Best Laid Plans

Yesterday I decided that today, starting at 10:00 AM I would just do scanning and tell everyone their projects would have to wait. I work a double at the desk so it was going to get done.

This morning I opened a text from my childhood best friend, Ashley, asking if I could watch her kids today/over night so she can move back up here. (Her dad’s house is on the same block as my job, and the house I grew up in was across the street.) She moved away from me to marry the jack ass that would get drunk and beat her to shit. We still text but I haven’t really seen her since Christmas. Last Summer, or maybe the Summer before I took a week off work and stayed at her place. It was right after her husband had beat the ever living fuck out of her in front of their 9 year old daughter. Took the truck out – crashed it in a ditch, walked back home and went to sleep. The police came to her door at 5 the next morning, saw her face covered in blood and she tried to say it was from the car accident, but they knew better. There was a pool of blood all over the kitchen floor from where he held her down. CPS was called, she was told she needed a restraining order, and after it was all said and done, they told her if she let him back in the house they would take the kids. I was so happy about the order, I had been begging her to come home since the day she left. I thought she would come home then but she didn’t.

The Summer I went up there, which I am almost certain was the year before last … was about a week or so after everything had gone down. Her house looked like a hoarder house. There was still blood on the floor. Every single cupboard, cabinet, wall, door… had a hole punched in it. Every, single, one.  We stayed up late talking the first night, eating Chinese, just catching up on everything. In the morning I let her sleep in. I cleaned her kitchen and living room. I bribed her kids and mine to clean their rooms with the promise that on the way home we would stop at Wal-mart and they could get any toy they wanted that was under 100 dollars. She slept until 2PM.

I noticed that her daughter who was 9 was taking care of her brother 3/4? I noticed the sleeping till 2 was not just because we stayed up late. This was her life. Shes a good person, and a good mom, but she was so broken down that she had almost nothing left to give. I wanted her to come home, I could help her … I bought groceries, I feed her kids 3 hot and healthy meals a day. I implement a bed time for them … it doesn’t stick but I held them to it. I told her “Ash, if you guys get on a semi normal sleep schedule it will help a lot …”

She was working reception for a truck company at the time, and she was really close with the owner. He was divorcing her wife of 20 years, Ashley was going through what she was going through. He had even messaged me on fb one time because he was worried about her. Well after I left, she moved into a house with him, and I thought things were going better for her.

Then one day I get a message … or maybe I messaged her about something silly … and her house had burned down and CPS was on her ass. I guess her son had gotten a hold of a lighter and light the couch on fire. She blames Chez for the fire, for leaving out the lighter, I think if they had a normal sleep schedule she would have been awake with her kid … but what can I say but “I think it’s time to come home.” She didn’t.

Countless calls and texts about how Chez is still with his wife, hes being aggressive, going through her phone, pretending to be her and starting shit with all sorts of people. Come home. Come home. Come home. Just come home. But she didn’t.

On July 17th, she texted asking about open hours in the kitchen, I let her know, and I ended it with … a bit of a drive for you though? (2.5 hours.) She responded with “Probably not.” She didn’t want me to say anything, because she hadn’t even asked her dad yet.

OVER THE MOON WAS I!

But I didn’t put too much hope in it … I mean I did, but I told myself not to because she had thought about it several times before. But the text this morning said she wanted to be fully moved back by the weekend.

Hell, if I can convince her to pop in and interview with Brandon today, go get her fingerprints/background check done tomorrow, she could be in orientation Monday and start training in Tuesday. She will probably not want to be rushed into it, but if she needs money … I know how to get balls a rollin’.

As for my plans, I forgot my mom had picked up the evening reception shift tonight so I am only here till 4. Also we are having a rally with root beer floats to get people to sign up for the Alzheimer’s walk from 1-3 today, so I really wouldn’t have been able to fit in what I wanted to fit in anyway, I will have to definitely do it tomorrow.