He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not – Book I/Tell Me True Love Stories – Book II
by
Susie Gulick
Table of Contents
Chapter One Babies Born in a Boat?
Chapter Two Moving Out of the Tent
Chapter Three Daddy Raped Mary!
Chapter Four Running Wild!
Chapter Five You Want a Divorce?
Chapter Six Jennifer’s Drowned!
Chapter Seven It’s a Father’s Right!
Chapter Eight Wedding Bells!
Chapter Nine Sweet Sixteen and Never Been Kissed
Chapter Ten Where is My Knight in Shining Armor?
Chapter Eleven I’m Afraid I’ll Get Pregnant!
Chapter Twelve Postpartum Depression?
Chapter Thirteen Go Back Jack!
Chapter Fourteen My Alcoholic Husband
Chapter Fifteen Will I Ever Live Happily Ever After?
Chapter Sixteen Run Away From Home?
Chapter Seventeen Do or Die!
Chapter Eighteen Tell Me True Love Stories – Book II
Chapter 1
Babies Born in a Boat?
“I don’t want my babies to be born in a rowboat, Byron!” Mama wailed, as her labor pains got harder. Her twins were already trying to come out!
Chilled to the bone, as they sat on the icy water, her family of five was shivering, and NOT happy. The cold wind ripped off of the water and through their bodies. The mountain snow was still melting on May 7, 1940, as it ran down the Butte Creek, in the Northern California foothills of the Sacramento Valley, where they were fishing. None of them had warm coats, because they were living in poverty. Even their tent that they were living in was several miles away.
“How am I going to give birth when we’re in the middle of nowhere?” Mama wept.
“Shut up, Jenny! You’re scaring the fish!” Daddy threatened, as he shook his fist at her and lit up another Camel.
“You’re scaring my little “kidlets,” Mama groaned as she huddled closer to her three trembling daughters and tried to get them warm. Mama always called her children, “kidlets.”
“Shh! Shh!” she endeavored to encourage, as she hugged them.
Mama tried to “breathe,” to ease her labor pains. Her babies were pushing! Pushing to get out!
“Please, Byron!” she begged. “We’re hours from the Oroville Hospital and we’re freezing to death!”
“I’m not going in until it gets dark! And that’s final!” as his eerie voice crisped the air, which meant maybe a beating, later on, was in store for her and her daughters if she didn’t leave him alone.
Mama hugged Babe, named Jenny after her, who was eight years old and her sister, Esther, who was seven. They were both from Mama’s first marriage. Their father’s name was Hartley. He had left Mama to marry Cricky. Mama was almost twenty-eight, a couple of months younger than Daddy.
Mary cuddled in with them. A year after Mama married Daddy, Mary was born in 1936. Daddy was furious that she wasn’t a boy, as if it was Mama’s fault! He called her “Tony.” She was three-and-a-half years old, now. The four of them shivered, as they snuggled together.
After it finally got dark, Daddy rowed to shore. He smiled at his satisfaction with his huge catch of fish. He wasn’t going to be bossed by this woman, as he turned with a scowl at his family. They cowered at his sneer. Stiff as boards from their coldness and all day sitting in the boat, they climbed out of the boat and waddled after him, like ducks, but they didn’t go, “quack, quack, quack!” Mama could hardly walk, as she endeavored to “breathe” to slow her labor pains and to keep her “kidlets” in tow.
Mama’s “breathing” was so unique, that we weren’t born until after 9 a.m., the next morning, right after she walked into the hospital. The night before, Daddy went home to their tent by the creek. He gutted his fish, had Mama feed her family, then they went to bed, because he was “King of his castle/tent.” In the morning, he took Mama to the hospital, after she made breakfast and they had eaten. In HIS good time!
The nurses rushed to help Mama, as she struggled to get to the bed.
Right away, there was some excitement on the delivery table before we were born.
“Your baby’s arm is sticking out!” the doctor told Mama. “We have to push your baby back in, so that it can come out head first!” As soon as the doctor got me pushed back into Mama’s womb, my twin came out.
“It’s a boy,” Mama joyously told Daddy, as she bared his genitals to prove it. This made Daddy extremely happy, because he hated girls, EXCEPT when he was courting Mama in 1934. How loving and caring, he was, THEN, to her and her two daughters, as he showered them with his nicety, politeness, and attentiveness! There was NOTHING he wouldn’t do for them! Mama had found her “Knight in Shining Armor” and would “live happily ever after!” She now had a “Daddy” for her two little girls. Mama had married him instantly! The same day, he turned into a raging abusive beast. He had his slave to take care of him and he had put on a fine facade. He whipped them into submission, like he did his hunting dogs. They had seen him even KILL one of his dogs, when it wouldn’t obey him! His family feared him and that’s how he wanted it, so that they would do whatever he wanted.
Daddy was almost jumping up and down in his excitement of having his son.
“Then, his name is Byron Jr.” Daddy said, as he smiled at the doctor and nurses. He beamed from ear to ear. “I have my son! I’m so glad he didn’t come out a girl, like Mary did!”
“Oh! Oh!” Mama screeched in pain from the delivery table. “My other baby is coming out!” The doctor and nurses rushed back to catch me, just as I came out, fifteen minutes after my twin brother, Byron.
“It’s a girl,” Mama apologized to Daddy. He stormed out of the room and would have nothing to do with me.
“What shall we name her?” Mama asked Daddy, when he had cooled off from his anger and finally came back into the hospital room. He had already chosen “Myron,” to match “Byron,” like twin boys that were in his heritage.
“Is ‘Myra’ okay?” Mama asked. “We can take ‘on’ off and added an ‘a.’” She had no idea that this was a name. Years later, Mama found out that “Myra” is actually a town in the Bible, which means “weeping” – a forecast of my whole life!
“Do whatever you want!” Daddy huffed angrily.
How could it be Mama’s and my fault that I was a girl? Was he insane?
“Is ’Myra Susan,’ okay?” she softly answered his demand.
What could she do about his anger? She hated it! She was always afraid he would hurt her, like he usually did, when he was angry. He just walked out of the room, still disgusted at Mama and me.
After Mama brought Byron and me home from the hospital, Mrs. Sheldon drove from Chico, up to our tent in the foothills along the creek. She was Mama’s best friend.
“I am so thankful that Byron isn’t here,” Mrs. Sheldon said in relief to Mama. “I hate how he is so mean to you and the children. I brought some baby clothes for your twins. Come with me out to my car.”
“I can’t believe you did this,” Mama sang with joy, as she followed her.
Both of them came into the tent with their arms laden with bags. Mrs. Sheldon always made Mama feel better, no matter how bad our situation was.
Having two more mouths to feed, Mama didn’t have enough food. We lived on game that Daddy got, which was fish, deer, ducks, geese, quail, and pheasants. He also poached. Even the game warden would bring us game that he had taken from people that he caught hunting or fishing out of season. Sometimes, we would have bullfrogs’ legs that Daddy had speared at night at the creek for Mama to fry like chicken.
We also ate almonds, walnuts, and black walnuts that Mama and Daddy shelled, which we picked up along the roads. During harvest time, our family worked in the orchards. We picked up prunes, thus we were prune-pickers, and almonds. Peaches were picked into crates, then cut in two and put onto flats to dry.
“Babe, you’re going to have to go live with your Dad and Mama Cricky and their two sons in Redding,” Mama told her. Babe and Esther had just walked home from the little school in the foothills, just below Paradise. Mama had taken us “kidlets” into our tent and sat us down in a circle, then she had taken Babe in her arms. She was glad that Daddy wasn’t there, when she had to share this heartbreaking bad news.
“Why, Mommy? Why?” Babe cried, as tears streamed her face. “I didn’t do anything wrong!” she wept.
How could a nine year old understand?
“You’re perfect, Babe! We just don’t have enough food,” Mama told her, as she held her tightly and they both wept. This was Mama’s “number one daughter,” as she called her. Each of us daughters had a number.
“But, Mommy, I don’t even know my Dad! I haven’t seen him since I was two years old, when he left us!” Babe whimpered, as she wailed on Mama’s shoulder. “I don’t want to leave you and Esther and Mary and Byron and Myra!”
“You have to,” Mama said calmly. “It will work out fine,” she added, as she tried to reassure her. All of us hugged and cried together. Was this like a loved one dying?
Hartley, Jenny’s Dad, drove seventy-five miles down from Redding to get her at our tent. We were east of Chico in the foothills at the bottom of Honey Run Road, which wound down the hill from Paradise. Our tent was just beyond the covered bridge.
“You will have to go to your Dad’s, too, Esther. We just don’t have enough food!” Mama grievously said in a huddle of us “kidlets” in our tent. This was six months after her sister, Babe had to leave. Esther was eight years old. We all wept and hugged. What else could we do?
Esther’s Dad came to get her and brought her to Redding to live with her sister, Babe, and her step-mother, and her two half-brothers. Would Mama ever see Babe, her “number one daughter” and Esther, her “number two daughter” again?
“Byron and Myra are starting to learn to walk. They are impossible to keep track of,” Mama told Mary.
How could Mama solve this problem?
Since there were a lot of trees, she already had a clothes line between two trees.
“I’m going to tie some ropes onto the clothesline and make leashes for Byron and Myra, so that they don’t get lost, or drowned in the creek. Then, they will be able to walk around,” Mama told Mary. “You need to keep an eye on them, okay?”
“Okay, Mommy,” Mary answered. Mary went about her playing outside. She forgot to watch us. All of a sudden, she noticed that Byron was no longer on his leash.
“Mama! Mama!” Mary yelled to Mama in the tent. “Byron is gone! I don’t see him anywhere! He’s lost!”
“You stay with Myra! I’ll search for him!” Mama instructed Mary, as she came running out of the tent.
Mama frantically checked all of the bushes and the creek bank on both sides of the tent, to no avail. She rushed about in a dither!
“Where could he be? I hope he’s not drowned! What will Byron do? This is his only son!” she said over and over.
Next, she searched the trees, up and down the creek. She finally found Byron among the trees.
“I’m so thankful that Byron didn’t get drowned in the water! You are in the doghouse for not keeping a watch on him, Mary!” Mama admonished.
“I’m sorry, Mommy! I was so busy playing that I forgot to watch,” she cried.
Mama gave Mary a big hug.
“You will have a lot more chances to watch Byron and Myra on their leashes,” she consoled her. “Somehow, Byron got the leash untied. I will just have to be sure that it is knotted securely, every time.”
“I’m so excited that I get to go to first grade at the little school,” Mary sang, as Mama got her ready for her first day of school. It was September of 1941.
“Go straight there and then come straight home when you get out, okay, Mary?” Mama instructed her.
“Yes, Mommy,” Mary called as she ran off to school.
“School was so fun, just the way Babe and Esther told us, Mommy,” Mary told Mama, as she bounced up and down and shared her new experience.
We loved that Mama sang songs to us. It made her and us so happy, because she always put her whole heart and soul into it. Our favorite song was catchy and lyrical with Mama’s sing-song fashion, as she accented each phrase with her mouth, tongue and lips, eyebrows, her whole face making the song, with her body following. Our eyes would light up and we would smile, sway, and bounce, transfixed as she sang it to us:
“Once there lived a little man
Where a little river ran.
And he had a little farm,
A little dairy-o.
And he had a little plow
And a little dapple cow,
Which he often called his
Little Dapple Dairy-o.
One morning, Maiden Nan
With her shiny little can
Went a milking when the
Morning sun was beaming-o.
And I don’t know how,
But she stumbled oer the plow
And the cow was much affrightened
By her screaming-o.
Well, the milk ran oer the plain,
Little piggy squealed in vain.
Little doggie ran after
So very gaily-o.
And to make the story short,
Little pony with a snort
Kicked up his little heels
So very clever-o.
And the maid,
He tumbled down,
And she nearly
Broke her crown.
And THAT made the story
Worse than ever-o!
The other song we kept begging Mama to sing over and over, where she used her hands and body motions was:
“Two little fishies that I once knew,
Mama fishey, Daddy fishey, babies too
‘SWIM,’ said the Mama fishey,
‘Swim if you can!’
And they swam, swam, swam,
Right over the dam.
Doop, doop, dittum, dittum, wattam, shoop,
Doop, doop, dittum, dittum, wattam, shoop,
Doop, doop, dittum, dittum, wattam, shoop,
And they swam, swam, swam,
Right over the dam.”
When Daddy wasn’t around, Mama was always happy and singing and playing with us. She said a lot of funny things, no matter how hard she was working. She taught us every thing she knew. We ate up her playful joyful spirit. She was like one of us children.
She loved when she would rhyme accidently. “I’m a poet and don’t know it,” would always follow, with a lot of smiles, she was so proud of herself.
“This is DINKY as a postage stamp!” she’d admonish us, if she had requested something and it was way too small or if we had not brought enough when she’d request something.
When we would say, “I wish,” she’d say, “If wishes were fishes, we’d fry some.”
All of Mama’s sayings would make us laugh and take the tension off our dire situation. She was like another person. How was mean tyrannical Daddy’s presence able to alter our behavior and fun so much? We loved when he was gone!
“I don’t bite,” Mama would say, as she motioned for us to come closer to her, and gave us hugs, too.
Playful pinches on our bottoms, and saying, “Ants in you pants! Ants in you pants!” was a token of love from Mama, as she giggled.
“My hands are cold, Mommy,” we would complain. Mama would hold our hands, as she rubbed and rubbed them, to get them warm. She did this with anyone that she discovered had cold hands – a trait that all of us “kidlets” picked up. Still! Isn’t this only natural?
“I’m writing an ‘X’ on these eggs,” she would tell us. “That way, I know they are already boiled.”
“My helper,” she would laugh and say, if we kept pestering her or bumping her, when she was trying to accomplish a task.
“I have eyes in the back of my head,” she would tell us, when she knew we had done something we weren’t supposed to. We couldn’t figure out how she always knew. How did she know everything?
When we did something cute or she had a cute remark, she would wrinkle her nose at us, and then smile at us. We quickly learned how to do this.
“I’m blind in one eye and can’t see out the other” or “I’m blind as a bat,” Mama would say if she couldn’t find something.
When she sent us to get something and we couldn’t find it, “If it were a snake, it would bite you!” she would admonish.
For us to accept a decision of Mama’s, she would say, “Like it, or lump it!”
To get a lid to screw on that wasn’t catching, Mama would turn it backward, counter-clockwise, till it would catch, then screw it on. Daddy thought this was crazy, but it worked for Mama. We adapted this, too.
If we were too slow, she’d say, “P.D.Q!” for “right now!”
When Mama said, “Undele pronto!” she meant “hurry up!” We learned this from working in the orchards, because we worked with Mexicans. They were always saying, “Undele! Undele! Pronto!”
“I’m glad I’m good for something!” Mama would say when we couldn’t thank her enough for something she had done for us.
“I’d lose my head if it wasn’t fastened on,” she’d say if she couldn’t find something.
When Mama had a good laugh about something, she would go, “Oh, pshaw!” and laugh until she could hardly stand up. What did that mean? We never said it because we didn’t understand it, but we knew it was a laughing matter!
If disgusted with something, she’d say, “Feathers of a horse!” because she didn’t use swear words – ever!
It was fun, when Mama was feeling really playful. She would playfully accidently, gently bump us or pinch us, saying, “Do you know any pests?” usually when we were deeply engrossed in a task, and smile her infectious grin, bringing grins on us. She was our playmate.
“I’m pregnant, again,” Mama trembled as she told Daddy, right after Christmas. We had just started The New Year of 1942.
“How did that happen?” he demanded. He was so angry, that he started to throw things in our little tent. Byron and I were only nineteen months old. Mary was five. All of us were scared when Daddy got angry. We always huddled together. He left in a rage. We were so relieved that he didn’t hurt any of us.
“We’re moving to the outskirts of Chico,” Daddy exclaimed when he returned to our tent. “My barber friend, that I’m always giving wild game and shelled nuts to, is giving me the money to buy a place on East Ninth Street, where it dead-ends, just past Bartlett Street. It’s almost two miles from downtown.”
“Our tent days are over,” Mama sang, as she voiced her gaiety and joined Daddy in his glee.
“Yay! Yay!” we “kidlets” sang, as we joined in the excitement and bounced, too. It was an extremely rare occasion for us to laugh and be happy with Mama AND Daddy. Daddy began to whistle a song, he was so happy! Mama started to whistle, too. They were the best whistlers I ever knew and I learned how to whistle right away. Why couldn’t we always be happy, like this?
“Let’s go see it,” Daddy said, as his face lit up. His eyes sparkled and he was acting like the happiest person on earth.
“I can hardly wait!” Mama replied, and off we went to Chico to see our new house.
What would 1942 bring as we moved to the outskirts of Chico into the semi-poverty area? Would it be an upgrade from tent-living?