Aunty M's Dark Past Part 3

Chapter 241-2

Aunty M’s Dark Past

Part 3

 

Landan found us a rental car, more like a big van, being as we needed the room to pick up a few things on our list. The idea was the girls wanted Japanese for dinner tonight. We wanted something more private like doing a home cooked meal in a Japanese setting. He had friends that could make it happen and wanted to make it a family ordeal. Which would require his boys help; we did the first thing that was most important which was school, for me, not school in general just taking my tests.

He knew I hated the idea of not keeping up with the rest of my class, being ahead was one thing, but being behind was something neither of us wanted when I was striving for perfection. It was ok for the rest of them, but for me, it was something that gave me nightmares. I know what you’re thinking that school shouldn’t be such a big deal to me. Yet you must understand I worked hard to get my grades to where they are, I didn’t like the idea of lowering my standers just so I could play hooky.

Landan said he had made arrangements for me to take all my tests at once, having Eli and Jackie turn in my homework so I wouldn’t count against me if I wasn’t there. Plus a little healthy donation to the right people they would make it so it looked like I was there sitting in class. When all they had to do was pencil me in when taking attendance. I quickly took a seat in the library as the librarian gave me my tests for each of my classes.

Landan said he would come back in three hours stating that should give me plenty of time to do them. While he went on a scavenger hunt for the things we needed to make it look like we were dining in a Japanese restaurant. Plus pick up some flowers for my mother and our wives. Swing by and have our tuxes and our wives dresses sent to the cleaners here in town. Everything else we would pick up on our way to the Hospital to see my mother. Then when school let out we would pick up the boys and put our plan to wow them together.

Like always I had everything I needed, my notes and my books during the last part of the test which was usually the last 30 or so minutes if I was in class. Today however that didn’t apply to me considering I wasn’t in class and the teacher was given some encouragement to extend that time since I was taking the tests early.

Plus the fact I was way ahead of them in the first place, not too far head maybe a weeks worth. So my notes could be more detail and any papers I had could be typed considering I typed all my papers when all they required was my mid-term papers to be typed and put into a nice folder.

I had both with me today as I added to my tests, even though the papers weren’t due until next week with the term ending next Thursday and Friday. And the new term starting at the first of November for most of my classes, but when we break for Christmas the term for all my classes will end and we start fresh in January with 8 new classes.

The only difference is I would have and a two hour study hour next term and the following term. Dad would have to see to make sure I finished Drivers Ed at the being of the third term in January or in March to keep his promise to me, unlike Provo, American fork or Payson. Heber doesn’t have a driving range so that part of the course I have to go clear to Salt Lake City to complete that part of the class; which is only taught on the weekends two days a week Friday and Saturday.

The only good thing about next term was I didn’t have to take any more English classes, which I hate, or history classes or science classes or math classes; known as the big four. Instead, I am now allowed to take some fun classes, like wood shop, or drama or choir if I wanted too. In addition to the study hall; now that I had everything and seeing all my hard work being paid off. I had been told if I wanted to next year I could take college classes instead during the final months of my High School months.

Mom, Dad, and Jody are hoping that I choose that option because I have earned it and it would make up for holding me back in the first place when I first moved in with them. Plus the fact I would be the second kid in the family that would be going to college.

Jackie, Eli and my wife Rhoda are also considering the idea. Because like me they are breezing through their classes due to the excellent education they had received in Texas.

Which was why Rhoda wasn’t worried about falling behind, because like me she was on top of it. Eli was always happy being a C+ or A- student. It is his ACT scores that were impressive and he would be able to pick any college he wanted. He was leaning towards BYU and Arizona State.

I hadn’t planned that far. Mostly because I was unsure what I could afford, which was why I was rat holing most of my money, instead of spending it the moment I collected a paycheck.

I was just checking out some books to read as Landan came to see how I was doing. Finding me with a whole stack of books, which wasn’t usual for me to be doing. I was a fast reader according to Mom and my grandmother. I could read 300 hundred pages in a matter of a few hours. We cleaned up when we ever I did a read-a-thon because I could read more books than most kids.

The only thing I haven’t mastered was textbooks especially the really boring ones. Now a story or a series I could grasp and knock out quickly. My mother said I even read faster than Susan, but Susan tells me that’s because I skim the pages instead of actually reading them to make me look like I had.

Either way, I read more books then most kids my age, that librarian has to make sure he keeps back new ones for me, to the point if he gets behind I get to be the first one to check them out once I had typed up the index card and placed the bar-code on them personally.

I quickly stuffed them into my book bag and said see you next week. He always reminds me that I can check them out longer, and I tease him by asking why when he knows I had read my weight in books before the month is out.

We quickly left the building and climbed into the rental. I gave a sigh of relief having that off my mind. Landan asked how I felt seeing me a little more relaxed as he and I got on to the freeway. I said. “Like we had just spent the morning poolside.”

He and I laughed knowing that we both would have been bored out of our minds. Instead, he turned on the radio and I leaned back kicked off my shoes and closed my eyes for a much-needed nap.

He nudged me when we pulled in to the hospital and I cringed knowing how I hated hospitals, but I also cringed because I had a lot of explaining to do to my mother.

Yet unlike my grandmother, my mother couldn’t be trusted with a lot of the information. I didn’t need a reminder of that from Landan. Even though he did so, said. “Ok, plane ride you can talk about. Porno no, but you can mention you are doing a school play called Tangled Hearts, that will be enough for her, on that subject. Keep to the truth, but be brief about it, that way she won’t ask too many questions.

“Most likely she has heard most of it anyway from your grandmother, so if she talks about it with your sisters or your father or even Mrs. Cranny. It won’t seem that you have visited her or called her. I have signed the card on the flowers using Bishops Clark's name stating it is from her ward.

“Plus I have arranged an hour and a half for you to see her, and the nurses and her doctor have been paid to keep their mouth shut regarding your little visit. I have been instructed by Stringum to make sure the hospital bill is taken care of by some goodwill charity donor in your father's ward. So if he asks he will be told that someone in their ward has taken care of it.

“Trust me if it was your father lying in that hospital bed he be the one paying for it. Stringum and I owe it to your mother to make sure she gets the best care possible after what she has been through with your father. Your Grandmother said she had a stroke, but that wasn’t all of it.

“She’s fine, but she looks like she has gone a few rounds with Mike Tyson. She won’t press charges even though she should, but she hoping that if she doesn’t that your father will back down off his high horse when we meet up in Family Court.  Yet none of us have any hope of that knowing your father, he has something to prove and until he does he won’t be satisfied.

“I have sent your father a warning that if he so much lays a hand her or your bother who is being taken care of by Bishop Clark's family to ensure he won’t since he can’t be trusted to be alone with him when your mother is here. And he sees his grandmother every few days to ensure that he is taken care of, even though Bishop Clark has to take him to see her since she has this thing about leaving the house anymore ever since she broke her hip down the front porch.

“Yet when she angered enough she’ll do it and right now she angry because what your father is doing, but there is very little she can do about it, and like us are hoping that once we go to family court and resolves this mess he has created that this will be the end of it.

“I sure you Stringum is making sure it is, being as we have been to court and the judge stated he wasn’t about to listen to him lie through his teeth; that when the family court views our case and goes in our favor which it will since he has nothing to back up his story with.

“Plus the fact we intend to even if your mother won’t to show him what he has done to her that put her in the hospital. She will also be moved to Charter Canyon in Orem once they release her so she can seek treatment for battered woman, but right now she is refusing to go.

“We are hoping you will change her mind by letting her see you and know that your fine and you have some pull with her. So she can really get the help she needs, where she won’t put up with your father is doing. He has backed her into a corner for far too long.

“Stringum thinks that doctors and the staff there can be a big help and provide a way for her to regain some of her courage back if she has some sort of support system in place. I think that’s everything.

“Like I said she looks worst for ware, but no bones are broken, this time. It’s the next time we are concerned about when your father loses his case; which is why she won’t be going home until we are sure the danger has passed and will be monitored when she is home more closely.

“Personally it shouldn’t have happened in the first place, but your father complained and sent some sort of letter around stating he was being placed under house arrest for no reason when you weren’t home and you were never coming home ever again. Some bureaucrat agreed that Santaquin police had better things to do than place around a clock guard on your father; using up city resources to keep him in check and fringing on his privacy.

“So when they took that way that allowed your father to retaliate and this is the result. Yet your mother refuses to press charges stating she had fallen in the tub, and the stress of getting up when she was overly tired caused the mild stroke when the truth is your father did this to her.

“So don’t go charging like a bull through a china shop. He will get what’s coming to him I promise. Plus I have seen to it that her dog is with Aaron and Bishop Clark knowing how your father feels about pets, and the warning he had given her about it.

“I wouldn’t trust my own children or a goldfish with that man. I plan to make sure that when the time comes he is going to be seeing stars for days, the moment this mess with the courts is resolved. Trust me he’ll never try this again unless he wants to find his teeth broken with led pipe and several of his ribs broken and a couple of his fingers to prevent him from making a fist anytime soon. That you can take to the bank. So put that tiger in its cage for now. Now let’s go see your mother.”