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June 24, 2001

Austin American-Statesman

4,807 words

 

THE ROAD HOME


 

A mother dies and eight children confront the unknown.

What's a big brother to do?

 

By Denise Gamino

American-Statesman Staff

 

 

The green highway sign says the community of Hopkins, S.C., is three miles away.

 

Three miles until this bus stops rolling. Three miles until the road curves to a dead end. Just three more miles until Corey and Millicent Bell gamble everything for love.

 

Corey sits on the front seat of the big white bus. On the edge of the seat, really. He knows this final stretch of rural road, where tall trees caress in a canopy of shade. The soothing green cocoon nurses his butterflies.

 

He grew up here. This is home. Or what's left of it.

 

"Ladies and gentlemen," he says. "Behold the sights of Hopkins."

 

His voice, raised raw in this pocket of poverty but refined to butter in an urban law school, dips deejay deep into the bus microphone.

 

"Not a whole lot to see," he says. "Mobile home capital of the world."

 

Native pines dwarf the solitary mobile homes tucked into roadside plots. Broken cars are planted like yard gardens, growing nothing but rust. A cornfield on the left promises sweet ears. Country churches hold the deep faith of Hopkins, a low-income area of mostly African American residents in the shadow of Columbia, capital of South Carolina.

 

 "A little bit different than Round Rock, huh?" Corey says.

 

Corey, 28, and Millicent, 27, live in Round Rock. He is a team manager at Dell Computer for parts vendors; she is a freight supervisor at Dell. Both hold MBAs from the University of Tennessee, where they met four years ago and fell in love after a blind date.

 

Corey is big and gregarious and has 12 younger siblings. Millicent is petite and quiet and has one sister. But they are a perfect match. They devour movies. They have dueling Palm Pilots. They have brains to spare. They giggle like kids. And they call each other "Baby."

 

In Round Rock, they live in a new five-bedroom house in a golf club community. They just bought it. The agent's lock box is still on the porch. And the unpainted shutters are so fresh you can smell the sawdust. The telephone's not even hooked up.

 

The two-story house is spotless, just the way they like it. White walls. Soft leather sofa, love seat and recliner, all the color of creamy buttermilk. Cathedral ceilings. The electric juicer and other kitchen appliances are gleaming white. Even the trash can is white. They are meticulous enough to walk in their socks indoors to pamper the special-order tan carpet.

 

But eight more pairs of feet are about to trample that pristine carpet. Eight more sets of hands about to turn on those shiny appliances. And eight more voices about to ricochet off the white walls.

 

Just three more miles until Corey and Millicent become Instant Dad and Instant Mom.

 

Corey's brothers and sisters are orphans now. Eight of them, ages 7 to 18, have lived by themselves in a double-wide mobile home on a shoestring chicken farm.

 

It has been this way since April 9. That was their mother's 51st birthday. That was the day she died of liver cancer.

 

Their father died six years ago of a heart attack. He was only 44.

 

The Bell children need Corey and Millicent more than anything in this world. Corey saw it in their eyes after their mother died.

 

He weighed the options: Split the children among relatives. Place them in foster care. Or give up the peaceful, everything's-going-my-way life with Millicent.

Eight lives in the balance.

 

"Baby, I can't leave them," Corey told Millicent.

 

Millicent took a day to think about it. She prayed. She called some girlfriends. She pondered her wedding vows. And then she told Corey she couldn't leave them either.

 

Only 3 1/2 years of marriage. For better or for -- not worse, but  different.

 

One dream traded for another. They still want children of their own. That can come later. There are other children to raise now.

 

"Oh my God," Corey says on the bus. "My last morning of freedom!"

 

Millicent's nesting instinct kicks in right on schedule. She opens overhead bins and stashes some of the luggage, blankets and videos that litter the bus seats.

 

Corey and Millicent and five of their friends have been riding this chartered bus for two days. A bus drive across half of America converts even the most compulsively neat passengers into careless loungers.

 

"See the red-and-white chicken (sign)?" Corey asks the bus driver. "Make a left right there."

 

Corey trades places with the bus driver and gets a 30-second driving lesson. The 45-foot bus, chartered from A Big Bus company, crawls down the gravel road at 2 mph. Straight ahead are two silver chicken houses, low and long and partly covered in bright blue plastic tarps.

 

Corey tries the horn. A tentative toot, then a full-bodied blast. One more blind bend in the road hides the mobile home.

 

First out the door is Aunt Mary Lee. "That's it! That's it!" she screams to the others still inside the trailer, which is more like a small tan house with a brick facade on the lower half.

 

Aunt Mary Lee laughs and dances down the steps. She throws her arms over her head and shimmies with happiness.

 

After her, a blur of children and adults pour out of the house and spread across the patch of dirt that serves as a yard.

 

At the front of the pack is the littlest one, Cheryl. She is 7 and barefoot. She dances and jumps, then charges the bus. She's inside in an eye blink, jumping into Corey's arms. "I've missed you so much!" she says. She sees Millicent standing in the aisle a few rows back and runs to hug her.

 

Everyone's off the bus, hugging and joshing and dancing and shouting and laughing. Everyone is here. Grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, friends and neighbors. Almost 100 people.

 

But it's easy to pick out the Bell children. They look alike. Huge eyes and movie-star smiles. Almost all wear wire-rim glasses. They say "yes ma'am" and "no ma'am." "I've never seen so many people who all look like the same person," a friend once told Corey.

 

Of Corey's 12 brothers and sisters, three are in college, with loans and financial aid. Another has graduated from college and works for an engineering firm in North Carolina.

Eight Bells are moving to Texas:

 

•    Catherine, 18. She nursed her dying mother while working as a part-time secretary and attending a local technical college. Held the children together after their mother's death, making sure they got up, dressed, got to school and did chores.

 

•    Candace, 16. She's a talkative high school senior, a cheerleader and on the track team. She's a talented hair dresser who wants to be a doctor.

 

•    Charles Jr., 15. A quiet high school sophomore. Honor roll. Keen observer. Mr. Fix-It around the house, repairing faucets, electric lights, doors and more.

 

•    Cauretta, 13. Sassy ninth-grader and on the honor roll, too. Still loves teddy bears. Excellent singer. Wants to go to Howard University.

 

•    Cameron, 12. Seventh-grader who's choosy about food and clothing. Plays tuba. Wants to be a professional photographer.

 

•    Curtis, 11. Shy sixth-grader. Always helped his grandfather shovel and mow. Loves building with Legos. Wants to be a chef or an engineer.

 

•    Christina, 10. Charming fifth-grader and the only child in her class to wave from the stage during an honor roll ceremony. Wants to be a singer and super- model.

 

•    Cheryl, 7. Affectionate third-grader who plays chess. Enjoys spelling new words. Loves to be the center of attention. Wants to be a singer or comedian.

 

They are each other's best friends, but that doesn't mean they don't tick each other off.

 

Just minutes after arriving, Corey sees something he didn't want to find: Not everyone is packed up. He warned them to be ready. He is not happy.

 

The bus will leave for Texas first thing in the morning, and he wants to pack it this afternoon. He creates an assembly line, enlisting his brothers and sisters to carry the cardboard boxes from the house to the belly of the bus.

 

The boxes are a jumble of tossed clothes. One big box in the living room is filled with nothing but stuffed animals. "You can tell children did this packing," Corey says.

 

Millicent is pulled into the bedroom that five sisters shared: two bunk beds and a twin. Seven people crowd into the tight room, made smaller by a large cardboard box that Catherine is packing. She takes clothes off hangers and throws them into the box. The conversation is hard to follow, but Millicent hears it all.

 

Catherine: "Do I have a room by myself?" Millicent: "No." Christina: "Are we getting a pool?" Millicent: "No, baby." Christina: "Why not?" Millicent: "We can't pay for a pool. There's one right down the street. A community pool." Cheryl: "Will white people be in the pool?" Millicent: "Yes. There are black people and white people and Hispanic people." Cheryl: "What does Hispanic mean?" Millicent: "Well, they look kind of in between. More brown than white."

 

In the kitchen, a huge orange Thermos of Uncle George's legendary lemonade sits on the counter. The lemonade's not going to Texas, but the recipe is. Uncle George knows there will be times when these children must turn lemons into lemonade. So he shared his secrets before the bus arrived. Cameron sat on the living room floor and took notes. Uncle George brought each ingredient from the kitchen to show Cameron how to measure and mix it. He went through the process from start to finish. (His secret? Pineapple juice.)

 

Cameron, the 12-year-old, is a quiet child, but he's sensitive. He pays attention. He's alert. He guards the family recipe. And he guards his mother's belongings. After the bus comes, Cameron looks in his mother's closet one last time. He finds a black-and-cream blouse that his sister Catasha has always loved. He takes the blouse, still on its hanger, and runs outside to find his sister, who is not going to Texas. Back and forth he goes across the dirt yard.

 

"You used to wear Mama's shirt," he says. "Do you want it?"

 

Back in the house, the packing continues. Only 25 boxes can fit under the bus. Nonessential items must be left behind.

 

In the days before Corey and Millicent left Texas, their cell phones rang regularly. It was always the children, begging to bring the things that mattered most to them: Corey, can we bring Daddy's deer head? No. Why? It doesn't go with the furniture in the new house. But it's a family heirloom! No. Corey, can we bring the two green ceramic roosters? No. But Grandma made them and Mama mended them with glue when they broke. No. Corey, can we bring Mama's bed? No Corey, can we bring the clarinet? No.

Once in Hopkins, Corey gives in a bit: The girls can bring more stuffed animals. Catherine can bring Delvon, her fish. "I would have cried if he wouldn't let me bring him," Catherine said. "My mama liked my fish."

 

Corey and Millicent want a clean break for the children. They sold a three-bedroom house they had only recently built and borrowed all they could to buy the bigger house and new furniture for the children. They wrote a business plan: the Bell Family Transition. They compiled lists, schedules and timelines. Half of Corey's Dell laptop computer screen is filled with icons for transition documents.

 

In the pandemonium of packing, Corey and Millicent slip away. They hide on the bus. The enormity of their decision hits hard. There's no turning back now. They take a few minutes to fortify themselves. One deep breath.

 

Corey must say goodbye to his childhood home. The place where he watched his parents, Charles and Mildred, sacrifice all they had for their 13 children. His father, working all day as a Nabisco salesman and doing odd jobs until bedtime to make ends meet. His mother, wearing shoes with holes and taking time to make every child feel special. They were his role models, gone before their time.

 

Corey hopes he can do half the job his parents did. They insisted he get an education. Insisted he stay out of trouble. Insisted he not squander an opportunity. Those values got him to college, graduate school, law school and, two years ago, to Dell Computer Corp.

 

Now it's his time to shape values. Corey and Millicent worry about the new living expenses and medical bills. The monthly food bill alone will be $1,500-$1,800. They don't even have a car big enough for their new family. But they know they are doing what's right. Friends from their church, Shoreline Christian Center in Round Rock, already are helping.

 

"We believe God is going to bless us," Corey says. "We just want to give the kids a better life," he says. "They may never, ever understand the sacrifice Millicent is giving and the sacrifice of all our friends. They may or may not need to know the sacrifices. They just need to know it's a better life."

 

Corey doesn't want his little brothers and sisters to be chicken farmers. But the two youngest boys, Cameron and Curtis, are torn. They want to go to Texas, but they want to be able to come back to the farm someday.

 

Curtis decides to take a last look at the now-empty chicken barns, 50 yards from the house. You can smell the stomach-turning odor of chicken waste from the house, but the stink is overwhelming at the barns. "We'd go out here every morning (at 5:30 a.m.)," Curtis says. "You pick up dead chickens. You put out the feed. They get water after that. If there's a water spill or feed spill or something, we pick it up."

 

"We worked every day," he says. "We worked before school and church and all that."

 

"It's very peaceful here. And we're not selling it! I might want to come back someday and cut the grass. I've done that a whole lot."

 

On the way back from the barns, Curtis reaches into a truck and pulls out a folding chair for his grandfather Albert Bell. Curtis, the 11-year-old, is the one who always helps his granddaddy. They enjoy each other's company. But it won't last long now.

 

The Bell children have three grandparents. Granddaddy Bell is 74. Their mother's parents are Granddaddy George, 85, and Grandma Katie, 79. They are not ready to become memories. Not ready to listen to the silence or to reach for a little hand that is not there. Today they are spectators to the packing. Tomorrow they will become long-distance relations forced to communicate by code. Area code. ZIP code. But the children must go. They accept that. Give a child a chance and great things can happen. Perhaps one will grow up and be president of the United States, Corey tells people. It could happen. Anything can happen in Texas.

 

"It hurts so bad," Granddaddy Bell says. "I don't know what I'm going to do when they're gone. "Another five years, if I live, they'll be grown up so."

 

Granddaddy Bell watches Corey. He remembers the little boy who always had his nose in a book. The boy who pushed a wheelbarrow and helped him build brick houses every summer. Today he's proud. "I like to see a young man stand when it's time to stand."

 

After dinner, relatives and friends say goodbye. Most will be back in the morning. Only a few friends are still in the house at midnight. Corey asks them to leave. It's time for a private family meeting. Corey and Millicent want to talk to the children about their new life in Texas.

 

They jotted down talking points on the bus: The children must respect Corey and Millicent and the spotless new house. No feet on the walls. No jumping on the furniture. The children must do their homework and household chores to earn the trust of Corey and Millicent. The children must adjust to an ethnically diverse community.

 

Corey and Millicent figure the meeting will last only 10 minutes. But it goes on until 1:30 a.m. The children have so many questions: What will school be like? Will we get an allowance? Where is the swimming pool?

 

The family talk spins into a pep talk. Corey andMillicent promise that everyone will do just fine in Texas: They will have ambitions and work hard and achieve more than they ever dreamed they could. "We're going to shock the world," Corey says.

 

It looks like even the sky will cry today, the last day on the chicken farm. The clouds keep the heat down. The 56-passenger bus arrives at 8 a.m. and parks under the towering pines by the front porch. This is the moment of promise. The moment of dread. Nothing will ever be the same after today.

 

More than 60 people are here to say goodbye to the Bell children. Many are sleep-pinched. Corey and Millicent slept only four hours.

 

The Bell children pull pillows and comforters off their bunk beds and drag them to the bus. Now, the children's empty beds look like their mother's bed: stripped, lonesome and home to items once prized but no longer needed.

 

The Old Testament is open on her bed. Isaiah 57: "The righteous perish . . . And it will be said: 'Build up! Build up! Prepare the road! Remove the obstacles out of the way of my people.' "

 

Outside, Corey calls everyone together for one last prayer. "Dear Lord," he says, "bless this family and enlarge our territory and keep us from evil so we don't cause any pain."

 

"I'm selling tickets to Texas. $49.95," says Mark Noeth, one of the two professional bus drivers. Everyone chuckles, but the joke doesn't distract for long. Aunt Barbara's face crumples in heartbreak. Catasha, the oldest of the eight Bell daughters who lives with her baby in North Carolina, can't hold her sobs back either. Jeremy Goodwin, Curtis' best friend from up the road, stands on the porch. He looks stunned. He does not blink. He does not smile. He does not cry. He does not know how deep his pain will be tomorrow.

 

The happiest people are the three littlest Bell children. Curtis and his sisters, Christina and Cheryl, are already on the bus. Each one sits in a window seat, ready for takeoff. Christina works word puzzles in a coloring book. Cheryl has a Bible storybook. Curtis remembers that he forgot to tell his grandparents goodbye. He runs off the bus and gives his grandmother and two grandfathers one last, sweet hug. Then, he's back on the bus.

 

At 8:30 a.m. the bus door swooshes shut, and the rolling rescue mission heads for Texas. 1,254 miles away. The shouted farewells fade as the gravel farm road intersects the paved county road. Here, the bus is hijacked. A cousin in a white car pulls up and runs to the bus to say a late goodbye. Another half mile down the road, another interruption. At a red light, a silver SUV pulls in front of the bus and stops. Another cousin climbs aboard and hugs each child. "I finally found you!" she says. She tries not to cry.

 

So many goodbyes. But the most important one is up ahead. The children want to say goodbye to their mother. The bus pulls off at the cemetery. They want to do this and they don't. It's the hardest goodbye of all.

 

Cheryl carries a tiny silver balloon on a stick. It says, "Thinking of You."

 

Corey leads the way because it's hard to remember the exact spot. Two months of grass is starting to cover the grave.

 

"Happy Mother's Day," Christina says. "We love you," says Cheryl. Everyone else speaks in silence. They want their mother to know where they are going. They know she would approve.

 

Ten minutes later they are back on the bus. No more quick stops. The kids plug in "Home Alone 3," a movie they could write from experience.

 

Catherine's cell phone rings. It's a local young man who wants to be her boyfriend. But she is picky. She's never had a boyfriend. The guys she knows just want to go places. Movies. Dinner. Bed. She wants someone to get to know her. Someone to share long talks. Someone to spread a blanket for a picnic. Catherine thinks this might be the one.

 

Cheryl and Christina lap hop. Corey and Millicent are favorite targets. "Christina," Corey says. "Who's No.1?" "God," she says. "Then who? "Mama and Daddy." "Then who?" "Corey." "And Millicent," he reminds her.

 

Bus drivers have laps, too. And Cheryl and Christina find them. "Oh, your hair is so soft!" Chris-tina tells driver Noeth, who's in the front-row relief chair. She pulls it all to the top of his head and pretends to make a ponytail.

 

The younger children have questions for the other bus driver, John Lahmon: Where are we? How big is Texas? How many South Carolinas would fit into Texas? How many theme parks in Texas? How do you drive this bus? What are all those buttons for?

 

Cheryl holds a new diary. So far, it says: "I am going to move to Texas and I am going to have fun. I am going upstairs first, and I am going to check out the bathroom and I am going to check my room and lay on my bed. And I am going to stair at my house and sence we have white carpet, I have to take my shoes off at the door."

 

After nearly 12 hours on the road, the family stops for dinner at Cracker Barrel in West Monroe, La. When Christina and Cameron pick up a wind-up toy in the gift shop, their sister Carla tells them to put it down. "Remember what Mama says: 'If you're not going to buy it, you can't play with it.' "

 

Carla is 21 and she's coming to Texas for the summer to help out. She's on summer break from college in Florida, where she's a senior in music technology and business.

It's dark after they eat, and the little ones drift off to sleep with their pillows and blankets and stuffed animals. Up front, Cameron sits alone. He's been quiet on the ride. Now he confesses he's afraid.

 

"I'm scared people won't like me," he says. "And that they'll hate me because of the color of my skin and that I won't fit in. "I might have nice neighbors. But I don't know about school." In Hopkins, he says, "I was always safe."

 

Rowdy laughter interrupts from the back rows. The older brothers and sisters play cards, shrieking like they're on a roller coaster. Their discussion topic: irreverent family impersonations. Who keened and wailed at their mother's funeral? Who has the funniest laugh? Corey brings down the house with his arm-waving, foot-stomping imitations of relatives who laugh with their whole bodies.

 

Candace just listens. She sits alone and weaves extensions of braids into her hair. She spent her last hours in South Carolina fixing the hair of all of her sisters. Now, it's midnight and she realizes her hair won't be ready by morning. When the card game is over, she goes to sleep, too.

 

At 4 a.m., Millicent sits up. The bus is nearing Round Rock and she can't stop making to-do lists. Corey is asleep, but he told the bus drivers to delay arrival until daybreak.

 

At 4:15 a.m., the bus pulls into a highway rest stop just inside the Round Rock city limits. After 20 hours, there is another hour and a half to kill. To Corey, the timing is not right. It's June 9, two months to the day after their mother died. She died at 4:12 a.m. on April 9. Corey doesn't want to arrive at that time. This day must not be another sad anniversary. This day must be a new beginning, with sunshine.

 

Corey and Millicent huddle on the sidewalk, oblivious to diesel fumes from idling trucks. Their friends who have made the long bus trip with them, Felecia Matthews and Stacey Lee, are full of child-rearing tips. Where to eat on the cheap. Free Austin activities for kids. How to stay in control. How to be humble.

 

Millicent hums a Shania Twain song, "From This Moment On."

 

     From this moment life has begun

     From this moment you are the one

     Right beside you is where I belong

     From this moment on.

 

As the light changes in the sky, Corey and Millicent excuse themselves. They sit alone on a brick wall near a Texas tourism display. Their last private moment.

The children are waking up. It's time to go. Corey doesn't even sit down for the home stretch. He stands up front, eyes on the road. "Waltz Across Texas" on the bus radio serenades the newcomers.

 

"Hey, wake them up back there," Corey shouts. "Y'all, we're here!"

 

The children sit up and blink back sleep. No one says a word. Their eyes are too busy looking at every tree, every store, every billboard. Texas doesn't look like South Carolina. The trees are not as tall. And there aren't as many of them. There's no "Honk if You Love Pork Chops" billboard like back home. But different is not bad.

 

The children crane their necks as the bus passes the Round Rock Express baseball diamond. Cameron is the first to say something: "There's the elementary school. So we must live close!"

 

The bus turns on the Bells' street. Corey makes one last announcement on the bus microphone. "See how the houses are so close together? No ghetto fabulousness as you come out the (bus) door."

 

The affluent Forest Creek neighborhood is asleep at 6:30 a.m. The bus stops in front of a stone-and-brick house with a yard as green as a South Carolina spring. A big arched window on the second floor gives it an aristocratic feel.

 

The children's stunned eyes ask: Is this really our house? A lawn. A sidewalk. Flower beds and pink and yellow blooms. A three-car garage. And a "Welcome Home" balloon on the front door.

 

It's more than enough to bring Cauretta to life after her cross-country sleeping jag. She's the first to peek in a window: "Hey, there's furniture in there!"

 

But the house is locked, and Corey and Millicent can't find a key. Luckily, one of their friends is inside cooking a celebratory breakfast for the family. She lets the children in and the smell of bacon out.

 

"Take off your shoes!" the kids remind each other. And the race to explore begins: Into the airy living room, hands touching the soft leather couch. A quick survey of the kitchen. A glance out the back door at the neighbors behind them. Then up the stairs to their rooms.

 

The boys find theirs first. "This is my bed!" Cameron says. He spreads his arms and jumps into the air, coming down, face first, in a spread-eagle landing on the bed. He bounces back up, says it again: "This is my bed!" He repeats the swan dive two more times. He knows it's his because a sage green towel monogrammed with his name is on the bed.

 

Cauretta finds a personalized towel on her bed, too. She picks it up and hugs it. "C-A-U-R! C-A-U-R! They spelled it right! No one ever spells Cauretta right!"

 

Friends of Corey and Millicent stocked the rooms after the bus left for South Carolina. A table in the game room is piled high with board games, videos, puzzles. Gift baskets in the bathrooms are stuffed with toothbrushes, bubble bath, soaps and toiletry trinkets.

 

The children run and run and run. They check everything out. Every child has a towel. Every child has a smile. Every child has a new dream.

 

They have been home for three hours now. And they are comfortable. Carla props her arms on the balcony, as if she's done it a million times, and talks to her boyfriend on the phone. Catherine plants herself sideways on the big, soft armchair in the living room and talks to some teen-agers she's just met, children of friends checking on Corey and Millicent. Candace collapses on her bed, hemmed in by piles of folded clothes she doesn't have the energy to hang up. Cauretta takes a shower.

 

In the garage, Charles Jr. and Cameron investigate how to fix the flat tire on Corey's bicycle so they can explore the neighborhood. Curtis chases toy airplanes around the house with two little boys he's just met, grandchildren of more friends who are here to help Corey and Millicent. Christina lines up her shoes along the back wall of her bedroom closet.

 

Millicent stands at the bottom of the stairs, touching the banister for support. She watches all the commotion and people in a house that 72 hours ago sat still as a 3,600-square-foot model showroom. She smiles.

 

And on the dining room floor, Corey stretches out for a quick rest. But Cheryl can't resist such an easy target. She crawls on his stomach and kisses his face. Again. And again. And again. She is happy enough to never stop.

 

You may contact Denise Gamino at (512) 445-3675 or dgamino@statesman.com.

 

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PHOTOS:

 

When Corey Bell's brothers and sisters were orphaned, he knew he had to help. After a long trip from Round Rock, Corey, above right, greets his brother Charles Jr. and the rest of the family at their South Carolina farm. At top, Corey's sister Cheryl, 7, keeps a diary, just like her mother used to do.

 

Since their mobile home has no air conditioning, the Bells take a break during packing to cool off with Uncle George's famous lemonade, the recipe for which they'll carry to their new home. Although it's almost time to leave, packing is not yet complete, and only 25 boxes will fit in the underbelly of the big bus they'll take to Texas.

 

Corey's wife, Millicent, had met Cameron, 12, Cheryl and the other children only a few times before she agreed to take them in. But she's been a big part of their lives since she married Corey. She keeps track of their birthdays in her Palm Pilot.

 

The younger Bell children are the most excited to begin the journey. After eagerly jumping on the bus, Christina, 10, and Curtis, 11, don't look back during the 1,254-mile trip to Texas.

 

Even with a big bus, there isn't room for the children to take everything they want to Texas. Cameron, who played in the school band in South Carolina, has to leave his tuba behind.

 

Relatives and friends gather to see the Bells off. Corey is the last one on the bus that will take him away from his childhood home.

 

It's a bittersweet day, especially for the children's grandparents. Granddaddy George, 85, tips his hat from his chair, and behind him, Grandma Katie gives her last wave. Granddaddy Bell leans against the brick wall as he says goodbye.

 

Before leaving South Carolina, the Bells stop at the cemetery to say goodbye to their mother, Mildred, who died from liver cancer two months ago. Even though she raised 13 children, the Bells say she made each of them feel like an only child.

 

The children have plenty of questions for the drivers of the chartered bus. While Curtis finds out from John Lahmon how the bus's cruise control works, Cheryl asks Mark Noeth about life in Texas -- and whether he has a swimming pool.

 

Now that the planning and packing are over and the trip is under way, serious, detail-oriented Corey can finally blow off some steam. He and his brothers Cameron, center, and Charles Jr. crack each other up during a late night card game.

 

In Round Rock -- finally! -- It's time to celebrate. And for the Bells, who all love to sing, that mean music. After exploring every room of the new house, Cauretta, left, Catherine and the other kids hook up the stereo.

 

A few hours after the family's arrival in Round Rock, Cheryl is feeling right at home in her new house, just as Corey feels at home in his new role. Although he's a father figure now, Corey doesn't want the children to call him Dad. Cheryl, who was a toddler when their father died, is happy to keep calling her big brother Corey -- and to have him to cuddle.

 

The Bells' new life begins. Corey isn't worried about how his siblings will adapt to a new state and a new home. With the loss of their parents, they've already faced the worst, he says. Now they have the strength for whatever lies ahead.

 

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