything to have this mansion of a tree to hide away my childhood. Mine was a scrawny evergreen that was probably stunted by carrying my extra weight every day for years. Evergreens aren’t meant to be climbed, yet mine offered its branches, protecting me from the dangerous people just a few feet away in the parking lot. It heard my silent cries, wrapping me in a hug. On the warmest of days, it opened like a parasol, sheltering me from the sun while it let in the occasional cool breeze. And on the cold and wet nights, it closed around me, like a blanket, keeping me dry.
Besides my tree, which I knew like it was a part of my own body, my most prized possession was a small book bag that someone had dropped outside of the bar one night. It was the one and only time I slipped down out of the safety of the branches while the bar was open. I saw it fall out of the car door when a woman got out. I watched closely, wondering if the lady would see it before she walked inside. When she stepped on the bag, I knew it was mine. I prayed no one else would come out and see it before I could get to it. I stared at it for a while before I dared to move, knowing I was risking everything I knew for something no one wanted. But I couldn’t resist, I didn’t have anything that was all mine.
I took it with me to the creek on Sunday, scrubbing the dirty foot print before hanging it from the bush to dry. Monday, walking into school, I held my head a little higher, my new bookbag giving me the tiniest bit of confidence. I never said a word about it to anyone. I didn’t want them to think I had stolen it. No one ever asked me about it, yet its presence at my side helped me through my days. It hauled my library books up the tree to escape each afternoon. I could travel the world from the branches, dreaming of all of the shade I would find.
Trixie didn’t keep track of what I was doing as long as I was out of sight. She never asked where I had been or how my day had gone when I showed up at the truck after closing each night. I can’t help but wonder if she had known all along and approved of my hiding spot. Even that first day in the shade of the garbage can, she wasn’t surprised when she saw me. In the cold winter rain and snow, she never asked where I was or if I was warm. Looking back, I think that was because she had no answer to change it.
Our life was small, limited to the radius of our little town. Trixie bought food from the bargain bins at the grocery on pay day. But the month always lasted longer than the money. Sometimes we would have to eat what was salvageable from the kitchen garbage. After the bar was closed or the next day, we would rummage through the bags out back. Every day, I hoped they had burned a batch of french fries, and that they had landed on something I could pick through. We drank water from the creek, carried up each morning in an old coffee can. And sometimes in the summer, we would use a T-shirt to trap a fish or two. It was so gross to clean them, but it was worth it.
This was our routine for years, a lot of years. In some ways, we barely made it, and even though I’d been scared, Trixie made sure I never felt as desperate as I did on the first day. Most days passed uneventfully, not letting myself think too much. I eventually quit wondering if Denise would come back for me. Honestly I hoped she was living a good life somewhere, so in some way leaving me had been worth it.
Once I turned thirteen, I took on jobs behind the scenes at the bar. Cutting limes and stocking shelves after I had cleaned the bathrooms and mopped the floor. Trixie insisted I stay completely out of sight of the customers, never getting paid for the work I did. I never met a boss or anyone else who worked there. I was only allowed inside alone in the early mornings to do the work Trixie expected of me. I did this for years without asking any questions. I knew I was doing a part of her job, but I didn’t mind. I would have done more if I could. I felt grown up being inside the forbidden walls, and I felt useful doing something besides hiding in my tree.
As I got older, I thought I was ready to step up my responsibilities. I was about the same age Trixie had been when she started working there, and felt too old to not be contributing to improve things. I started dropping hints, but she ignored those, never even joking about it. I wasn’t getting anywhere, so I asked her directly. She never let it be a debate. She had the last word on my working, and that word was no. I was frustrated, but I didn’t argue. I was always afraid that if I did something wrong, she would tell me to leave, and I had absolutely nowhere else to go.
The red Chevy truck was the closest thing we had to a home. Over the years, it rusted through parts of the floorboard, but it kept us out of the elements at night and protected behind the locked doors. From a distance, it looked abandoned. Only when someone peeked through the windows could they see the evidence of us. We lived one day at a time, dealing with what we had to in the moment, never allowing a dream of something more to take hold. I had to wonder if all of the places in my books were really real or just the fantasies of someone trapped in life, like me.
The summer I turned sixteen, as I walked the library aisles looking for books that grabbed my interest, the librarian, Cheryl, added a book to my pile that she thought I might need. I hadn’t thought much about it as she often watched out for me. Like when I started getting pimples on my nose, she added a book about puberty to my pile without saying a word. I was so thankful she had found a way to prepare me for the day I found blood in my panties. It scared me, but not as scared as I would have been if I had not been warned.
Later that afternoon, balanced high in a tree, with half an eye on my T-shirt net watching for a fish, I reached for my next book in my bookbag. Cheryl’s book was a catalog for the local junior college. In that moment, my world became big, and I could see beyond the school that bored me, the roadhouse that threatened me, the red truck that trapped me, and the trees that hid me.
I didn’t tell Trixie. I didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up or have them dashed, especially mine, by talking about it. The next day, when I returned my books to the library, Cheryl noticed I hadn’t included the college catalog in my returns. She was never one to ask questions directly, always quietly observing and pointing me in a direction.
This time she’d included a book about studying for the GED. The first few pages explained what it was and how it worked. I had no idea there was a different option besides going to school every day until I finished high school. I decided I was never going to ask about working at the roadhouse again. I was going to do something different to help Trixie. It would be my way of paying her back for taking me in.
The spring of my sophomore year of high school, I passed the GED with flying colors, and with the help of a high school counselor, I enrolled in the summer semester at the local junior college. Ms. Loraine asked a lot of questions but never pushed me beyond what I wanted to share. Rumors about me had circulated for years, probably more of them were true than I cared to admit. Even with that, Ms. Loraine quietly encouraged me that I could shine in spite of my circumstances.
Through the years Trixie and I grew to lean on each other. She made the rules and had to trust me to follow them. We had no other options. Even still, I never felt like I could ask her anything about her past. From the beginning, it was obvious she wanted to keep her story to herself. And she never questioned me about Denise either. Our relationship was established in the silence of that first day and didn’t change much.
I was surprised to find junior college easier to navigate than high school, sliding in and out of my classes without people noticing me. And using the library computer to do my assignments allowed me to spend less time in the tree. I would stay until the library closed before sneaking back to the roadhouse. It wasn’t as scary to walk through the parking lot at sixteen as it had been when I was seven. But I had seen enough that I knew the dangers of a drunk guy finding me alone, so I was always on guard, hurrying to the safety of my tree.
I was able to get my BA early, studying came easy and was all I had to fill my days. Finishing school was something I was proud of, but I didn’t have anyone to share my excitement with. I didn’t know how to put what I learned into practice in real life. The idea of working anywhere besides the roadhouse terrified me, and Trixie still hadn’t budged on letting me near the customers.
Ms. Loraine stayed in contact during the year and a half I was at the community college. She helped me with the registration forms, class selection, and financial aid. And she was the one who told me about a program that let me work on campus while I went to school. I had no idea what I was qualified to do, but I had become comfortable on campus because no one paid attention. I could blend in if I could do the job. And I knew the money would help ease the burden on Trixie. When the opening at the library was posted, I knew I had found my spot. The job seemed to be made for me.
Once we saved a few of my pay checks, we were able to move into a pay-by-the-month motel. It was the first time I had slept in a bed since the night before Denise dropped me off.
The Blu-Lite Motel smelled like stale cigarettes and mothballs, and it was the most luxurious place I had ever been. A warm shower every night and being able to lie down to sleep were two things I hadn’t known I was missing. Each morning, I had a little more confidence. Maybe it was seeing myself in a mirror regularly, checking my appearance before I walked out of the door. Or maybe it was because I was finally contributing to our life.
I hadn’t realized it, but I had grown. I was now tall and slender, like I had been stretched out, but there were curves too. My hair was thick, hanging low on my back. The weight of it pulled my cowlick down so it wasn’t as obnoxious. My nose was splattered with freckles, and my lips were full and dark pink. My muddy brown eyes had sprouted golden flecks that match the sun-kissed highlights in my hair. Staring at myself, I was surprised at who was staring back at me. Away from the mirror, I was still the little girl behind the garbage can, but in the mirror, I felt strong.
I was sure it had to have been Cheryl who put the state college application into my bookbag, but when I pulled it out, I was pushed one more step forward. I did the best I could to fill out what I knew, and then waited for Ms. Loraine by her car in the high school parking lot. When she saw me, she pulled me into a hug. I didn’t have to get all of the words out before she was nodding her head. Yes, she would help me. Insisting that we go immediately, we drove to a nearby coffee shop.
The big open windows and the smell of the rich coffee are still burned into my memory as the beginning of the next part of my journey. It was obvious Ms. Loraine had been in there before because of the smiles and nods, proof I was not the only one she had gone above and beyond to help. Together, we filled out the rest of the application, as well as scholarship and grant applications. She even pulled the stamps out of her wallet to mail it all in.
The whole process brought up some questions I had been avoiding my whole life. Who was my father, where was my mother, and why didn’t anyone want me? I did the best I could to hold my emotions at bay as I sat with Ms. Loraine in that very public coffee shop, but that didn’t temper the volcano bubbling inside of me. We finished the applications but lingered at the table. Never did she push me for information. She probably figured that I had none. Instead, she held my hands and looked into my eyes. She told me how God had made me perfectly, and how His hand was on me, and it was Him opening the doors. She poured strength directly into me with those reaffirming words.
It was hours later before I heard Trixie open the door at the Blu-Lite. I laid quietly while she stripped down to take a shower to wash the grime of the roadhouse away. It wasn’t until she crawled under her covers that I quietly asked my first question. The same question I wanted to ask on our very first night in the red truck.
Looking back, that had to be a night that Trixie had spent years dreading. She held all of my answers, knowing that one day she would have to tell, but so embarrassed of the truth. Even before I hid behind that garbage can with the twenty dollar bill wadded in my hand, Trixie was a part of my story that I didn’t know.
My life had begun with her. Trixie was my mom, my real mom. Denise had not only left me behind, but she had left Trixie too, a long time ago. Denise had left her daughter in the red truck, the only home she had ever known. Their story was long and messy, and when I came along, it got even messier. You see, my story started in the roadhouse parking lot. After closing, on the first day Trixie talked her way into a job at fifteen, with a fake ID… And it was Trixie who was determined to find a way for my story…my family’s story…to end differently.
Jodie Elrod is a Christian author, homemaker, and storyteller who writes about faith, hospitality, and the beauty of everyday life. A wife, mom and grandmother, she shares encouragement through short stories, reflections, and gatherings around the table. She is working to release her gift book on hospitality and a debut novel.