Dani's Story: A Journey From Neglect to Love (23 page)

Chapter 22

Tennessee

Life was so good in so many ways that we hardly noticed the clouds that were beginning to gather around the construction industry in Florida. A lot of Bernie’s work was in condo conversion—developers purchased apartment buildings, converted them into condos, and sold them for about double the price per unit that they had paid. That boom began just before we moved to Florida, and Bernie had more work than he could handle. There were so many conversions—on top of new construction—that ultimately there was a glut, and that particular segment of Bernie’s work had started to dry up.

He wasn’t worried, or, if he was, he didn’t tell me. Bernie is a craftsman carpenter. He does beautiful work, and there were always residential clients in between his commercial jobs for the big contractors. Thanks to his dad, there really wasn’t anything in the construction field he couldn’t do and nothing he wouldn’t do to take care of his family.

We looked at it in the same way that we had come to look at the hurricane warnings we endured every season. If it didn’t blow over—as most of them did—just batten down the hatches and ride it out. Bernie and I are not extravagant people, by any means. As single parents, we had both learned how to be frugal when it was necessary. We talked about the fact that work wasn’t as plentiful as it had been, but we were prepared to batten down and ride it out.

But the new year brought more bad news. The Florida boom had definitely gone bust, like one of those fireworks that shoots off like a rocket, goes sky high, arcs, and then sputters back to earth, with nothing more than a fizzle.

The reality was that the cost of living in a resort community was so high that cutting back to everything except the necessities might not even be enough to get us through. Bernie was being practical, but I got upset every time he tried to bring up the possibility of moving back north. With all the maturity of a five-year-old, I wanted to stomp my feet, pound my fists, and shout, “It’s not fair!”

When we first packed everything up and came to Florida, Bernie promised me that we would never move again, that we would be here forever. We believed we would eventually retire here, and we’d have a head start on all of the other snowbirds because we would be close to owning our house by then. For the first time in my life, I was in a neighborhood where I had made friends, put down roots, and gotten attached to the community, our church, and the neighbors.

We had worked hard to get where we were, and we didn’t spend beyond our means. It didn’t seem right. It wasn’t Bernie’s fault that the construction industry had tanked, but the whole mess was creating tension between us.

It didn’t help matters when I pointed out to him what he already knew: that moving again would be hard on Willie and maybe harder still on Dani. She was in the first safe place of her life. What would it mean to uproot her and take her someplace entirely new and different? She was already enrolled in her second school in three years. It didn’t take a professional educator or a child psychologist to suggest that changing schools again could have a very negative effect on what progress she was making.

I was determined to find a way not to uproot the family. Bernie was equally desperate to find work. We began discussing the possibility of his going back to Tennessee, where the construction industry was still strong. Condos were popping up like dandelions, and he had established residential clients there. Ryan was living in Tennessee, so Bernie could possibly bunk with him and his wife, Rene, while the kids and I stayed in Florida until the economy improved. I would try to pick up some more hours at the property management company, he would send most of his money back to me, and we’d ride it out. People did it all the time. It was no big deal, and if it could save us all from moving, it would be worth it. Bernie started to make calls up north, and we talked constantly about how we could make it work. Some nights I went to bed certain that everything would be fine, and other nights I tossed and turned till dawn, scrolling through every worst-case scenario.

There was virtually no work to be found in Florida, and it wore on us not only financially, but mentally and emotionally, especially on Bernie. He has been working since he was twelve years old. Work is who he is, and he was definitely not happy. He drove back to Tennessee a couple of times by himself to scout the lay of the land, and there were definitely a lot more opportunities there than in Florida. Each time he went to Tennessee, he did a couple of quick jobs and made enough money to get us through the next few months, but his absences were hard on all of us. Solo parenting “normal” kids is hard; solo parenting a special needs child was draining. Dani’s outbursts increased when Bernie was gone, and Willie missed his dad terribly. My pipe dream of Bernie working in Tennessee and us staying in Florida and holding onto the house went up in smoke. Whatever we did, we were in it together, and we would do it as a family.

It broke my heart, but once the decision was made, all I could do was “Toughen up, buttercup,” as Dorothy would say. We put our beloved dream house on the market.

To our surprise, there was immediate interest from several potential buyers, so we felt as if we needed to move quickly on finding something in Tennessee. Because we were familiar with Lebanon and Wilson County, we decided to look there, and in late April, we made a whirlwind weekend drive—900 miles north, 900 miles back south.

I told Bernie that if we were moving back to Tennessee, I wanted to buy a farm so we could provide a lot of our own food. If worse came to worst, at least we wouldn’t go hungry. We told our real estate agent what we were looking for, but there was nothing in our price range at that time.

She found a log home that was on seven acres of land, on a dead-end street off a main road a few miles outside of Lebanon. It looked promising in the tiny photo and the write-up, but up close and in person, the house wasn’t in good shape. And the ad failed to mention that the seven acres were seven acres of rocks—not exactly conducive to planting a garden, grazing animals, or digging an in-ground swimming pool.

There was a sign on the house next door, so we went to see that one. It was a fairly new brick house with three bedrooms, two baths, a good-size living room, a garage on the lower level of the house that had been semifinished into a family room, and no kitchen or floor coverings. Just a sub-floor. The seller who was fixing it up to put on the market had taken out all of the kitchen cabinets and appliances and pulled up the old carpet and tile to lay new carpet and tile.

Bernie saw potential. I saw disaster. Bernie saw a good price. I saw a money pit. We don’t argue very often, but we had a showdown over this. He was drooling over the garage—a detached building—and pointed out that it was big enough to set up a carpentry shop. I said that if he didn’t get the house livable before he got a job, he could make his bedroom out there.

When the dust cleared, we agreed that if he would lay hardwood and tile and put in a kitchen before taking on outside work, we would buy it. As soon as we got back to Florida, Bernie took off back to Tennessee to monitor inspections on the house, call on some of his old clients, and generate some income to keep up with all of the outgo.

I started packing boxes, and as the stacks grew higher, Willie and I felt lower and lower. He didn’t want to move. His whole life was there in Fort Myers Beach. He had been only four when we moved to Florida, and he really had no memory of Tennessee. His friends were here, his school, his church, and, of course, his surrogate grandparents Dorothy, Paul, Bill, and Doris. Willie asked me lots of questions—What was it like when Steven, Paul, and I had lived on the farm? What kind of animals would we get? Could we get a horse? Would we get snow? Where would he and Dani swim?

As much as we explained what we were doing and why to Dani, we had no way of knowing what she understood. She knew something was going on, and she didn’t seem to like it. She hardly ate during the weekend that we drove up to Tennessee and back. I thought maybe she was carsick, but it continued a day or so afterward. For Dani not to eat, something had to be wrong.

It was worse when Bernie was gone. I was so frantic running to my job, taking care of two kids, doing all of the errands and shopping, and packing up the house that there wasn’t any time left for playing. Bernie had always been the “fun parent.” There’s one in every family. I know Dani keenly felt his absence and missed his cuddles, kisses, and tickles.

Some of the notes from school pointed out that she seemed sad and lethargic, while on other days she was angry and in constant motion. One day Ms. Phipps wrote, “Better today, but still somewhat unfocused. I think she probably feels the change and it’s hard for her with the packing and a parent gone.”

I knew that, but there was nothing I could do. The one piece of good news we got was that the school finally found someone to do occupational therapy with Dani. It was important to have that in place so that when we got to Wilson County, that school district would have to do the same. Dani’s days in school were very busy and maybe distracted her a bit from the change coming on. One day Ms. Phipps sent home a note saying, “Boy, she is developing a temper! That’s good.:-)” I smiled back at the smiley face, glad for the oddly positive report on negative behavior.

When Bernie was able to come home for a long weekend, we spent the time doing all of the fun things we loved in Florida. We went to the beach, swam in our pool and the Kennys’ pool, and rode bikes, and Willie drove Miss Dani in the little red jeep. We lingered even more than usual with neighbors on the evening dog walks and went as often as we could to Dorothy and Paul’s so that Dani could jump on Amber’s bed and watch sports on the sofa with Paul. Leaving Dorothy was going to be particularly hard on me. I looked at her as the mother I had always wanted. If I allowed myself to think about it, I could bawl my eyes out.

Dani on the beach with Dad.

 

Bernie called Garet and Mr. O’Keefe to tell them we were moving to Tennessee. These were hard calls to make. Garet was out of state for the month visiting her family and was heartbroken that she couldn’t come to say good-bye.

The people who were purchasing our house agreed to wait a couple of extra days to close so that Dani and Willie could finish out the school year. I had packed everything up by myself, and then Bernie flew down to load the rental truck, with some help from the neighbors. We had one last spaghetti dinner at Dorothy and Paul’s the night before we left. We were going to pull out at the crack of dawn, so we had to say our good-byes that night. It was so hard. I felt lost, sad, and fearful. When Dani saw me crying, she came over and stood close beside me, leaning her head on my arm, which made me cry all the more.

As we drove off the island that morning, tears were streaming down my cheeks. We were all leaving a big part of ourselves behind, but I tried to convince myself that the best part of our lives was up ahead.

It was the road to get there that about did me in. Bernie drove the truck by himself. The passenger side of the cab was stacked with all of his tools and whatever else wouldn’t fit in the cargo area. I was in the car with Willie, Dani, the three dogs, and Willie’s parrot in the cage on the front passenger seat. If I got too close, or if the cage shifted toward me, that parrot bit me every chance she got. Whenever Willie dozed off in the backseat, I was sorely tempted to roll down the window and open the cage door.

Late afternoon on the second day we left, our caravan arrived safely in Tennessee—even the parrot. Ryan and his father-in-law came over to help, and together the five of us, including Willie, unloaded everything from the truck and the car into the garage, because there was still no flooring in the house. I asked them to put three mattresses in the house on the sub-floor in the living room, and I found the box with the linens. If we were going to be roughing it, we’d do it in the same room. I didn’t want Dani or Willie to be frightened in their new home. Bernie put the mini-fridge we used to keep down by our pool in the future kitchen. I arranged our toiletries in the bathroom we would share, and Willie brought in the four small suitcases we would live out of until the floors were down, and we could move in the furniture. Home sweet home.