Laugh Until We Cry-A Short Story

For a change of pace, I decided to participate in the Write and Link party hosted by Natalia at In the Writers Closet. I bet I haven't written a short story in 29 years since my last college writing course, but her idea to post  a line to include, and then build a story, once a month for 8 months, post and then link to her site seemed like a good outlet for any creative blood I might have left running through my veins.  Here goes...
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I knew things were going to be tough. It would be three weeks until I would see my first paycheck, but I knew even stronger that Katie and I needed this day. Katie needed to be able to see that her mom could have fun, enjoy life, and not be mired in the worry and fear the last 12 months had been in Minneapolis. I took the job, managing a gated apartment community in Orlando, hoping the perpetual sunshine would brighten the darkness that had been in my heart. I had $500 in cash left after paying off bills, then I cancelled all the credit cards except the one in my name only. A few friends called me foolish moving across the country with a 12 year old, to take a minimal paying job, even if it came with a two bedroom, two bath apartment. It wasn't as if John beat us they said. He just has a loose temper, and his mouth and fists get the better of him. But how long I wondered before the verbally abusive outbursts when he was angry would turn to violence. They did before with three different neighbors, college pool players in a bar, and the last incident with the off duty police officer who tried to calm things down when John went off at a man at the beach for backing into our cooler, knocking over both beers John had opened. When John and I met in high school, he made me laugh so hard I would cry. Now, the crying part remains, but the laughter hasn't been heard in a long time. I took the opportunity while John would be serving three months for assault, to make my change.

This was a fresh start, in a new place. A place I loved going on vacation when I was a child, and then again later, as a teen. They were just building the Universal Studios Islands of Adventure theme park the last time I was there, over 17 years earlier and always wanted to go back once it was open. A dinosaur fan since my preschool years, the Jurassic Park Island was what I looked forward to the most. I loved that movie, seeing it no less than a dozen times as a kid and teen. Later, I would lie with Katie and tell her names and facts about all the dinosaurs. Katie wanted to know each time why I didn't become a paleontologist since I knew more than anyone about dinosaurs. How do you tell a child that 17 year old teen mom's rarely get to go to college, let alone become paleontologists? Instead I would say, easy-I became a mom instead. I carefully hid $200 of my stash away in the new apartment that we were allowed to move in a few days before starting the job, and took the rest to purchase two amusement park passes. The rest went to pay for parking and one meal, with just enough left to stop at a gas station to top of the tank and buy some cheaper snacks to make it through the day.

Katie and I poured over the map of the park planning out our route. We wanted to do the wetter rides late morning so we would have time to dry while having a mid-day meal, but that would mean a lot of back and forth over the park. Instead, we opted to start with the Jurassic Park area to make sure we got through everything we most wanted to do. There was a river ride that looked like it was going to be sort of a reenactment of the tour in the Jurassic Park movie. We waited for our turn to board the boats, and once we did, I felt younger than Katie sitting there. It was beautiful, calming, and fantastic all at once. I knew it was just an amusement park ride, but I let myself fall into the spell of pretend, and was completely transported to Isla Sorna. I felt delight inside with each animal we saw, including my favorite parasaurolophus. His lovely duckbill and calling to his friends was right out of my childhood daydreams. . I saw danger was soon to come, with the "wreck" of a boat ahead of us. Little compy dinosaurs, tiny but vicious, were fighting over gear. The boat was taking a wrong turn, and heading up a long conveyor belt. I wanted to look but I also had some real fear. I grabbed Katie's hand, and shut my eyes for a moment. I opened my eyes. It was pitch dark around me. It was only totally dark for a split second, and then we were surrounded by velociraptors. I instinctively put my arms around Katie and held her tight. I was shaking and laughing at the same time with a mix of real fear, and totally abandonment of real life. The boat went around a corner, and there he was. The T-Rex's head was larger than the whole boat. We moved closer and closer until his giant mouth open in a huge roar, and we plunged forward, down, down, down, until the boat splashed in the water below. The adrenaline rush was magnificent. Katie held my hand saying oh my god, oh my god over and over again, laughing and in tears.

We did that ride twice more, and also managed to fit in just about everything else until the final gates were ready to close the park for the night. We drove home talking and laughing about the day. We stumbled into our apartment, cluttered with boxes, around 8:00. We were sweaty and stinky, so both took a quick shower before I looked through the remains of our road trip rations we used while on the road and trying to preserve money on the drive from Minnesota. I was able to pull together a late supper of sliced apples, pretzel sticks, and peanut butter. We had managed to get our beds set-up and made, so after sending Katie to bed, I too took to my bed, notebook in hand, and started planning out a grocery and household must have list, and planned how I was going to stretch our remaining dollars and not be forced to use the credit card. I also made a list of things I wanted to do with Katie in our new home. On the top of the sheet, in bold letters I wrote, LAUGH UNTIL WE CRY.