The Source of All Things (4 page)

“You were the miracle child sent from heaven to quell my loneliness,” says my mom. “I know this, because even though God took your daddy, he gave me you.”

I wish I
could have been the elixir that prevented my mom from bottoming out, but that act of heroism fell to the neighbor ladies, Marlene and Terry. Refusing to let her be single and sad, they went to great lengths to set my mom up on blind dates. When she'd drive off with this rancher or that lawyer, they'd come over and babysit, bringing along their own passels of kids. In most of the pictures from my pre-school years I'm standing next to Terry's daughter, Marcie, looking innocent and sheepish, like we've just finger-painted the wall of my bedroom and then helped ourselves to a handful of Milk Bones (which we probably had).

Marlene and Terry were there when Mom needed to borrow coffee, or cry, or celebrate Chris's first day of school. They invited us to every birthday party, holiday celebration, and parade. And they swooped over to take care of my brother and me on the afternoon our mom decided she could no longer take the loneliness that felt like an anchor around her neck. She was standing at the kitchen window watching Chris and me playing in the backyard when she thought
How can I do this? I have all the responsibility and no help
. She doesn't remember calling 911, but a few minutes later an ambulance screamed up the driveway and two husky paramedics jumped out. After a quick assessment of her mental stability
(not so crazy she needed the psychiatric ward but wide-eyed and ranting enough to be monitored), they loaded her onto a gurney and whisked her off to a week of “rest and relaxation” at Magic Valley Hospital.

If there's a moment when Mom's sadness took on a life of its own, it was when she stood at that little window letting the blueprint of her suicide form a picture in her head. She didn't know exactly how she'd do it, but the tools appeared before her in stark relief: a razor blade borrowed from her Schick shaving kit. Scissors sharp enough to cut a perfect line across my bangs. All the leftover Valium from the bottle the doctor prescribed after my dad's funeral to help her sleep. What mattered, of course, was not the method she'd use to snip the cord that connected her to us kids, but that she no longer felt capable of carrying all of our weight.

M
om, Chris, and I waited three years for a miracle to sweep us off our lonely, displaced feet. And then one day in June of 1974, it pulled into our driveway behind the wheel of a flesh-toned 1949 Willys jeep.

In my memory from that evening, I am standing under the awning of our black-and-white ranch house at 1537 Richmond Drive. A sprinkler on the front lawn sends cool mist across my toes. Fresh out of the bath and dressed in a pair of summer-weight pj's, I smell like Johnson's baby powder and No More Tears shampoo. My hair, still light enough to be considered strawberry, skims the tops of my shoulder blades.

In the hazy light of early summer, I see my brother come flying down the sidewalk on his red Schwinn Fastback with the sparkly banana seat. He's wearing a pair of tattered cutoffs and a tank top that says
Lifeguard Waikiki Beach
. At seven years old, he is my own
personal blue-eyed Dennis the Menace, who likes to wipe Dentyne gum on his buttcrack and give it to me to chew. He pedals his bike as fast as he can, shouting, “That guy you're going dancing with is coming in fast!”

The sight of my brother's skinny legs pumping makes Mom rush into the house for one last peek at her outfit for the night: a tight denim vest over a peasant blouse with pouffy, see-through sleeves. Trailing her cloud of perfume, I follow her into the bathroom, where I find her opening her eye-shadow compact and sweeping a layer of turquoise across her lids. She squints into the mirror at her rosy cheeks, forest-green eyes, and slightly grey, widely spaced teeth, then leans down to tattoo my cheek with a glossy, cherry-red kiss.

We emerge onto the porch just as the jeep pulls into our driveway. A door opens, revealing a lanky, bell-bottomed leg. It's attached to a man wearing tinted eyeglasses, a tan leather jacket, and a silky, wide-collared shirt. I can't place him, but something about the man's warm brown skin and feathered blond hair makes me think I have seen him before. Then he smiles, and a gold cap on his right, top tooth summons a memory into my brain.

I know the man from the boys' section at Van England's Department Store in downtown Twin Falls, where my mom takes me when she needs to buy my brother's plaid polyester pants and matching shirts. Whenever the man sees my mother, he compliments her new hair color, platform espadrilles, or jeans. My mom smiles all the way to the checkout counter and out in the parking lot to her beige Mercury Cougar. When we get into her car, she taps her fingers on the steering wheel and says, “That man sure knows his fashions.”

One day, Mom realized she had never introduced me to the man. It was December, and we'd picked out a new coat for me to wear during the holidays. We walked over to where the man was folding a pile of little boys' argyle sweaters. “Donnie, hello!” said my mom. “I'd like to introduce you to my daughter, Tracy.” The man looked at me and smiled, reminding me of the way my grandpa smiled when he brought me red roses for my birthday. I liked it when my grandpa did this ritual for me. It told me I was his special girl and deserved to have my own special day. The look in the clothing salesman's eyes suggested something similar. But I wasn't about to sit on his lap and wrap my arms around him like I would my family. I anchored my feet to the warped wooden floor and shoved my hands deep into the pockets of my Kermit the Frog art smock.

The man crouched down, putting us at eye level. “It's a pleasure to meet you, Tracy,” he said. “My name's Mr. Lee, but you can call me Donnie. I sure do like that coat you're getting for Christmas. Wear it with a pretty dress, and I can tell by just looking at you that you'll be the slickest thing since Wonder Bread.”

It was late afternoon, and sunlight slanted through a giant window facing west. I felt a stirring like a chick cracking through an eggshell in the center of my chest. I was the kind of kid who could live for a week on a compliment. I stood before my future father and fanned him with my eyelashes.

By that summer,
Donnie was courting our entire family. Mom and he did the Funky Chicken at his favorite bar, the Cove. They four-wheeled into the South Hills, where they made out to the
music of Mormon crickets. But when Donnie picked my mom up, he always brought Chris and me a toy. And when he dropped her off, he snuck into our bedrooms, patting our backs and leaving tender kisses on our sunburned cheeks.

Sometimes he'd pull into our driveway unexpected, gunning the engine of the Willys jeep. Jumping out and leaning against the metal doorframe, he'd yell, “Pile in! We're going out! My treat!” Hearing the siren call of popcorn and drive-in movies, Chris and I would drop whatever game we were playing (me: Barbies; he: cutting the toes off my Barbies) and race outside, forgetting to put on our sneakers. Mom would toss her
Woman's Day
magazine into a macramé basket and chase after us, carrying our shoes and her purse.

As my brother and I clambered up the jeep's metal footstep, we'd kick and shove, each vying for a chance to sit behind our family's date. But as soon as we were buckled into our seat belts, we'd have to pile right back out. Juiced on the knowledge that wherever we were going would invariably lead to ice cream, I'd have forgotten to stop off at the bathroom before loading up. Mom would help focus my mind on the heavy feeling in my bladder by saying, “Okay, who needs a pit stop before we leave?”

Finding me in the rearview mirror, Donnie would tip his hat and throw me an encouraging wink. “You run inside, Trace,” he'd say. “Don't worry. We'll wait here for you to come back. But whatever you do, don't fall in.”

Looking at his reflection, I would wrinkle my forehead, trying to decode the message he was sending. Chris had told me that alligators and snakes lived in the sewer pipes under our house, but I didn't want to disappoint my new friend. Donnie was the only
man I knew who actually picked up speed when he saw me, racing toward me and holding out his arms to wrap me in a fierce, high-impact hug. Once entangled, he'd hang on as long as I did, resting his chin in the crook of my neck and smoothing my strawberry tangles. If I was wearing one of my favorite terrycloth tube tops, our hug would have shoved it up over the top of my belly. An amateur stylist by way of his job at Van England's, Donnie would smooth it back down over the elastic waistband of my polyester cutoffs.

In the jeep, I whined that I could hold it until we got to the Arctic Circle, our favorite ice cream joint. I edged closer and closer toward tears. But before I could stage a full-blown go-to-pieces, Donnie cut the engine and offered to walk me inside the house. He waited in the hallway while I clutched the sides of the toilet, holding my body a few inches off the seat. Who knows how long it took for my bladder to finally relax enough to flush the Kool-Aid or whatever sugary drink I'd been chugging out of my pipes, but when I finally stepped out of the bathroom, Donnie hoisted me onto his shoulders and carried me back to my mom and brother.

I can't say that I ever knew I was missing a biological father, but with Donnie around, a whole new world opened up. It was defined by adventure, excitement, and fun. I also remember feeling encapsulated, I think, by love. Night after night, he drove us away from the depression that still clung to our house like a needy child. I know my mom fought hard to infuse our lives with stability and joy. But by the time Donnie found us, we were all ready for the kind of light only a man in need of a new family can shine.

His favorite thing was taking us on outdoor adventures, a passion
ingrained in all of us since birth. On weeknights and official holidays, we'd fish for slow-moving trout at Dirkies Lake, swim at Nat-Soo-Pah hot springs, or four-wheel to obscure ghost towns near Sunbeam Dam or Idaho City. He held off on the big adventures, like weeklong camping trips near the North Fork of the Wood River, because he didn't have a camper-trailer big enough to accommodate all of us yet. But on evenings when the light was just beginning to turn purple, we'd switchback down the narrow road leading into the Snake River Canyon to one of our favorite picnic spots. A supper of cheese, crackers, and Hostess cupcakes would be followed by Chris and me running around like demons, high on sugar and the invigorating feeling of cold grass under our feet. Eventually, the sun would sink below the rim of the canyon, lending an eerie glow to the mist floating around Shoshone Falls. With the birds retreating into the bushes and the heat rising out of the canyon, Donnie would slip off his sneakers and crack his first beer of the evening. Leaning onto his forearms, he'd tell us about himself.

He was born on March 12, 1943, in the mountains above Loveland, Colorado. His mom, Mary Ann, was seventeen, and his dad was a chauvinist a-hole. One day, Mary Ann asked if she could go deer-hunting with her husband. They wouldn't need a sitter, she said, because she'd bring the baby along. When Donnie's daddy responded by saying, “A woman's place is in the home,” Mary Ann filed for divorce. A year later, she met a wire-stringer for the Mountain Bell telephone company and baby Donnie got a new pop.

Donnie lived in thirteen different states before he was six years old. Mary Ann and his new dad, Edward, had three more children, including a boy named Larry and two beautiful daughters,
Lori and Debbie. Lucky for Donnie, the family settled in Idaho, the most mountainous state in the U.S. Rivers flowed from snowcapped peaks into wildflower-infested meadows. Pheasants and sage hens soared above the beet fields and Mallard ducks hid in pristine wetlands. As a teenager, Donnie started hunting, a love that would last his entire life. He graduated from high school, joined the National Guard, got married, and got divorced.

All he ever wanted was a son and daughter to call his own, and then his wife cheated on him with her high school sweetheart. When Donnie met my mom, he admired the Stevie Nicks swivel in her size-four hips. More so, he loved the laughing, redheaded children that clung to her slender legs and narrow ankles. Years later, when I was grown with two small sons of my own, he'd tell me that he liked my mom from the second he met her, but that Chris and I were the glue that affixed the seal on their marriage certificate.

“I probably enjoyed seeing you two more than I enjoyed seeing your mother,” he said. “I bonded with you. I loved you. There was no chance it wouldn't work out.”

I remember the day I first decided that Donnie needed to become our permanent daddy. It was the end of summer and he had brought over his black lab, Jigger, to play. I'd met Jigger a few weeks earlier, on a hiking trip to the sand dunes near Mountain Home. She'd followed me up and down the greasy hills, pushing the top of her head into my outstretched palm.