RE: Trailer Trash 59, 59 pt 1 (Patreon)

    “Hannah, it would just be for—” Tabitha tried to explain.

    “NO, No you can’t leave you can’t leave—!” Hannah wailed, and her quaking voice rose in decibel until Tabitha flinched back from the sheer volume. Dgou CAN’T leeEEEAAaaavee—!!”

    When Hannah’s pitch became a downright squeal, Officer Macintire and Mrs. Macintire exchanged meaningful looks and then rose up from their seats. Seeing that they were keeping their calm, that the two parents had a response to this and weren’t panicking filled Tabitha with relief—because she herself was thrown into a panic by this sudden turn in the little girl’s mood. Tabitha had been warned that a tantrum or emotional episode like this might happen sometimes, they had told her it was possible from the very beginning.

    But, nothing prepared her for actually seeing it happen firsthand.

    Over their many weeks together, Hannah had been on such outstanding behavior for her that it had become a point of pride. Tabitha had perhaps began to delude herself into thinking that perhaps she was some exceptional Mary Poppins figure who was simply outstanding with children. It was easy to start thinking that when she only dealt with the little girl at her best, and never underwent the trials and tribulations of Hannah at her worst.

    Now that she saw it, Tabitha could only feel humbled, because she was terribly out of her depth. Hannah was already beyond words and simply screaming, thrashing and fighting as the pair of parents patiently gathered her up and carried her off towards her bedroom. Tabitha watched them go while sitting tense on the edge of her seat, because it felt like she should have been intervening or at least doing something. The whole situation felt so bizarre after only seeing Hannah as an adorable and quite reasonable little person.

    It’s crazy, Tabitha thought in a daze. It’s like suddenly being made to see that a close friend actually has a mental illness. Except, rather than an illness or something wrong with her, it’s just—she’s seven. This is normal. It’s honestly probably more strange that I hadn’t seen her have an episode until now.

    Another shrill scream sounded out from down the hallway to Hannah’s bedroom, causing Tabitha to flinch back.

    Normal or not, Tabitha still felt responsible for Hannah’s outburst, and in more ways than one. She knew all along Hannah had latched onto her and even maybe begun to idolize her, and she’d done nothing to discourage that, she hadn’t ensured that there was a healthy distance between them or ensured that Hannah wouldn’t grow too attached. Tabitha wasn’t even sure that would have been possible. Hannah needed a figure like Tabitha in her life just as Tabitha had needed Hannah.

    Still sitting rigid in her seat, Tabitha strained her ears, but aside from Hannah bawling loudly she couldn’t hear either of the parents over there at all. She was worried for a moment that they would have stern words for Hannah, or that they would raise their voices or something—but then, on the other hand now she was concerned that they apparently weren’t doing that. She had no idea what anyone was supposed to do to placate a screaming, out of control child, just that the yelling and crying was deeply unsettling and a situation outside of her experiences.

    “Goodness,” Mrs. Moore let out an uneasy chuckle. “She sure has a pair of lungs on her!”

    “Yeah,” Tabitha sighed. “Was I ever… like that?”

    “No, no,” Mrs. Moore wore a bittersweet expression Tabitha wasn’t sure how to interpret. “Never like that—when you threw a fuss, you were quiet. You’d hide in your room and wouldn’t come out. Your father said we were blessed, because that way we could just leave you be, let you calm down on your own. But, I don’t know. Sometimes I wish you’d been more vocal. Like Hannah. So that we would know, really know what was going on with you. The way it was, well, I’m not sure we could ever tell when you were upset, and when you were, you know. Just off doing your own thing.”

    “Oh,” Tabitha remarked, staring down at her plate. 

    That sounded about right, but those memories were so far away they were totally indistinct. Or, was her mother referring to even times after Tabitha’s mind had transmigrated? It was difficult to tell. Right after appearing in this timeline she had needed a lot of space from her parents, because adjusting to living with them again after decades on her own had been… difficult.

    Truth be told, it still was. It always would be.

    “Well,” Mrs. Macintire returned with a strained smile. “Never a dull moment. I’m so sorry about that!”

    “N-no, no, it’s fine,” Tabitha hurried to assure her. “I probably shouldn’t have, um—”

    “Not your fault,” Mrs. Macintire shook her head as she slipped back into her seat. “This was… well, this was a long time coming, I think.”

    Tabitha nodded along because she knew that was true, but agreeing did nothing to assuage the guilt she felt for prompting this situation. 

    “Hey,” Mrs. Macintire said. “Tabby, hon. She’ll be fine. She just needs to get it all out of her system, and then she’ll feel better. Okay? It’s no big deal. Seriously. These used to happen all the time. Last year we’d have meltdown Mondays, because she didn’t want to go back to kindergarten, not after having a whole weekend away from school. She’d have hissyfits over not wanting to stop watching cartoons when it was bedtime, she’d throw tantrums over trying new food for supper. Trust me, this is back to normal.”

    “I…” Tabitha swallowed. “In my head, yes I do understand that, but—”

    “Not your fault!” Mrs. Macintire insisted. “If anything, you’re to blame for this whole past month of peace and quiet. Okay? She’s seven years old.”

    “I should have—well, I should have brought up that whole topic a little more delicately,” Tabitha said with a wince. “If—”

    “It would’ve been the same,” Sandra leaned back in her chair, dismissing Tabitha’s words with a wave. “This was bound to happen, no matter what. And, since that’s the case… we should probably talk about what you’d like to do, huh?”

    “I don’t want to just leave,” Tabitha blurted out. “I mean. Not because she threw a tantrum, or—what I mean to say is, that I do love it here. I very much appreciate all the time here with your family. I mean that.”

    “I know,” Mrs. Macintire nodded. “You know we feel the same way, and you’re always welcome, no matter what.”

    “Thank you,” Tabitha swallowed. “It’s just. Ostensibly, I was supposed to be here to help you with Hannah. And, well, to keep an eye on your husband, in case there were any unexpected um. Medical emergencies, or whatnot. But. He’s had a lot of time to rest and recover, and he’s back on his feet, now. I think going forward, I’ll start to feel less… necessary, here. And more like I’m a burden on your family. Your finances.”

    “Gonna stop you right there,” Mrs. Macintire held up a hand. “We will still need you, Tabitha hon. We might not need you here twenty-four-seven like we’ve had you for, but I’m still working a lot of hours, and Darren will be back at the station catching up on things. I would… we would very much appreciate it, if you could still be here sometimes to help out with Hannah, or help out around the house. You’ve been a Godsend, I really mean that, and I shudder to imagine trying to just go back to the way things were here before we had you.

    “It was a struggle, and it just felt like we were barely ever keeping up with anything. When Hannah was real little, I was home with her all the time, and we’d just gotten the house—money was very tight, we were up to our eyeballs in debt. As time went on and we were able to put Hannah in school, I picked up a job, and that helped! With the bills. Not with Hannah, not really, and us not having enough time with her—or being too stressed out and tired to properly have time with her, well. You get it. Raising a child isn’t something you can do just by piling on Barbies and dolls, playsets and stuffed animals, toys and games whenever she gives you grief. It was just… a lot easier to do that.

    “So—yes, we spoiled her, and I don’t think we really saw how bad that was getting, until we had you here to help with her and show us how much better things could be. Spending money on necessities for you instead of toys and junk for her, while you then have the time to give her all of the attention and care she needs—things have been better, much better. I wish we had thought of this sooner. You really connect with Hannah in a way we as parents even cannot, and I don’t think we’d have ever dreamed to have a sitter or live-in nanny that could have worked out this well.

    “Hannah needed a big sister, and we found one in you.”

    “N-no, no, I um, I needed you guys a lot more than you needed me,” Tabitha said in a fluster, realizing that she was starting to choke up. “Uh. Mom, not that living with you and dad at the trailer was horrible or bad or anything, I just mean—”

    “I understand,” Mrs. Moore nodded, seeming unbothered. “You needed time and space from us. Maybe you still do.”

    “I—I—” Tabitha was tearing up.

    She had retained her calm right up until Mrs. Macintire started to refer to them needing her in the past tense—that subtle signal that this fantasy family life was drawing to a close cut deeper than she’d imagined possible. Or rather, even if things weren’t completely over, this was them all acknowledging the beginning of the end, where they were going to transition back towards having Tabitha stay with her real family. 

    That had always been the plan, and she’d kept that in mind all along, or at least she thought she had. But, then also she had immersed herself so deeply in pretending this was her new family, in forgetting her trailer park past, that somehow this moment felt like the end of a very happy dream. Suspension of disbelief was broken, and now even when she did spend time with the Macintires, it would feel more in the context of a visitor, a guest.

    No, that’s maybe not true. I don’t know, Tabitha chided herself. I’m just. REAL emotional, right now. Want to cry even over nothing. This doesn’t HAVE to mean anything has really changed. Right? Mrs. Macintire is still so much like a mom to me, even if yeah I’ll be staying over here sometimes rather than LIVING here. I’m being melodramatic. I’m—

    “Tabitha, don’t start crying, because then I’ll start crying!” Mrs. Macintire laughed and then took a deep breath. “Seriously. Not a whole lot changes, even if you do start living back with your parents again. You’re always welcome here, I mean that. Even if it’s just, I don’t know, you commuting here now and then after school, to help with Hannah. We don’t have a guest room anymore, that is your room. Okay? We’re not—we’re not kicking you out, or anything like that! In another year or so you’ll have your own car, and this distance between this home and that home won’t even mean a thing. Okay?”

    “We feel the same!” Mrs. Moore hurried to add. “Whatever you want to do—wherever you want to stay. If you want to come home, to spend time with us, that’s completely fine! We’ll be thrilled to have you. Whenever you want to be over here, that’s fine too. Or at your grandmother’s! There will always be space for you.”

    “Thank you,” Tabitha tried to calm herself down and only partially succeeded. “Thank you. Both of you, really. I—I do still have a responsibility to my parents, my real parents. And making sure they’re okay. I also want to take care of Hannah, for—for however long you need me for. I need to take care of my cousins, too, I have a responsibility there. I’m the reason their mother won’t be there for them.”

     “No. You’re not,” Mrs. Macintire refused Tabitha’s last statement. “Tabitha, your aunt was doing drugs. She’s responsible for her own decisions.”

    “Your Aunt Lisa was gone from their lives even before all that,” Mrs. Moore agreed. “You’re not to blame at all for what she got herself up to, any of that.”

    “Okay,” Tabitha gave them a helpless shrug. “Well, regardless. They are still my cousins, and they’ve lost both of their parents. Grandma Laurie can’t take care of them forever. I need to be there for them, when I can. Be more a part of their lives. Haven’t been great about that, lately.”

    “I just don’t want you feeling yourself spread too thin,” Mrs. Macintire sighed. “You have plenty on your plate to worry about just with school, you know?”

    “School,” Tabitha echoed, indeed feeling a little overwhelmed. “Yeah, I’ll… I’ll figure it all out? I’ll, uh.”

    She felt her processes lurch to a halt before she could continue that sentence. Tabitha honestly wasn’t sure how much of everything she could actually juggle. Throwing herself fully into school life where she was set on forging new friendships and being social and not letting herself become a vulnerable introvert only seemed possible when her after-school routine was easy, predictable time with Hannah and the Macintires. Dealing with her real parents in the trailer park, looking after her cousins again—was all of that going to be too much for her to handle?

    “I’ll—” Tabitha tried again, but she really wasn’t sure.

    “Let’s table this discussion for later, how about that?” Mrs. Macintire seemed to sense her struggle. “To whenever we can sit down with both of your parents and hammer out something that makes sense. How does that sound? Something like—I don’t know—weekdays and school with us, you looking after Hannah here then. Weekends with your family over there, time with your cousins then. And, once we’ve tried that out and seen how that goes, we can adjust from there?”

    “I—yes, sorry,” Tabitha apologized. “I, uh. I don’t think I really have my thoughts on everything collected, just yet.”

    “No matter what you decide, I’m very happy I got to spend time with you today,” Mrs. Moore said. “Thank you all so much for having me over.”

    “We—we need to talk sometime,” Tabitha said. “Just you and me. About—about everything. Dad. Your new job—the family. I’m sorry, I just—”

    “You have a lot on your plate!” Mrs. Moore rose from her chair and put a hand on Tabitha’s shoulder. “I’d love to talk with you, whenever you’re ready. I feel so relieved just, you know, being here and being able to touch bases with you guys on everything. I’m really proud of you—you’ve been doing so well, here.”

    “She’s been a complete blessing,” Mrs. Macintire nodded. “Tabitha? If you want to spend tonight over at your parent’s place, we can do that. I can drive you both over.”

    “I—” Tabitha froze with indecision for a moment. “No, not tonight. I think… I think tonight I’m going to go sit with Hannah, calm her down until she can go to sleep.”

    “If that’s what you want to do,” Mrs. Macintire nodded her head again. “Shannon—I’ll put this last steak here in some tupperware, and I can zip you on over there.”

    “Thank you so much,” Mrs. Moore said.

    Tabitha got out of her chair, and she shared a heartfelt hug with her mother—or at least, she hoped it was heartfelt. Then she watched in a daze as the two women bustled about the kitchen together putting a steak into a container, and then heading out the door. A shy wave was exchanged just before her mother turned to leave, but Tabitha wasn’t sure how she really felt about that, either. She was feeling very discombobulated right now, by everything—she was feeling too many things at once, in too many directions.

    “I feel… spread thin,” Tabitha muttered to a now empty dining room as she struggled to regain her bearings. “Stretched—like butter scraped over too much bread.”

    It felt rather pretentious to reference one of Tolkien’s more memorable quotes simply because she was torn between the privilege of having two families that cared a lot about her. However, she was also a teenager, so waxing melodramatic at moments like these felt… well, it felt just right. Bilbo Baggin’s lines about his age had always been profound lines from reading the book, and then in the films Ian Holm’s delivery of the words made them absolutely iconic. I am old, Gandalf. I know I don’t look it—but I am beginning to feel it.

    Tabitha didn’t have the courage to let herself utter those words anymore, because the opposite was just as true. She shouldn’t feel so young and impossibly overwhelmed by everything in life—but there was just so much her future experiences never ever prepared her for. Schoolwork was easy, but socializing at school absolutely was not. Playing live-in governess to a little girl was easy… so long as the little girl was always well behaved. Dealing with family was easy—so long as she retained the full agency of an adult somehow, and then also never had to be around them when they became bothersome.

    “Hah,” Tabitha shook her head in dismay. “Yeah. Guess that about sums it up, huh?”

( 58, Home is where the heart is. | RE: Trailer Trash | Next, 59 pt 2 )

/// Sorry again, lost a couple of days here in rewrites. Feels like I'm chasing after very peculiar specific feelings, and I'm never quite sure if I've caught them or not, or if they've slipped on through my fingers.

In any case, pretty much the whole of book one was spent with Tabitha living in the trailer park, while just about all of book two has instead seen her with the Macintires and in a very different situation. As we begin to head into book three, I want to see a marriage of the two circumstances, that builds off of both. In some ways we will have the new and improved Tabitha tempered by the wisdom of some of these mistakes she has made along the way, and in other ways we are going all the way back to basics so we can have exercise workout montage Tabitha. Hopefully it will be an interesting fusion!

Tabitha still won't be perfect but I DO really want to give readers a sense that she has grown enormously in many ways emotional, psychological, and especially social and friendships-wise.