If I Had My Way
A Collection of Short Stories
By
Lena Sledge
If I Had My Way © 2011 by Lena Sledge
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Any names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the imagination, and any resemblance to the actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from the publisher, except by review.
Editing/Typesetting: Carla M. Dean, U Can Mark My Word
Cover design: Charles Beason of Media Eyecon
Sales inquiries should be forwarded to:
Sonny Brook Publishing
P.O. Box 535
Madison, AL 35758
www.sonnybrook.com
Acknowledgements
It’s been a long journey arriving at this time and space. I have learned so much, and I could not have gotten as far without help from some special people.
To my sister, Loletha Smith, thank you for always being there to read my latest story on a whim and never complaining when I said I had just written a bestseller for the umpteenth time. Everyone should have a sister as selfless as mine.
Also to my support system of friends, Author Katina Walton and Melody Humphrey, for never allowing me to feel as if I couldn’t do it. Heck, I couldn’t quit if I wanted to because they forbad it. Katina, you stayed on me relentlessly. You called, you texted, you met me for coffee, you let me gripe while listening attentively before telling me to suck it up and keep going. Whatever I needed to stay the course, you provided. Thank you, my dear friend.
To my editor, Carla M. Dean, thank you for your honest opinions, suggestions, and assistance. Anyone writing a book, you really need to invest in an editor; a great editor.
To my friend, graphic designer, and owner of Radar Magazine, Charles Beason. Charles is very patient; he usually knows exactly what I like. On the rare occasions when I’m not pleased, he has patience and will work on the task until I’m completely satisfied. We bounce ideas off each other, and he has helped me stay focused on building my platform and expanding my brand. Everyone should have a Charles to bounce ideas off of.
A huge thank you goes out to all my blog followers for staying with me on this literary journey. My fellow bloggers and followers have been a support system to me that has been invaluable, teaching me discipline to write frequently and forcing me to hold myself accountable. If I didn’t blog for a while, I’d start getting emails asking me if I were okay. That truly made me feel special. A special thank you to the blogs, Sort of Beautiful, A Reading Rendezvous Reviewz, Line of Serenity, Books as Portable Pieces of Thoughts, Reading on a Rainy Day, Reflections of a Bookaholic, Books, Personally, author and blogger J.L. Campbell, Leeswammes Blog, and all the other blogs that support me and cheer me on every single day by stopping by and commenting. I truly appreciate every single follower and every single comment. I try to reply to each and every comment because I know your time is precious and you could’ve stopped at any blog; yet, you chose mine. So, I thank you all.
I’d also like to thank my Facebook fans at Lena Sledge’s Blog, Books, Reviews and Interviews. I enjoy the interaction and Facebook camaraderie. To my twitter fans, @lenasledge, I say thank you for all the retweets and for helping me get the hang of it.
To my family and five children, thank you for your support and encouragement. To my children, I thank you for your support and for understanding the work that goes into writing by giving me peace and quiet when I need it. I love that two of my girls love writing, as well. So, maybe I’ll have two future bestselling writers in the family.
And I have to save the best for last, my husband. He has been my rock through our entire marriage and my literary journey. He motivates me continuously and tells me I can do anything I set my mind to. Whatever I needed to accomplish this leg of the journey, he provided. So, I truly thank you, my Love, for your support, unyielding love, and endless encouragement. I could not have completed this journey without you. I love you.
I dedicate this book to the men in my life: my father, the late Willie Servant, my dad Kenneth Jones, my husband, and my two sons.
Table of Contents
Sunshine
My life is not disastrous, but I do have a story to tell. It would have been nice to go on Oprah, tell my story, get a book deal, a couple of freebies, and have my fifteen minutes of fame. However, there are so many people like me in the world, simply ordinary people in extreme circumstances. The ordinary kind of people who will never get a free plane ride, a hotel stay, or a makeup artist to dab their faces in different colored hues in order to cover up the ordinary, drab life they were given. So, I’ve decided to be my own Oprah. I’m going to tell my own story the way I want it told. Ask myself the hard questions, the tearjerkers, and hopefully come across my own “ah-ha” moments.
The first question Oprah would ask is, “Sunny, how did you get to this point in your life?” And my response would be:
You know what, Oprah? I’m glad you asked. I’m not going to go back too far, just far enough so you know why I need to tell you all this in the first place. Far enough so that by the end, I’m not compelled to end up on some other show like America’s Most Wanted.
I’m seventeen and an only child. I’ve lived with my father most of my life. It’s strange how when you share this with someone who doesn’t have a father living at home, they assume he’s loving you the wrong way. They wonder what kind of grown man lives his life alone, with a girl child, with no wife. Or they may give another odd look, wondering if something’s wrong with you that only your daddy would want you. And after that puzzled look goes away, you can see them questioning the whereabouts of my mama. Hell, I’d like an answer to that question myself. Last time I saw my mother, she dropped me off on my first day of kindergarten and never looked back.
I sat in the principal’s office while they called around trying to find someone to come pick me up. As my feet dangled, I watched the crisp white shoelaces from my very first pair of Keds spin around in circles. While waiting on someone to claim me, I started to wonder if I was trouble from earlier in the day when I splashed paint on my classmate, Samantha Jane, who stabbed me in the hand with a pencil because I told her that her hair was nappy just like mine. I told her maybe if she asked her mama, she could get a hot comb put to her head so the barrettes on her ponytails would dangle like mine. She said her mama was white, and they didn’t use hot combs. I told her white people don’t have nappy hair. That’s when she stabbed me in the hand. Thank goodness the pencil lead broke and the tip of the pencil just scratched my knuckle. But, just the thought of her wanting to hurt me after I tried to help her out made me angry. So, I took the quart-size bucket of green paint and threw it on those nappy ponytails of hers.
Mrs. Marsh thought we were having too much fun; neither of us told her what the other actually did. So, she sent me to play with wooden multi-colored blocks, while she tried her best to comb Samantha Jane’s ponytails. It was evident Mrs. Marsh had no idea how to get the paint out of Samantha Jane’s coiled hair. Mrs. Marsh’s pale skin matched that of Samantha Jane’s, except Mrs. Marsh had long, dingy, frizzy, blonde colored hair. Her hair reminded me of the kind a Barbie has after you’ve played with it, washed it, and then not knowing it was plastic hair, tried to blow dry it.
The principal, Mr. Knox, and my teacher, Mrs. Marsh, frantically made phone calls to relatives and friends. Unbeknownst to them, we were poor and so were our friends and relatives. So, phones were considered a luxury. After an hour or so, I began to feel like they had lost my mama, not realizing I was literally being thrown away. It took three hours for them to track down my daddy at work. Three hours and a belly full of cheese crackers later, my father showed up in his muddy work boots and beige Cartwright overalls, while still wearing his safety glasses. Up until that point, I had only seen my father on the weekends. Never had I seen him look so worried or annoyed.
He gave me a wink and walked into the office with Mr. Knox and Mrs. Marsh. I could see them through the clear glass windows of Mr. Knox’s office as he offered my daddy a seat, but daddy refused. He was not a tall man by any means, but his disposition and permanent grimace made you think he thought he was well over six feet tall.
While still sitting in the chair, I leaned over, trying to hear any reference as to where my mother may have gone or who may have taken her. Why was I still at school and not at home watching Fraggle Rock? I leaned forward a little more, and that’s when I went tumbling out of my seat, landing on my palms and bruising my knee on the linoleum floor, spilling fish-shaped cheese crackers across the floor. I brushed the dirt off my hands onto my already dirty khaki shorts from the green paint fiasco earlier and then quickly bounced back up in my seat, hoping no one had seen me. I stared at the orange-colored broken fish, wanting to pick them up and save them for later, but I was too afraid they’d catch me and know I had something to do with the orange crumbs being on the floor.
My father shook his head, nodded, and put his hands in and out of his pocket several times, but he never said a word. Minutes later, he walked out of Mr. Knox’s office, tracking dirt along the way. He scooped me up with one hand, while grabbing my backpack with the other. I could hear the cheese and dirt meshing together with every step my daddy took. As I waved to Mrs. Marsh, I noticed the orange cracker dust in the seat and the trail of fish falling out the pocket of my backpack behind my father’s footprints.
Over the years, I imagined my mother had been kidnapped, taken away, evaporated and gone to heaven, became magically invisible, or perhaps died. I conjured up tales of her disappearance, then fed those stories to my dolls, teddy bears, and even myself until I had convinced myself that they were true. I became a great storyteller, a weaver of fantasies and sophistry. So much that when people questioned me as to her whereabouts, I would construct elaborate details of how she was taken from me by some masked, mother-grabbing thief of a boogeyman. It was not until I was nearly eight years old that my father, seeing the torment I was inflicting upon myself, told me that the boogeyman did not exist. He would prove it to me by checking under my bed, looking in closets, and placing two nightlights in my room.
He would never tell me that she might have left me; he would not wrap me in his arms and assure me I was loved. He was not that kind of father. He was the bread-and-butter kind of dad. The kind who made sure you had food, clean clothes, and did your homework. All the mothering I required came from Aunt Noonie, my father’s baby sister.
Aunt Noonie came to live with us once daddy started working third shift. She kept my hair combed, braided, ponytailed, and beaded. She taught me the difference between tampons and pads, granny panties and thongs, boys and men. She babysat, read bedtime stories, helped with homework, taught me to dance, cooked, and cleaned. She was a desirable substitution for a mother. When I needed a sibling, she became the amenities that only a sister could provide. We sang off key like singing duos, danced, laughed, played video games, and she even took the blame for me on many occasions when my father knew the mishap had my name saturated all over it.
Aunt Noonie would tell me how beautiful I was, how breathtakingly gorgeous I was, and how every day, I looked more and more like my mother. She was lying, of course. My mother was cinema-quality beauty, with her full hips, pouty lips, and thick hair. None of those qualities I currently possessed. I would linger over photos of my mother, comparing my details to hers. I saw her peeking from behind my eyes daily, and it frightened me. Scared sometimes that maybe this beauty and body of mine would grow into one just like hers and land me in the same place she had gone. And at times I was thankful––thankful that she had left a part of her with me to see every day. Aunt Noonie was impressive in her own right, though. People often said we looked like twins. She shared the same dark mahogany complexion as my father, the same wide, pudgy button nose, bubbly brown eyes, and wiry jet-black hair. Either way, the gene pool would not have let me down.
Today, I’m on to new prospects. I removed the blue gown from the hanger, and with a quiet slowness, I put it on. I positioned my cap on my freshly relaxed, curly locks. Swinging the tassel just before the corner of my cap, I saw my mother in my reflection in the mirror. It’s in these moments that I wondered where she was, what she looked like, and if she was at peace or watching me from above. Too much contemplating on her whereabouts jolted my belly until I could barely catch my breath.
“We’re going to be late, Sunny,” my father said, standing in the doorway to my bedroom.
I could see the wear of working hard sprouting in the form of grey hairs in the silkiness of his beard, mustache, and tiny curls on his head. I had grown to be an inch taller than him, but to me, he was still stout and strong.
“Come on now. Noonie is waiting outside in the car. Your grandma and everyone else are already at the concert hall. You do know they won’t stop your graduation just cause you’re late, right?”
“I know, Daddy. I know. I just…” I took in a deep breath. “You just don’t understand. I know she didn’t mean anything to you when she… when she disappeared. But, she still means something to me. And I just wonder if she’s proud of me… if she regrets leaving me.”
“I’m sure she is. Now let’s go,” he said, waving his hand towards him for me to hurry.
I knew that was the most empathy I could expect to elicit from father in regards to my mother. I barely remembered him saying her name, unless I was eavesdropping on him as he spoke to someone. Often, his memory of her was never in accord with mine. His sentiment was that she was immature, too lazy to be a mother, too selfish, and delusional. They had been married only a year before I was conceived, and it took three years after I was born for my father to pack up his things and move out. He complained every so often to his friends that her lack of mothering skills was why he didn’t visit me as often. That watching her blow the money he gave her on clothes, partying, and everything else other than bills and me made him want to strangle her and demolish everything in sight. In his view, staying away from me may have hurt him and may have hurt me, but it kept him out of jail.