tranquility to chaos= third grade

  Well, it is almost Friday fellow readers... and bloggers and that means it's time for the Mommy's Piggy Tales Post... today is the 5 th post in a series of 15 about my childhood.. We are preserving these memories for our children...
  My tranquil world of no television, no siblings, and fields full of butterflies in Queen Ann's lace  was about to end. I would not be having anymore Sunday morning breakfasts with my grandmother. I was about to enter third grade, but not in NY in FL. When I am asked about my childhood... this time stands clear in my mind.
Moving from Ny to FL.
   We were in the Volvo, traveling down a hot highway going South. My grandmother did not have custody of me my mother did and my mother was in Florida for the  past 4 years. My father demanded that I go live with my mother and not my grandmother.
So here we were with the car loaded with 2 of my suitcases of clothes and some of my books.
Along the way my grandmother smiled a lot, but I could tell she was so sad on the inside, we had been living together since I was two years old and we had a bond. We sang songs all the way to Florida, and I would wave to all the truckers and they would lean on their horns and give me a honk. I got such a kick out of that. I counted licence plates and played I spy with my little eye with my grandmother.
In a few days we were there... The sunny state.. It did not feel sunny to me.. even if the sun was shining brightly.
We pulled up to the apartment complex.. the apartment was built in a tunnel shaped building that looked like a bat cave.  It was a stark difference from the horizon views of my grandmothers house.It looked gloomy but the temperature was cool in the "cave". We knocked on the hollow door.The number said 704. NO one answered? where was my mother? Wasn't she waiting for me to get there? We got back in the car and went to a gas station and called my mother, still no answer. My grandmother  told me she was angry and wanted to turn right around and go back to NY. My grandmother told me the apartment was not child friendly. We sat in our hot car for over 2 hours until we called my mother again and this time she answered. I was so disappointed I secretly did not want her to answer.

  There stood my mother  with her dark hair and green eyes... opening the door of 704. Her sun kissed skin, was welcoming me in. She started kissing me and treating me like a baby. She was talking in a voice like you talk to a kitty or a dog. She was going on and on about how I could get a nice tan and swim in the apartments pool. Couldn't she tell that I did not care about swimming in any pool. I missed my school, my friends and my grandmothers house, my house for the past 5  or more years. I walked into the house and looked around it looked very neat and clean. A man appeared, he had a beard. My mom introduced him as her boyfriend. I did not really like beards.
  She took me down a small hallway to a door and opened it, it was a small white cubicle room. It looked like a jail cell to me. No dresser, No pictures just one air mattress with a sheet and pillows.  My mother told me she would  she would get me a bed soon.  I know it would  not  compare to my canopy, back at my grandmothers.A large window on the ground floor looked out at the front of my grandmother's  parked Volvo.
I remember my mother making us dinner.. I dont' remember what we ate except a baked potato. I didnt' eat much of  anything else, but I remember the potato, I ate the potato until the skin was empty and sagged on the plate like an old worn out shoe. I remember after dinner thinking of my birthday that year, and how I would have to spend it here with my mother. I bet she did not know where to get balloons or how to bake a cake... I wanted to relinquish my mother like she was a balloon I could just let go at will.
  After dinner my mother's boyfriend went to his night job and my mother took us on a tour of the "grounds". It was a concrete world as far as I was concerned.
 That night my grandmother and I shared the air mattress. She read me stories from her James Thurber book. We giggled under the covers and she gave me a bumble bee kiss. She told me she was leaving very early to get back to NY and she would call me every day. She told me she would not wake me to say goodbye. I fell asleep crying..I dreamed of being back at her house in the warmth of her kitchen playing restaurant, but when I awoke... in the early light I could see my grandmother outside my window. The digital clock read 5:11. I knocked on the pan of glass. She looked so sad and she was hiding her tears. I felt a lump in my throat and tears welled in my eyes. She blew me 4 kisses and opened her car door to get behind the steering wheel. I stood in front of the window and I came undone. The sight of my cherished grandma leaving was devastating. I pounded my fists against the thick pained glass window and cried deep sobs. It never woke my mother, and my mother did not wake up until 9m that morning. I sat in my room alone... wishing my grandmother would come back and take me home.. Where we could talk and read and I would not feel alone.

 My old life, my life with my grandmother was on one side of a bridge and now I found myself standing on the other side, the side of my mother and our life in Florida.