C-A-Morgan.com
2 Friends 4 Ever
Introduction
I
The Monroe family was a typical Hilltop family, with Mom, Dad
and six kids running around the house. Mom stayed home to raise her children and Dad went to work everyday at a local insurance company as a computer programmer. Most of their neighbors had blue collar jobs with one of the auto plants or other manufacturing plants on the west side of Columbus.
Ann Monroe was a typical twelve-year-old girl. She had just entered junior high school that year and was adjusting to the class changes and trying to make new friends. Friends were never easy for Ann to make or keep, so her five brothers had always been her primary playmates. Her two older brothers were her teachers and protectors; the two youngest the recipients of Ann’s natural maternal instincts; and Jamie, just fifteen months her junior, her constant nemesis. Being the only girl and in the middle of the brood, she had always felt safe and secure. Ann loved her family and she loved her life. The year 1967 changed everything in the Monroe household. The year started off with Mom placing a set of suitcases on the front porch and informing her children their father wouldn’t be coming home. Just a basic statement of fact with no explanation.
Ann hadn’t seen it coming. Her oldest brother, Allan, told her she was stupid if she didn’t know what was going on. He insisted her parents fought all the time, but she had never heard them say one cross word to each other. Nick, only two years older than Ann, didn’t talk much about what was going on. Ann knew it bothered him, but he just kept his feelings to himself. The babies, Doug and Benny, were too young to understand and leaned on their big sister to ease them through all the confusion. And Jamie, well, Jamie seemed to be reacting to everything much the same as Ann. He just acted like he didn’t have a clue what was going on and continued with his life accordingly. Mom wouldn’t make it easy for any of them, but because Ann was the only girl, she would dump more on her than she did the boys. By the end of January, she had moved them all to a half double in another school district. For the first time since kindergarten, Ann would be going to a school with kids she didn’t know at all. To make matters worse, they hadn’t been given any warning. They simply arrived home from school one day to be whisked away to their new home without a chance to say goodbye to their friends. Ann loved her mother, and she knew her mother adored her. They had always been close, feeling like it was them against all those boys. The new house didn’t have enough room for Ann to have a room to herself, so she shared a bedroom with her mother. But Ann couldn’t handle her constant crying and carrying on. How could her father do this to them? It was Ann who first learned her father had a girlfriend and that was the reason her mother had put him out of the house. Not only that, but she had to hear about all the other women her father had cheated with during his life. It didn’t take Ann long to start hating her father. She couldn’t imagine ever forgiving him! Not long after learning about all the other women, on one of the rare occasions since Dad’s departure when he bothered to honor her with a visit, Ann became the first to meet the current girlfriend and immediately realized she was pregnant! She was afraid to share the news with her mother, but soon found out Mom knew all about the pending birth and was using it to torture her dad, delaying the divorce for as long as she could. So 1967 just kept getting worse and worse for Ann. She wondered how she could handle everything that was happening. She hadn’t realized she’d been shielded for most of her life, but she was experiencing too much too fast for any twelve-year-old to cope with. On her thirteenth birthday, a birthday she shared with her father, she finally lost it and actually told him right to his face that she hated him and never wanted to see him again. He had ruined everything! Mom was going out all the time, leaving Ann to babysit. They started fighting because Ann wanted to go to her favorite park during the summer to play baseball and see some of her old friends, even though it meant a two-mile walk. But Mom always wanted her to stay home and see to the little ones so she could go out with some new guy. Ann hated her mom’s boyfriends. One of them actually tried to kiss Ann once and when, scared to death of the man, she told her mom about it, she acted like it was Ann’s fault she would have to break up with him. Couldn’t her dad see what was happening? Didn’t he even care? Then came the day to end all days. It was a Sunday in October right after church. Allan was in the hospital fighting off another bout of mononucleosis and Mom said she was going to visit him after church. Ann needed to stay home and keep an eye on the kids. She might be late, because she was going out to Plain City with her new boyfriend to meet his children. If she wasn’t home by dinner, Ann should cook something and make sure everyone was fed. Mom wasn’t home by dinner. Ann threw something together. Everyone ate and then went into the living room to watch TV. It was about 8:30 when someone knocked on the door. Ann opened it to see her grandmother standing there. Her grandmother who never went anywhere, who had never been to their house before! Why was she here? And why did it look like she was crying? Your mother’s been in a car accident. She’s in the hospital and she called to ask me to come take care of you kids until she could get home.” Ann couldn’t register anything that was being said. She couldn’t take anymore. She just went to bed, got up the next day and went to school. The following evening was Halloween, so she took the little ones out as usual, refusing to believe anything other than her mother would be home in a couple days with a few bumps and bruises and nothing more. But something kept nagging at Ann, and as soon as she entered the house from trick-or-treating, she settled the boys at the kitchen table and ran the three blocks to her church. She rushed through the front doors, straight into the rectory and up to the altar, where she fell to her knees and begged God to fix her life. She couldn’t take one more bad thing. But God hadn’t heard her. When she walked through the back door, the phone was ringing. Ann picked it up on the second ring. “Ann.” It was her grandfather. “Your mother’s dead. I need to talk to your grandmother right now. Put her on the phone.” Ann dropped the phone and started screaming, and screaming, and screaming.
II
The Richardson family was the polar opposite of the Monroe clan. They had Mom and Dad, but just two kids at home. Both Mom and Dad had been married before and both had one child from their previous unions, grown and gone. Dad worked at the auto factory and Mom waitressed at a local restaurant. Sue Richardson was a pretty girl with lots of friends. She had grown used to her parents constant bickering. They drank all the time and Sue had learned long ago how to take her little brother, Chucky, and disappear into their bedroom when she saw the alcohol start to flow. Sue’s mom had disappeared a couple times during the past year when there had been a particularly heated argument, but she was always back the following day. Until the week after Thanksgiving. Sue had been at school when the fight had started, but when she walked through the backdoor that afternoon, she could tell by the way her father was acting something bad had happened. “Dad, where’s Mom?” “Don’t know, don’t care. That fucking bitch has pissed me off for the last time. We’re better off without her.” “OK, Dad. You don’t mean that. You’re just mad. How long ago did she leave?” “Don’t know, don’t care. What I do know is that you need to get some dinner together so your brother has something to eat tonight. Me, I’m heading out to the club.” Sue had been through this so many times before, she didn’t miss a beat. By the time Chucky got home, Sue had her story ready, telling him Mom had to go into work so they were eating alone. She let Chucky pick his favorites for dinner and she got everything ready. After dinner and a little TV, she got Chucky to take a bath and was amazed she got him into bed by 9:00 without a fight. Off to school the next day, Sue figured her mother would be home by the time they got back from school. But she wasn’t. Nor was she home the next day, nor the day after that, nor the day after that. And not one word from her father. What in the world was going on? It must have been some kind of fight for her mother to be gone this long. And no phone call either. Three weeks flew by. Sue stayed busy with school and taking care of Chucky, coming up with story after story to explain where their mother might be. Her dad acted like everything was fine. Sue loved her dad. They had always had a special bond, always telling jokes and laughing. She knew her dad loved showing her off to his friends, sometimes sneaking her a beer when they came over to hang out in his basement bar. She didn’t want to upset him, but she was really starting to worry about her mother and she kind of resented her father’s cavalier attitude about her disappearance. And now Christmas was coming! The house hadn’t been attended to and there were no gifts for Chucky. He was just ten years old and Sue knew he wouldn’t understand if there were no Christmas this year. Sue snuck into her dad’s room one night after he had passed out from drinking and took a $20 bill from his wallet. The next day, Saturday, Sue went off to the shopping center and picked up some gifts for Chucky and a couple things for herself. When she got home, she got everything wrapped and pulled all the Christmas decorations out from the storage area under the basement steps. She had $4.00 left from the $20. Just enough to get a Christmas tree. Off to the corner lot on Broad Street, she picked out the best tree she could find and talked one of the workers into helping her get it home. When her dad walked in that night, he found the house ready for the Christmas season. “Sue, you have outdone yourself. The house looks wonderful. Chucky will be so happy. I guess I should have thought of this myself. I hope you bought something for yourself. Do you think I should go out and get some more gifts?” “Gee, Dad, don’t go out of your way or anything. Don’t you think it might be nice to take a few minutes to pick out something for your kids, just to show them you care.” “OK, OK. I get your point. I guess I’ve been a little bit out of things lately.” “One more thing. We need some groceries and I used up all of the $20 I took. Can you spare another $5 or $10 so I can get some milk and eggs? Maybe pick up some chicken or something else for dinner.” Her dad dropped $5 on the end table and headed up to change clothes. Five minutes later, he was back down the stairs heading off to his club for the evening. Sue took the $5 and headed to the corner grocery to see what she could find. Before she even left the house, she had decided a pack of cigarettes and a Coke were going to come out of that money, even if she had to go without something else. She had earned it! When she returned, cigarettes and Coke in hand, the phone was ringing. “Hello, Richardson residence.” Sue was cradling the phone under her chin, trying to get the groceries put away. "Sue, it’s Mom.” Sue almost dropped the eggs. “Mom. Where are you? When are you coming home? Why haven’t you called.” “Slow down, slow down. I’m in Florida and I’m not coming home. I’ve had enough of your dad this time. I’ve met a nice guy and we’re settling down here. As soon as we get settled, I’ll come up and get you and Chucky and bring you down.” Florida! Sue had never known her mother to leave the state. But then, she’d never known her mother to be gone this long or not to have called like this. “OK, well, I’m glad you’re OK. I was getting real worried.” Sue just couldn’t imagine her mother was really going to stay in Florida. This was just some new attempt to get her dad to do whatever it was she wanted this time. She probably wasn’t really in Florida. “Well, I wanted to call, say Merry Christmas and let you know what’s going on. I’ll give you a call in a couple weeks and we’ll figure out when we can get you two kids down here. You will love it here. I know you will.” “Yeah, right, Mom. Is there anything you want me to tell Dad?” “Yes, you can tell him to kiss my fat white ass goodbye. I’m not coming back this time.” “I love you, Mom, but I think I’ll let you give him that message yourself.” “Love you too, Susie. Tell Chucky Mommy says Merry Christmas. I sent a package up for the two of you. Talk to you soon.” And then Sue heard the dial tone. Her mother was gone.
Ann hadn’t seen it coming. Her oldest brother, Allan, told her she was stupid if she didn’t know what was going on. He insisted her parents fought all the time, but she had never heard them say one cross word to each other. Nick, only two years older than Ann, didn’t talk much about what was going on. Ann knew it bothered him, but he just kept his feelings to himself. The babies, Doug and Benny, were too young to understand and leaned on their big sister to ease them through all the confusion. And Jamie, well, Jamie seemed to be reacting to everything much the same as Ann. He just acted like he didn’t have a clue what was going on and continued with his life accordingly. Mom wouldn’t make it easy for any of them, but because Ann was the only girl, she would dump more on her than she did the boys. By the end of January, she had moved them all to a half double in another school district. For the first time since kindergarten, Ann would be going to a school with kids she didn’t know at all. To make matters worse, they hadn’t been given any warning. They simply arrived home from school one day to be whisked away to their new home without a chance to say goodbye to their friends. Ann loved her mother, and she knew her mother adored her. They had always been close, feeling like it was them against all those boys. The new house didn’t have enough room for Ann to have a room to herself, so she shared a bedroom with her mother. But Ann couldn’t handle her constant crying and carrying on. How could her father do this to them? It was Ann who first learned her father had a girlfriend and that was the reason her mother had put him out of the house. Not only that, but she had to hear about all the other women her father had cheated with during his life. It didn’t take Ann long to start hating her father. She couldn’t imagine ever forgiving him! Not long after learning about all the other women, on one of the rare occasions since Dad’s departure when he bothered to honor her with a visit, Ann became the first to meet the current girlfriend and immediately realized she was pregnant! She was afraid to share the news with her mother, but soon found out Mom knew all about the pending birth and was using it to torture her dad, delaying the divorce for as long as she could. So 1967 just kept getting worse and worse for Ann. She wondered how she could handle everything that was happening. She hadn’t realized she’d been shielded for most of her life, but she was experiencing too much too fast for any twelve-year-old to cope with. On her thirteenth birthday, a birthday she shared with her father, she finally lost it and actually told him right to his face that she hated him and never wanted to see him again. He had ruined everything! Mom was going out all the time, leaving Ann to babysit. They started fighting because Ann wanted to go to her favorite park during the summer to play baseball and see some of her old friends, even though it meant a two-mile walk. But Mom always wanted her to stay home and see to the little ones so she could go out with some new guy. Ann hated her mom’s boyfriends. One of them actually tried to kiss Ann once and when, scared to death of the man, she told her mom about it, she acted like it was Ann’s fault she would have to break up with him. Couldn’t her dad see what was happening? Didn’t he even care? Then came the day to end all days. It was a Sunday in October right after church. Allan was in the hospital fighting off another bout of mononucleosis and Mom said she was going to visit him after church. Ann needed to stay home and keep an eye on the kids. She might be late, because she was going out to Plain City with her new boyfriend to meet his children. If she wasn’t home by dinner, Ann should cook something and make sure everyone was fed. Mom wasn’t home by dinner. Ann threw something together. Everyone ate and then went into the living room to watch TV. It was about 8:30 when someone knocked on the door. Ann opened it to see her grandmother standing there. Her grandmother who never went anywhere, who had never been to their house before! Why was she here? And why did it look like she was crying? Your mother’s been in a car accident. She’s in the hospital and she called to ask me to come take care of you kids until she could get home.” Ann couldn’t register anything that was being said. She couldn’t take anymore. She just went to bed, got up the next day and went to school. The following evening was Halloween, so she took the little ones out as usual, refusing to believe anything other than her mother would be home in a couple days with a few bumps and bruises and nothing more. But something kept nagging at Ann, and as soon as she entered the house from trick-or-treating, she settled the boys at the kitchen table and ran the three blocks to her church. She rushed through the front doors, straight into the rectory and up to the altar, where she fell to her knees and begged God to fix her life. She couldn’t take one more bad thing. But God hadn’t heard her. When she walked through the back door, the phone was ringing. Ann picked it up on the second ring. “Ann.” It was her grandfather. “Your mother’s dead. I need to talk to your grandmother right now. Put her on the phone.” Ann dropped the phone and started screaming, and screaming, and screaming.
II
The Richardson family was the polar opposite of the Monroe clan. They had Mom and Dad, but just two kids at home. Both Mom and Dad had been married before and both had one child from their previous unions, grown and gone. Dad worked at the auto factory and Mom waitressed at a local restaurant. Sue Richardson was a pretty girl with lots of friends. She had grown used to her parents constant bickering. They drank all the time and Sue had learned long ago how to take her little brother, Chucky, and disappear into their bedroom when she saw the alcohol start to flow. Sue’s mom had disappeared a couple times during the past year when there had been a particularly heated argument, but she was always back the following day. Until the week after Thanksgiving. Sue had been at school when the fight had started, but when she walked through the backdoor that afternoon, she could tell by the way her father was acting something bad had happened. “Dad, where’s Mom?” “Don’t know, don’t care. That fucking bitch has pissed me off for the last time. We’re better off without her.” “OK, Dad. You don’t mean that. You’re just mad. How long ago did she leave?” “Don’t know, don’t care. What I do know is that you need to get some dinner together so your brother has something to eat tonight. Me, I’m heading out to the club.” Sue had been through this so many times before, she didn’t miss a beat. By the time Chucky got home, Sue had her story ready, telling him Mom had to go into work so they were eating alone. She let Chucky pick his favorites for dinner and she got everything ready. After dinner and a little TV, she got Chucky to take a bath and was amazed she got him into bed by 9:00 without a fight. Off to school the next day, Sue figured her mother would be home by the time they got back from school. But she wasn’t. Nor was she home the next day, nor the day after that, nor the day after that. And not one word from her father. What in the world was going on? It must have been some kind of fight for her mother to be gone this long. And no phone call either. Three weeks flew by. Sue stayed busy with school and taking care of Chucky, coming up with story after story to explain where their mother might be. Her dad acted like everything was fine. Sue loved her dad. They had always had a special bond, always telling jokes and laughing. She knew her dad loved showing her off to his friends, sometimes sneaking her a beer when they came over to hang out in his basement bar. She didn’t want to upset him, but she was really starting to worry about her mother and she kind of resented her father’s cavalier attitude about her disappearance. And now Christmas was coming! The house hadn’t been attended to and there were no gifts for Chucky. He was just ten years old and Sue knew he wouldn’t understand if there were no Christmas this year. Sue snuck into her dad’s room one night after he had passed out from drinking and took a $20 bill from his wallet. The next day, Saturday, Sue went off to the shopping center and picked up some gifts for Chucky and a couple things for herself. When she got home, she got everything wrapped and pulled all the Christmas decorations out from the storage area under the basement steps. She had $4.00 left from the $20. Just enough to get a Christmas tree. Off to the corner lot on Broad Street, she picked out the best tree she could find and talked one of the workers into helping her get it home. When her dad walked in that night, he found the house ready for the Christmas season. “Sue, you have outdone yourself. The house looks wonderful. Chucky will be so happy. I guess I should have thought of this myself. I hope you bought something for yourself. Do you think I should go out and get some more gifts?” “Gee, Dad, don’t go out of your way or anything. Don’t you think it might be nice to take a few minutes to pick out something for your kids, just to show them you care.” “OK, OK. I get your point. I guess I’ve been a little bit out of things lately.” “One more thing. We need some groceries and I used up all of the $20 I took. Can you spare another $5 or $10 so I can get some milk and eggs? Maybe pick up some chicken or something else for dinner.” Her dad dropped $5 on the end table and headed up to change clothes. Five minutes later, he was back down the stairs heading off to his club for the evening. Sue took the $5 and headed to the corner grocery to see what she could find. Before she even left the house, she had decided a pack of cigarettes and a Coke were going to come out of that money, even if she had to go without something else. She had earned it! When she returned, cigarettes and Coke in hand, the phone was ringing. “Hello, Richardson residence.” Sue was cradling the phone under her chin, trying to get the groceries put away. "Sue, it’s Mom.” Sue almost dropped the eggs. “Mom. Where are you? When are you coming home? Why haven’t you called.” “Slow down, slow down. I’m in Florida and I’m not coming home. I’ve had enough of your dad this time. I’ve met a nice guy and we’re settling down here. As soon as we get settled, I’ll come up and get you and Chucky and bring you down.” Florida! Sue had never known her mother to leave the state. But then, she’d never known her mother to be gone this long or not to have called like this. “OK, well, I’m glad you’re OK. I was getting real worried.” Sue just couldn’t imagine her mother was really going to stay in Florida. This was just some new attempt to get her dad to do whatever it was she wanted this time. She probably wasn’t really in Florida. “Well, I wanted to call, say Merry Christmas and let you know what’s going on. I’ll give you a call in a couple weeks and we’ll figure out when we can get you two kids down here. You will love it here. I know you will.” “Yeah, right, Mom. Is there anything you want me to tell Dad?” “Yes, you can tell him to kiss my fat white ass goodbye. I’m not coming back this time.” “I love you, Mom, but I think I’ll let you give him that message yourself.” “Love you too, Susie. Tell Chucky Mommy says Merry Christmas. I sent a package up for the two of you. Talk to you soon.” And then Sue heard the dial tone. Her mother was gone.
