Martina's Diary Part 2

October 17, 1971

         “Hello,” she said, smiling a big, bright smile that lit up the area
around her.
         “Hello, what’s your name?” I asked her.
         “Angela Heart, what’s yours?”
         “Martina, Martina Barton. Where’s your mother?”
         “I wondered when you would ask,” she said, smiling, “She’s in the
store,”
she told me, gesturing to the Wal*Mart Super Center behind her.
         “Ah,” I said, a little confused. She wondered when I would ask? Why
would she wonder that? She didn’t know me, why was she trying to judge what kind
of person I was? She was right though. I did wonder why she was alone, out here
on the street, and dressed so nicely. What kind of city did she think this was?
Definitely not one where little children walked alone down town.
          Suddenly I became aware that I was staring at her oddly, almost glaring
in her my annoyance. But my annoyance wasn’t with this girl, it was with what
society had become.
         “Well then, what do you say we go find her.” It wasn’t a question.
         “Alright, that would be fine,” her small hand reached up trustingly for mine.
         Surprised by the act of trust, I accepted her hand and led her into the
store. By this time, the braces on her legs were forgotten.
         As I held her small hand, an overwhelming sense of rightness came over
me. Walking through the doors, I saw a woman who looked vaguely familiar. 
         “Mommy, here I am,” Angela yelled.
         “Oh, thank goodness,” the woman who I had been looking at mumbled,
“Honey, you have to stop doing that, running off like that and not telling me
where you’re going. It scared me.”
         Bowing her head and looking at her shoes she whispered, “Sorry, mommy.”
         I stepped back, not wanting to intrude too much into this rather private
moment.
         “I’m terribly sorry, this doesn’t usually….” She trailed off as she
looked at me, “Marty? Is that you?”
         “Bobbie Mae?”
         “Oh my word, it’s really you!” she threw her arms around me, gripping me
tightly, as if I were a life line.
         “I was going to try to find you, but I haven’t really had much time,”
she said apologetically, looking fondly at her daughter.
         “Oh please don’t apologize; I should have kept in contact after we
graduated. I know I said some things………”
         “That doesn’t matter now anyway. That was then, this is now, and now is
going to be just fine.” Putting one arm around me, and the other around Angela,
I grabbed her momentarily forgotten groceries, and we all walked out together.