A homeless teen mom abandons her newborn twin babies so they can have a better future, but years later she comes back into their lives in an unexpected way.
Tandy Freebody was just sixteen but she already knew how hard life could be. She’d been born into a dysfunctional family in which her father drank too much to feed his children, and her mother prayed too much to raise them.
So Tandy grew up in the uncertain world of one trailer park after another, in the strange nomadic community of the hopeless and the dispossessed, until even the little she had was taken away from her.
For illustration purposes only. | Source: Unsplash
Like so many girls like her, Tandy was hungry for affection and approval, so when a tall smiling boy told her by the fireside on a long autumn night that he loved her, she believed him.
Later, when she discovered that she was pregnant, she was horrified. The God of her mother was a terrifying being who offered condemnation instead of consolation, so she couldn’t even pray.
She tied scarves around her belly to try and push in the growing signs of her sin, but one day her mother suddenly looked at her, and for the first time actually SAW her.
“Tandy Halloran Freebody!” she screamed. “What have you done?” Stella Freebody was a woman who knew that sin had to be scrounged out of the weak, so she picked up her husband’s belt.
She advanced on Tandy with the belt held high. “I’ll beat the devil’s spawn out of you!” But Tandy was already backing away towards the trailer door, her hands over her belly.
“No, mama!” she cried. “You’ll hurt the baby!”
For illustration purposes only. | Source: Unsplash
“How dare you, you sinner!” Stella cried, but Tandy had already glimpsed her mother’s purse on the counter by the door, and in a swift movement she grabbed it and ran.
Tandy didn’t stop running until she got to the bus terminal. She went into the toilets and locked herself into a stall before she opened her mother’s purse. Three hundred dollars. Mom must have been paid for her cleaning work.
Three hundred dollars wasn’t a lot, but it would get her to New York. In New York, she’d heard Old Sam say, you could be anything you wanted, and if you had talent, you grabbed your spot.
Old Sam had been a country singer once upon a time. He’d taught Tandy...
