Suddenly, I wasn’t so keen on having my own room. In fact, I didn’t sleep in the room I’d claimed “for Anna” mere moments before. Not once. Ramona had a bed and a hammock in her room, and I opted for the hammock. I liked the gentle sway, but mostly I liked that it was up off the ground, where scorpions couldn’t get to me.
Ramona had three children, born one after another, stair-stepped down in age —Heidi, Melissa, and Amanda. Amanda was just a few days old when I came to live with them, and Ramona put me in charge of watching her. I certainly had enough time, since I never went to school during the time I lived in Mexico. I spent hours lying in the hammock, rocking back and forth with Amanda on my chest. I felt quite proud of myself that I could get Amanda to sleep. I felt like such a good mama! I adored Ramona’s children and would do anything for them.
Melissa had a book, The Cat in the Hat Comes Back, which she carried with her everywhere in that house. I read it to her countless times each day, so often that we both memorized it. I tired of it more quickly than Melissa, but she insisted that I read the entire book, word for word. If I tried to skip ahead to finish the book faster, she protested and turned back the pages. I found it hard to say no to her giant, pleading eyes.
One morning while we prepared breakfast, I mentioned an idea to Ramona. “We should camp out and live on the beach. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
“That wouldn’t be much fun to me with three little girls who get sand in their eyes, ears, mouth, and hair.” She pantomimed a shiver at the thought. “But if we don’t sweep the house for a week, the beach will come to us. Then you could get your wish.” The wind blew in the sand faster than we could keep it swept up. Ramona patted my head, and then kissed it for good measure.
I laughed, although my longing for the adventure of living on the beach in the salty air never went away.
Mark and Lillian brought their kids, along with Celia and Hyrum, to the beach house almost every weekend. Celia, Hyrum, and I not only played on the beach, but we also explored the entire area. We loved playing hide-and-seek around that house. One of my favorite places to hide was in an old, weathered wooden boat on a dry dock in the front yard. The boat became a playhouse for us. We cleaned it out as best we could and played house in it for hours on end. It certainly wasn’t seaworthy, but we loved it.
Coconut trees dotted the lawn. We had fun shaking the trunks because every now and then a coconut broke loose and fell to the ground. One afternoon, I proudly carried one of the larger coconuts into the kitchen to split open and share with everyone. I used a sharp knife to remove the “meat” from the shell of the coconut and accidentally pushed the knife all the way through the thick coconut shell deep into my palm. I screamed as blood began to ooze where I had cleanly sliced my hand. “Ramona, help me!”
Ramona rushed into the kitchen, holding Amanda. When she saw the blood, Ramona handed Amanda to Celia. “Anna, you poor thing.”
Not having any proper medical supplies, she washed the wound and wrapped it with a piece of cloth, cuddling me and speaking in soothing tones the entire time. I couldn’t help but contrast it to the time I’d cut my leg at Antonia’s house, where no one had seemed to care.
After Ramona finished wrapping the cut, she brought the back of my hand to her mouth and kissed it. “Is that better?”
I nodded and leaned into her, where I picked up the comforting smell of sweet breastmilk on her blouse.
“You’ll have to hold your hand closed to keep the cut from reopening. Do you think you can do that?”
In spite of the throbbing pain, I smiled up at her. “Yes.”
A few weeks later, a scar about the width of the tip of the knife blade that had cut into my hand was all that remained, but I carried with me the caution of working with sharp objects of any kind.
Not long after my cut healed, Ramona hollered for me from the back of the house. “Anna, come in here, please. I need help getting the girls ready before Mark and Lillian get here.”
I hurried to the bedroom to help her finish dressing her girls. We all bubbled with excitement that beautiful morning.
“I was thinking about asking Celia to read The Cat in the Hat Comes Back to Melissa for a change,” Ramona said as she smoothed the thin blanket on the girls’ bed.
Melissa held up the worn book for me to see again.
I laughed to myself as I thought of Celia getting stuck reading it instead of me. I’d make sure that Celia knew that when Melissa said “Be-at,” in her little toddler way, what she was really saying was “Read it,” which she repeated countless times each day.
“Hyrum and I are going to build a huge sand castle,” I told Ramona. I gestured with my hands to show the size of our proposed palace. “We talked about it the last time he was here. I’ve been collecting sticks and leaves for the princess and her family who will live there.”
A little smile tugged at the sides of Ramona’s mouth. I imagined she was happy everyone was coming today too. “All done. Thank you, Anna.”
I hurried out the front door to wait on the steps that led to the long gravel driveway out to the gate that opened to the street. If Celia didn’t arrive soon, I might burst! To my surprise, an orange pickup pulled through the gate. Whoever was driving the vehicle —probably Lorna, my dad’s fifth wife —was making her way slowly and cautiously. The truck bounced up and down and back and forth as the driver tried to avoid potholes and larger rocks. Suddenly, before the truck could make it completely up the driveway, the passenger door opened and out jumped my mom from the still-moving vehicle. She ran toward me, her arms outstretched.
I stood rooted to the porch, trembling with the shock of seeing her rushing toward me. I couldn’t believe my eyes. No one had told me she was coming. How could they? We had no phone service in the house, and the mail was unreliable and slow. As much as my heart longed for my mom, I certainly hadn’t expected she would show up that day, after such a long drought of uncertainty, of not knowing if I’d ever see her again.
I willed my feet to move, which they finally did. I sprinted toward her, and we enveloped one another in a tight embrace that lasted several minutes. My heart couldn’t contain the joy, and I began sobbing uncontrollably.
“Mom,” I cried, my voice muffled from my face being pressed up against her.
“Anna, let me look at you, honey.” She held me at arm’s length and surveyed me from head to toe. “Who cut off all of your beautiful hair?” Mom’s high-pitched voice as she questioned me let me know she was displeased. Several times, she ran her fingers through the cropped remains of my strawberry-blonde locks.
“Carmen cut it because she said it was always a tangled mess.” The memory of the day Carmen, the sister of a recent convert, had butchered my long hair came flooding back. This time it was my mom who burst into tears. We both were crying now, me with my face once again buried in my mom’s chest. Mom seemed to mourn the loss of my hair as much as I did.