Goats Milk

Mom was taking us to the LA County Fair with her new boyfriend. I had a hard time thinking of him as her boyfriend. He was 18 years her senior and someone we used to have game night with, at his house, with his wife.

It was not very clear to me how grown up relationships worked. Mom had only had one boyfriend since the divorce and he had 5 daughters close to my age so that seemed appropriate.  Her new boyfriend had grown up kids and grey hair. When he was appearing at our house every morning to have coffee with my Mom I assumed they were having bible study or something. When it became apparent that they were much more then study buddies I had no idea how to feel so I just numbed it out.

This outing to the fair was the first joint outing with us and the new guy. He had always been pretty fun to be around and he was pretty funny so I did not completely dread the trip but I was definitely in the "UNCOMFORTABLE" zone. The first part of the day was fun, we walked around and looked at the exhibits and ate cotton candy. Then it was time for lunch and we all ordered and sat outside to eat. At that point both my sister and I had not spent much of our allowance. We had saved allowance for quite some time so that we could have money to spend that day. After we were done eating he stood up and said,

"I bet you that if I drink this pint of goat's milk I will be able to jump higher then this building."

We started at him. I asked how much. He said all our money if we lost and he would double it if we won. The dollar signs formed in my eyes and I did not hesitate. I figured it was some sort of joke and that he was just finding a cute way to give us some extra cash, you know, try to impress us. I gave my money to my Mom to hold but my sister paused. My Mom said,

"Now think about what he is saying..."

It just didn't register for either of us.

Reluctantly my sister handed over her small wad of cash.

The next part happened so fast I thought I missed it. He drank the goats milk in one swig and took a very small hop then grabbed the money out of my Mom's hand. We stood there in silence. In that moment I knew a few things about the new guy.

1. He was an asshole

2. He knew it

3. He was going to marry my mother

After a pause my mom said,

"Girls, a building can't jump."

We looked at each other, disbelief crossing our faces, disappointment, anger. My sister took off, just walked away. She was gone so fast I didn't see her go or I like to think I would have followed her. From that moment on the day was very grey. We searched all over and then they gave up. I did not give up, my eyes were darting so quickly around  the crowd it made my head spin. My stomach hurt, I was fighting back tears. Where had she gone? Why don't they report it somewhere? Would life ever be the same again?

Eventually we found her. We were quiet in the car on the way home.

Photo by theCarol