The Worst Week

TUESDAY

I was still half asleep when my husband barged into the bedroom in a near state of panic. I sighed, assuming the boys had agitated him again before remembering that they were staying at my grandparents house in the country for tonight. Something was really up. Yawning, I rolled over and got ready to ask what's wrong.

He beat me to it, "The police are here. We have until sunset to get out."

I sat up. Was I dreaming? There was no way I heard that right, "What?"

He took an agitated breath and tried again, "The city official has condemned the building. The foundation in the basement is corroded and we can't stay here."

Yep, dreaming. I was definitely dreaming. I itched my ear where my cartilage piercing was still healing. Ouch. Nope. I was awake. I didn't want to be awake. I wanted to go back to my dreams where we lived in a magical valley with our children and rode our pet unicorns through the fruitful orchards as the dragons watched protectively for threats. I had come to hate this world...no more just this city... so much that I had created an unrealistic peace realm in my sleep.

Groaning, I called my grandparents. We had been planning to move out there at the end of the school year but it would seem the universe had other plans. It took some arguing but eventually I got my country dwelling relatives to understand that since the building was being condemned the city did not have to give us thirty days. They barely had to give us one. We would have to pack up our whole life and store it in the two trailers that had been sitting up back of their house for years and were now in such bad shape they were barely safe for storage. Never would they be livable again but until we could place an appropriate living space on the property they would be our salvation.

My daughter, Maya, followed me around the house for the rest of the day. I was mentally exhausted and could barely focus. Sure I was focused on packing but my anxiety levels had spiked so high that my packing consisted of jumping from one task to another without ever finishing any of them. Daniel, my husband, was freaking out. He didn't smoke...much. In fact as long as he wasn't too stressed he didn't smoke at all. He had a package of cherry cigars that sat in the freezer for when he needed to destress. By the end of the day he smelled strongly of those bittersweet sticks.

He kept me updated as he communicated with the police and the property manager. We could not be in the apartment after dark. We had until sunset on Friday to remove our belongings. For a moment I was stressed. Then Daniel reminded me that today was Tuesday in an attempt to cheer me up by calculating how much time we really had before the deadline. That didn't help. I thought it was Monday so the reality check only made it worse.

As I was packing Maya's room into totes she grabbed my leg and started crying. Looking down I could see the panic in the little one year old's eyes. Daniel was with Papa taking the first load of our belongings to the house. I took a moment to imagine from her point of view what conclusions she may be drawing so I could help her. She was fine until her father left and even then she only looked a little concerned. Now Mommy was packing her toys up and her bed was already gone.

"Oh, honey," I knelt down to her level and hugged her, "It's okay. Daddy is coming back. We're just moving our stuff. We're gonna go see brothers and live with them and Daddy out by Nana and Papa. We'll all be together and you can play outside. Would you like that?"

I had to repeat the concept a few times but eventually she seemed to understand that we were just moving. I almost believed she thought I was kicking her and Daddy out of my life. I hated to think that she might be worried about that. She hugged me and patted my back. I had tried so hard not to show any of my distress to her today but I knew better than to think she was completely naïve to it. Children could sense these things.

When Daniel and Papa came back we made quick work of loading the truck and trailer. It was about a half hour drive home and my legs were definitely in need of the break. Since the apartment was on the second floor I had spent all day going up and down the stairs repeatedly with more boxes, totes, and bags. Most of the furniture would get left behind as we had no where to store it and quite a bit of it had seen better days.

WEDNESDAY

I had to get up. It was time to leave my peace behind and dive back into the chaos of my life. Not wanting to wake all the way up just yet I raised my pointer finger and asked Daniel to give me a minute. He left me alone and went to help get the kids breakfast. Sighing I slipped back into my fantasy. Freya and Sarah rushed into my waiting arms.

"I got to go for the day girls. Be good for your aunt," I smiled sadly at Hannah, the spitting image of myself aside from her hair, which was shock straight as opposed to my waves.

"I got them sis," she assured me.

Waking up I sighed and fought back tears as I did every morning. In my grandmother's house we didn't talk about the spirits much, well at least not how close I let them get. Freya was only a year older than Maya if you looked at the date of my miscarriage with her as a birthday. Sarah had followed me for years and eventually dropped the term God out of my official title concerning her. She had been a miscarriage by my best friend in high school but learned after a while that her mother couldn't handle the emotional aspect of her spectral visits. Hannah had followed me my whole life. It wasn't until I was seventeen that my father finally got tired of me asking strange questions and told me I had a twin sister die in the womb. The little world I met them in at night was a good sanctuary. I had learned how to push them out of my waking moments when I was stressed. Not that I minded being a medium, but life could be hard enough to deal with without people looking at you like a lunatic for talking to someone who wasn't there.

The remainder of the day was more trips and more packing. I stressed a few times trying to get as much as I could done but no matter how much we sent to storage I still felt like nothing looked different.

On the second trip out I was pleased to have found a stimulus check in our mailbox for our little family of five. It wasn't enough to buy a house but it was enough to have something in the bank. That lifted my spirits. I had prided myself on being able to eventually see God's miracles hidden in the mud.

Sure Covid was a bummer and being stuck on a shelter in place order was annoying but the stimulus packages had allowed us to provide our children with something that we hadn't been able to in the past, bigger themed birthday parties complete with decorations. There weren't many guests but at least now it was more than just eat pizza, open presents, eat cake, party over. Ryan had turned five two months ago with balloons and a piñata. Elijah was about to turn four in a few weeks and we had bought more balloons, a bubble blower, and glow party supplies.

THURSDAY

My legs were sore. I was exhausted. I wanted a break. I had never worked so hard in my life and in every job I had in the past I took pride in going above and beyond even without recognition. Today we had to go to the bank and deposit most of the check while cashing the rest. Then it was going to be two more trips. I was beginning to wonder if we had too much stuff. Then again with three kids and a firm enjoyment of arts and crafts that wasn't much of a possibility. No such thing as too much stuff.

Tired and half awake I was searching online that afternoon for a camper or RV of some kind that we could just use as bedroom space. My father had suggested it and I was willing to trust his fifty years of experience to help guide me through a crisis. My grandparents were throwing random ideas left and right but they were stressed too. After all we were invading their home out of necessity to maintain shelter. My father on the other hand was in his own home and wasn't so stressed out by the situation. In fact seeing his daughter handling this so well at the age of twenty-seven helped him stay calm about it. He knew things would work out and he could think straight to tell us what we should do next.

Aha. Found one nearby for only $600. The guy just wants it gone. I sent him a message and five minutes later we were in the car to go take a look. I started to feel dumb when we got there. It was way too small for even bedroom space for five people and the roof needed major repairs. I kindly explained the situation to the guy and apologized for the fact that we would not be buying it.

To my surprise he got excited, "Hold on. You just need something to stay in for a while," I nodded, "I may know someone who can help. I was fixing to buy a trailer from my friend but you need it more than I do. Let me give him a call."

I looked at Daniel and shrugged before taking care of Maya's dirty diaper while waiting to hear what the man could find out. By the time I had her clean pullup on Grandpa was back in the car telling us to buckle her up. He had directions to another place to go look at.

This one was much bigger but the guy who owned it wasn't too keen on selling it. He wanted to fix it up and travel with it. He did however have another one his parents used to live in before they passed away. I couldn't sense any spirits attached to it so I would assume they passed on to whatever afterlife they believed in. It was spacious enough to make into three separate bedrooms and I planned to eventually get a one bedroom mobile home to attach to it for living space.

"Do you want it," Daniel asked after assessing what he would have to do to make it livable and estimating that it was easily done.

"Yes," I answered and then looked at the gentleman, "How much do you want for it?"

"$500," he shrugged as if he wasn't even concerned about getting paid, "I'll deliver it when you're ready," my jaw dropped. Daniel had just got done saying that as it stands this trailer was worth at least $6000. How could he only want $500? The man chuckled a little, "Truth be told, it's taking up space in my yard that I would like to use for more of my trucks. I collect classics. I just want it out of here and if I can help out someone in need by getting rid of it then I'm happy to do so. I'll accept $500 and you can use whatever money you have left making it a nice home for you and your kids."

I was practically in tears. Thank you God. Oh thank you God so much. I had received blessings for being strong. As an omnist I tended to pray to whichever deity seemed most appropriate at the time but having been raised Christian I always prayed to the Godhead first and then to those I viewed as demigods. I thanked the Godhead for guiding us to this opportunity and then I thanked Hades for the gift of money we needed to take advantage of the opportunity.

Of course I also thanked our new friend, whom I was beginning to think had to be some sort of guardian angel in the flesh for all he was doing for us. He even offered my husband work helping him with whatever needed a mechanic, or architect around his place in a month or so.

FRIDAY & SATURDAY

More moving. We had gotten an extension through Monday to get the rest of our stuff so I spent two more days packing and wishing to murder whoever invented stairs. I was so sick of the stairs. Ironically Maya had spent those two days getting better at going up them and finally braving herself enough to go back down. That was just great. She had mastered the big staircase to our apartment just in time to never have to use it again.

We also had to go to the store and get some food for Sunday. While at it we bought Maya a new bed, since she wasn't liking the pack and play and her bed got buried in storage during the panic. We also bought Elijah's birthday presents while we happened to be at the store with money. He wanted cooking themed presents so we grabbed a fake kitchen, one of those little shopping baskets full of fake food, and an easy bake oven, which I would be doing with him.

SUNDAY

Easter. That meant a break since my family holds it as a sacred day of rest. No hard work unless we were working hard to celebrate. No arguing allowed because we all wanted a good holiday. Baskets of goodies for the kids. A big meal to commemorate the last supper. Easter egg coloring with the kids, which we will someday explain has to do with the fact that the Christians stuck their celebration of Jesus rising from the grave into the same festival slot as the Assyrian and Babylonian celebration of Ishtar, a fertility Goddess closely associated with rabbits and eggs. Relaxing, because we had just survived the worst week of our lives, which wasn't completely over as we would need to get back to packing and moving tomorrow. In my case today also had to include Yoga. My chakras were to some frustrating degree blocked and I needed them open. The kids had fun trying to copy me on that one and I felt less sore after.

MONDAY

I was grateful for Daniel today. He had agreed to just go finish packing by himself and get the rest out while I stayed at home to relax. He was more used to this kind of work than I was and I knew if I ran the marathon as hard as I could until I could no longer walk, which according to my children even attempting to at that point looked hilarious, he would have enough strength left from trying to just stay out of my way and help with the heavy stuff to run the rest of the race without me. Today I stayed home and thanked every God I could think of possibly having a hand in getting us through this that we had made it through this part of the rough road ahead.