Love's Journey- Makaila's Story

by Sherell Lynn

  “Nonsense, I live to serve. If you walk out that door right now, without getting the help you are seeking, then I have not only failed you, but this whole community. Come step into my office and let me help you.”

  “Okay.”

  Ms. Brenda then walked around the desk and placed her hands around my shoulders. We walked together into a hallway that had several doors. We approached a door that had Brenda Newman Washington, Director on it. She took her hands off my shoulders and unlocked the door.

  We entered in the room and she switched on the lights. Ms. Brenda directed me to have a seat on the chair that was on the side of the room adjacent from her desk.

  “Bella, tell me what brings you here.” Her eyes gazed into mine with genuine concern.

  “Where do I begin?” I said, trying to stall for more time. I knew that I had to tell her something. I wasn’t naïve enough to think that I could just say I needed help and poof, it would happen. I looked over at Ms. Brenda who was patiently waiting for me to open up. Okay, here goes nothing.

  “I am running away from my husband. I met him when I was sixteen. We later became a couple when I was eighteen. I spent about eight years taking his physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. Before the last couple of years, he would force himself on me. Even after I started bleeding down there, he kept going, until he was finally able to get off. I knew if I stayed, he would have killed me. One day, I looked at myself in the mirror and didn’t even recognize who I saw. My physical appearance was battered. I had bruises on every inch of my body. Love marks were what he called it.

  It didn’t concern him that I looked like a rag doll that was tossed to the side. He never let me go anywhere without him by my side. He didn’t want people to take notice of me. That gave him even more free rein to do what he pleased. It didn’t hurt that we never stayed in one place for too long either. He had total control over me. I had no one but him. One day, I had a wake-up call. I don’t know why it took me so long to see that I deserved better. At that moment, all his threats of killing me if I left him didn’t matter. I was going to die anyway if I stayed. Every beating I took from him got worse than I ever could have imagined.

  There were times when I knew I’d had too much blood loss and passed out only to wake up lost and confused. There had also been broken bones and miscarriages. I was always in so much pain. I was tired of being sick and tired. One day, while he was taking a shower, I left and never looked back. While living on the streets has been hard, I’d rather have this life than that.”

  By the time I finished my story I was in tears. Reliving the memories of the not so distant past had broken me down again.

  There were parts of my story that I didn’t divulge, fearful that she would turn me in to the authorities. They would lock me up and throw away the key. We didn’t live in a time when it was an eye for an eye, but even death seemed too sweet for Chris.

  “Wow!” Ms. Brenda said with tears in her eyes as well. “I’m amazed at the woman you are today. It took real courage to come here. Thank you for sharing your story with me. You have certainly been through a lot. I can promise you that he will never know you were here. He will never hurt you again.”

  I smiled back at her. Knowing just how true her words really were. He would never hurt me again. I made sure of that. No one could ever know the truth. I would take that secret to my grave. For the rest of the day we went over the logistics of where I would live and what other services she was going to help me with. I had told her about Mr. Garett and how he had helped me when I first came to town. I gave her some of the details of how he was a homeless vet who had given me more purpose to live. She agreed to help him as well. I insisted that we were a package deal, so I wanted him to live with me.

  After our talk, we got in her car and rode around town. She showed me a few properties that were available in the area. I would have taken the first house I saw, but she thought I needed to have choices. I had not been able to decide on anything in my life. Decisions had always been made for me. I suspected she knew that.

  8

  Today was move-in day for me and Mr. Garett. I for one was truly grateful for Ms. Brenda and everything she had been able to do for us in such a short timeframe. She kept telling me that it was her job to help others. She really was being humble. She had done so much more than that though. In the few days that I had known her, not only did she find a home for us to rent, but she also got Mr. Garett in touch with people that assisted veterans. They offered to help him with any and everything he needed.

  I was ecstatic. Today I was able to take a key and unlock a door to my future. That was what this house symbolized to me—a new start. We had been gifted a two-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bathroom townhome. This was the best day of my life so far.

  “Are you ready for this, Mr. Garett?

  “Oh, I’m more than ready, Bella. I can’t believe it! There isn’t going to be anymore living under a bridge for us. I don’t know how to thank you enough for having the strength and courage to want more than what we had.”

  “No thanks is necessary. In fact, I should thank you. You are part of the reason I wanted this. I needed a place that we could go to get out of the rain and have shelter from the sun. Hell, having air conditioning is a blessing by itself!”

  I truly meant every word. Life is about moving forward and I for once was happy. I turned to him and took in his big, powerful frame. I just had to give him the biggest hug. If he had, had the chance, he would have been a great dad.

  “I think you should take the room with the half bath. It’s bigger and the half bath gives you time to handle your business in your own closed proximity,” I say, laughing and looking up at him.

  He took a step back from our embrace. “That is not gonna happen, young lady. I know how you women get with all the little girly things laying around. You need a bathroom of your own for all your stuff. I will happily take the smaller bedroom. Besides, I don’t plan on living with you forever. While I appreciate all of this, there is going to be a time where you find a young man to spend the rest of your life with.” I shook my head to disagree and started to speak, but he shut me down again.

  “Walk with me,” he said. He led me up the stairs and down the hallway. We walked into the first room. He searched through it and walked into the half bath. He stepped out of the half bath, “Yep, just as I thought. This room screams Bella. I’m an old man. I don’t need to hear you coming in and out the house. With this room being so close to the stairs and the front door, I am sure you can hear everything. I don’t need all that extra noise. Plus, there is a lot of light in here. I don’t need all of that either. I want the room towards the back.”

  So, the decision was made. His excuses did not make sense, but I guess I was taking the front bedroom with the half bath. After that wonderful debacle, we took in the rest of the house. The movers were coming in the next hour to bring all the stuff Ms. Brenda had taken me to pick out and purchase. Just as we were done with our walk-through, visualizing where everything might go, the door bell rung. It was the movers and they were in and out in no time. We now had slightly new furniture for every room.

  I loved the way we got the living room set up. The couches were royal blue, which was a nice pop of color to go with the white walls. I added yellow, blue, grey, and white chevron pillows for comfort and an elegant design style. We also got a large dark grey area rug to cover up the laminate tile. On the walls were various black and white photos of flowers. My favorite was a large silver mirror, rectangle frame with a picture of lilies. The windows were outlined with black sheer curtains, which matched the three-piece glass end tables with black table legs. It was beautiful.

  Each room I personally designed. Ms. Brenda seemed to be impressed with my taste in style. Throughout our shopping, she kept saying I had missed my calling. I rolled my eyes and told her you can’t really miss something you never got a chance to have. Looking around my fully decorated house, I would now have to agree with her. Since I had a
lways loved the beach, I saw it fitting to bring the beach to my bathroom. Beautiful aquamarines and sea greens swam across the walls. I also added touches of brown and gold to complete the look. I continued with the beach theme in my half bath as well.

  The colors for the kitchen were ruby red and midnight black, with appliances to match. In Mr. Garett’s room, I used lots of navy blue and deep browns. The colors complemented his dark wood bedroom set. He seemed to like it and thought it was masculine enough for his taste. For my room, I decided to paint the walls grey and have my bedroom furniture white. My sheets and curtains were both champagne pink. I felt my room was romantic and dreamy. It was exactly what I wanted.

  We had just had dinner on our new modern farmhouse table when my cell phone began to ring. Yeah, I know I am bragging, but guess what? Life was wonderful at the moment. Life hadn’t been this good since well…since never. I saw that it was Ms. Brenda calling me and I immediately answered.

  “Hello,” she responded. “Hey, Bella, is this a good time?”

  “Yes, ma’am, it’s perfect. What’s up?”

  “Well, I have some good news for you. I have reached out to a few of my contacts and have found you a job if you agree to it. But before you start working, I want you to have a physical exam. I know since you have been in such an extremely abusive relationship you haven’t been to see a doctor. Eight years is a long time to go without a checkup, especially after all you have went through, so if you don’t mind, we can get that done for you tomorrow.”

  I was shocked. This woman was truly a guardian angel.

  I was beyond grateful. I had to ask what kind of job position was lined up. She informed me that it was for a local up-and-coming catering company. The owner, whose name was Ava Anderson, wanted to meet me on Monday for a preliminary interview to make sure I was a right fit for her company. That gave me about a week to finish getting our home together. That also gave me time to get this physical done. Before hanging up, Ms. Brenda let me know she would be by in the morning to pick me up and take me to my appointment.

  As promised, Ms. Brenda’s car was outside first thing the following morning. I was already dressed and ready to go. We reached the medical center at a quarter til nine. I didn’t know if it was just me, but the clock on the wall seemed to tick louder and louder the longer we sat there waiting. “Are you nervous?” Ms. Brenda asked me.

  “No. Why do you say that?”

  “Well, you have been tapping your leg and biting your nails since we sat down.”

  Before I could answer, the nurse came out and called my name. I knew I was never gonna be able to walk back there by myself. I didn’t even have to ask Ms. Brenda to join me. She was already up and out of her seat before I could even open my mouth to speak.

  On one hand, I was scared to know what the years of abuse had done to me. On the other hand, I wanted to know just how bad of a beating my body had endured. I cursed myself for thinking I wanted proof of the abuse. I guess in a way I wanted to be able to justify what I had to do to Chris. I wanted to prove that my pain was real, that it really was life or death. I had to see that killing him was a necessary means to an end; in order to save myself.

  9

  We emerged from the doctor’s office hours later. The visit wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The hardest part was the waiting. After having blood work, X-rays, sonograms, an EKG, MRI, a body CT, a pap smear, and a few other tests that I can’t even began to identify, yeah, that was a lot; the doctor had informed me that she felt it necessary to wait until all results were in before discussing anything further.

  She explained to me that she was putting a rush on everything and she expected to see me in a few days. In the meantime, all the impending doom I felt leading up to the appointment had returned. This time it would get the opportunity to linger for days instead of the forty-five-minute wait time in the lobby of the hospital.

  Twenty minutes after we left the hospital, we pulled back into my driveway. “You certainly had the work up done today,” Ms. Brenda acknowledged, locking her car before making her way to my front door.

  I agreed with her statement, “Yes, ma’am, it certainly was an experience.”

  We walked into the house. The aroma of food cooking immediately hit our nostrils.

  “Ladies, you are just in time for some of my famous fried chicken,” Mr. Garett greeted us with a black apron on. The words, who’s your chef, was written in red.

  Ms. Brenda made her way closer to the door. “Well, I only planned on dropping our Bella off and returning home since it is getting late.”

  “Nonsense woman, if you only planned on going home then put it off for just an hour. I guarantee you won’t regret it!” Mr. Garett exclaimed.

  “All right, I guess an hour of good eating and good company beats going home to an empty house,” she said, making her way from the door back into the living room.

  A few minutes later, we all sat down at the table to eat. Dinner had been great. If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve thought there were sparks flying across the table between Ms. Brenda and Mr. Garett. I saw the way he was looking at her and the way she was laughing at some of the worst jokes he has ever told. I was really feeling like a third wheel and an intruder in my own home. Luckily, the food was a great distraction, or it may have been awkward watching these two in action.

  The following days seemed like they dragged by. I was able to get a lot done as far as the house was concerned. It was now time to find out my results from all of the tests I had endured. Once again, Ms. Brenda joined me in the doctor’s office. The doctor offered us a seat on the opposite side of the room. She had a short frame, she looked to be no taller than 5’2”. When I first met her, she told me to call her Dr. Q, because we Americans never seemed to pronounce her name correctly. Dr. Q was a very beautiful woman of Indian descent. She seemed to be in her early to late thirties. She had a dark tan and her hair was long and thick. Her demeanor was very friendly.

  “Thank you for coming back in today, Ms. Chapman. I know it has not been easy waiting these past couple of days. I just want to commend you for the courage to walk away from such a dangerous situation,” Dr. Q spoke with so much compassion in her voice.

  I could do nothing but nod my head for her to continue.

  She opened my file and continued speaking. “As we suspected you have had quite a few broken bones that did not heal correctly. Now, we could reset them, but I feel that would do more harm than good.”

  “Why is that?” I interjected because if there was something we could do to fix what was broken I wanted to do that.

  “Well, most of your fractures have already healed. They have thick cartilage surrounding the areas of trauma. In order to reset them, we would have to fracture those bones again. With there being so many, it would not only hurt, but could possibly take months to heal from.” She sat the file down and looked me in the eyes as I shook my head in protest.

  “Am I just supposed to walk around deformed for the rest of my life?” My voice rose a few decimals.

  “Ms. Chapman, I understand the frustration. The good news is for the most part those abnormalities are only visible on X-rays. You are always going to appear perfectly proportioned to anyone who is not looking at your scans.” She took a brief second to go over my labs. “Your blood work came back normal, which is another good thing.”

  I happily agreed with that. I was really worried about having some kind of infection or disease. Chris’ ass was sleeping around, probably since the beginning of our relationship. I take that back it’s not probably, he did cheat, all the time. There was only God to thank that I was clean. Chris liked to have sex raw, in other words no protection. That disgusted me because I was not his only sex partner. All the fighting I had put up never did seem to deter him off me. In fact, I think he enjoyed it. Even when he claimed he would never touch me again. When I looked my worst, he still flipped me over and pounded my back end. Those were the times he said desperate times called
for desperate measures.

  Once we were done, Ms. Brenda damn near had to carry me out to her car. We sat there in silence for a few minutes. She reached out and grabbed my hand. “Let us thank God that you are healthy. Bella, it is going to be okay.”

  I turned to her as best as I could in her car. “That’s just it, Ms. Brenda, I’m not healthy. You heard what Dr. Q said. That bastard has taken everything from me!” I screamed and let the tears run down my face. I had no time to deflect from the devastating news Dr. Q had gave me. I guess I got what I wanted, a justified reason for me to take matters into my own hands with Chris. Because of all the trauma I had endured, my bones showed cracks, cracks that would never heal. And my chance of bringing life into this world was next to impossible. That was due to the multiple miscarriages I never sought medical attention for. It was also due to the years of sexual abuse. But like I said, there was no time to dwell on the unfortunate circumstances.

  Things might be better off this way. I never wanted a man to have that much power over me again. Never will I be someone’s girlfriend or someone’s wife. That was not in the cards for me. Maybe one day I would work my way up to a friend with benefits or drive-by sex. Yes, maybe one day I could do that. Have something so casual that it needs no title. I shook my head to get out of my thoughts. I grabbed my keys and went out the door.

  Mr. Garett had already left for the day. I was very proud of him. He had started volunteering at the VA hospital during the day and working in the security control room during the evenings. He said it gave him a real sense of pride to be able to give his time and make money all in the same place.

  10

  It was now Monday morning and I was getting ready for my interview.

  “Girl, if you don’t hurry up and get in this car, I’m going to have a heat stroke out here waiting for you!” Ms. Brenda said, rolling her window back up as she cut the car back on.