Chapter 4 - The Years He Didn't Call
Here's what was happening on the other side of the ocean, which I wouldn't learn for thirty years.
The treatment nearly killed Elliot. Complications put him unconscious for weeks and in a hospital bed for close to a year — surgeries, then a long, slow rehab. For months he physically couldn't travel or handle his own affairs.
When he was finally clear-headed enough to ask questions, he found out that Dale had refused the kids, that I had fought to keep them together, and that the county had opened an abandonment case with his name on it.
He could have called then.
He didn't.
First he told himself he had to get stronger before he came back. Then the months turned into years, and it wasn't the illness keeping him quiet anymore. It was shame. The court sent notices overseas. He never answered a single one. After enough years with no contact and no support, his parental rights were terminated.
I got permanent guardianship, and then I adopted all five of them.
Cora was almost eighteen when it went through. "Can I still take your last name?" she asked.
"You can take any name you want."
She took mine. They all did. Five kids, one name — Vance.
Five years after he left, Elliot came back to Harmon. Just once. He rented a car and parked across the street from the house. He watched Cora carry grocery bags up the walk. He watched Micah crouched over Owen's bike with a wrench. Hazel was on the porch, reading out loud to Poppy.
Then I came out the front door, and Poppy ran at me with both arms up, yelling "Mama!"
He sat in that car for almost an hour. Later he'd say he was afraid that walking up the driveway would blow apart something stable, maybe drag everyone back into court. But that was the polite version. The real one was simpler. He couldn't make himself face them.
He drove away. I never knew he'd been there.
For years I turned his leaving over and over, looking for the reason. Another woman. Five kids being too much. Me not being enough to stay for. I never said any of that out loud, because I didn't want the kids deciding they hadn't been enough either.
A few men came around over the years. Most of them evaporated the minute they heard the word "five." Eventually I stopped trying. My life was already full to the ceiling.
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Cora became a pediatric nurse. Micah opened his repair shop. Hazel became a teacher. Owen became an engineer. Poppy became a social worker, because she wanted to be the person who keeps brothers and sisters in the same house.
Thirty years went by. I never once regretted staying.
