Buying Roller Skates at The Mall

Its about 1980 and I'm about 8 years old living with my birth mother and my Step Father. It's been a number of months that I am not sure of anymore since my new Step Father kidnapped me from the playground in Minnesota. My Dad and my siblings are still living in Minnesota. They are kinda living on the lamb. My mother knows the town they live in but not their address and I will never tell.

We lived in a house that my Step Father had owned for years. He had lived there with his first wife who had died of cancer about a year before he met my mother and there were still many of her things in the house. I think that really bothered my mother but I found her things fascinating. They had been posted all over the world, my Step Dad was in the Air Force. They collected very cool things, he gave me some of them.

His house had two bedrooms and one and a half baths upstairs and the basement was unfinished. When I went down there I saw the perfect skating rink, but I didn't own any skates. They say the opposite of love is not hate it is indifference. My mother was generally indifferent to me, but she was trying to make a good impression on her new husband so when I asked for roller skates she took me to the mall to buy skates.

It was Springtime sunny and beautiful but there was still a little chill in the air so I put on my Members Only jacket and away we went. I was pretty excited, try to remember the mall was cool in 1980. We were going to get lunch in the food court and ice cream. As we turned into the parking lot I saw my Dad's car and I was convinced beyond any doubt that my Dad and my siblings were in that mall. I was determined to see them. I had no idea why they were there, but I was hoping that if I could find them they would take me with them back to Minnesota. I made a plan to find them.

First step was to ditch my mother. That wasn't too hard I just took off in the opposite direction and ducked into a store and hid in the clothes rack. She wasn't trying very hard to find me really so when she went the other way I slipped out and headed directly to the sewing store because that was my sisters favorite store. I did a thorough search and when I didn't find her I headed to the sporting goods store because that was my oldest brother's favorite store. By now I'm really hoping that I haven't missed them. I searched with just a little more urgency and came up empty. Next I went to the arcade, That was my other brother's favorite place. Of course it was dark and loud but after a couple rounds through the place I was sure he wasn't in there. I came out of there quite upset, in my little mind my family had been there and I had missed them. I hadn't seen them since the morning of the day I was kidnapped from the playground and I really missed them,

So I walk out of the arcade all dejected and right into my mother. She wasn't very happy with me. We went and got the skates and then lunch, but no ice-cream. I had after all ditched her. As we walked out of the mall into the bright sun and the chilly spring air I was angry. I was angry at myself for not being able to find them and as always I was angry at her for making me live with her in the first place. And I was very sad knowing that they had been that close and I had missed them.

When we got to the the car, the one my dad had bought her before the divorce, she used the key(this is a few years before key fobs) and unlocked my door, she had the roller skates. As I climbed in the door I saw my dad step out from behind the van parked next to us. He had a key in his hand and was headed to the drivers door. I don't know when my mom saw him but she started trying to pull me back out of the car. That was not going to happen. I started kicking at her and when I landed a good one she stepped back and I closed the door and locked it, my dad meanwhile slipped in closed his door and started the car with his key and off we went. My mother was left holding the roller skates and I was now the happiest 8 year old in the world.

We went to a large equipment dealership where Dad regularly bought parts for his logging equipment. He parked in the parking lot and we got out of the car and got into the car of my Dad's best friend. I was talking about a mile a minute asking a million questions and then I realized we were not going towards Minnesota. At first I thought we were get my siblings but finally I had to ask where we were going. My dad is a man of few words, his answer was one word. Washington. I was fine with that, I was with my Dad and all was right in the world.

When we got close to the Wyoming border we stopped and my dad told me to get on the floor, so I did. His friends car was a station wagon, there was some blankets and some garbage in the back. They piled blankets and garbage on me so it just looked like the driver was a slob. Then we took off again. There was a checkpoint at the border, but they were looking for a man and a little girl, not two men in a totally different kind of car.

After that my dad's friend took us to a distant relatives house where we spent the night. I have no idea if they knew ahead of time what was going on and agreed to help or not but they did help. And after dinner when the news was on there was no question about what had happened. There my mother was on tv, still holding the roller skates in the mall parking lot. Pretty much every word out of her mouth was a lie. She lied about my dad, she lied about me and my siblings and I'm not sure I ever forgave her for that five minutes she spent in front of that camera. For many years I had to deal with people who recognized me from that story, who thought what she said was true. Some would bring it up and ask questions, others would just get a look on their face that made it clear they knew who I was. I hated it so much, when I was 17 I moved to the West Coast where no one ever did that again.

The next morning the relatives drove us to the house of one of my Dad's old friends where we stayed the night. There are not a lot of air ports in Wyoming, but the next morning he drove us to one of them. It was tiny and so was the plane which I found very exciting.

We flew to Seattle where my siblings were waiting. We had a nice vacation and then went home together to Minnesota and I went back to the school I had been kidnapped from in the winter.

Oh and as a side note, my dad flew to South Dakota, he didn't drive his car, I didn't see it as we pulled in to the mall. But the fact that I thought I did made a huge difference. When my Dad stepped out from behind that van I was not surprised. It was what I was hoping for.

Thank you for taking the time to read my little story.