Who Am I? Shocked to Emotion

By Taylor Storm

Pat was a grandmother of a nine-year-old boy, Jimmy, who was the son of her delinquent and drug-using son, Tom. Pat was also going through a divorce; her son was not married. Her grandson’s mother’s parents were feeding the nine-year-old all sorts of evil ideas. Some of them included putting poisoning Pat’s food.

Pat tried to give Jimmy a normal childhood, but he was not without his emotional problems that put a damper on things from time to time.

After Jimmy’s father died, he grew up to be a successful man, got married and had children. When Jimmy took his family on vacation, they met a tragic accident, leaving him in a coma, his children being placed in foster homes, and his wife dead. Once Jimmy came out of the coma, he was left facing some demons of his own.

Megan, the doctor, who had the same first name as his dead wife, fell for Jimmy, and she persuaded him to get married. Jimmy decided to investigate his mother’s death and while locating relatives, he ran into a cousin who tried to blackmail him.....Jimmy once again, faces death....

Taylor Storm is a Minnesota-based author, and admires the works of: Justice Gray, Amanda Hocking, Stephen King, and E L James.

Who Am I? Is the fourth of a new series of books-- Who--? Series—the first one being Who Are They? the second one being Who Loves Them? and the third one being Who Loves Her? The fifth novel in the series is planned to be out soon.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Justice Gray
• Release date: Jan 5, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311773111

Book preview

Who Am I?

Shocked to Emotion

By Taylor Storm

~~~

Smashwords Edition

Who--? Series

-Book 4-

Taylor Storm

[e-mail]

Copyright: © 2015, 2013 by Reality Today Forum. All rights reserved

No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of author.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 1

Hurry up sweetie, you're going to miss the bus, said Pat to her nine-year-old grandson.

Yes grandma, just a moment, replied Jimmy.

Now don't forget to practice again for your spelling test on the bus. Remember Guard – g- u – a –r –d… not g – a. The clock ticked on the wall. Everyone seemed to be going to digital everything these days. Her cuckoo clock was a present from her ex-husband from back when they made that trip to Germany. Still sounds strange to say that to herself after all these years. His cancer scare; the time she lost the baby. They wake up one day with grey hair and decide to call it quits. He bought that clock one day when he went into town for supplies and had it shipped to their house while she slept in. She was so surprised when they got home. She can still see him beaming over how sneaky he was, smiling from ear to ear. Pat looked at Jimmy and pushed the memory away for another time.

The ‘u’ is silent in the word. You know, like…

Yea, cut in Jimmy, I’ll do fine. She looked up at the clock wondering what was going to happen. Jimmy’s grades weren’t the greatest and the school kept calling about special meetings they wanted to set up about his progress for next year.

And you better make sure you eat all your lunch, young man, continued Pat softly to her grandson.

Will do, Grandma. Bye. replied Jimmy. He spun around quickly, snagged the brown paper bag off of the counter and shoved it into his backpack. She hoped he didn’t have some heavy book in there to smash the peanut butter and jelly. She tried to cut the crusts off again, just like he liked that one time. Not sure he even noticed.

The conversation was as awkward as a middle school dance with Mr. Whip as the chaperone. Can you imagine an old pharmacist going around telling the boys what not to do? Despite the pleasantries, Jimmy and Pat were in a rough patch. There was no getting around the fact that they spent hours in the old rattlely house not saying a word and letting the TV commercials fill the air. Sometimes he would just suck into the glow of the screen with a video game and not move except to get some milk out of the refrigerator for cereal. The boy lived off of cereal some days. That and macaroni and cheese were apparently the only things worth buying at the grocery store.

Grandma pondered the word guard. She looked it up once and saw that it came from an old French word garder. She wondered if it was part of the same word that gave people the word garden. All she wanted to do was take care of him. Guard his little heart from whatever crashed in on him before he came to live with her. It was all so hard to get used to. Her mind drifted to the guards of Buckingham palace and how all the tourists would try to distract them with their antics. The guards had their stoic faces, big hats and red uniforms at the gate. She wished she wasn’t distracted. Grandma wished she had all that strength. She wished to be all that and more for young Jimmy, but it currently seemed impossible. She was the legal guardian, but he needed more. He needed his own private Buckingham palace guard. Grandma Pat pictured herself in a walker in a few years all dressed up in that red uniform with the bear-shaped hat on her head over her glasses. Grandma Pat smiled in spite of herself. She would be guarding him, but really doubted if that’s what the young boy needed.

Jimmy was no easy job, and at times Pat felt desperately hopeless. She felt responsible for his troubles to some degree, so she knew that she had to help. She knew that she had to provide many things for the young boy. She had to provide more than just warm milk, school lunches and a place to sleep. She thought of trying to get him into a therapist, but didn’t want to get on his bad side right off the bat. How was she supposed to be some rock of emotional support when she felt like such a basket case herself?

You do too much for your family, Marge mused earlier over the phone when Pat was having a weak moment. Jimmy was at school and Marge was the only one in the neighborhood who still remembered everything when the lawns were sparkling new and all the cars were washed on Saturday mornings. That was a while ago. She was a good friend.

I have to try, Pat told Marge.

Well, you can’t drown with a sinking ship. You be careful. I know it’s tough love, but that’s what my Bill had to do with his youngest boy. Head over heels into meth. Had to cut the strings before everyone was brought down into a hell hole. Marge meant well, but she could be kind of blunt. She spoke with a little bit of a wheeze and was a minor medical miracle. Whenever Pat went over to her house, the oxygen tank took her back a little. Marge’s daughter tried to get her to quit smoking, but Marge always said: Everybody’s gotta die sometime. Marge was fond of pointing out that Ellen died three years earlier.

All that dieting and exercise, and the bitch still bit it before I did. All those years in tight exercise suits, and she could have been eating jelly doughnuts. All in the genes. Hell, my Uncle Floyd smoked a pack a day and drank a rum and coke right up into his eighties. Nobody gave a damn.

Pat sighed. She couldn’t give up on Jimmy like that. There was too much at stake. She’d already lost too much. Somehow she had to get him back on the right path after all the trauma. After all, Jimmy didn’t dig the hell hole himself, like Marge’s grandson who got into meth. Jimmy just needed someone to help him out. A little love, kindness and some chocolate chip cookies.

Pat was unsure whether or not she should try approaching the boy directly to deal with the moodiness and anger about the crap that had all piled up in his life. For the moment, she thought she should just give him some space and let him get to know her better. Yes, after a few weeks, or a month or so, they could ease into talking about all of those types of things. Besides, child services had already grilled him on so many things. She didn’t want him to think she was a busybody. She didn’t want to hurt the boy or scare him any further. Pat decided to let Jimmy warm up to her on his own terms. The prescription was to order all his favorite desserts and hope it patched things up for at least the moment.

Pat, who was Jimmy’s paternal grandmother, was a dermatologist who did enough work to feed her family, but not much else. Her ex- did what he could back then, but they just had so much money at the end of the month. They had done just fine when they started out in Sioux Falls. She had plenty of clients and they even had a little place on the lake they could go to during the summer and splash around.

Then Pat’s mother got sick in Slayton, and they all decided to pack up and live closer. Her first client in Slayton asked if she was a Mary Kay saleswoman. She laughed. She squeezed out what she could out of the little town, and just settled into carrying for her mother and her little family. Little Tommy was a shy boy who didn’t make many friends. Jimmy has his eyes. With her working so many hours trying to drum up business, Pat just couldn’t spend as much time as she wanted with the little boy. It seemed like a godsend when he got to high school and met Jenny. She was kind of thin, and quiet too, if you didn’t know her well. The two met in a Spanish class and passed notes back and forth the entire year. It was a friendship that bloomed into a love affair that just wouldn’t quit. Tom talked Jenny into joining the band and they were a part of some of the award-winning marching bands that led up to the huge national trips. The kids in the band teased that they were Romeo and Juliet without the parents hating each other. Young Jimmy's parents were high-school sweethearts, absolutely inseparable. Slayton was just a little farming town and even though we say we’ve passed into the twenty-first century, nobody bats an eye at a couple of teenagers hooking up and getting married. Pat’s own parents were married forty-six years and they hooked up just out of high school. If her dad had taken a little better care of his diabetes, they might have reached fifty. Well, not according to Marge, but the thought was nice.

Tom was excited about telling Pat all about Jenny getting pregnant.

Well, at least you made her an honest woman first and got out of high school, she replied.

It’s gonna be great, Mom. We’ll get the little Hanson’s place just behind the store and when I make manager, we’ll be able to buy something bigger away from all the traffic noise.

Pat opened her mouth to say something and then changed her mind at the last second. Yes, that will be great, honey. You’re doing a great job of taking care of your family.

***

Just a couple of years after his birth, Jimmy lost his mother in a car crash at the intersection of state highway 30 and 91. It’s been nicknamed Hell’s crucifix by a couple of the farmers because so many people had lost their lives on this highway. There’s a turnabout and everything for the slow moving trucks, and people still find a way to get killed. Tom was tossed free but managed to survive. Apparently they were coming back home from a long day of shopping in Sioux Falls when it happened. Nobody really figured out exactly what happened.

After the death of his mom, Jimmy was taken in by his maternal grandparents. Tom was just a basket case and Pat had to take care of him all during the physical therapy. He regained the use of his left arm, but now walked with a limp because his hip had been fractured. He walked a little like Igor since his right leg was about an inch or two shorter than the other. This remained the set-up for some time and it was working out. Tom needed more attention and the other grandparents were taking care of little Jimmy.

Then it got ugly. Suddenly, whenever Tom went over to see Jimmy, he was magically thrown out. The final straw was when Tom took over Jimmy’s birthday present to try and see him and had the door slammed in his face. Tom was beside himself when he got home and it broke Pat’s heart. That’s when it occurred to her that they might have to work out a visitation situation. They followed what the judge told them to do and thought life would smooth out. It didn’t. It was months and months of haggling. Every time Tom had a weekend set up to take Jimmy, the boy was magically sick or out of town with his other cousins.

It probably would have gone on like that for years since the courts hate to take sides in that kind of family dispute. The good thing about us going to court, however, was that it established that Tom was the legal guardian according to the school district. So even though Jimmy took the homework home, Tom got calls and letters at home

Mom, Jimmy’s kindergarten teacher just called me again, he said one day.

Well, what did she say?

Jimmy got in another fight today.

Did she say why?

She didn’t really want to talk about it over the phone. She had me make an appointment to go down to the school to meet with Jimmy and the principal. We went down to the school and there was Debbie clutching her purse across her chest and scowling at us. Jimmy was sitting really close to his other grandma and staring blankly into space. His eyes skipped across the room when Tom came in, and Debbie pulled him closer. The principal could almost cut the tension with a knife.

Ladies and Mr. Miller, I’m so glad you could come. Won’t you please sit down.

Debbie shifted in her chair and blurted. I don’t know why they had to come. Jimmy lives with us. Everything is just fine.

Then why won’t you ever let me see Jimmy! Tom yelled. He was on his feet and Pat grabbed his wrist to calm him down." The principal tried to keep it under control.

Now we all know that we’re here because we all love Jimmy, isn’t that right, son? he said, making sure to focus on Jimmy and tried to get his attention. Jimmy just kept staring into space. Tom sat down, slowly, and Mrs. Cole, his teacher, tapped a file three times on the desk. She laid it down, opened it, and began to talk like we were all in her class. Debbie didn’t budge.

Are you saying Jimmy can’t read?

Who cares. This is kindergarten. None of the brats can read, Debbie snorted.

Actually, Mrs. Gordon, everyone in this class can read because of our accelerated curriculum. Jimmy should be showing some signs of being able to recognize the letters.

What does that mean?

I’m afraid we’re recommending that Jimmy be referred to for more testing. He may have a learning disability. If we catch it early, there’s a good chance Jimmy can catch up to his peers by…

Hell, no! Debbie stood up and slammed her purse on the desk. Come on, Jimmy. We’re going home. You let old Granny take care of you.

Tom was on his feet. You can’t do that! I’m his father!

And just where is his mother? Debbie hissed. Come along, Jimmy. With that they left without saying a word. Jimmy didn’t get any better in school, and a couple of times, by the first grade, he came to school with a couple of odd bruises. When Pat got the lawyers together, it was enough to swing the decision on the custody hearing. Pat still remembered the judge’s gavel slamming and slamming and slamming as Debbie screamed: You killed my baby you stupid son of a bitch! She was swinging her purse, and if her husband Jake hadn’t restrained her and pushed her out of the back of the courtroom, the police would have arrested her on the spot.

Tom was no easy sell to the judge when it came to guardianship. Pat kept him cleaned up for the judge, but the dark circles made him a suspect. She at least was able to get him a haircut and make him wear a long sleeve shirt to cover the track marks. After the accident, Tom had a hard time getting work, and in the middle of all of his grief he took up with the wrong crowd. Slayton isn’t that big a town, so the crowd wasn’t all that horrible. The thing was everyone knew everyone’s business. When Tom went on a binge and his buddy brought him home the next morning, it might as well have been in the Slayton Star Gazette the next morning.

Life was difficult for the young boy. First, he lost his mother. Then he had to be the butt of the jokes on the playground. Some of Tom’s antics got pretty public. During recess kids would all taunt him, stumbling with Tom’s patent limp and yelling, Hey! Jimmy the junkie! Wanna play tag? Then in the middle of all of that he had to watch both sets of grandparents get into the biggest custody battle of the year. A real knock-down drag-out fight.

The kicker was that before the trial was over, Tom took one too many prescription drugs and decided to do one last joy ride to the same intersection of the original crash. He almost didn’t survive and it put him into the hospital with a bunch of tubes hooked up to him. After that he was court-ordered to rehab and couldn’t be in the house for quite a while. For all of the battling and grief, the judge had to side with Pat when Tom was out of the picture.

Pat’s lawyer was able to show that there were days at a time that Jimmy didn’t even go to school. Pat won. By the time Debbie was cussing out the judge with the verdict it really did make the Star Gazette. Pat had Bernie Hauser calling her for a week trying to get an interview. When she finally gave in, he just printed little pieces of what she said and spent most of the article on the car wreck. From the article, it looked like a grandmother easy-bake-cookie-recipe competition that went bad. Bernie tugged the heart strings and made it look like both grandparents were just in a no-win situation. Bernie didn’t go up against Debbie in court.

Jimmy was so confused during his early years. So much so, that he often felt as though he had done something wrong since so much of the troubles seemed to involve him. Debbie and Jake tried to appeal and actually had custody