Chapter 266: For Sale
*Possessions are tangible. The memories of the people are more important. – Miss Beulah*
RYE’S THOUGHTS
About four months after Michael Ray died, the family moved to a small apartment. The sisters would now share a room, and everything had to be consolidated.
That first move after his death was the hardest. Everything seemed to hold a memory of him. Neither girl wanted to get rid of anything. But they did.
Then they moved to Savanah with an old friend of Donna Leigh’s. Even more had to be sold.
Sometime while they were in Savanah, things began to disappear. His flag. The golden necklace with his ashes in a charm. The teddy bear holding a picture of Mike. Their grandmothers pearl necklace.
Rye had cried herself to sleep when she couldn’t find her necklace from Okinawa. She had asked Leigh Anne about it and their mother heard. Donna Leigh had beat Rye with a belt, screaming that the world did not revolve around her.
She still had a small scar on her back where the buckle had ripped open the skin.
By the time they moved to Tampa everything that the three owned could fit into a suitcase each.
Anthony bought the girls clothes. Donna Leigh took them when they left. The nicer clothes were sold at a shop in Mobile.
The first closet that Rye slept in had a few dozen pieces of clothes hanging in it. She had several blankets to lay on.
The last closet had less than a dozen items for all three of them. She had a lightweight blanket and no pillow.
The three of them were living in a small one-bedroom apartment when Donna Leigh was killed. A charity for military widows and orphans had furnished the apartment. Another charity paid the utilities.
Donna Leigh knew how to work the system. She knew the story to tell to get what she wanted. She could cry or pull out the charm. Her calendar kept track of which charity had events on what days.
All three of them always had a nice black dress. Even if she wasn’t always sober, Donna Leigh knew how to act it. Leigh Anne never mastered it. Ryanne never needed to. And she hated the black dress.
The last time that she wore the dress was at a memorial service for her mother. It had been put together by the local chapter of MADD. The news had made a big deal about the fact that a war widow was killed by a drunk driver. They did not mention that both she and her twenty-one-year-old daughter were also drunk and high.
The driver that hit their car was going the wrong direction on a one-way street. His pickup hit their used compact car head on before coming to a stop with a tire on top of Donna Leigh.
She died at the scene. Leigh Anne was transported to the hospital. The driver tried to run away, only to be caught by police within sight of the crash.
Rye had already been locked away in her closet when the police officer had knocked on the door with the case worker. The officer had been a kind man who was approaching retirement. To keep her out of the system, the case worker had allowed the officer and his wife had taken Rye into their home.
After Leigh Anne was released from the hospital, Rye told the couple she was moving in with her sister. With long practiced skills, she avoided the case worker until her eighteenth birthday. She signed her sister’s name on school forms. Took herself to get a driver’s license. Found a part time job and then a second.
At the end of the school year, the automotive class sold the cars they had learned on. Rye bought the cheapest one they had. A brown Volvo that was older than her.
Against all odds she had hoped that her sister would come to her graduation. She did not. After graduation, she turned in her borrowed cap and gown before driving to Savanah.
Rye retrieved the duffle bag from the locker and returned home. She was back in time for her shift at the mall. Her hours at the restaurant picked up with no classes.
With money not going to alcohol, Rye could afford to buy food. Rent was paid by money order and not sexual favors. Her paychecks went into a student checking account, a small portion was stashed away in a savings account.
In August, she sold the little bit of furniture and kitchen goods that she had. Keeping just her clothes, a few other necessities and the duffle bag, everything else was sold or donated. Especially the hated black dress.
Having sold what was left of her life, she loaded two duffle bags into the trunk and drove to Dahlonega.
Rye spent the first week in her car. She would shower in the university gym locker room. She ate at the shelter. Found a job as a waitress. And another cleaning houses. Then found a room for rent that included kitchen privileges.
Not that she ever really used the kitchen. She could make a few things that her aunt Tilly had taught her. But mainly she lived off sandwiches and fruit. Miss Beulah would almost always make sure that Rye had something to eat. She always made extra for dinner and muffins for breakfast.
Her next three years were spent the same way. Waitressing. Cleaning houses. Attending class.
Other than her work clothes, she had only what she needed. The night that she got the call from Leigh Anne, her life could still fit into two duffle bags. One for clothes and the other for everything else, including her schoolbooks and supplies.
In her life, she had learned that anything of value was for sale. Rye did not see herself as having any value. She was not for sale. Neither was her dad’s flag or the little bit of jewelry.
Nothing else in her life had any value either.
Not even her.
