The visits with Carol and Paul continued. There was one where I was sick and Mom took me to Kmart to cheer me up. She let me pick out something to “make me better.” I chose a Care Bear, the one with the sunshine on its tummy. I kept it beside my bed and looked at it that night until I fell asleep. Mom told me that it was a good luck charm and that it would make me happy if I kept it. I still have it on my drafting table. I can’t say that this myth held any truer than the tooth fairy or Santa, but I do still have it. Just in case.

Carol and Paul decided that they wanted to move Lisa and me to Greensboro with them. My grandparents balked at this and said that they didn’t want to pull us out of our school. They suggested that Carol and Paul move near them if they wanted to take us.

In March, shortly after my mom’s birthday, a trailer was bought and moved in right behind my grandparent’s home, on the back of the same three-acre lot they lived on. We were asked if we wanted to live with Carol & Paul and of course we were thrilled.

I still remember looking at my new room the first day and thinking how great things were going to be. The walls were wallpapered in a thin stripe pattern of tan and white. The carpet was tan and the ceiling was that spray on sticky-looking-stuff. Lisa and I had to share a room and we got a bunk bed for this purpose. It was used but who cared, I was getting to live with my MOM! I did wonder about the room thing, the trailer had three bedrooms, why couldn’t we finally have our rooms?

This question was answered with a bit of bittersweet news – Mom was pregnant. She was expecting in late May. It was going to be a boy. He was going to have the other room and we would have to share. I was a bit jealous about this whole baby thing. I thought my mom wanted to be with my sister and me and get to know us finally. She was going to be spending all of her time with the new baby, though. Where did that leave us? True, I’d never really been around a new baby and that was kind of exciting, but still…