Michigan Weather and Women: Part 3

How did we ever get here?

Based on a post by CleverGenericName, in 4 parts. Listen to the
Podcast at Connected.

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"When I was fourteen, Mr. Johnson introduced me to a
friend of his, Henry White, who was a master plumber. Henry was a
high-functioning alcoholic whose temper had driven away all his old apprentices
and journeymen. Luckily, I was always big for my age, and Mr. Johnson assured
Henry that I was seventeen, turning eighteen in the next few months, so he took
me on with the promise to make me an apprentice as soon as I was old enough. By
the time that Henry learned my actual age, he had come to rely on me so much
that he kept me on."

"But what about school? Don't you need a high school
diploma to become an apprentice?"

"One good thing about growing up in a small town is
that most people know the score. I made it to school when I could, and Henry
and I worked a lot on the weekends, while Alison watched the rest of my
siblings. Most of my teachers let me through with C's and D's, even though I
must have missed half of my classes. Everyone knew that I was working with
Henry and that I would need my high school diploma to become an apprentice, so
they just kind of let me slip through.

"I had well over 6,000 hours of experience plumbing
before I even turned 18 and could formally become an apprentice. By that point,
Henry was a significantly less functional alcoholic, and I was doing everything
for his business; all the plumbing and all of the invoicing. He just signed off
on the work. If anyone had ever looked into it, he could have gotten into real
trouble, but we did smaller jobs for folks who didn't have a lot of money, so
no one ever noticed or cared.

"Just about the last thing that Henry did before he
passed was to swear out my application to become a master plumber. Then one day
I showed up for work, and he had died in his sleep. He didn't own much of
anything, other than his tools, and he didn't have any family that I knew of,
so I just kept on working."

After a few minutes spent lying together in silence, I
thought that Erin might have drifted off, but she had one more question for me
before she did.

"When did your mom leave?"

I had never told anyone that part of my story; even my
brother and sisters thought that Mom had just left one day, leaving me in
charge. The reality was so much worse.

"By the time Lane started school, Mom had already left
us. Not physically, but in all the other ways that matter. She didn't work, and
she regularly brought her 'boyfriends' back to our house to trade sex for
drugs. Any support she got from social services went straight into her arm or
up her nose. I was working long hours by then, to pay the rent and put food on
the table, so sometimes that meant that Mary or my brother would be at home
with Mom when I wasn't there. I knew it was playing with fire, but there was
nothing I could do about it other than pray.

"Normally, when I got home, I would blow my horn as I
pulled into our drive and Lane would come running out to hug me and tell me
about his day. So, I knew something was wrong when I came home late one
evening, turned off my truck, and he still hadn't come out. I went inside, and
Mom was sitting stoned in the living room watching TV. I asked where Lane was,
and she just waved toward the back of the house. Alison and Sharon were out, so
Mary and Lane were home with her by themselves. I found him in the room that we
shared, cowering in the corner, with little Mary guarding the door. She was
only eight at the time.

"After a few minutes, I got Lane to tell me what was
wrong, and he showed me his arm. Earlier, he had been in the kitchen and had
bumped into Mom while she was cooking something on the stove. In a burst of
rage, or maybe just evil, she grabbed his arm and held it against the burner.
You can still see the scar on his arm today.

"That was the end of it. I asked Mary to stay with Lane
in our room, I packed Mom's things into the one suitcase we owned, and I drove
her to the bus station. I bought her a ticket to Grand Rapids, gave her all the
cash in my wallet, and waited with her until she boarded. I told her I would
call the police if she ever came back.

"Before she left, she spat on me and told me she wished
I had never been born."

I marveled at how flat my voice sounded, but to my surprise,
my cheeks felt wet. I thought I had lost the ability to cry long ago.

"Can you imagine that, abandoning your own mother? I'll
probably burn in hell, but it was the only way I could think of to keep my
brother and sisters safe. I haven't seen her since, although she used to call a
couple of times a year asking for money. I didn't feel too bad about hanging up
on her when she did, though, since she was still collecting family benefits for
us all. Lane barely remembers her, which is likely a blessing, so I made up the
story about Mom going away for the weekend and never coming back.

"Since then, I have done what was needed for us to
survive. When Alison finished school, she wanted to stay home to help look
after the others, but I convinced her to go to college. I said that Mom had put
aside some money for her tuition, but of course, that was a lie. I have been
making the payments for her, but I wanted her to have the chance to just be
young, for once. To get away from all of this, at least for a while."

"But what about you, Davis?"

"I don't matter."

"Well, you matter to me."

While I was speaking, Erin had wrapped both arms around me
and was now holding me tight against her body. When I finished, my body was
wracked by waves of uncontrollable grief, but she held me through it all.
Eventually, as I started to calm down, she gave me gentle kisses on the nape of
my neck and whispered to me in a soft voice.

I don't remember what she said, but I fell into a deep and
dreamless sleep.

The power came back on early the next morning, and Erin and
I were the first people to wake up. She lay beside me with a small smile on her
face.

"You've had some hard times, Davis Crawford, but you
have come out the other side. You're pretty amazing."

I felt a sudden burst of both elation and fear as I returned
her smile.

"Thanks for listening and not judging me. I've never
told anyone some of the things I shared with you."

"It was my pleasure. Now let's get up and make some
coffee."

Looking out the window, the snowdrifts were over two feet
high in places, but I knew they weren't going to get any lighter as the sun
came out and they started to melt.

"I am going to get started on the shoveling if you want
to start on breakfast."

Erin gave me a bemused look.

"Or maybe, I am fully capable of shoveling snow, and we
can get it done twice as fast by working together."

A few minutes after we started, Lane came out to help. At
one point, when Erin was on the other side of the yard, he started to speak.

"I heard some of what you said to Erin last night. I
never knew what Mom did to you, what you did to protect us. Thank you."

"Ah, Bud. I never wanted you to worry. Mom wasn't well
for a long time, and she made some terrible choices. But she's gone now, and
you will always be safe with me."

By the time we finished, we had worked ourselves into a
lather, so I suggested to Wilma that she get a snow plowing service for the
winter. She gave me a look that implied that somewhere there was a village
searching for its idiot; and that idiot was me.

"Oh, I have a service, but they take so long to come
that they are useless if they bother to show up at all."

Erin jumped into the conversation, looking pissed off.

"It's part of my family and the McDougal's ongoing
campaign to get Gran to move. I have told them how dangerous the game they are
playing is, but they just don't seem to care."

I thought for a minute, before walking a little ways away
and making a call. When I returned, I had some good news for Wilma.

"Go ahead and cancel your current service. If they
aren't going to do the work, they shouldn't have a problem with not getting
paid. I called an old friend of mine from school who runs a snow removal company
out of Harbor Springs, who owes me a favor or nine. From now on, you will be at
the top of his list."

Erin and I texted just about every day between Thanksgiving
and Christmas, and we talked most nights when she wasn't working. We were both
insanely b