Conflicting Emotions

By Bonnie Sedgemore

Plagued by illness and haunted by the loss of her children, Olivia is driven by a fierce determination to heal. She suspects her ailments are tied to the heartache of her estrangement and sets out on a quest for wellness. As she grapples with her own health and remorse, she takes up residence in a modest apartment near a hospital, where she meets Jolene, a sometimes friend, sometimes burden, battling her own demons with alcohol.

As Olivia confronts her guilt, she also finds herself entangled in Jolene's turbulent life, compelled to offer aid. Resolute in shedding the weight of her past sorrows and mending broken bridges, Olivia embarks on a poignant journey through the tapestry of her family's history, her marriage, and the myriad ways she has sought love.

With each memory turned over, Olivia seeks answers and redemption. Can uncovering the roots of her estrangement also lead to her recovery, both bodily and of the bonds with her children?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Mar 1, 2024
• ISBN: 9781685623166

Bonnie Sedgemore

Bonnie Sedgemore lives in a small farming community in Washington with her cat, Boots. She once was a newspaper reporter, but tended to get into too much trouble doing that. She went to school, and then went to school, and when she finished going to school, she simply took classes. Now she writes and still takes classes.

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About the Author

Bonnie Sedgemore lives in a small farming community in Washington with her cat, Boots. She once was a newspaper reporter, but tended to get into too much trouble doing that. She went to school, and then went to school, and when she finished going to school, she simply took classes. Now she writes and still takes classes.

Dedication

To Lyn,

whom I loved.

Copyright Information ©

Bonnie Sedgemore 2024

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Ordering Information

Quantity sales: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Sedgemore, Bonnie

Conflicting Emotions

ISBN 9798889105787 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781685623166 (ePub e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023921373

www.austinmacauley.com/us

First Published 2024

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

40 Wall Street, 33rd Floor, Suite 3302

New York, NY 10005

USA

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Acknowledgment

It is easy to say this work was done by myself, all alone, and leave it at that. But I did have help, primarily from my caregivers who read my work, discussed it, advised and suggested, and stood by me: Linda Clark, Mitchell Needham, Kathryn Jackson, and Daniel Corriel. That’s a lot of help. Mention must be made of friends and neighbors who supported my flagging spirits and gave me much care: Diana Freiday, Bill From, Allene Smith, and Connie Leibelt.

Section I

On the Way

Time was running out. Old age was getting to me and my family had gone, left me to my own devices. My husband died and my children went on with their own lives as if Mother never existed. That hurt terribly, in fact, was eating me up.

I might as well be happy, try to lose this mourning for my children. I had thought to move and now that the surgery was over, that’s what I would do. No one was to say I should not take this trip or make this move. How many single, older women who had had heart surgery, would consider starting off across the country by oneself, in a car, with a cat and a dog? Not many, I suspect.

I packed and packed, placed things in boxes against the wall and slowly emptied my apartment. With no strength to do anything big or heavy, I packed things in small boxes, a bit each day. I saved every penny and stored the money beneath the carpet in the living room. Every so often, I would bend down, roll back the edge of the carpet and take out the money to count it, laughing that people had walked on it without knowing, stood talking with money under their feet, and satisfied with what was under there. It felt good to walk on that money, knowing that others walked on it, too, and didn’t suspect.

In the evenings, I brought out the maps and concentrated on my route across the country, drawing black lines across them, showing places I wanted to visit. I would go where I wanted to go and visit what I wanted to visit. I would not be in a hurry, have a schedule or a certain time to arrive or leave. The trip to the coast was going to be a gradual one, my one chance to see the sites leisurely. I particularly wanted to see the fossil sites and go to the hot springs in Wyoming.

The car cost a fortune to get ready. It went to the repair shop several times for new brakes, a tune up, new tires, and other small things that I thought needed some help. My car was loaded with tents, cook stoves, food, coolers with snacks, plenty of socks, shorts and long pants, dress clothes and scabby work clothes, and plenty of dog paraphernalia—food. bed, leash and water dish. And camera. One day, without so much as a goodbye from anyone, I just left.

I missed the fossil site because of a storm that caused floods. Overhead, fantastic rolling clouds crossed the sky. As I came into a small town late in the night, there were no hotels or motels available. I could see their signs down the road from where I sat in water but couldn’t reach them. How much water could a car take before flooding out?

My car went slowly through the water, leaving a wake. Roads were closed and barriers floated in the water. I finally found one motel on a rise where the water was just up to within a few feet of the doors on one side of one wing. They had one room left and I grabbed it fast. The dog got walked along the building over to a high spot with one tree, which he and several other dogs watered liberally. I camped out in that room for a few nights, stepping out the door to check the water level several times a day before the water gleamed from a large puddle at the end of the road. It had finally receded enough to head out, though highways were still heavy with water.

The road was empty. I saw an eighteen wheeler turned over in the ditch and cars which had found their way to the middle of fields. I got out of there, driving out spending that next day driving to get to the hot springs in Wyoming.

As I was getting close, in the distance, a huge building loomed looking like a country club. I took the drive leading up to it and found the bridge washed out and had to turn around and go a bit further to find the exit, which I took. When I reached the old building, there were no cars in the parking lot and looking closed. I parked and walked over to a small outbuilding where their appeared to be some life. An entrance to one side looked private but appeared open, so I pushed the door and went in. A woman sitting in a lounge chair bid me hello and announced swimming was free as the flood had scared away customers. It was my lucky day.

The place had three pools, one, like a grotto, a rock cave, was for anybody and bathing without suits Another, also inside, was for adults who were to wear suits. A third pool for families was outdoors. I went to the grotto and was joined by a woman who sang Irish songs as if no one else existed in the world. Her voice was beautiful, the sound haunting, bouncing around the walls and floating back to me, entrancing and dreamlike. It was an unreal experience. I wanted it to go on forever, but she stopped suddenly, without a word to me, hello or goodbye, and left the pool. I expected to find her later at the outdoor pool, but she had gone. I spent hours and hours in that pool until I expected my entire body to wrinkle the way fingers did when in water too long.

The next night, I camped out in a state park, positioning my tent on an incline. I ate a silly dinner of canned beans heated on the fire and marshmallows melted n top of the beans. Overhead, the clouds raced announcing another coming storm. When it began, I prepared for the expected wind, adding some tent poles and putting a carpet on my floor as I would spend the rest of the evening inside. The storm grew and grew as darkness descended. The wind pulled the tent, then pushed it. I wonder if I should cover myself with the only coat I had, a small wool one that was good for light weather or should I run for the safety of a covered picnic stand in the center of the park. I was too lazy to run. I continued to sit. A tree branch tore loose and landed on one corner of the tent. Still, I sat while the storm raged. I was scared listening to that constant wind and hearing objects hit the tent, wondering how long the storm would last. I did not know if I was shaking because I was cold or because I was frightened of the wind.

It stopped as suddenly as it started. The wind and rain gave way to calm. Just like that, one moment it was howling, the next it was quiet. I fell over on my sleeping bag and was instantly asleep. In Nevada, the mountain sign warned trailers and trucks of a steep incline several times. They must have meant it, but I was in a car not a truck and a good driver. It would be nothing for me to worry about. That sign nagged at me as I drove. I should have listened to my fears.

The scenery began to be beautiful. A stream ran along one side, the steep edge of the mountain along the other. Rocks, large, white rocks glowed all over the place and in the stream the crystal turquoise water spilled over the rock, making it paint itself beautiful. I stopped to look, to drink in the scenery.

On the way down, I should have shifted gears as the signs advised but did not. Why am I so stubborn? The brakes began to smell of burning rubber. I managed to pull over at a spot for that purpose, to let the car cool, hoping my brakes would not have glazed over. That had been the most beautiful drive I visited.

On the other side, I was in California, in the mining fields, along a river among small towns. I ate in a small city that would be jumping along with its frogs in a few months, but was quiet still, with few people walking the boardwalks. I took time out to go to several garage sales and all the thrift stores I could find and bought nothing.

From there, I drove through fields of fruit and vegetables and bought lunch of fruit at stands along the road. At the last stand, I talked to the woman for several minutes, feeling she was a happy housewife who smiled at me and gave me some fruit free just because I stopped long enough to talk to her. She looked so lonely. That was the point when I wanted my journey to end, to find myself a new home, to be settled near the water. Traveling is best done with another person and a cat and dog don’t quite do it.

Now, Home

I had worked so many years that I found it impossible to quit cold turkey. What did I do in a day with no job? Though I promised myself to sleep in, out of habit my body rose at the awful hour of four AM. I ate and took my vitamins. After that, I was stuck for what to do, wash dishes, a spoon and cup, hem a new pair of casual slacks, and maybe sweep the kitchen. The day went that way, finding something to do.

I had gone back to Montana to get my belongings, driving a UHaul back. I went out on the street near my new apartment to find men to unload the truck for me. For a few weeks, I was busy setting up house. Soon that was done and I did not know what to do with myself. I made work refinishing furniture, upholstering the dining room chairs, anything I could find. Retirement did not work for me as boredom soon destroyed the new peace of being near the ocean. I got a parttime job.

The parttime job was at a small grocery store in a town on the Oregon coast. My apartment in Astoria was too far from this work and I needed to relocate. One of the girls at the job called me.

I’m standing here looking at a man put a for rent sign in this place. It’s perfect for you. Why not come see it?

So I drove down the coast to a small beach town right on the water to look at the place, not expecting to like it. The day was misty, electric because of the salt in the wet air. It gave off a greenish hue to everything. I liked that. All this because the small cabin was across the street from the beach. The water was hidden behind homes and a tall berm, but I could hear it. I stood on the porch waiting for the owner whom I had called and listened to the waves, to the swish and boom of the water hitting the beach. It did not matter much what the cabin looked like inside, I wanted to be here.

It was small, barely more than a oneroom with kitchenette, but it was where I wanted to be. I divided the room with an antique Japanese divider I found in Astoria and set a table against one wall. It was all I needed. At night, I opened my window, listened to the surf, and looked out at the greenish mist that caused sparks on the electric pole outside the house.

It was a tiny cabin, the only thing I could afford so close to the water. I built a Chinese wall between the living room and bedroom, and rearranged the bedroom closet. The kitchen, I painted purple with purple antique silk curtains and a yellow light fixture. Outside, a Chinese garden dressed up the yard.

Oh, happiness was here in this place. In the mornings, I could sit at the kitchen table drinking my latte and listening to the surf and feeling peaceful. It was my paradise.

But I was unhappy without my family, and it ate at me until the feeling of loss wore my health apart. I mourned the loss of those children as surely as if they had died as the months rolled by and then the years and I got no calls or visits or even letters and watched all others I met enjoying their families. I became so ill that death talked to me. I was not thinking of suicide, but I did feel that life was ending. Now I was pacing, waiting, keeping busy without purpose. Just filling life with little energy to do much.

Later, after a few years in the cabin, the owner needed the money invested in the cabin to put in another business and I bought the cabin for a song. My parttime job was wonderful. Three mornings a week, I went to the bus stop and waited, riding along highway 1 on the coast to my job. Riding the bus was inexpensive and gave me a chance to enjoy the scenery, the water, the forests and the mountains.

Sometimes someone from the friendly neighborhood came along and gave me a lift. I was becoming a member of the community, forming friendships and finding my place. When I worked in the yard, people stopped by to visit. My days were filled. Part of me was extremely happy. I lived near the beach, something I had always wanted to do.

Another part of me was wasting away, like an arm dying on an otherwise strong body. My children were gone from me. I was lonely for them.

Out the front window, the green ocean mist colored everything. Cars buzzed by on the highway in front of the house, each going somewhere, possibly to family. Possibly they had family in the car with them. I was alone, watching other happy families. My four children were far away. My grandchildren were strangers to me. They did not come to my home for cookies or hugs. I did not even have photos of them to know what they looked like. I was feeling sorry for myself.

Melody lived somewhere in the southwest, Alabama I think. The last time I talked with her, several years ago, she said she no longer wanted to be a member of my family. I didn’t know where that came from. We were not fighting or nasty with each other, Melody and I. Far from it. Her anger stemmed from something deep. Perhaps she did not know why her anger built and exploded, not only on me, but on her siblings, too. I did not understand, could not unravel the secret behind it.

I was alone, retired and lonely. No man interested me, and I was not interested in them. None of the children were likely to call or come except my oldest daughter, Micha. And, I hoped, my son, Georgio. Micha called and even came to visit, but not often, maybe every other year.

However, it was Gaye, my youngest, who upset me the most. I thought about her every day, while I worked, while I ate, if I dared try to rest. She was on my mind. Why she does not like me, she will not tell me, and I cannot figure it out. When I ask her she says everything is fine. We spent every minute together for so many years. Now she has nothing to do with me. I do not know what I have done to warrant this. I was a good mother. I tried to be.

One night as I walked along the highway to the store, I felt weak to the point where I thought I would not be able to make it. My legs threatened to give out. Later that evening, standing in the bedroom off the living room, I dropped my jeans to step into another pair of slacks, the bottom half of a more modern slack set, dressing to go to a meeting. My head began to swim and I staggered backward. I had to get to this meeting. It was important.

This was a government meeting and we were deciding upon a several million dollar water filter. Those filters were as big as a house and each made especially for our system. This required hours of studying for my part. I knew little about water filters or water systems.

I had not eaten dinner, as food did not taste good the last few days. After the meeting, everybody usually met down at the local bar, which was called The Office, and I would wait to eat then.

I finished dressing, combed my hair, and applied some lipstick. To most women, cosmetics were important as were fancy hairstyles. They held no sway with me. I was lucky to remember to comb my hair. I spent fifteen minutes looking for my purse. It stood on the counter beside the refrigerator hidden by the milk I left out. I would be late if I did not hurry.

I left the house to walk the short two blocks to city center. Suddenly, my body felt too heavy, my legs weak, about to give out. I reached out for a telephone pole at the corner of my yard and wondered why I was feeling so bad. Was I coming down with the flu?

It was an important meeting. My vote was the swing vote. If I did not vote, the opposition would win, and the city would not get the filter from this company. Another type of filter would come from a second company, one that was less capable, would not guarantee their product, and cost more to replace. I leaned my head against the pole for a moment, hoping no one drove by and saw me. It is a small town and by this time many, many people knew me.

I continued to feel bad, pretending to be fine and went on to the meeting. The vote went as expected and soon the meeting was done and we headed down the street, the only main commercial street, to the bar. I sat with some friends who were gay and happy. I was happy to be with them, too, but I did not feel well. When the waitress came, I ordered, not feeling like eating, but ordering anyway. I needed to eat as I had not been able to eat all day. When the food arrived, I was talking with a friend who sat across from me and moved the food around on my plate. Another friend, who sat at another table to my left, had been watching.

You’re not eating. Do you feel well? he spoke softly, leaning slightly toward me, so no one would hear. The bar was noisy.

No, I’m feeling worse by the minute, I admitted now, becoming afraid of how I felt and turning to him. He was a married man, a city attorney. I did not want to mess up any relationship by asking him for help. His wife was a beautiful model type with a reputed horrible temper. Right then, I needed help.

Can I help you home?

I only live two blocks away. I’ll make it.

But when I started to get up, my legs would not hold me. I was unable to raise myself to my feet.

He got out of his chair immediately to grab my arm and steady me. Come on. Two blocks is apparently too far tonight.

I’m not drunk, if that is what you think.

He was already walking me toward the door. My friends were looking on, wondering what was going on. I don’t think you are drunk. I think you are ill. I want to take you to the hospital. You don’t look well at all.

We made it back to my cabin and I assured him I would take care and call for help if needed. To myself, I vowed to be better by morning as I intended to be at work on time. I lay in bed, unable to sleep, thinking about being ill and wondering why I was having so much trouble.

I slept at five and woke at seven and didn’t allow myself to feel. I had things to do. As I dressed, still feeling ill, my mind was still on my children. All the beauty around me couldn’t rid me of those thoughts. I still missed my daughters and wondered every day why they left me and were so angry. What had I done to deserve this treatment? I saw other mothers visiting with their grandchildren, yet every holiday I was alone, watching cars go by with my happy friends. I tried to go on and be happy. Part of me was. Another part of me was eating myself up over this rift, if it was a rift.

During my six years in the cabin, my oldest daughter, Micha came to visit me once for a day and a night, sleeping in my cozy loft. I was euphoric. We talked and talked, about what I don’t know. She did tell me she was not talking to her sisters any longer. They constantly wanted to cause problems where there were none.

My son and his family came to visit for a weekend and stayed in a hotel because the cabin was small. We walked on the beach together on a wonderful day.

Gaye, I didn’t hear from. She did not call but once in the six years I lived in the cabin. My calls to her went unanswered. Melody lived somewhere. Why did I need to suffer so because they, Melody and Gaye, did not get in touch with me? Why couldn’t I let it go?

I was dragging myself. I took the bus to work because I loved the scenery along the coastal highway. It changed with every day on this drive along the water, and the parttime job I had was on a lane that ran down a hill right into the ocean, or it looked that way. You stood at the top of the hill and looked directly at water as if the road just petered out there. If you went down it, you would expect to drive into the ocean. I loved it. It did, in fact, drive off into a sandy park at beach’s edge.

On days when the sun was bright, the mountains in the distance shined. On days when the clouds enclosed everything, those mountains were covered until they disappeared in a white blanket. The water had white caps or was