My Forbidden Love

The Yearly Trek

It had been an entire year since Trey and I had seen the city limits of Idabel, Oklahoma. Three hundred and sixty-five days since the last time we had seen our mother, Jennifer Lynnette Reed, for that matter. At times, it seemed as if we didn't even exist to her.

While we were babies, we were the apple of mom's eye. But all that changed in the blink of an eye. When I was eight and Grant was six, our mother exited their lives. We always assumed that we had done something that had driven her out of our lives. She had always been there before. Sure, there were times she'd been put in jail over stupid stuff, like possession of marijuana, but she always come back home.

Then there came a day that mom didn't come home. For the longest time, we just thought that maybe she had just went to see our grandparents. Around that time, it was pretty much common knowledge that Grampa's health was slowly going downhill. It was just a matter of time before he was called home to meet his maker.

As time went on, it started sinking in that mom wasn't coming back from wherever she went. Then, we started thinking less and less about her and more about the important things that had started happening in our lives.

When we started getting visits with her, were only in mom's presence for about month and a half. For most of that month and a half, we weren't exactly in her presence. Most of that time, it seemed as if the only way you'd have even known we were related to her in some way were the times that one of us were either in some sort of trouble with the authorities or in the hospital for one reason or another. The only affirmation we received that we were indeed her sons was maybe a phone call from time to time while we were at home with our dad and step mom in Blanchard, Louisiana. Hell, sometimes, especially at those times when we both needed her in our lives desperately and she wasn't there, it made lots of people wonder if she ever cared about us.

While we were babies, our mom treated us like we were a very important part of her life. But that  unfortunately drastically changed when we were really young. We were at an age when we didn't understand what had happened in our lives.

There were many things that had slowly started taking our mom away from us. We were way too young to remember exactly what had taken mom out of our lives that first time. She was gone for about six months and then, out of nowhere, she just reappeared in our lives. That continued happening until I was six and Grant was four. That was when Jennifer went to prison for six years.

After Mom had been in the prison for a couple of years, Dad received divorce documents in the mail. I was surprised, and a little shocked, when he got them. He sat us  both down to explain what was happening. Trey and I felt we had driven her away. It was common knowledge, even when we were little boys, that we were hell on wheels. But when we hoot older, Dad told us that Mom left us because that was what she wanted.

After she left prison, the only thing that changed was she came to Blanchard to get out oldest sister, Larissa and took her to Oklahoma to live with her and Larson. That was the day that the cold, hard truth started sinking in. She never cared about Trey or me. That's something she will never be able to deny.

While our mom was in the prison system in Louisiana, and shortly after she divorced Dad, she met Larson Reed. Larson had sent her a letter asking if she'd like to be pen pals while she was in prison and Mom agreed. After that, they slowly started developing a loving relationship.

Then, shortly before our mother's release from the Louisiana department of corrections, Larson proposed to her during a visit at the women's corrections center in Maiseville, LA. Mom accepted his marriage proposal. Within another month, mom was released from the prison. As soon as she was released from prison, she and Larson decided to move to Oklahoma. About two months after our mom and our soon-to-be step dad moved to Oklahoma, they were married. Although our mom and step dad got married, we didn't get to meet him until Trey and I were let out of school for summer.