Good Buddy

by Dori Ann Dupré

  Life was nothing but a double standard for mothers. Being a father was easy. Mothers carry the weight of their daughters’ tears and failures and heartbreaks and shame. And fathers? Fathers carry their daughters’ hearts. And they don’t have to do much of anything at all to have them…other than give their girls a hug from time to time…or a buy them a new dress. At least, this was how Tammy Jo McVicar saw it. Her father was no different than her own husband.

  Ever since she lost her daughter for good, Tammy Jo wallowed in the pool of regret. She should’ve done this, she should’ve done that, she wished she had done this, she wished she had done that. But it was a waste of her time. There was no righting the wrongs with Julie. There was no reconciliation between them to be had.

  God only gives us so many chances to get things right in life. At some point, there are no more chances left. Julie had run out of time to get things right with her mother. And her Tammy Jo had run out of time to get things right with Julie.

  But there was still time to get things right with Molly. She had not lost Molly. Julie’s untimely and tragic death gave her the window she needed to be able to touch her granddaughter again. She would be damned if she ruined this gift from God…or maybe even a gift from Julie herself…with her own hard-worn stubbornness.

  Tammy Jo started to cry years’ worth of tears, the kind that hide behind a tough exterior and a big fat mouth, the ones that don’t come out until the moment they really need to, an empty reservoir outside of her body waiting to be filled with all its pain. Her tears built up like an impenetrable fortress since the day Julie packed her car, drove off to Texas A&M and never came home again. And now that wall was coming down.

  When was the last time that incredible girl set foot in this room? she thought to herself as she glanced around its pastel walls and shelving full of childhood knick-knacks like Precious Moments figurines and Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls. It had to have been in early August 1986, soon after she went out with her girlfriends to see Top Gun.

  Julie packed up her clothes and everything she could stuff into her maroon Datsun 200SX, hugged her father tight and kissed her cat Muffin goodbye. The last memory Tammy Jo had of Julie at this house – her home – was her blond ponytail bobbing up and down as she walked along the driveway toward her future. And Tammy Jo watched from the bathroom window on the second floor.

  This all could be Molly’s now. Molly could have this room, this room all full of her mother’s things and her mother’s memories. Molly could have what Julie rejected – all the love and adoration in the world from her own mother who loved her more than anything in the whole world.

  Molly could have a fresh start in a new place, a safe place, a place away from that sad town in North Carolina, the very place that stole both of her parents right from underneath of her. But she knew in her heart that Molly didn’t want these things. At least, not the way Tammy Jo wanted her to want them.

  Mail

  Jed looked outside at the rain pummeling the window, his sleep deprived mind in stitches, and took another swig of his coffee. As he watched the mail truck drive by his house, at its normal time, he was reminded once again that life goes on. Just because his beautiful daughter died in an accident, and just because the country is in the immediate aftermath of one of the worst days in its entire history, doesn’t mean that the mailman gets to stay home. The mail still needs to be delivered. People still need to go to work. The children still need to go to school. The sun still rises and sets.

  No golf yesterday, no golf today, probably no golf tomorrow. It’s just rain, rain, rain right now.

  Jogging outside and dodging raindrops like an ambushed soldier dodging bullets, he grabbed the mail from the mailbox. When he got back inside and stood at his desk, he rifled through the stack of post and came across one with a young person’s handwriting adorning an envelope. The letter was address to “Mr. and Mrs. McVicar” and was postmarked Fayetteville, North Carolina.

  Dear Grandma and Grandpa,

  I hope that you both are doing well down in Texas. It was real nice to spend time with you while you were up here for my mom’s wake and funeral. I wish it had been a better time, though. I wish it had been at a time when my mom was still alive. Then we could’ve had a barbecue out back and then played a game of Yahtzee inside when it got too dark. I’m pretty good at Yahtzee, but my mom told me that Grandpa was the best at it when she was a little girl.

  I’m writing you this letter because I want to tell you about what I think and what I want for my own life. My dad Buddy doesn’t know I’m writing this letter and might be mad at me for doing it if he found out. So please don’t tell him because he doesn’t need to be more upset about everything going on than he already is. He wants me to try to stay away from all of this as much as possible and let the adults work it all out. But because I’m 12 years old now, and not really some little kid like Gabby, and this is supposed to be all about what’s best for me, I think maybe I should be able to have a say and tell everyone what I think. So here goes.

  Buddy, my dad, is a great dad. I don’t care what his real name was when he was a little boy. And I want to stay with him and my little sister. They both need me and I need them, too. We are a team and have been since I was 7 years old.

  When my mom died, it felt so much worse than when my real father died. When my real father died, I was still small, and I can remember being real sad and crying about my daddy, but it wasn’t the same as with my mom. Probably because I was so little at the time and it was so long ago. But when my mom died, I don’t think that I can describe just how much that hurts all the time. I can’t believe she’s gone. I still think that she’s just out running like usual and will be back soon. Most of the time, I don’t even know what I’m doing. I know that it’s just a part of grief. My school counselor told me about all the stages of grief and so I understand all that.

  My little sister isn’t going to remember my mom at all. It’s going to be my job to help raise her and be there for her every day. But it’s also my job to carry my mom’s memory for her. It’s going to be my job to show Gabby who my mom was because I am the only person even more than Buddy who knew her the best.

  My mom was a great mom, the best mom in the world. She took care of me all by herself after my daddy died, and then she chose the best new father for me that she could ever find. She gave me a baby sister too.

  My dad Buddy is everything that a dad should be. I love him. And I just don’t feel like I can leave him all alone now. Someday, I’ll grow up and will need to leave him like all kids leave their parents for college. But now is not the right time. He has lost so much already.

  I’m sorry that you guys and my mom didn’t get to work out your problems before she died, but I hope you understand that I want to stay with my family here in North Carolina. I do want to know you better, though, and I hope that you’d want me and Gabby and even Buddy to come down there and visit sometimes. Maybe we could spend Christmas together or go to Disney World. I bet that Buddy would love for you to visit us here, too.

  If all the stuff that’s happened in New York can happen to anyone, then we should be trying to live each day like we love each other. We don’t have a big family. All we have are each other. So, can’t we stop fighting over me and where I live and Buddy’s mom and instead maybe see that it doesn’t have to be some contest about who is blood related and real family and who belongs where.

  I belong with my dad Buddy and my little sister. That is what’s best for me. But what’s also best for me is that my grandparents are a part of my life, just like every other kid gets to have their grandparents.

  Anyway, I’m sorry that I don’t want to move down there and live with you. But I love my dad and my sister too much to leave them. I hope you understand and that we can still always be a part of each other’s lives. Because I love you.

  Sincerely, your granddaughter,

  Molly Saint


  Jed McVicar dropped the handwritten letter onto the kitchen counter, put his hands to his face and started to cry. He knew – like he knew the whole time this had been going on – what needed to happen.

  Buddy sat on the floor of Gabby’s room trying to separate her laundry into colors and whites. The whites pile was much smaller than the colors, mostly full of tiny under shirts. How does a kid go through so many tiny pieces of clothing in one day? He recalled running the washer and dryer a little more than usual when Molly was in soccer season; however, a toddler gives the weekly uniform demands of an athlete a run for their money.

  “Hey, Buddy! It’s for you,” Molly hollered from the kitchen, snapping him out of his mind’s laundry musings. Realizing right then and there that he was so out of it that he hadn’t even heard the phone ring, Buddy got up and stretched his hamstrings. How many calls had he missed today? From clients, even?

  He left the chore of the hour on the carpet and walked to the kitchen to find Molly standing with the receiver in her hand. With a Pringle chip inside her mouth, she shoved the phone into his hand and said, “it’s Miss Wisnewski.”

  Buddy cringed. No one wants to hear from their lawyer, unexpectedly, while in the middle of an ugly and emotionally charged case…it usually meant bad news. He put the phone up to his ear and took a deep breath.

  “Hey, Lisa, how’s it going?”

  And as Buddy listened intently to his lawyer excitedly explain to him that the McVicars wanted to withdraw their petition for custody of Molly, he could feel the hairs on his neck and forearms begin to stand at attention. Goosebumps took over the fabric of his skin and his heart rate began to rise. They had a guardian angel after all.

  Visiting Day

  Buddy, Molly, and Gabby waited at a picnic table outside the Trudeau Correctional Facility for Women in Becton, North Carolina, a minimum-security prison, where Retta Bellinger was given yet another identity…Inmate Number 476329. She had one more month left to serve on her active prison sentence and then she’d be on parole for three years.

  Since the Bell County, Texas District Attorney decided not to charge her with any criminal offenses, due to lack of evidence that she had committed any crimes in Texas, the Cumberland County District Attorney in North Carolina, who had been waiting on Bell County’s decision, felt that Retta Bellinger, AKA Loretta Cordova, should have to suffer some legal consequence for the crimes she committed while living in North Carolina in the years since her arrival in the Fall of 1975.

  Apparently, hiding in fear of your life and having to give up your entire identity and ties to all friends and family was not enough of a consequence in the Prosecutor’s mind. So, nine months of prison in a minimum-security facility, where she could bake cookies and make crafts with a few white-collar criminals and downtrodden women with drug problems, and then three years of probation, sent enough of a message to the electorate in Fayetteville about his “compassionately tough on crime” campaign slogan. That was the best deal Loretta could get worked out with the District Attorney, even with her own son serving as her defense attorney.

  Loretta pled guilty to Forgery, a Class G Felony, and was extremely fortunate to be given the sentence she received. The DA could have charged her with the lesser offense of Possession of Fraudulent Identification, a Misdemeanor, but felt like that was too lenient. However, she had a sympathetic judge who signed the plea deal and gave her a short speech during her sentencing hearing: “Mrs. Bellinger, today you begin the last leg of carrying that traumatic burden on your back. Keep your eyes forward, your head up, and before you know it, you will be set free from all of it. No more running and hiding from the past.”

  Joe was in tears as she was escorted away by the Sheriff’s deputy, and Molly held his hand tightly. “She’s going to be okay, Grandpa Joe,” she whispered to him.

  Joe squeezed her hand, knowing Molly was probably right. She had been through so much for so long that a short prison sentence at a place nicknamed “Camp Cakewalk” might feel a bit like a vacation.

  “I’m gonna miss her, Molly,” he whispered back. But he also knew that in nine months’ time, not only would his beautiful Loretta be free from a literal prison, but she would be free from a prison of her own making…she would finally, at long last, agree to marry him.

  Loretta walked out to the visiting area, and Gabby toddled over to her grandmother with her arms stretched out. The weekly visits made the time go by faster, and Loretta was grateful for that. So was Buddy. The guilt he carried because he was unable to get her a zero-prison time deal, weighed on him unlike anything else.

  Everyone hugged Loretta and sat down on the bench. Women in tan jumpsuits and wearing prison issue sweatshirts walked around a dirt track on this rather mild early February afternoon. Several children were at the other picnic benches, some visiting their mothers who were at Camp Cakewalk for similar types of offenses and some for lesser drug crimes. However, the most interesting prisoner was a famous author who was found guilty of insider trading several months ago, serving ten months at Trudeau right alongside Loretta. The author was sitting on a bench talking to a young man, her adult son, per her cellmate Katherine.

  “Son,” Loretta reminded Buddy, who always looked defeated when he arrived to visit his mother. “You got me the best deal you could. If that rich author couldn’t get out of her crimes, then I had no chance getting off scot-free for twenty-five years’ worth of fraudulent living.”

  Buddy knew she was right. “Some things shouldn’t be crimes, Mother. Protecting your child should not be a crime. You never defrauded anyone. You paid your bills – on time – and kept all your contracts. It just pisses me off because no one was actually victimized by what you did in North Carolina.”

  “It’s okay, Buddy. You might be right in a way, but the law is the law, and I broke it for good reasons. And as a lawyer, you know how it is…it doesn’t matter if it was for good reasons.”

  She held Gabby on her lap and bounced her up and down a bit, humming the Lone Ranger theme song to the bouncing. Molly and Buddy sat across from her and watched her black hair flop around, starting to fill in with some pesky grays here and there, no longer such easy access to quality hair care products.

  They talked about the famous author and how she was handling laundry duty this week. Buddy guessed that the author would have one hell of a new book completed by the end of her prison stint. They discussed what was going on in the world, how Molly was handling the Seventh Grade, and if she was ready for her soccer tournament in Richmond next weekend.

  Loretta’s spirits were higher than last weekend because she knew that her time in this place was coming to an end. She would be so happy to go home again, to be back with her sweet Joe, to resume her life…but she was also a little apprehensive. There was this awkward pause in her daily existence which would need to be explained in detail to the wonderful law abiding citizens in Welby who had long considered her one of their own.

  After their hour was up, Buddy stood with Gabby on his hip.

  “Son, are you alright today?” Loretta asked him, grabbing his hand. It had been almost a whole year without Julie. So many of the “firsts” had gone by…except for the first anniversary of her death.

  “Still day-to-day, Mother. Most days are still tough. But I’ll get there. I’ve got no choice, really,” he winced, squeezing her hand.

  Loretta pulled Molly into a full embrace, the going on thirteen-year-old girl now even with her in height. Kissing her on the forehead, as she said her goodbye to her family, she pulled back and looked Molly into her big brown eyes. “I can’t wait,” was all she said. Molly knew exactly what she meant and hugged her back with an extra tight squeeze.

  Flags

  The country seemed like it was just in a consistent state of mourning, mixed with a collective simmering anger. After September 11th, eventually, people got on with their lives…like people do. They went
back to work each day and buying stuff they don’t need and going on vacations they couldn’t afford. Spending money became the rallying cry of American patriotism.

  Every day, there was something that reminded Buddy of September 11th. Sure, he knew no one personally who died in the World Trade Center or in a field in Pennsylvania or in the Pentagon. But there were whispers of war and terrorism and Osama Bin Laden and al Qaida and “boots on the ground” and Iraq and Afghanistan…and no whispers are louder than when whispered within the confines of a military town.

  The Airborne Museum was a place that Buddy had always planned to take Molly. Her father was a paratrooper, and he died from jumping out of a C-130 aircraft. The history of the Airborne was located inside of the facility, and he wanted Molly to understand the kinds of risks her father took for freedom.

  Inside Buddy’s mind, when passing by this place, the Army cadence, “C-130 rolling on the strip, Airborne Ranger on a one-way trip…” played on a cassette tape loop throughout his mind from all his years overhearing it on and around Post. As he, Molly and Gabby made their way out of the parking lot and onto the sidewalk toward the sea of American flags standing united in an open field, his heart held tight.

  Buddy always knew that he would’ve made a good soldier had he enlisted or pursued a commission as an officer. His family, whether biological or assumed, were all parts or products of military service: his father in Vietnam, his mother’s father in World War II, his mother’s brother during Vietnam, Joe Horton served four years in the Navy, and then Kenny. Buddy always felt like he was missing out, but other than registering for the Selective Service when he was eighteen, Loretta made him swear he’d never go in, never take an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States.”