All That Is Bitter and Sweet_ A Memoir - Ashley Judd [18]
One day, our third-grade teacher asked us to fill out forms that included emergency contact information. In a moment that has become an iconic snapshot of my childhood, I couldn’t turn in my card, because I had no idea whose name to put down. I wrestled with my terrible dilemma on the school bus, completely at a loss. Mom and her boyfriend at the time were at the apartment when I returned home, and I decided to ask him if he’d be my emergency person. They looked at me and started to laugh. I was completely serious, as only a nine-year-old can be, and their laughter crushed me. To this day, whenever I go to the doctor and fill out my forms, my pen hesitates for a second over the blank line for my emergency contact.
While I was in the fourth grade we moved again, to a duplex a few miles up the road, in Forest Knolls. By this point, with all the moves and all the upheaval, what I suspected at age eight during my first depression I now knew for certain: Something was terribly lacking in my life, an aching, unverifiable awareness that something wasn’t right. I was at times feeling angry about my perpetual latchkey status—particularly when I invited friends home from school and couldn’t find the dang latchkey! Once I had to break a window to enter the house. Even though a lot of other kids were in the same predicament—this was California in the 1970s, after all—I started comparing myself with peers who had houses and horses and what I imagined were much better lives and longing for the day we might have more stability—or even reliable heating and cooling.
There were so many people missing in my life. Mom’s decision to run to California triggered an estrangement with Nana that would last a full seven years, when they finally buried the hatchet. We rarely saw her, even when Sister and I visited Kentucky, and almost never heard from her. I missed her, I loved her, and I loved her home. When we were living in Forest Knolls, Sister and I received a small box from her, full of mismatched pieces of costume jewelry that had been leftover inventory at Pollock’s, the jewelry store in Ashland where Nana now worked. I sat on the floor in the closet, holding one earring that said “Aquarius” and another that said “Sagittarius,” marveling, “She knows I am alive, she sent me mail, what is she trying to tell me?” Maybe, just maybe, she was letting me know she loved me, too.
We stayed in Marin County for two years, and I honestly don’t have any memories of my dad from that time. I don’t recall receiving a birthday gift from him or sending him a card on his birthday; I wasn’t even confident of the date. I did not have a photograph of him. There were no calls, no Christmas presents (Dad later claimed that he had sent us presents and checks—that Mom had signed and cashed—but we certainly never saw any of them). I only recall snippets of secretive sharing with other kids whose parents were divorced, whispering, “My mom and dad hate each other.” Otherwise, I guess I made myself stop thinking about him because it was too painful. Other than as a figure my mother loathed, he disappeared from my life.
Meanwhile, Mom and Sister were starting to be serious about becoming a musical duo—or at least Mom was. My sister just loved to play; with a guitar in her hands, her sense of peace was palpable. The broken and ever-changing home and troubled relationships around her faded, enabling a talented, funny, endearing young teen to emerge. It was when she could shine, be fully herself,