Part Two.

Part One is here.

Age Six: I spend the night with Kasie. Her parents have a gun cabinet in the playroom where we sleep. We are up late giggling and being girls, when Kasie gets out a pistol and points it at my head and says she's going to shoot me, and it scares me. She says later that she was sleepwalking. My mother has what can only be described as a shit-fit when I tell her, and she calls Kasie's mom and yells and Kasie's mom says that I must have talked her into playing with the gun.

Age Seven: I stay with my grandma a lot when my mom needs to run errands. She plays Scrabble, watches soap operas, and smokes cigarettes. There's always a ham in the refridgerator. She won't play Scrabble with me because I'll "just lose", but we play Sorry and Uno and Parcheesi for hours and hours and hours.

Age Eight: My mom's close friend Phil dies of a heart attack. When she comes home from the hospital crying, I know he's dead. It's the first time I've ever dealt with the death of a human being, and all I can do is sit in my room and try not to throw up. I am relieved when my mom leaves me at my grandma's during Phil's funeral.

Age Nine: My dad doesn't ever take me to play golf with him, but then when his daughter Jennifer comes into town they go together to the golf course and leave me at home. I'm inconsolably upset, and my mom calls my dad and makes him come back to get me. I feel stupid and bratty and defeated.

Age Ten: I read a lot, and fast. My mom takes me to Books-A-Million every week or so to get a new book, usually a Nancy Drew mystery. I will be done reading it by the end of the day. I also read Gone with the Wind, and I love it. Every time I'm sick and stay home from school, I watch the movie.



The idea to write this came from this post in this blog.