Blown Away

by K'Anne Meinel

  “Yes, that’s best. You go along with Mr. Davidson and we’ll start looking again at daylight,” he informed the teen.

  Avril looked at him knowingly, but agreed to avoid the argument she knew would ensue by not agreeing with an adult. She let them manipulate her and make the decisions for her. Mrs. Davidson was generous, but only because she was going to charge Owen Christenson for the care of his daughter when they found him.

  Avril went with Mr. Davidson the next day when they searched the house again.

  “Are you sure he was in there?” Sheriff Worley asked for about the fifth time on that second day. He looked terrible, with sweat dripping down from his lobster colored face, which had obviously been full of dust, and he’d left tracks when he wiped it away.

  “Yes sir,” she said politely. She and the other women had gathered what valuables they could find as the men ripped apart the house. She noticed some had kept a few things, but she had stolen a few of them back when they weren’t looking, packing them away in the trunks and boxes they found. She packed all her clothes in her suitcase, hiding Ellie’s box deep inside when she found it. She took everything she could of value to her, and packed her duffles with her most precious items, including her mother’s things that she could find and hadn’t already been stolen by her father’s friends.

  “He’s not in there,” the sheriff determined by the end of the second day and those who had participated in the search had to agree. Someone had braved the basement and the precarious tilt of the house to go through the more inaccessible places. He eyed the trunks and boxes she had salvaged and ordered them put in her father’s truck and taken to the Davidson’s while they determined what to do with her until her father could be found.

  * * * * *

  “Honey, I have some bad news for you. Your father’s body was found over in the next county,” he tried to tell her kindly, but telling a kid this news was much different than a grown woman who would be Owen’s widow. Besides, this scrawny redhead unnerved him somehow and he didn’t like the feeling. No seventeen year old snot-nosed brat of Owen Christenson was going to make him uncomfortable.

  Avril tried not to look relieved. The days since the tornado had come and gone. She had taken her father’s truck and driven it to the house site to salvage what she could before the scavengers stole it all. She rented a storage locker to hide it from the Davidsons, and to not let on that she knew they were trying to appropriate all her worldly goods. She’d already over-heard that they wanted to take custody of her.

  “She’ll be eighteen in a few weeks, that ain’t gonna work,” Mr. Davidson argued with his wife.

  “She don’t know no better. That farm’s worth somethin,’” she argued in return.

  “We don’t know that Owen’s gone,” he tried to reason.

  Mrs. Davidson snorted. “Owen woulda come roaring into town by now if he weren’t.”

  Avril had determined that she wasn’t gonna let them steal from her if she could prevent it. They were all alike, these friends of her father. The sad thing, if he was alive, and it was someone else this had happened to, he would be in it for what he could take too. He wouldn’t think it was stealing either. He’d think it was his just desserts, just like his so-called friends were doing. It was a crime of opportunity.

  * * * * *

  “I don’t know that I’s should rent you this here storage unit,” Carl drawled as he eyed her.

  “C’mon Carl, you know I need to put our things somewhere,” she cajoled him.

  “But you’rn not yet eighteen yet,” he pointed out. “It ain’t legal.”

  Avril had thought of hiding the antiques and other things she was finding from the house in the barn, but she knew eventually someone would find it, and appropriate it. She needed to save some of the things her mother and grandparents had cherished. Her father’s things she didn’t care about. “C’mon Carl, pullease,” she begged looking sorrowful.

  He spit some tobacco into a can he carried around. It was gross, it smelled, and so did he. But he looked back at the girl and shrugged. No one would look too closely on the contract how old the kid was and he needed the rent. He saw she had the cash money in her hand. He pushed a contract across the counter to her.

  Avril sighed in relief as she began to fill it out. At least she could hide things for now. The few things at the Davidson’s were already inventoried she was sure, and Mrs. Davidson probably had helped herself to them already. The rest of this at least would be out of sight. “And do me a favor Carl, don’t tell nobody that I’m renting from you?” she asked as she finished.

  “Nope, I won’t say a word,” he promised as he finished filling out the paperwork.

  Avril soon had a small storage unit and began to fill it from the bed of her father’s truck. She was small, but she was strong and sturdy, hard work had never been a stranger to her, especially on the farm. She filled that unit to the top with dressers, headboards, footboards, boxes, and books and anything else she could find that she wanted. It took her days, and when the Davidsons thought she was just taking off in her father’s truck to go have a good cry, she was actually collecting all their worldly possessions and tucking them safely away.

  * * * * *

  “Yes sir, now what do I do?” she asked Sheriff Worley who had been watching her rather unenthused reaction to his statement that her daddy was dead.

  “Do you know if your Daddy had a will?” he asked, and sincerely doubted it as Owen was sure he was going to live forever.

  “No sir,” she said respectfully. “But Mama did,” she added. She had found all of her mother’s papers, something she hadn’t been allowed to go through before because of her father.

  “She did?” he asked surprised.

  “Yes sir, Mr. Mann has them,” she confirmed. He was one of the town’s only lawyers and Avril had already taken the papers to him in case of this event.

  “He does?” he asked stupidly. “He never told me he made up your Ma’s will,” he said absently. He was almost sure Owen had said there weren’t one so it all had come to him by right of being her husband.

  “Yes sir,” she said honestly and acted innocent. She didn’t want him to know how much she knew.

  “Well I’ll be,” he said, and rubbed his chin. Then realizing who he was talking to he said, “I’ll make arrangements for his funeral.” He made it sound so magnanimous.

  “No sir, I’ll do it,” she told him firmly.

  He didn’t like that, this small redheaded spitfire telling him what to do. No wonder Owen had said she was so much trouble. She didn’t respect her elders who knew better. “Now honey, you let me do it, I know your Daddy would want me to,” he told her just as firmly.

  “No sir, we Christenson’s take care of our own,” she insisted. She knew if she let the Sheriff and his buddies take on the funeral it would be a chance for them all to drink and for Owen’s estate to foot the bill, she wasn’t having that.

  The little brat! He’d let her do it then and be done with it. “Now don’t forget, you have to be back in school soon, we don’t want you truant,” he warned her, thinking ahead. He would like that, so that he could tell her what to do, and she couldn’t do anything about it.

  “Yes sir, I’ll be back tomorrow.” Now that she had most of her things stored away, she could call the funeral home to make arrangements to have her Daddy buried in the cemetery plot next to Mama.

  “You will?” he asked, surprised. What the heck was wrong with this girl that she wasn’t weeping and wailing like he had expected over hearing her daddy was dead? She was a most peculiar child, it was unnatural.

  “Yes sir,” she agreed to get rid of him. She already knew from talking to the lawyer Mann what some of her options were.

  * * * * *

  The funeral was attended by her father’s drinking buddies and few who, out of respect to who her mother had been and her grandparents, came to console her. They were few though, pathetically few. Owen Christenson had scared off th
e majority of her family friends over the years. He had isolated Ellen Sheehan from the rest of the world wherever he could, and done the same to his only daughter upon her mother’s death. Only school had kept him from completely keeping her at home and working her to death. Her free labor had kept him from paying for a housekeeper or cook, much less an extra farm worker.

  “What do you mean I don’t get to see the will?” Worley asked Mr. Mann who attended the funeral.

  “You don’t need to. Ellen left everything to her daughter years ago and Owen kept her from it. As a minor, which will change in a few short weeks, she couldn’t do much. But once she is eighteen the whole place is hers, free and clear.” Mr. Mann might not be well liked by some in Oakley, but he hadn’t made Ellen Sheehan’s will, his former partner had, and had he known about it sooner, he would have seen it enforced. Owen had taken full advantage of people’s ignorance and shamelessly stolen his daughter’s inheritance. He aimed to see that Avril wasn’t taken advantage like that again. He also determined that there were a lot of things kept from him when his partner died and he better go through each and every piece of paper in his files, who knew how many more Avril Christenson’s there were out there.

  The sheriff knew he could only throw his weight around so much, and while he didn’t like the lawyer Mann, he wasn’t going to do anything overtly illegal. He huddled with the Davidsons and they came to an agreement, but even then Ellen thwarted them by announcing she had signed the land over to the co-op on Mr. Mann’s advice to be rented out to other farmers, and she was going to college and moving out of Oakley.

  For some this was a relief, as her continued presence made them uncomfortable. They had contributed to the defrauding of a minor and it didn’t set well with them. They had also allowed Own to abuse this child. Avril Christenson was a constant reminder of their own illegal activities. More than one were relieved when Sheriff Worley came back to report that she was on the bus heading west. There were a few, pathetically few, who would miss that sprightly little red-head and her bright mind.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  MOVING ON

  Ellen didn’t know why she had chosen Los Angeles but it was the furthest west she knew of. She did have a vague idea of going on to school; she’d been honest about that idea when she told the Sheriff and the Davidson’s. Her grades, which had been useless as far as her father was concerned, had at least allowed her an opening into the college of her choice. She and Ellie had planned so much to leave that small town and shake off the dust of Oklahoma. Maybe go to Tulsa and start over, and maybe something bigger like New York. Neither appealed to Ellen now without Ellie, so she decided to head west and see what happened there. She was frightened out of her mind as they began to enter the smaller towns and cities that made up Los Angeles. There was no break in between them and the next town. Instead town after town became more and more congested as it became city upon city. As they pulled into the bus station she was overwhelmed. There were no green fields or the open space like there had been in Oklahoma. Instead, as far as her eyes could see it was like a vast ocean of houses, businesses and of course, never ending asphalt. She swallowed nervously as she gathered her things from the bus. Several people eyed her curiously; she had made no effort to converse with anyone on the trip out. She knew by keeping to herself that she was less vulnerable. She didn’t want to give anyone information that they could, or would, use against her. She didn’t know anyone in this large city, and she was scared right down to her toes.

  Nervously she made her way to a taxi stand and asked to be taken to the nearest Motel 6. She knew from Mr. Mann that these were usually fairly clean, and while she would have to take safety precautions, she could feel relatively safe until she found something more permanent.

  She ate a dinner after she stowed her gear in the hotel room. They hadn’t at first wanted to rent to a teenager, but she had a credit card that Mr. Mann had helped her get, and her driver’s license to prove she was a legal adult. The credit card was in case of emergencies, she had cash on her. She had to be frugal. The rents from her father’s land wouldn’t be coming in for a while, and the funds he had left in his accounts had been very little. There had been no life-insurance. The funeral had cost a bare minimum, but only because she wasn’t willing to pay out for the more expensive fripperies that Mrs. Davidson and Sheriff Worley insisted she should have. They had looked at her in horror as she insisted on the basics. He was dead, why did she need a nickel-plated hand hold rail for the casket?

  The little she had left had put her on a tight budget. She was used to that though. Her father hadn’t given her a dime if he could prevent it over the years. She thought it ironic that now she had all his dimes. Whether he meant her to or not, he hadn’t left a will, and Mr. Mann had seen to it that she got around the state and their death taxes as Owen Christenson hadn’t had rights to the Sheehan farm. She owed that man a lot, but he assured her that he couldn’t do too much; he still had to live there. He never let on his own crush that he had back in the day for Ellen Sheehan. If only she had chosen him, things would have been very different for this little girl of Ellen’s.

  The next day, Ellen took several city buses to the Los Angeles campus of the University of Southern California and presented herself in the admissions office. After arguing that she needed summer classes and that she wanted to be enrolled for fall, they began her paperwork. She had to authorize them to send for her transcripts from her old high school, but she already had copies of letters of recommendation from her teachers and counselor who had known she would need them. Her new college counselor, who reluctantly saw her, was winding down for the school year, and didn’t appreciate this hick from Oklahoma coming in without an appointment and making demands. Actually Ellen had been very respectful and a bit hesitant, but determined to attend the school. She was still scared, but after a full day of being given too much information, she at least had a lead on a couple of places she could stay until fall when the dorms opened up.

  Ellen managed to get a part-time job while she began some of her summer courses. She also managed to purchase a small motorcycle with a side-car to get her through the Southern Californian traffic. The traffic was like nothing a small town girl would ever have imagined, but she kept telling herself, it wasn’t Oklahoma, it wasn’t Oklahoma!

  Ellen made no friends, not at work, not at school that summer. She sent for her things from the Davidson’s and managed to fit them in the small boarding house room that she rented with the meager amount she made at her job. She didn’t mind busing tables or doing dishes, but she competed with people who spoke nothing but Spanish. Although she had seen migrant workers come through Oklahoma, some had even worked on the farm occasionally, these were people who had lived here for generations and still managed to make her feel like she was the outsider. Having her things about her, she realized she had no room for them really. She only sent for them to keep the Davidson’s from keeping them forever and charging her rent for storing them. Her storage unit though was still not known about. No one questioned where the furniture and other things had gone from the Christenson farm; it was probably assumed some of the neighbors had helped themselves, or the many looters that seemed to show up after such a tragedy.

  Ellen kept to herself. She ate alone, frequently on Ramon noodles that she bought from a store that sold everything for only a dollar, or on leftovers from the diner. She worked hard at her general studies, knowing she had to get those out of the way before she declared a major anyway. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to be. At one time Ellie would have helped her to make that decision. All they had wanted was to get away, to start over, together. Now Ellen had to make those plans and make it all happen, by herself. She was going to make if it killed her trying.

  * * * * *

  “Outta the way, outta the way,” someone yelled, as Ellen looked for and found her dorm room. She ducked as someone carrying a large duffel over their head nearly clobbered her with it. Moving day was chaotic and she
had more trips to make to empty out her room at the house where she had been renting. Tuition included the dorm room, and while she knew it would be cramped, she had not been prepared for how small and limited it really was.

  The room itself couldn’t be more than ten feet across. Each side had a bunk bed, and under the bed was a desk, and room for maybe a chair. Ellen put her bag down in the small closet by the door on the side she chose. She saw that her roommate wasn’t moved in yet. While she had requested a private room, she had been laughed at as she was a ‘mere’ freshman. They didn’t give out private rooms to freshmen. She slowly moved the straps of her two bags off her shoulders and to the floor, sighing with relief from the strain. She hadn’t wanted to make three trips; things in the side-car of her motorcycle were not safe to leave out in the open. She threw one of the bags up on the bunk to the right, claiming it for her own. She wondered how she would fit the trunks and boxes she had sent from Oklahoma under the small space that constituted hers under that bunk.

  “Hello,” a voice said behind her, and she turned to see a striking blonde standing behind her by the door.

  “Hello?” she returned, wondering what she wanted.

  “I believe this is my room. Are you Avril Christenson?” the girl asked, looking down from her height.

  “I go by Ellen, but yes, that’s me. You are Blossom?” she asked, trying to keep a straight face at the incongruousness of the name. Who named their children Blossom? This statuesque blonde was so far from a blossom it was even funnier than when she had heard the name she read on the form assigning her this room.

  “Yep, that’s me, hi,” she said pleasantly, holding out her hand and coming forward with a perfect smile.