“Five hundred sixty two dollars” said Angie to herself as she placed the money back into the shoebox and hid it in the back of her closet. “Another month and we’re out of here”
Angie walked into the kitchen and found her little brother, Justin making a sandwich. “You had better clean up this mess before Mom get’s home,” she told him. “You know how angry she gets, when she comes home to a messy house.”
Angie grabbed her jacket, and headed out the door. She did not want to be there when her mom returned. Angie had been planning their escape for several months. She had been ‘borrowing’ money from her mother’s secret stash for over two years. “Soon,” she thought, “very soon.”
Angie was sixteen and had lived in Chicago her entire life. She lived with her mother, and her three younger brothers; Rusty, who was twelve, Bryce, who was ten and Justin, who was eight. Their father had walked out on them six years earlier. Since that time, Angie had become cook and housekeeper while her mother worked, and when her mother drank and got messed up on drugs, Angie was responsible for taking care of her brothers. After six years, Angie was fed up.
After Angie left the apartment, Rusty and Bryce went into their mother’s bedroom and began searching. Ten minutes later, Bryce shouted; “I found them”.
“Quick, let’s hide them,” said Rusty. Rusty hid them in their bedroom, because their mother never went in there.
Twenty minutes later, their mother returned home. She walked right past the three boys, without saying a word. She walked into her bedroom and slammed the door. The boys heard her throwing things around in her room. Soon the door opened up, and their mother came out. She was very angry. “Where are they?” she yelled.
“Where are what?” asked Rusty, nervously, as he backed away from her.
“You know damn well, what I’m talking about,” yelled his mother.
Rusty and Bryce pretended to act innocent, but they could tell that their mother was high on something. She suddenly grabbed a knife from the kitchen, and grabbed Justin. She held the knife against his throat. “Give them to me now,” she yelled. “I’m not playing games anymore.”
Rusty ran into his bedroom, and returned with a plastic bag. He threw it at his mother and yelled; “Here’s your drugs, now let go of Justin.”
Mrs. Weldon dropped the knife, pushed Justin to the floor and grabbed the bag of pills. She rushed into her bedroom and slammed the door.
When Angie walked into the apartment, she found Rusty and Bryce comforting Justin who was crying hysterically. Rusty quickly explained what had happened.
Angie realized that they could wait no longer. She told her brothers to pack some clothes, in a bag, and then she began gathering what food was left in the house. Then they waited until their mother was passed out in a drug-induced stupor. When the boys asked Angie where they were going, she told them that she would explain later. While the boys took the food, clothes, and other supplies to the van, Angie grabbed the money from the shoebox and put it into her purse. Then, she took the rest of her mother’s drug money from her hiding place, and what money she could find in her mom’s purse. When she saw something else in the purse, she picked it up gently and put it in her own purse.
Before she left the apartment, Angie grabbed her mother’s laptop, and her keys. Once they were all buckled up, Angie drove them away from their apartment, away from their years of torture and abuse, and they never looked back.
Once they were on the interstate, Angie explained her plan. She told them that if they turned their mother into the police, they would be placed in different foster homes and would not be able to stay together. She informed them that they had a great aunt who lived in New York City, and that they were going to go live with her. Angie had not seen her great aunt in over seven years, but she remembered her to be a very nice woman, and she hoped that she would take them into her home, at least until they figured out what to do next.
Angie told her brothers that they had to get as far away from Chicago as possible, before their mother woke up and discovered that they were gone. She would report the van stolen and she would probably tell the police that Angie had kidnapped her other children.
Angie also explained that they only had nine hundred dollars and they had to use it sparingly, until they reached their Great Aunt Catherine’s house.
Angie took extra caution not to exceed the speed limit, as she could not risk being pulled over by the police.
After Angie and her brothers ate some sandwiches that Angie had packed, she suggested that her brothers try to get some sleep. Angie drove late in to the night, before she finally pulled off the highway, and onto a deserted road, where she parked and got some sleep herself.
The trip to New York City took three days. When they finally arrived in the city, Angie asked for directions to the address that she had taken from her mom’s address book. When she located the house, he told her brothers to wait in the van while she explained the situation to their great aunt.
On the way to New York City, Angie tried to think of a way to explain everything to Aunt Catherine, but she still had no idea how she was going to tell her that her only niece was a drug-using alcoholic who had turned violent.
Angie was a little nervous, as she knocked on the door of the house. When a young woman answered the door, Angie asked to see Ms Catherine Wilson. The woman looked puzzled for a moment, then she said; “Oh, you must mean Miss Wilson who used to own this house. She died about three years ago, and the bank took possession of the house, because they could not locate any family. We bought the house about two years ago. I’m sorry, did you know her?”
“No, not really,” replied Angie. She felt numb on the outside, but on the inside, her stomach was turning upside down. “How could she have been so stupid?” she thought to herself. She had not thought to contact her great aunt before dragging her brothers away from the only home they had ever known. She took them through several states, to New York City, and now they had no place to go. They could not go back, and they had no place to stay in New York.
As Angie climbed back into the van, all three of her brothers began talking at once.
“Is she nice?” asked Justin.
“Does she know who we are?” asked Bryce.
“Will she let us stay with her?” asked Rusty.
“Be quiet,” said Angie. “I need to think for a moment.” She knew that they could not return to Chicago. They had to find some place to stay, until she could come up with a plan. If they were discovered by any authority figures, the four of them would be separated. She also knew that she had to tell her brothers something.
“Aunt Catherine died three years ago,” Angie told her brothers. Before they could ask any questions, she continued. “Right now, we need to find a place to stay, and we have to get this van off of the streets. We have to maintain a low profile until I can come up with a plan.”
After driving to a more deserted part of the city, Angie noticed some old abandoned warehouses. She looked up and down the streets, and after seeing no one, she parked the van between two of the buildings, near a huge pile of rubbish.
Angie tried to open the back door of one of the warehouses, but it was stuck. After giving it a couple good kicks, it flew open. She and her brothers quickly moved all of their food and other belongings from the van into the warehouse. Then, they piled trash, old mattresses and tree branches around the van to hide it from public view. Since it was dark, they accomplished it without being seen.
Once they were in the building, Angie closed the door. It was pitch black inside, but they each had a flashlight, and Angie led them into the most secure part of the building. Angie could tell that people had been living there, but from the layers of undisturbed dust everywhere, it had been unoccupied for quite a while. In a room in the center of the building, they found some old mattresses, and Angie told her brothers; “We’ll sleep her for tonight, and then I’ll figure out something out tomorrow.” She could see the worry on their faces, and she told them; “don’t worry!’ she told them. “No matter what happens, we will always be together. No one will ever split us up. I promise you.” Angie talked to them in a calm voice, to reassure them.