06.S05 Chapter Six, Snippet Five

New Prairie Woman
Susie Rosso Wolf
Chapter Six, con't

“No, Sue, you were right on the ground with the rest of us being blessed by Jesus himself receiving His holy grace and glory. Glory halleluiah and I say amen, sister! Praise Jesus Sue, for this miracle! Praise Jesus,” she yelled. And then she would lunge into another prayer of thanks as I held onto the phone with my head bent down while she prayed another prayer of gratitude. For several days the prayers of thanks and praise were persistent until finally she called me with an announcement about her future. “Sue, I’m gonna go move to Montana. I’m gonna live with Robert and April. Rob wants me to help them when the baby comes.”

Although initially stunned by this news, I wasn’t surprised to hear it, given her history of living with her son.“What happens to Mr. White and your life here? You’re finally settled in a nice place with your husband, and you like it out there.”

“April works full time now at the post office and Rob’s working full time too. He finally got hired on at the sheriff’s department in Bozeman and he won’t have much time to help with the baby once it arrives. I’ve got to go help my son and Mr. White does not want to move so I’m going alone.”

“Brenda, are you serious?”

“Yes I’m serious! Sue, my son needs me. You know better than anybody that Rob has wanted to be a cop his whole life and now he’s made his dream come true and I’ve got to help him. And I’ll have my own room and I’ll be able to be with my new grandbaby full time and with Snowflake and Cricket whenever they come for a visit. We’ll be a complete family.”

“Brenda, you’re actually leaving California? Again? I just can’t believe it.”

“Why not Sue? You know my son and grandchildren are the most important things in my life. I don’t care about anything else. I don’t have anything else. He’s my life, Sue.”

“But what about Mr. White? Where does he fit into the picture?”

“He does NOT want to leave California, he says he’s too old to keep following me around chasing Robert but I told him I’m not gonna live without my son.”

 I felt so sad for Mr. White. I knew the depth of his love for Brenda and could only imagine how upsetting this decision of hers must have been. And he had done so much for her for all of the many years they had been together. I could only listen to her plans and try to support her decision. The last thing I wanted to do was cause tension by disagreeing with her or getting in the middle of their personal chaos, which I knew was inevitable because Mr. White always resented Brenda’s devotion to Robert and her incessant need to shadow him around the country while he spent years chasing down the perfect place to live. I knew Mr. White wasn’t going to take this lying down and the days to come would be strained.

“Brenda, would you like to come for a visit over the weekend? We can heat the pool and swim or we can take a drive up the coast and hang out at Leo Carrillo. What say you?”

“Hey, that sounds purty good, maybe I’ll have to think about that,” she said in her sly little country drawl voice as if she was up to something sneaky.

“Don’t think about it, just do it. Pack a bag, get in the car and drive over here."


"But I have so much to do to get ready to move, I don’t want to interrupt my packing plans and trying to sell some of my stuff cause Rob really needs me.” Her accent was coming out now and I knew she was laying it on thick so I would take no for an answer. She used her accent to get what she wanted and so many times it worked on me but I refused to fall for her ploy of sounding cute and oh so southern. I insisted that she come and offered to pay for her gas and cigarettes. Considering she just announced that she was leaving the state, I wanted to spend time with her. So I managed to persuade her to drop everything and just drive over to Northridge from Sun City and I gladly opened the gate that evening to allow her little navy blue car to pull into the driveway and park. Cutter, Lilly and Dinky knew her Chevy Malibu by now and immediately ran and barked to greet her. She opened the car door stood up then stretched down to pet all three dogs and to get them riled up with funny noises and happy baby talk. After sufficient attention paid to her quadrupeds fan club, she lifted at her waist and yelled out in her thickest southern accent, “Well what do you want, woman? I’m here now, lay it on me mama!”

“It’s about time you got here you old worn out southern belle! What took you so long?”

“You’re always complaining, you just can’t be happy, can you? Come here you crotchety old Italian witch so I can beat you!”

“Yeah, right! That’ll be the day!” My verbal challenge prompted her to chase me around her car while we both laughed so hard we couldn't talk. I screamed when I put too much pressure on my bad knee but she just kept on coming after me. The dogs continued barking as we horsed around and insulted each other then we finally settled down, walked arm and arm into the house to put on a pot of coffee. We sat and talked for an hour finally ending up at Tommy’s Burgers for some take-out of her favorite local junk food. Back at the house Kurt joined us for dinner in the kitchen, glad to share chili burgers and fries and a chocolate shake while we listened to her intently as she described the unique beauty of Montana and her justification for abandoning her husband.