Surviving Mother

By Gwen Head

Just as Deb and her mother Estelle are learning how to mesh their individual lives together, nature’s destructive hand comes down, leaving them to wait for a new hope, and help from unexpected others. 

In SURVIVING MOTHER Gwen Head has written a story of life struggles, tragedy, and getting one’s life back toge

• Language: English
• Publisher: Atmosphere Press
• Release date: Nov 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9781944244668

Book preview

S urviving

Mother

Atmosphere Press

Surviving

Mother

Gwen Head

Copyright © 2015 by Gwen Head

Published by Atmosphere Press

Cover design by Ali Diaz- Tello

No part of this book may be reproduced

except in brief quotations and in reviews

without permission from the publisher.

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Surviving Mother

2015, Gwen Head

www. gwenhead .com

This novel is dedicated to my mother

Doris Ledbetter

who was the most loving, courageous woman I have ever met. And also to my husband Jerry, who encouraged me to keep going until it was complete.

ONE

From her balcony, Deb ra Ann Payne looked at the dark waters across Lake Sweet . Lake Sweet was five miles from the city limits of a Central Texas town named Roadie, population 1 2 , 251 .

It would have been easier to live in Dallas where her job was , but the allure of living at the lake had been a big factor in her renting this house . Deb and her high school friends had come to the l ake on the weekends to swim, ski, fish , and barbecue . Now , s he was forty-seven years old and t his is where she wanted to live .

She had always wanted to be close to water . She liked the sound of waves breaking over rocks during a storm , the slapping of water against a boathouse, the noise of frogs and the crickets at night, fish jumping out of the water to get a breath and the peaceful , comforting sound of a boat motor going across the lake . I t was five a.m., Monday, May 28, 199 0 , an hour from first light coming up over the lake . This was her favorite time of the whole day . Her mother, Estelle, and her Rottweiler, Pistol, were still sleeping; that meant freedom for her mind to wander and grab a cup of coffee . The layers of everyday stress would come later.

Armed with a fresh cup of coffee , she walked back to the balcony double glass doors and leaned against the door frame , gazing at the lake again . Sound s travel far across the lake ; s he heard men bel l ow on the water gigging for frogs , Dang, I almost got him! A couple of minutes l ater , she heard men checking their trotlines talking to each other, Look at that monster, he must weigh thirty pounds ! Let’s get him in the boat.

TWO

D eb said out loud , I wish I could sleep eight hours a night . Why am I so exhausted all the time? She only slept two or three hours at a time . She referred to this as stress-napping .

Hugging herself, she pulled her long brown hair out from under the over-sized blue terrycloth robe . She pulled it closer to her as a chill shook her small , 5-foot 4-inch frame . What am I going to do? She asked herself this question probably a million times a day . Deb had always listened to the voice in her head that said, This is a good decision or don’t do it. But lately that little voice had been very quiet . L ogic and blind faith that everything will work out for the best had gotten her here, but where had that led her ? Life was different and more difficult now , t he carefree independent adult life she had been leading c o m ing to an abrupt stop sixty days ago when Estelle, her Mother, came to live with her .

It brought to mind her mother telling her at the age of six or seven, Debra Ann, you are going to have to stand up for yourself if you’re going to survive in this world. Deb had gotten in trouble at the swing set in their trailer park with a neighborhood girl named Mary . She and Mary had disagreed about who should sit where . Deb had taken the swing she wanted ; Mary had walked up behind her and knocked Deb out of the swing with a twirling baton . She still carries the small warped place at the base of her skull .

When Estelle heard from Deb what had happened at the swing set, she checked the back of Deb’s skull , t he skin hadn’t been broken; Estelle held two fingers in front of Deb’s face, moving them back and forth. How many do you see ? Deb said two. Estelle said, Now , Debra we are going to talk with Mary and her mother . H and-in-hand they walked to Mary’s trailer, three doors down , with Deb keeping step all the way . Estelle knocked on the door, and they both stepped back so Mary’s mother could open the two-latched aluminum trailer door . One was the screen door that could be latched from the inside of the trailer . The other heavier door could be latched back to the trailer from the outside with a clasp that was attached to the side of the trailer . Most trailer house doors work ed this way ; it was added protection from someone jerking the door open and there you were, exposed .

Estelle had met Mrs. Hanson in the laundry room last week when the Hansons moved in to the trailer park . The screen door opened and Mrs. Hanson appeared . Estelle asked to speak to Mary, please . Mary sheepishly leaned out around her mother, but mostly stay ed hidden . Deb on the other hand had stood on even ground with her mother, side-by-side . Estelle told Mary that the next time she touched Debra, she , as Debra’s mother , was giving Debra permission to strike Mary back with as much force as was being used on her . Estelle looked one last time at Mrs. Hanson , then holding hands she and Deb turned and headed home.

A lot had happened since then, but Deb had always remembered her mother standing up for her . She had vowed that she would do everything possible to help her mother if she ever needed it.

Now, years later , when her mother was the one Deb had to stand up to, the challenge seemed overwhelming : How do I tell my mother that I’m selling her car and taking away her check book ? I know there are other adult children my age going through this same situation that I am, but where are they ? We need desperately to get together and figure all this out.

THREE

Deb didn’t remember anything about her father, Marcus Edward Payne . He had left them in the same trailer park where the swing incident had happened . He never wrote or called after that morning his crew picked him up in a pickup headed for the oil rig . At least he had left her mother with the trailer house and family car . They had stayed in that trailer park for four more years before moving to a small house closer to Estelle’s bookkeeping job at the local drug store , Nettle’s Drug . Deb knew in her heart that her mother had provided and survived the best she could.

While Deb was in school Estelle had continued working at the drug store , getting discounts for school supplies, shampoo, dryers, prescriptions , and many other things that the owners, Mr. and Mrs. Ne t tle , had made available to them . After high school graduati on , Deb had gotten a job at the Sweet County C ourthouse , typing the daily public records for the local credit bureau . She kept this job until she graduated from Roadie’s Business College .

Deb decided to move to Big D thirty miles away and experience the single working life ; she had been working for years as an Advertising Account Executive for Webster Publications, Incorporated in Dallas . In addition to these responsibilities s he was adding the job of pr imary care g iver for her mother . Deb said out loud to the overcast darkness of the lake one morning, Now it’s my turn to take care of us.

Deb had never been married , and because she was an only child she had always been independent, with no one to give her advice outside of a few friends and her mother . There weren’t any siblings to ask, "Are we