RE: Trailer Trash 58 pt 4 (Patreon)

/// Sorry, took me a couple rewrites for the little Hannah bits to come across as (hopefully?) more authentic. Writing children is complicated.

    “Look, Hannah,” Tabitha gestured with a finger out the window of the police cruiser. “This is where I grew up.”

    Rolling down the hill from the gas station and into the lower park was both dissonant and nostalgic. There was a certain comfort to be found in revisiting what was once so familiar, but then also the circumstances of her situation were so different that everything felt strange. Tabitha didn’t live here anymore. She was riding in the back of a cop car, with a seven-year-old girl clinging to her side in a possessive way. Her mother was sitting up in the passenger’s seat looking extremely uncomfortable and occasionally letting out nervous laughter in response to Officer Macintire’s awkward attempts at casual conversation.

    “I know,” Hannah remained stubbornly pressed up against Tabitha’s arm and refused to budge. “I’ve been here before. With Momma Williams.”

    “Ooh, you’re right,” Tabitha nodded, feeling distracted as she peered between the passing mobile homes with interest. “This was where we met, wasn’t it? Mrs. Williams asked you to say ‘hello to Tabitha,’ and you said—”

    “Hello to Tabitha,” Hannah recalled. “Yeah.”

    “Hello to Hannah,” Tabitha said back, patting Hannah’s shoulder. “You were so little and cute, back then!”

    “Thanks?” Hannah grumbled, trying not to pout.

    “Well,” Tabitha watched as the car navigated slowly around the loop and across the first of the trailer park’s speedbumps. “This time, would you like to come inside and see my house? Where I was living?”

    “Okay,” Hannah said, peeking out the windows and not appearing very impressed.

    “Ev-everything’s just the way you left it!” Mrs. Moore twisted in her seat to share a wincing smile with Tabitha. “We, uh, we haven’t touched a thing. Since you left. I’m sure there’s, well, I’m sure you want to grab some more of your stuff.”

    “Maybe some more changes of clothes,” Tabitha admitted. “Something I’ll be able to go running in. Oh! We’re this one, here. On the right.”

    “This one?” Officer Macintire pulled in next to the front of their trailer and put the cruiser in park. “Alrighty. Take whatever time you need—and Hannah; best behavior. I’m gonna stretch my legs here jus’ a bit, but gimme a holler when you’re all ready.”

    “We will,” Tabitha promised. “Thank you. We won’t be long! We have groceries, here.”

    Everyone opened their doors and disembarked—Hannah had scooched over across the rear bench towards Tabitha and then followed her out of the vehicle on that side. The mobile home was more or less as Tabitha remembered it. Aging and worn but not quite decrepit. Their aluminum siding had a greenish patina of mold that was beginning to speckle with moss, but the discoloration was faint relative to the blackish grime buildup on the neighboring trailers. Their front ‘yard’ seemed more spacious than Tabitha recalled, since Uncle Danny’s car was no longer occupying it, just a swath of gravel and bare dirt for the most part. What tufts of weeds did manage to grow had been trimmed back with the weed eater somewhat recently, and there was no obvious discarded trash laying about here to embarrass Tabitha.

    It doesn’t look that bad, Tabitha told herself. I guess some part of me was worried that as soon as I left, it would all immediately fall back into ruin. But no, it still looks… pretty nice. Considering. I’m really glad I spent time squatting down everywhere and picking up all the years of cigarette butts and little pieces of garbage everywhere.

    Hannah however looked a little horrified, her little hand was gripping Tabitha’s extra tight and she was looking around at everything with wide eyes.

    Mrs. Moore was digging through her pockets for a key in a fluster, while Officer Macintire surveyed the trailer park with a thoughtful look before slowly ambling on down the street. He was headed in the direction of the far side of the lower park—it was clear to Tabitha he wanted to revisit the scene where he had been shot. A brief flurry of emotions went through her at realizing that, and she was tempted to go with him just so that he wasn’t alone. A little over three months had passed since the shooting and so much had happened, but while Tabitha had had time to revisit the site of the South Main shooting since then, to process things, Officer Macintire was just now back on his feet and out and about for the first time.

    “I’ll try to be quick!” Mrs. Moore said, finally getting the door open and swinging it wide. “I, uh, I just want to change. Out of my work clothes. Come inside, come in. Please.”

    “Watch your step, Hannah Banana,” Tabitha called, leading the girl up the steps and into the trailer.

    The floor creaked beneath their weight in a way that was familiar to Tabitha—but alarming to Hannah—and as Mrs. Moore bustled down the back hall towards the master bedroom, the age-old sound of the joists and flooring shifting slightly could be heard. Old mobile homes simply were not quiet or all that sturdy, and revisiting her old place after being gone since Thanksgiving had Tabitha feeling almost as though she was standing up on the unsteady deck of a boat.

    Need to regain my sea legs? 

    She recalled how oddly open and expansive the Macintire home had seemed when she was first trying to adjust over there, and so naturally coming back to the trailer everything felt incredibly cramped and oppressive. The living room and dining table area here combined together was still a space smaller than Tabitha’s bedroom at the Macintire’s; in fact the square footage of the entire mobile home here was just a tiny bit bigger than the Macintire living room.

    “It’s really small, isn’t it?” Tabitha prompted. “For three people.”

    Hannah gave her a speechless nod.

    The curtains were pulled back from the windows and tied back just the way Tabitha remembered leaving them, but no one had attempted to vacuum the carpets since she left. Paper, envelopes, and unfamiliar clutter were left here and there across the kitchen table and then one side of the sofa, indicating that someone had been sitting in front of the television set, but that her parents had not been sitting there together. As she glanced around, there wasn’t much else to discern—the faded wallpaper hadn’t changed. The dingy furnishings were the same.

    At least they kept in the habit of bringing dirty dishes back to the sink, Tabitha quirked her lip as she brought Hannah on to pass by the kitchen and head towards her room. I guess I managed to train them well?

    Some intrusive part of her brain saw the refrigerator and identified it again as her fridge; the one she had inherited and taken with her to her first apartment. Tabitha gave it a wry smile as they stepped into the back hall. This too was a stark reminder of how different things were, because mobile home hallways were a deceptively narrow two-and-a-half feet wide, designed for shuffling through single-file. Out of habit Tabitha steadied herself on the old particle board wall panels as she continued, touching them in the same spots she always had. Her feet were ingrained with the knowledge of where to step, but Hannah’s were not and the little girl sharply inhaled as she discovered one of the soft spots in the flooring.

    “Oh! Careful, Hannah,” Tabitha said. “Here, this is my room. Well, it was. This is where I grew up.”

    She turned the knob and slowly swung the door open. Little had changed; get-well cards were arranged upon the dresser just in front of the faded mirror. The Reeses Cups from Halloween in their distinctive gold foil wrap were still there as well, but someone had put them in a ziplock sandwich bag. The bedcovers were still turned back from the exact moment when Tabitha had crept out of bed for her daring mission to intrude upon Aunt Lisa in the shower and grab the handbag with heroin in it. The abandoned Flounder pillow stared from where it rested on the foot of the bed with a vacant expression.

    “Is that—Princess Ariel?” Hannah asked, peeking out from behind Tabitha’s hip.

    “Oh! Yes, I was Ariel for Halloween,” Tabitha said. “I think I told you about it, but I guess you never got to see it? Good eye.”

    “I remember. From the party,” Hannah said.

    “Oooh. Yes, from there, too,” Tabitha laughed. “I remember... most of the party. I think.”

    Lacking her own closet after some unknown past renovations, the Ariel dress was hung up on display from the curtain rod of the far wall, backlit with dim January light from the window. The room was cold and the air here was stale, but more than anything else it was jarring how tiny the space was. Seven feet by nine feet, with scant space to stand since the dresser and the bed occupied much of the room’s footprint. Tabitha’s room was slightly larger than the walk-in closet Sandra had pulled Tabitha into at the Macintires, back when they were hunting for sandals to match an outfit.

    But, only slightly, Tabitha mused. “Here, Hannah. You can sit on the bed. I just want to grab a few things.”

    “You have to take the Princess Ariel dress,” Hannah insisted. “You have to.”

    “Okay—I will,” Tabitha promised. “We’ll be able to play dress up together. Mulan, and Ariel!”

    She situated Hannah up to sit on the thin old bed mattress, and then crouched to the side so that she could pull out dresser drawers—doing so just about eliminated the last remaining rectangle of floor space, but Tabitha was used to dealing with that. The ‘nice’ clothes had already been grabbed up last time when Tabitha had been shoving things into her bookbag, but she rediscovered several pairs of underwear it would be handy to have, as well as some of the larger shirts she would be able to lounge around the house in. She also made sure to grab her awful old cut-off redneck tees that had neither sleeves nor sides; her old exercise outfits. They were a little trashy, but then again over at the Macintires she had almost nothing but dressy clothes—she would soon need stuff that it was okay to sweat and get gross in.

    REALLY looking forward to running and exercising again. Can’t come soon enough.

    “Tabitha?” Hannah asked.

    “Hm?”

    “It’s really… different here,” Hannah observed, showing remarkable restraint. “Like—a lot more than I thought. Not bad different. But different. It’s really really small. Like, it’s all Hannah-sized.”

    That was the term Mrs. Macintire had used to describe Hannah’s pair of playhouse cottages, and Tabitha struggled not to grimace at the unflattering comparison.

    “I know, I know,” Tabitha let out a small chuckle. “I grew up very poor. I guess part of me wanted you to see the differences—so you could understand a little bit where I’m coming from. Does that make sense?”

    “Yeah,” Hannah blinked owlishly across the tiny room. “But, like—you don’t want to come back here to live. Right? It’s really small. And old. It’s like, really old. Really old and small. Super small.”

    Yes, Hannah. I GET IT.

    “This is what I was used to, growing up,” Tabitha explained in a patient tone. “So, moving in to live with you guys—that felt very strange to me. Getting up to go to the bathroom at night, even just walking all the way across each of your big huge rooms felt very strange. Can you see why?”

    “Yeah?” Hannah forced a smile and then allowed it to turn into a wince. “I guess. Is it like—which way do you like more? Living here, or living there? Which is better.”

    “I think by now, I feel a little out of place in both,” Tabitha admitted. “This feels like an itty-bitty cardboard box, and your place feels like, well, sometimes to me it’s still this big palatial mansion.”

    “Plal—pla-lati-al?” Hannah tried. “Plalatial?”

    “Pal-at-i-al; like a palace,” Tabitha explained.

    “Oh. I knew that. Like a palace.”

    “Like—like in Alladin. He went from being the very very poor street rat, to living in the big fancy palace.”

    “Yeah, and like—Cinderella, too,” Hannah nodded. “Cinderella was like that, too. Beauty and the Beast? Kinda.”

    “Mm-hmm,” Tabitha nodded as she refolded the garments in her lap and smoothed out the wrinkles with her good hand. “Rags-to-riches stories are very popular. But—Hannah bug, I don’t want you to ever think I’m staying with your family just because of your big nice home. Even if—”

    “I know! I know,” Hannah assured her. “You’re not.”

    “Even if we all lived together out in your little plastic cottage playhouses, I’d still love you guys to pieces,” Tabitha finished. “And—I love my family here, too. Just. Things were difficult, for a while.”

    “Because of your Aunt,” Hannah nodded. “Yeah.”

    “Yeah,” Tabitha sighed. “It’s complicated.”

    “It’s not that complicated,” Hannah insisted in that blunt seven year old way. “I understand it all already.”

    “Hah, then—well, then at some point we’ll have to have you sit down and explain it all to me, because to me… everything’s complicated,” Tabitha said, tucking the folded clothes against herself and rising to collect the Ariel dress as well. “I think this is everything?”

    “Don’t forget to take Flounder, too!” Hannah grabbed up the plush fish. “And—is that your chocolate? Peanut butter cups?”

    “Oh—well,” Tabitha winced. “I think we should maybe throw those out. They’re from allll the way back from trick-or-treating. It looks like my mother bagged them up, but maybe she should have tossed them in the freezer?”

    “It’s already freezer in here,” Hannah shrugged, squashing Flounder into a hug.

    “Already freezing, and yes, a little,” Tabitha sighed. “We keep the heat down pretty low here, so that bills aren’t so bad. We’d just wear socks, put on sweaters.”

    “Are bills that bad?” Hannah was skeptical. “It’s super cold. Like the same as outside.”

    “Bills aren’t bad when you’re seven!” Tabitha laughed. “C’mon—I think I have everything. But, I mean. Hannah if you had to make the choice between turning the heat up a bit more, or buying more toys—which would you choose?”

    “Toys,” Hannah didn’t need to pause to think about her answer.

    “Well, there you go,” Tabitha said. “Socks and sweatshirts during the winter isn’t so bad—and, at night you’re cozy under blankets anyways. It seems silly spending a whole bunch more money to heat up the whole place, if most of the day we’re either at work or at school. Right?”

    “I guess?” Hannah said. “So—if we turn off the heat at home, we can use that money, to buy a whole bunch more stuff?”

    “Hmm,” Tabitha pursed her lips at Hannah’s naked greed.

    “Hmmmm!” Hannah teased back.

    “Hmmmm!” Tabitha made an exaggerated pout. “Hannah, I don’t think so.”

    “Why not?!”

    “You guys have an actual house; it holds heat a lot better than an old trailer like this. It’s not so bad for you guys to run the heat, because your walls and windows and everything retain heat so much better. Here, they don’t. Thin old walls, without much insulation. Little teeny gaps along the frames of the windows and doors, and such. It’s just different—we each live according to our means.”

    “Hmm,” Hannah looked around again. “I guess.”

    “C’mon, Hannah bean,” Tabitha nodded in the direction of the hall again. “Let’s go see your papa and see if he’s ready to get going. I think he headed on down towards, um. Towards the end of the street.”

    “Towards the end of the street?” Hannah echoed.

    “Where I met your father for the very first time, technically,” Tabitha winced. “Do you remember from the pictures in the newspaper? It’s where he… got shot by the bad guy.”

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