The long brown envelopes Mama kept sending me to the mail box for finally arrived, but not before she had to find other ways to feed us. She'd come home from work and dump change out of her pockets. Nickels, dimes, and sometimes quarters. But we still ate a lot of macaroni and cheese. For a long time I thought I'd never eat it again.

One night help seemingly arrived, in the form of a handsome Cherokee Indian. I don't know where Mama found him and his armloads of groceries, but we ate better than we had, in a long, long time.

One day Mama was gone next door. I was somewhere in the house, and the next thing I knew I was on a bed, under the big Indian, and he was pulling my panties off. The only thing that kept him from raping me was the sound of my Mother's footsteps at the door. I can still remember the hot, sour smell of his breath. I was so afraid, but he wouldn't let me go. I tried telling Mom how he held me down. Maybe she didn't understand, but my Aunt did, and she took me home with her. After a while I was back with my Grand Ma again.

Uncle Bill was drafted, and went to Germany to fight. Granny would get letters from him with big sections cut out. When I asked why, she said those parts were censored. When I asked what censored meant, she said Uncle Bill shouldn't write about when he might come home, or where we lived. I couldn't see it hurt to tell anybody we were way off out in the backwoods, a long ways from Houston.

After my father joined the Navy, I seldom saw him. Years later when I did, he talked about being part of the D Day Invasion of Normany, like he had done a great thing.
I understood that we had to win the war, but if he'd stayed home, he could have been my hero. I needed him to be a hero for me.