The GI Bride (24 page)

So, once again, we were on the move. My
first concern was for Stacey. That problem was soon solved: Rosa Montgomery, my friend
and neighbour, promised that she would take over the child’s care. Some time
later, I learned that Marilyn, Stacey’s mother, had disappeared for a long time.
We eventually discovered that she had run off with a man who turned out to be a drug
addict, and that he had abandoned her in some distant part of the country. The last I
heard was that the courts had granted the Montgomerys temporary custody of Stacey, but I
often wondered over the years what happened to her. I’ve always hated
‘losing people’, but my own life had become so
complicated
that it was often hard for me to keep my own little family intact, let alone keep track
of others.

The next bad news was that since Palmer had
not stayed for the minimum year at the Flamingo they would not pay for our move or the
storage of our furniture. The latter had now racked up a bill of several thousand
dollars. The job Palmer was going to was not paying our moving expenses either so I
couldn’t believe his new employer had begged him to work for them. I asked Palmer
if he thought Uncle Art would help us out but he said he couldn’t ask him.
Apparently, unbeknown to me, he had already asked his uncle for help too many times.

We loaded everything we could into the car,
added a car-top carrier and filled that, leaving just enough room for us to squeeze in.
I will never forget how frightening it was going round the hairpin curves on some of the
roads in the Sierra Nevada mountains. It felt as though the car was going to topple over
the sheer drops at the roadsides because it was so top heavy.

That journey back to Illinois, along what is
now known as Historic Route 66, took us three days considered a fast time in 1962 and
was just one more nightmare in my life; one that would have been better forgotten were
it not for two interesting things that happened along the way. One was when we stopped
at a roadside café in the middle of the New Mexico desert. Armed guards, guns drawn,
brought in several prisoners who were wearing typical striped uniforms. The men, chained
together at the ankles, shuffled along, looking at the floor as they passed. I guessed
they either were a chain gang or were being transported between prisons. They sat at a
long table nearby
and the whole place suddenly became silent; it felt
as though everyone was holding their breath, waiting for who knew what? I glanced at
Wayne and almost laughed: his eyes were as big as saucers. It was another occasion when
it felt as though we had landed in a scene from a movie.

The next incident was the kindness shown to
us by a poor old couple, typical hillbillies with no teeth and the sides cut out of
their shoes to accommodate enormous bunions; they managed a horribly run-down motel in
the Ozark mountains. It was late at night and freezing cold when we found it. When those
old folks saw how exhausted we were from travelling across country with two children in
that small car, they brought food and coffee to our cabin because they knew there was
nowhere for us to get a meal. They were real angels and I could have kissed them. I have
no idea where we were; all I know is that we had driven off the main road up into the
hills. I remember thinking that someone could have murdered us in our sleep out there
and no one would have known where we were or what had happened to us.

Palmer’s new job was with the
O’Hare Inn, a hotel close to O’Hare Airport in Des Plaines, a north-west
suburb of Chicago. While we looked for a place to rent, we stayed with Peter and Brenda,
who lived in the nearby suburb of Elk Grove Village. They had three children of their
own so with the four of us it was an extremely tight fit, but Wayne was happy that he
had his cousins to play with and baby Robin had lots of attention from everyone. Finding
somewhere to live, preferably close to where Palmer worked, became a matter of
urgency.

We soon found an almost new townhouse to
rent in Des Plaines; it was less than two miles from the hotel, and we quickly arranged
to have our furniture taken out of storage and delivered. I have no idea how we paid the
enormous bill we owed to the moving and storage company but I’m sure the money
came from someone in the family; it was probably either Palmer’s parents or his
Uncle Art.

The house had three bedrooms and a bathroom
on the second floor, then a living-dining room plus kitchen and toilet downstairs. The
added bonus was a large basement with laundry room, which made a great indoor playroom.
Several children lived in the complex so I didn’t have to worry about Wayne being
lonely. He had his first big birthday party in the basement. He and I decorated the
walls with posters, hung balloons from the ceiling, and there was a
long trestle table with all the snacks, treats and party favours laid out on a birthday
tablecloth. He’d been so good through all the unrest of the past year that I
wanted him to have a party to remember. He was allowed to invite all of his friends
since there was ample space and it didn’t matter how much mess they made. We
finally had a place that seemed like a real home.

By now, Robin was six or seven months old
and, just as her brother had been, she was a happy, good-natured baby. I always
considered myself lucky to have two such contented children; they were my joy and
salvation as the situation with Palmer continued to worsen.

Something exciting happened shortly after we
moved to Des Plaines: Robin was ‘discovered’. We were standing in line at
the supermarket checkout one afternoon and I noticed that a man kept staring at us.
Eventually he came up to us and remarked on what a beautiful child Robin was. He asked
if I would consider letting her do some modelling. I was, of course, extremely wary,
thinking he was a photographer who was simply trying to drum up business. However, when
he gave me his business card, I recognized his name immediately: he was the owner of one
of the biggest modelling and talent agencies in Chicago. He told me we would need to get
some good photographs sent to him, and I said I’d think about it. I gave him our
name and phone number but, knowing I could never afford to have professional photographs
taken of my beautiful baby, promptly pushed the idea out of my mind.

Within two days of that chance meeting, I
received a
phone call from the modelling agency asking me if I could
bring Robin downtown to do a photo shoot for a national advertisement the next day. I
told them I would need a little time to see if I could arrange transport, then phoned a
friend and explained what had happened. She offered to take us so I called the agency
back and said we would be there. That particular ad was for Sealy Posturepedic
Mattresses and it appeared in many national publications. After that, Robin did lots of
modelling jobs and we never did send any photographs to the agency. They all loved her,
not only because she was such a beautiful child but also because she was so easy to work
with. Wayne was usually at school when we went to the jobs, but he happened to be with
us on one assignment and was asked to be in one of the photos; they were for a
psychology book and we never saw them. I had hoped to keep the money Robin made in a
savings account for her education but, sadly, out of necessity most of it was spent on
food and to pay other bills. It wasn’t a huge amount of money but I hated having
to use it.

I tried hard to make some money of my own
because I had real fears of my children going without, as I’d had to when I was a
child. The first thing I did was baby-sitting in our townhouse complex. Then I started
sewing for people as I had in the past, just simple hemming of skirts and trousers or
other small tasks that could be done by hand since I had no sewing machine. The next
thing I added to my repertoire was hair-cutting. At that time, I was cutting my own hair
because I couldn’t afford to have it done professionally and my next-door
neighbour asked if I would cut her three daughters’. Before I knew it, I was
cutting everyone’s hair in our complex and a little stash of
cash was accumulating in a box on the top shelf in the kitchen; I kept it hidden there
for when I needed it and it gave me a small feeling of security. Then one day I went to
get some money to buy a few things for the children, and the box was empty. The feelings
I experienced at that moment of discovery are almost indescribable. I felt as though
I’d been kicked in the stomach and slammed against a wall; I kept looking in the
box, wondering if I was just not seeing right, but I knew what had happened. A
combination of emotions swept over me like a tidal wave: hatred, disgust and
disappointment were just some of what I felt for the man I had married. Palmer had found
and taken all of my savings and I could just imagine the sick, smug pleasure he had felt
at having outwitted me.

When Palmer came home late that night, I
shoved the empty box under his nose, and he laughed. ‘How could you?’ I
said. ‘That was money I was saving for the children.’

‘Liar,’ he spat back at me.
‘You thought you could steal money from me, didn’t you, to spend on
yourself?’

‘It wasn’t yours. It was money I
made myself, doing things for people.’

‘Any money coming into this house is
mine. You don’t have money of your own!’ he shouted, and then he laughed
again. ‘You’re pathetic, really stupid,’ he said, with a sneer on his
face. ‘You really think you can get one over on me? No one can do that. No
one’s smart enough to outwit Bob Palmer, so you might as well quit
trying.’

I ran outside. I didn’t want him to
see me crying and I was afraid of what I might say or do if I had to listen to
any more of his ugly words. I wished he was dead, and I wished I
could run away but, of course, I could not. I had to pull myself together, for the
children’s sake, but I didn’t know how much more I could put up with before
I went insane.

During this time, I started going to church
again, at Christus Victor Lutheran church in Elk Grove Village, the suburb where my
brother and his family were living. They had told me how much they enjoyed the church
and its pastor so I decided to try it, in spite of my previous bad experience with the
Lutheran Church.

Elk Grove Village was a new housing
development and no churches had been built yet, so Christus Victor was holding services
in an old farmhouse. It was wonderful to find a church that had such a good
down-to-earth feel. Pastor Fisher was an unusual man and probably the closest thing to a
real Christian I had ever met. The congregation consisted mostly of young couples with
children, and they all worked hard at being good Christians, helping each other in every
imaginable way; they were proud of what they called their missionary work within their
own community.

Soon, I was teaching at the Sunday school
and attending Bible studies and prayer groups, all of which gave me the peace of mind I
needed to tolerate Palmer’s drinking and what it was doing to our lives; the
church became my sanctuary. At first, he came to church with us, which gave me hope that
he was trying to change, but later he told me he had only gone in the hope that the
people of the church would help him out of his financial troubles. He took me
to services a few more times but then, in one of his strange
exhibitions of power and control, he told me I couldn’t go any more. I was
devastated.

I called Pastor Fisher, told him what was
happening and asked if the congregation’s missionary work might extend to someone
picking me up for church. It was asking a lot because we lived quite a distance from Elk
Grove Village. He told me he would try to figure something out for me. Soon he was back
on the telephone saying that someone had come up with a suggestion that would be far
more beneficial than simply providing a taxi service. One of the men in the
congregation, who worked odd hours for the airlines and often had free daytime hours,
had offered to teach me to drive, using his car. I was overjoyed. We had to keep the
lessons secret because Palmer would never have allowed it in case it gave me some
freedom.

The lessons proceeded but until I obtained
my driver’s licence, I either went to a church nearby or was given lifts by some
new members of our church who now lived close to us. It wasn’t a problem if Palmer
happened to be working on Sundays, or if he had been out late the night before and was
still sleeping: we just had to leave before he had a chance to stop us.

When I got my driver’s licence, I was
filled with new hope. We had just one car, of course, so I could only use it if Palmer
was at home. By now, I had become almost as wily as he was he’d been a good
teacher. I managed to convince him that I’d got my licence as a surprise for him
so that he wouldn’t always have to take me shopping and to medical appointments,
and I could drive Robin to her
modelling assignments after first
dropping him off at work. He seemed okay with that for a while, but then came the first
time he decided not to let me drive to church. I was furious. He decided he wanted to
have sex instead, which was a rare occurrence. I knew from experience that this was
strictly part of his game playing, his need to control me. Since the children and I were
already dressed for church, I told him that was not going to happen. He went
berserk.