Spirit Mama

Over the years since I lost my job at the Catholic school, I’d remained in contact with a few of my former students.  One of those students was Laura.  Laura was also a big fan of Harry Potter.  Since I fly my geek flag high, my students knew my love for all things Potter.  She would often come in to visit with me on lunchtimes and talk to me about her life.  She had a distinct dislike for her step-mother, and apparently no relationship with her biological mother.

She and another student came to me one afternoon and asked me if I could help them make costumes.  Morgan wanted to make the dress that Elizabeth Swan wore in Pirates of the Carribean, and Laura wanted a basic Renaissance Faire outfit.  They both had their patterns, and I had sewing machines in the classroom for a uniform repair workshop I ran, so I thought it would be fun to teach them how to sew.

Aside from Laura and Morgan, there was Cammi.  All of us loved Harry Potter, so we spent a lot of time theorizing how things would turn out.  We called our group Dumbledore’s Army, just for fun.

Morgan and Cammi finished their costumes in time for Halloween and a Renaissance Faire.  That was their junior year.  The next year they were seniors and I didn’t hear quite as much from them.

After they graduated, Laura would call me on occasion to talk to me about her life and her anxiety.  Our friendship grew stronger and when I was sick, she’d actually sent a plumber to my house to fix some problems I was having with the toilet gurgling in the shower.

At one point, she told me her dad was looking for someone to help him with his startup business.  I met him, and we talked and he was excited about the skills I could bring.  I started working for him right away.  He made me his operations manager, and I was full time.

I loved the job in the beginning.  There were flags popping up here and there that made me uneasy.  It surprised me how easily he could lie to people to get them to do what he needed.  I was also surprised by how overbearing his wife, Laura’s stepmother was.  One of the other ladies in the office joked with me that it was hard to tell who was in charge.  Wicked Stepmother would loudly berate Laura’s dad in front of the entire office staff.  And I got the impression that she was not fond of me having the position he’d assigned me.  I began to see why Laura had the challenges with her family that she did.

Ultimately, I was driven out.  They abused Laura verbally for mistakes they claimed that I made.  They told her that I had filed a suit against them.  None of these things were true, though there was sufficient cause for me to file suit.  They intimidated Laura into writing a letter to them stating that I’d told her I was going to quit.  I had told her I was considering it, but they were going to present her letter to the unemployment office so that I couldn’t even get that.

Laura called me in tears.  She offered to pay me if I wouldn’t file for unemployment.  She didn’t want to write the letter.  She sobbed.  It made me angry that this man had this wonderful, beautiful daughter that he treated so shamefully.  I told her not to worry.  They couldn’t hurt me.  Write the letter and do whatever you need to do to get them off your back.  I’ll be fine.

I then sat down and wrote a letter to her father.  I listed all the grounds that I had for a lawsuit and included copies of all the statutes that supported my claim.    I detailed all of the contradictory expectations he made of me.  Finally, I told him what an amazing daughter he has, and that if she ever calls me upset by the way he treats and threatens her, I would be filing the suit.  I told him not to mention the letter to her and that I would not mention it, either.  If she ended up knowing about it, I would know that they broke the agreement, and I would file the suit.

I never heard back from them, and my claim for unemployment was denied.

A few weeks after I sent them the email, Laura called me.  She said that her dad had told her that he had something to show her but that he couldn’t show it to her for three years (the statute of limitations on my threat).  He hinted that it was about me and she said that she felt like he wanted her to feel guilty.  I told her that I’d written him a letter, basically threatening him to stop abusing her or I would sue him.  I forwarded her a copy of the email.  She called me back and told me that no one had ever stood up for her like that, before.  She said I was so brave.  She cried.

She began calling me her Spirit Mama, after that.  And I call her my Spirit Daughter.  We got matching Tattoos to make it official.

I feel like this is the Universe’s way of giving me the daughter I always wanted but never got the opportunity to have.