Birdie and Beletta

By Barbara J. Savage

Psychically gifted Darla has a difficult decisions to make. Should she choose to stay with her family or choose to be with Beletta? She fears everyone hates her because she is not “normal”. Centered around an American military family in the 1960s, the story plunges readers into the multiple layers of a struggling family’s wounds and secrets.

Darla learns two things from Beletta that she carries with her the rest of her life: she was loved and there is a heaven.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barbara J. Savage
• Release date: Feb 10, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466125568

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Birdie and Beletta

By: Barbara J. Savage

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 Barbara J. Savage

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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Chapter 1

The wind is messing up my hair-do. Mother complained as she patted the back of her shellacked French-twist. She found a stray bobby-pin and pushed it in deeper.

We cranked our windows up without being told. Dad turned the air-conditioner on. Goosebumps bubbled up on my legs, and I wished I had worn pants instead of shorts. Ruth’s heels dug into my thigh. She stretched out more on the back seat and squashed me into the door. Mother lit her first cigarette of the journey, and my eyes began to water from the acrid blue smoke that filled the station wagon. I didn’t bother to complain. It wouldn’t have done any good.

My father, Tom Noble, turned onto the highway that led out of town. He adjusted the knob of the air conditioner and turned on the radio. He listened for a couple of seconds and then turned it off.

Do you drive a car like you fly a helicopter? Mother broke the silence.

What? Dad looked at her quickly and back to the road.

Do you always have to be adjusting something or turning a knob?

I guess. Dad brushed her off.

Mother leaned her head against her window and closed her eyes. The car rocked me to sleep.

There’s the state line.

Mother’s voice woke me up.

We just left Texas.

Did I tell you that Louis got the apartment manager to hold a place for us? Dad changed the subject.

Dad’s Army buddy, Louis Norton, had gotten his orders a couple of weeks earlier and had been sent to Virginia as well.

They only had one two-bedroom left, but Louis said they will push another bed into the second bedroom room for us.

I don’t want to share a room. Ruth was awake.

They didn’t have any three bed-rooms available, so you will have to. It’s only for a few months. Dad tried to rationalize with her.

I hate it. Ruth crossed her arms over her chest.

Maybe they have a swimming pool. Mother tried to comfort her.

I really didn’t mind sharing a bedroom with her, but Ruth found this totally unacceptable. She hated me with a vengeance. Mother tried to console her by telling her that we would be living close to the ocean. It didn’t change Ruth’s attitude a bit.

It was the first time I knew of living in an apartment. They had told me that the family had lived in an apartment when I was born in Germany, but of course, I didn’t remember that. The earliest house I remembered was where we lived while Dad was away in the war the first time in 1965. It was in Carlsbad, New Mexico, so we could be close to my grandparents. I was three and I remembered a lot of bad dreams of wicked dinosaurs, a creepy dark place under the sofa end table where I was sure a ghost lived, the floor furnace that melted my crayons if I dropped them into it, my cat, and getting my tonsils taken out. After that, they made me give my cat away because the allergies still didn’t get any better.

The next place had been Army quarters in Texas. It was a duplex. That was where I had asked about the picture of the little girl that sat on top of the TV. Mom had reacted very strangely. In a matter of a few seconds, she had put her hand over her mouth, turned her back on me, spun back around to face me, and ended up looking at the ceiling whispering Oh, God.

I looked up, too. I didn’t see anything to be upset about up there. I was trying to decide what I should say or do next when she pointed at the photo and sternly said, See that picture? She was your sister. That was Debra.

You mean Ruth? I thought maybe that she had gotten my sister’s name wrong. I couldn’t understand why she was mad at me.

No. Debra died right before you were born. She died from Leukemia and is in heaven now. Mother covered her face with her hands and sobbed as she left the room.

My mother never talked more about it, and I wasn’t about to ask. I was worried. I didn’t want to die and then never be talked about again. I had so many questions. I had no choice; I had to ask Ruth. I found her in her bedroom. I slipped in and closed the door behind me. I walked into the middle of her room. Ruth stared me down as she dropped her doll. Did you know we had a sister named Debra that died?

She nodded yes.

Why did she die?

She got sick.

How did she get sick?

I don’t know. It just happened. It was cancer. She stood up.

Do you remember her?

Not really. Maybe? I don’t know. Leave me alone. She went around me to the door.

Wait. Will I get it and die, too? I called to her back.

Ruth stopped and turned around. Why did you ask that?

I didn’t want to admit my fear to her, but I had to know. Will you forget about me, too?

Tears splashed onto my cheeks. My tears repulsed her as much as they shamed me.

No. You’re not going to die, and I wouldn’t forget about you.

She ran away, leaving me alone in the room. That was the closest my sister ever came to telling me that she cared about me. I actually got a warm feeling for just a little bit.

A couple of weeks later I accidentally knocked Debra’s picture off the TV. The glass broke and tore the photograph. Mom screamed and yelled, said that I didn’t deserve to live there anymore, and threw me out of the front door onto the porch. I heard the lock turn from inside. She had locked me out. I didn’t know what to do. I was too stunned to cry. The lady who lived on the other side of duplex opened her door. The walls were like tissue paper and she had probably heard everything that had just happened. She waved for me to come over to her. When I didn’t move, she asked me if I wanted to come into her house. I wanted to. She was always nice to me. She gave me a book of nursery rhymes one time. Quickly the pictures formed in my head of how much worse my situation would get if I took her up on her offer. There would be yelling and spanking. Dad would use the belt. My family would hate me even more. I shook my head no. At the same time, Mother unlocked the door. She didn’t open it. I turned the handle and bolted inside. Mother wanted to know what the woman had said. I said nothing as I ran to my bed and hid under the covers. I’ll never forget how badly I wanted to go to the neighbor lady’s house.

Dad drove like a maniac and we arrived in Newport News in only two days. He triumphantly pulled into the parking space in front of our new apartment home. It was on the first floor in the middle of a very large complex. As I entered the apartment, I was suspicious. Would it be wonderful or horrible? The door opened straight into the living and dining area. A short wall created an entrance into the kitchen. There a sliding patio door opened onto a small concrete patio. The bedrooms and the bathroom were off the living area by a short hallway. It reminded me of the house on the Dick Van Dyke Show. So far, so good.

Ruth entered our new room first, with me on her heels. The bedroom should have never had two beds shoved into it. There was barely room to walk between them. One was against the wall with the foot at the door, two feet over was the next bed, lined up in boarding school regulation, against the wall. A short dresser stood against the wall at the foot of the bed under the window. A small closet was at the end of the dresser. Ruth immediately claimed the bed underneath the window. She also claimed the closet as her play space, leaving me the whole rest of the room, which amounted to nothing.

Look at this. Ruth pointed at a baby-blue princess phone setting on the dresser. She picked up the receiver and held it to her ear. It works.

She inspected the dial mechanism and pulled a small piece of cardboard out from under the plastic in the middle. She flew out of the room with it.

Her voice echoed through the empty house. Mother, I need a pen so I can write our phone, address, and the police number on our phone.

Look in my purse. Wait, did you say you have a phone? Don’t use it unless you have permission. Mother responded.

I resurveyed the room and accepted that I would be playing on my bed until I found somewhere else I could go. I hoped that maybe I would find a new friend in all of these apartments.

That’s what I was good at, hoping. There were times that my hopeful pleas to God were answered. When we lived in the duplex, I watched Ruth get on the bus and escape to the first-grade. When she returned in the afternoon, I quizzed her relentlessly, trying to understand what school was. She answered some of my questions and even went so far as to describe the blackboard for me. I was fascinated. I couldn’t believe there was actually a place like this. I had been struggling to figure out reading for a couple of weeks, and the thought that a teacher was someone who helped someone do that thrilled me. I hoped I could go there, the next day. Maybe Ruth knew how I could get on that bus. I expected Ruth to be mean, but I hoped that just this once she was nice and would tell me how I could be so lucky and go to school.

How do I get to go? I need help to learn to read. I asked her.

You can’t, you’re too little. Ruth shoved by me and headed down the short hall towards the duplex’s only bathroom.

Too, little? The doctor said that I would grow soon. I called after her, as she slammed the bathroom door shut behind her.

I was a very tiny four-years-old, barely the size of a rather small three-year-old. I was very thin and very tiny, to the point of worry. The Army doctor that my mother had taken me to a month ago had said I was healthy, just extra skinny and extra little. He blamed it on my being born to early. He told me to eat, took some of my blood, and sent me out of the there with a candy. I hoped I would grow enough overnight so Ruth would tell me how to go to school. Ruth was big, and not just because she was older than I was. She was actually bigger than most children were her own age. Next to her, I looked even smaller and pathetic. I hated that people treated me as though I was a baby just based on my size. We were children in extremes, she was bigger to an extreme, and I was small to an extreme.

I always wondered if this was another reason why she hated me. All of my parents’ dreams and plans for Debra died with her. After Debra was gone, Ruth had our parents all to herself. Sure, Dad began to drink like a fish to escape reality. He didn’t drink to forget what happened, he drank to become numb to what had happened. Mother just checked out without the help of alcohol or drugs. She just didn’t interact with much of anyone anymore. Yet, for what it was worth, Ruth was their only child and the recipient of what was left of their parental love. She had gone through the illness of Debra and having to share her parents with a sibling that not only got most of the attention, but she very well deserved it. And then Debra died. Now Ruth had my parents to herself. The death of Debra wounded my parents, and Ruth was their bandage. They were fractured and a bit smaller, but they were what Ruth would have thought of as her family. Until, one day, when I was born, and everything changed again for Ruth. Suddenly, she had to share her world with another sister. I wasn’t dying, but a baby demands a lot of a parent’s attention. Once again, Ruth had to fight for the attention that this new sister vied for. I was also able to be a bandage as well. I believed that Ruth hated me, solely because I existed.

The next morning I was exactly the same size I had been when I went to bed. I needed to go to school, and I didn’t have time to grow. I had no choice. I was going to have to ask my mother.

God heard me ask my mother, oh, and my father heard, too. He had received a bulletin that the Army was starting a kindergarten on base. He told my mother to call and find out if I was old enough. He reminded her to tell them how smart I was. The director told Mother that since the school was just getting started and there were many open spaces, she would let me attend even though I was technically too young. She said that I would probably have to go for two years before I could enter elementary school. The day the director walked me in to join the class, she rolled her eyes at Mrs. Cornfoot and said that my parents thought I was advanced. Mrs. Cornfoot nodded knowingly and asked me my name.

Darla. I answered her and looked straight into her blue eyes. Where do I go to get help learning to read?

I pulled the nursery rhyme book out from the front of my pants where I had hidden it before I left the house. I thumbed through it until I found the word that I couldn’t figure out.

I have it pretty much figured out, but I need help with this word. I held the book up, and pointed at the word know.

Oh, Both women said at the same time and then chuckled patronizingly while they nodded at each other.

The director asked me, Did your mother read you that book, and then you memorized it? That’s not really reading, you know.

Why would I want to do that? I felt that she needed more information based on her knitted brow. My mother has never read me this book. The lady next door gave it to me. Now, what is this word?

I pointed again at the word. School wasn’t going quite the way I thought it would. Mrs. Cornfoot asked me to read the words before it. I did. The director took the book from me. She randomly opened pages and pointed at words asking me to read them. After about five times, she took a book from the teacher’s desk and repeated the process. I went along with it, because I thought this was the process to get help.

I loved going to school and learning from Mrs. Cornfoot. She was patient and understanding. Sometimes at recess, she would see that I was alone and she would talk to me. The other children would sometimes play with me, but they always kept a certain distance from me. Maybe they could sense that I was different. It always confused me. I thought I was just like everybody else. I had no idea just how different I was.

The last day of kindergarten was one of those rare, warm days with a cool breeze. The three kindergarten teachers had herded all of us children outside at the same time for morning recess. I had weaved my way through the mass of children and headed straight for my favorite shady spot under the giant oak tree at the back of the playground. I plopped down on my stomach in the soft, warm dirt. I scratched around in the powdery soil and looked for interesting rocks. I heard the footsteps crunching through the cropped grass. Soon there were two sets of shoes standing in front of me. The black, grown up sized, sensible shoes belonged to my teacher. The other set was child sized, white sandals. They were new and hardly scuffed. They belonged to Sandra from my class. Sandra sniffled above me and a small droplet of blood landed on the white leather of the top of her right sandal. It quickly soaked into the leather.

Darla, Mrs. Cornfoot called my name sweetly. I need your help with Sandra.

I looked up. The sun was behind them. I shaded my eyes with my hand. She had her arm protectively around Sandra’s shoulders. Sandra was cradling her right hand in her left hand. Her face was tear-streaked. She sniffled again and held her hand closer. I scrambled up to take a closer look. There was a tiny rivulet of blood etching its way down the side of her thumb. I traced the flow back to a small scratch.

Remember how you helped Joanie the other day? Mrs. Cornfoot asked me.

I nodded.

Of course, I remembered. It had been cooler, so we wore our sweaters when we went out for recess. I was lying on my back under the oak tree watching a squirrel that was bouncing from branch to branch.

The voice that talks in my head surprised me and said Go see Joanie.

I sat up and located her. She was sitting on the steps outside the door. She had her arms crossed over her stomach.

Her stomach hurts. Go and help her. The voice told me.

What do I do? I asked in my mind, as I stood up.

The voice didn’t answer me, as usual. I wondered if the voice couldn’t hear me when I spoke in my mind. I didn’t want any of the other children to see me and think I was talking to myself, so I stood up and turned to face the tree trunk.

As quietly as I possibly could, I spoke the question. How do I help her?

Go to her. Help her. The voice urged in my mind.

It frustrated me when it didn’t answer my question. It was always doing this to me. When I had asked my mother how she handled it, she had