decide to pretend to forget

Before my father drove away for the last time of their marriage, he handed money to my mother.
"I gave your mother two hundred dollars. Half of it is for you."
And then he was gone.

Our house was empty. My mother had sold off our furniture piece by piece. It was odd to come home and find no dining table, just divots in the carpet where all the legs used to be. It was an hour before I realized the dog was gone.
"Where's Tuffy?" I looked at her bowl, still filled with water by the pantry.
"Ha!" said my mother proudly as she handed me a paper plate with some food from a box, bag or can on it. "You didn't even know she was gone!"
"What happened to her?" I felt that weird feeling in my sternum, the one that precedes strong emotion. Our dogs always ended up shot or run over.
"Don't cry! You never played with her and it took you a good hour before you even realized she was gone! Besides, she wouldn't quit shitting under the table!"
My parents never trained our dogs properly. They rarely took them to the vet. They were never leashed and ran loose. Inevitably, they would die as a result and our parents would be angry with us. As if we instinctively knew how to care for something and had income to purchase supplies and vet care. I think they thought an occasional "Didja let that dog out?" between cigarettes and arguments sufficed for a thorough explanation and demonstration.
"Did you sell her?" I made the face that usually precedes the tears. But after the initial facial contortion...nothing. I had been feeling numb around this time. So many things had happened that I had aquired a flat affect. I was nine.
"No, I gave her to Jeff's friend's family. You know, Jerry 'n 'em, out in the country with the big fenced in yard. She'll like it there."
I felt a little sick when she mentioned Jerry. He was the friend of my teenaged juvenile deliquent brother. One day while he was at our house, he came out of the bathroom and showed his flaccid penis to me. It was the most ugly disgusting thing I had ever seen. I screamed and ran out the back door. My brother and his friends laughed.
The only furniture left was my parent's big bed. We slept in it one last time and left it in the house. We were off to a small town in Tennessee. My mother's childhood boyfriend lived there. He was also recently divorced and he and mom had been talking on the phone for weeks. We drove for a few hours and pulled off at a truck stop.
"Can I have my money?" I asked
"What money?" Mom was looking in the rearview mirror, fluffing up her perm and putting on her lipstick.
"Dad said half the money he gave you was mine."
"Well, how do you think we are going to eat and buy gas?"
"That's your problem."
"You'll think that's my problem when we're starving on the side of the road."
She reach into her big brown purse and handed me a twenty. "That's all you're getting for now."
We went to the restroom and while Mom got coffee to go, I perused the gift shop. They had stuffed animals. Many of my toys had been sold at a garage sale. The remainder were boxed and stored at my grandmother's house. On the shelf was the sweetest buff colored teddy bear. He had an expensive toy maker's tag hanging from one paw. The price tag said $19.99. That was the most expensive bear I had ever seen.
"Mom, I need another dollar." I said as she tried on sunglasses by the register.
"Good Lord, child! What are you buying?"
I took her over to the bear display. "Him."
"Katherine! That is just too much to give for a bear!"
I took him from the shelf. "Look at him. Touch him." I held him up to her.
She took him and looked into his face. "Well, he's a pretty bear, isn't he? and so soft..Yes, I guess we have to take him, don't we?"
I nodded. As the cashier rang us, Mom made jokes. "Can we eat that bear if we run out of money in Memphis?"
I made up a story about my dad giving the bear to me before he left. I decided if I ever had a friend, and that friend saw the bear, I would tell them the made-up story.

We kept driving. I remember very little about the remainder of the drive. We got lost in Memphis. We saw the gates of Graceland. Somehow, we ended up at a rat infested trailer parked in a lot full of weeds in Elmville, Tennessee.
My mother had quit her job at a factory that was featured in a major magazine as one of the best places to work in the nation. We had no health insurance. She had very little money left because she had been drinking and gambling quite heavily that summer. We had the car and our suitcases. All for a man she had not seen in 24 years. I think about my obsession with Charlie Brown Shoes. Would I have carried it that far? With a nine year old child in tow?
Charles was a big guy with black hair and blue sad hound dog eyes. He was kind to me. They put me in school right away. For the first time, the kids and teachers were genuinely friendly to me. I didn't feel the least bit outcast. They fought over who sat by me at lunch. The teachers were very complimentary of my handwriting. I made a friend who lived down the street. I met Charles' sons and we got along great. We went to visit Charles' father in Mississippi. Mom and Charles went out to drink and we slept in the den. The boys were on the floor and I was on a sofa. I woke up in the middle of the night. Charles' father was sitting at the end of the sofa, smoking a cigarette with his left hand. His right hand was between my legs.
I didn't tell my mother until Monday morning. She was going to drive me to school.
"Mom, Charles' father touched me while you guys were out drinking."
"What do you mean he touched you?"
"He put his hand under the covers and put it...put it where my underwear is." That's the only way I could say it to her.
"No, honey. He was just looking for something...or putting your blanket on you."
I didn't say anything else. It was no use. They were adults. They did whatever they wanted whenever they wanted and they didn't ask you because you were a kid and you have no rights because you have no money. That was my logic. That's how my world operated. Sell my dog. Sell my furniture. Sell my toys. Move me every year. Drive away to Houston. Drive me to another state on a whim. Put your old hand between my legs. Don't ask me. Don't consider me.
The next week Charles' father came to visit. I cried and begged my mother to sleep with me.
"Katherine, what is going on? You've been sleeping in here for over a week now. What are you scared of?"
"I don't want him to come in here and touch me!" I was sobbing.
My mother looked as if she had been slapped in the face. She didn't realize what I had tried to say to her in the car. She slept with me that night. In the morning, she got up and made coffee and sat at the kitchen table smoking. I was still laying in bed when Charles' father shuffled in and lifted up the blanket. Suddenly, my mother was behind him. "Eugene, are you looking for your bag?"
"Uh...Uh..yeah." he dropped the blanket as soon as he heard her voice.
"I didn't put it in here. I left it in the other room."
"Oh! Thank you, dear. I usually stay in here." Charles' father left that day.
Over the course of the next few days, my mother received a call from a woman who claimed to be Charles' girlfriend. The girlfriend told my mother that when Charles left for his job, he would really be coming to meet her. She gave my mother the address of the bar. My mother went and sure enough, Charles was with this woman. He told Mom the truth. The woman had been his girlfriend for many years, even during his marriage. They had split up when he became involved with my mother. Now, Charles wanted to reconcile with the girlfriend. We had to clear out. Back to Palookaville. We had been in Elmville for three weeks.