by Zane
I grabbed her chin and shook it. “This has to end. Josh hit you last night, didn’t he? He put his grubby little hands on you like you’re his personal punching bag.”
Momma slapped my hand and then slapped me clear across the face. “How dare you talk to me like that? I suggest you remember who is the parent and who is the child.”
“You’re not much of a parent,” I mumbled under my breath, clenching my hands into fists but determined not to lash out in anger. My life had been dysfunctional and full of violence long enough. It took years for me to realize that violence is not the solution, but it had finally sunk in.
“What did you just say, you little tramp?” Momma asked, fighting back tears and wiping the corner of her eye with the sleeve of her tattered gray sweater. I could tell it always hurt her inside to hit me. She knew how it felt firsthand. She grew up in the same exact situation.
I garnered some nerve from someplace, raised my voice, and reiterated my last statement. “I said, you’re not much of a parent if you make me stay here in this type of environment. Can’t you see that this is never going to change? Josh will continue to beat on both of us whenever he feels like it until one of us ends up in the graveyard next to Grandma.”
“Don’t speak such lies! That’s blasphemy!” She jumped up from the couch and started pacing the living room floor. “Josh has never hit you!”
“Momma, please!” I stated sarcastically. “Josh has hit me so many times I lost count. He simply waits until you go to work to do it. That’s all.” My next statement was going to be cruel but I let the words escape from my lips anyway. “Not that it matters. Even if he did hit me in front of you, you wouldn’t do anything. Just watch and wait for your turn to get a beatdown.”
Momma’s bottom lip started trembling and her eyes watered up even more. We stared at each other in silence, neither one of us backing down from the other; the only sounds in the apartment being the music emitting from the television and the leaky faucet in the kitchen.
Finally, she broke the stare. “I don’t have to stand here and take this crap from you.” She headed off down the hall to her bedroom. “It’s time to get ready for work. Mr. Andrews will dock my pay if I’m even five minutes late.”
I followed behind her, went into her room, and plopped down on the bed. The sheets were dank and smelly and I shuddered to think about what had taken place in there the night before. While not an expert on sex, it was clear to me that whatever Josh and Momma did together wasn’t normal. Far from it. I could hear them through the walls on a nightly basis when he returned from his security job at the local mall. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it rape, but it was definitely borderline. Rape was something he was more than capable of. I knew that firsthand as well.
I watched Momma slip into her maid uniform. She had been working as a housekeeper at the Motel 8 down the street ever since we moved to Richmond and found out that Josh didn’t intend to, nor could he keep, all the promises of the good life he had promised us.
“Momma, you’re not going to work today,” I insisted. “We’re going to get in your car and drive to D.C. to meet Irene, just like we planned.”
“Oh yeah? With what money, Miss Know-It-All?” She finished buttoning up her uniform and slid her feet into a pair of worn-out black loafers. “Cars run on gas and gas takes money. I’m flat broke.”
I clenched my teeth together, holding back the words gathering in my throat, and counted to ten. “How could you not have any money, Momma? I thought we were both going to save up for today?”
She grabbed a bottle of lotion off her dresser and pushed the pump down, letting the cool liquid drizzle into her palm. “First off, Kandace, we don’t know a damn thing about that Irene woman. She’s some crazy woman you met on the Internet that polluted your mind with a bunch of nonsense.”
“Irene is a woman just like you. She’s been where you are and her children have been where I am.” Momma hissed and rubbed the lotion on her arms and legs. “Besides, you met her and you know she isn’t crazy. What she said made a world of sense and that’s why we have to make a run for it now.”
“Make a run for it?” Momma giggled at my statement. “You make it sound like we’re runaway slaves headed for the Underground Railroad to get away from the massa.”
“Josh is your massa!” I exclaimed, speaking the truth and nothing but the truth. “When was the last time you stood up to him about anything?”
Momma raised her hand to me and I blocked my face with my forearm. “Girl, consider yourself lucky I don’t slap you silly!” She lowered her hand. “Talking to me like that! I’ll knock your head off!”
“I realize you’re scared.” I could see the fear in her eyes. “Sometimes, we just have to turn it over to God. Remember when Grandma used to say that all the time.”
Momma flung her arms around me, wrapped me in a bear hug and whispered in my ear, “Turn it over to God.”
It was so wonderful to have her arms caressing me lovingly. It had been so long, I almost forgot what her embraces felt like. “Yes, Momma, let’s turn this over to God.”
One of her tears made a cavalcade down my right cheek. She released me and looked at me through tear-drenched eyes. “I’m scared, just like you said. If we leave here, Josh will find us.”
“No, he won’t,” I stated adamantly. “Irene has assured me that there’s no chance.”
“This isn’t like television and the movies, Kandace. This is real life and he won’t stop until he finds us.” She went back over to the dresser, picked up a wood-handled brush, and started grooming her long, wavy black hair. “Perfect people with perfect lives in perfect towns only exist on the silver screen.”
“No one’s life is perfect,” I readily admitted. “But we aren’t supposed to live like this. We’re not supposed to live every day in fear.”
I could see Momma grin in the reflection of the mirror. “I have an idea. Why don’t you go? I can stay here and then Josh won’t have any reason to follow.”
I had managed to hold back my own tears up until that point, but that statement slashed through my heart. Would she really make me leave her? “I can’t do this without you, Momma. I’m only fourteen. I need you. I need you to be a real mother for a change.”
She swung around to glare at me, the smile transforming into a frown. “Are you saying that I’ve been a bad mother?”
I had no idea how to respond so I told the truth. “I don’t blame you, Momma.” I really didn’t blame her either. “I don’t think it’s been intentional but, yes, you have been a bad mother. I understand that it’s not your fault, though. You’re only repeating what you’ve seen. Abuse is all that you know.” The expression on her face was blank; devoid of emotion. I couldn’t tell whether she wanted to hit me or kiss me. “I have thirty-seven dollars. I saved it from my baby-sitting money. That’s enough gas to get us to D.C. and we can make some sandwiches, in case we get hungry. That way, we don’t have to buy any fast food.”
“I can’t do this, Kandace.” Momma shook her head in dismay. “I can’t pick up and leave Josh like this. He’s my husband. I promised to love and honor him forever. I took vows.”
“And he’s broken all of them,” I quickly pointed out. “He lies, he cheats, he beats on you.”
“What do you mean, he cheats?” Momma grabbed me by the shoulders and started shaking me violently. “What the hell do you mean, he cheats?”
I let out a hideous scream and she let me go. “He brings other women here when you’re not home, okay? There, I’ve said it.” I paused while the reality of the situation sunk in. “Then, there’s me.”
“You?” Momma clutched her chest, feigning a heart attack.
“Yes, don’t pretend you haven’t seen the signs, Momma.” I sat down on the bed, scared to death and ashamed, but it was time for everything to come out in the open. Momma was still showing reluctance about leaving Josh. I had to come clean. “He started having sex with me when I was twelve, about a year
after you got married. He told me that if I ever told, he would send me away. That he would split us up for good and that there was no way you would ever believe me. It was his word against mine.”
“You lie!” Momma whacked me on the arm with a vengeance before I had a chance to protect myself. “Take that back right now! Take it back!”
I rubbed my arm, trying to ease the pain, and stared up at her. “I guess he was right,” I whispered. “You don’t believe me.”
“I don’t understand you sometimes, Kandace.” She sat down beside me on the bed. I was craving affection, the affection that usually followed immediately behind the hits, but she didn’t reach out to me. “The things that come out of your mouth.”
“If I’m lying, Momma, how would I know he has a scar inside his left thigh? About the size of a silver dollar? He said he got it climbing over a wire fence when he was five.” Shock overcame her face. It was no time to let up, so I continued, “I’m right, aren’t I?”
She snickered at me. “Josh could have mentioned that to you at any time. It doesn’t mean you’ve had sex with him.”
“You remember that time, about two years ago, when you came home from work and found me in the bed bleeding?”
“Sure! You were starting your periods.”
I shook my head. “No, Momma, my periods didn’t start until last year.” I reached out for her hand and grasped onto it. “That was the first time. That was the first time he hurt me.”
“This is absurd!” Momma shouted, peeling my fingers away, grabbing her purse off the door handle, and heading for the hallway. “See what you did? You’ve fooled around and made me late. I have to get out of here.”
I couldn’t believe that, after all I had said, she was still planning to stay with Josh. Desperate times called for desperate measures. She was halfway out the front door when I said, “Look at this, Momma. If you look at this and you still want to stay here, then I’ll stay, too.” She turned around and I came closer so she could see the large bruise on my left side in the sunlight. “I’ll stay here until I lose a kidney or something.”
Momma let her purse strap fall off her shoulder and the bag tumbled to the floor. She gently fingered my side and struggled for breath. “Josh did this to you?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Tuesday night, when you were working late.” I pulled my shirt up even higher so she could get a better view. “This is what he did to me when I refused him.”
“My poor baby!” Momma squealed, continuing to run her fingertips across my side. “How could that animal do this to you?”
I pulled my shirt back down. “Have you seen enough yet?” I asked, praying that she had. “Can we leave now?”
“Yes, yes we can leave now,” Momma replied without the slightest hesitation. She ran back down the hall toward the bedroom. “Just give me a minute to throw something in a bag and we’re out of here.”
I was so relieved. “Let me help you,” I called after her. “We really need to hurry, if we’re going to meet Irene by noon.”
“Look in my bottom left drawer, underneath my bras, and get the money,” she called out to me as I entered the room. She was inside the closet yanking clothes off hangers. Money, I thought to myself. She claimed she didn’t have any. I didn’t comment when I found her stash that had to amount to at least five hundred dollars. She had planned on escaping all along. “Let’s go, Baby,” she said excitedly, brushing past me. “Where’s your bag?”
“In my room,” I answered, running into my room to get it. I grabbed my baby-sitting money from under my alarm clock.
Less than two minutes later, we were in the car, a raggedy, but still running, powder blue 1989 Pontiac LeMans. Momma revved the engine and we settled into the customary five-minute warm-up time.
“Kandace, are you sure we can pull this off?” Just like every other aspect of our lives, she was looking for guidance from me instead of the other way around.
I held her hand. “Yes, we can pull this off because we’re going to turn it over to God. Right here and right now; we’re in His hands and He won’t let us down.”
We sat there in silence. I’m not sure what Momma was doing but I was praying like I had never prayed before. There was still a lot of uncertainty surrounding what we were doing. She was right. I had met Irene on the Internet but I knew that was the way it was supposed to be. Destiny sent her into my life at that exact moment in time.
I was in the school library about six months before, searching the Internet for information on the government of China when I decided to type the words domestic abuse into Yahoo. Thousands of sites resulted but one caught my eye immediately, so I clicked on it and sent an email to the women of the Safe Haven. Irene replied to me that same day and I read her message the next morning. There was a toll-free number for me to call. I waited until Momma and Josh were in their room asleep the following night and dialed the number.
From that moment on, there were a series of late-night phone calls and dozens of emails back and forth. I explained my home situation to Irene and she said the Safe Haven was there to help victims of abuse, but only if they were trying to help themselves. I lied and told her that Momma wanted out; that it was all she ever talked about. Irene insisted that we meet somewhere locally and I was shocked when I finally got up the nerve to broach the subject with Momma and she agreed.
We met Irene at the Tastee Diner and she told us all about the abusive husband she escaped from along with her three kids. One of them, a daughter named Sheila, was about my age. We worked out plans that very night to flee on March 30th. That would allow us enough time to get our affairs in order, not that we had any affairs, and save up a little spending cash. Irene said that we wouldn’t need much because the shelter had certain benefactors who believed in the right of women to be free from such despair.
So there we were, about to embark on the first day of the rest of our lives. I glanced over at Momma and she was frozen in time, trembling like a leaf. “Momma, I think the car is warm enough. We can go now.” She didn’t respond; simply sat there staring into space. “Momma?”
“Okay, Baby,” she weakly replied. “Give me a second to get my bearings together.”
“It’s okay to be scared.” I caressed the hand that was gripping the steering wheel. “I’m scared, too, but it has to be like this.”
“You’re right.” She glanced over at me. “It has to be like this. Besides, I did promise Momma.”
“Yes, you did, and I’m sure she’s looking down from heaven at us right this second cheering us on.” I looked at the dashboard clock and saw that is was 9:30. “We have to go now so we won’t be late. Irene is waiting.”
Momma put the car in reverse and backed slowly out of the parking space. I took one last survey of the building we had inhabited for a few years and bit my bottom lip when I spotted the lawn chairs out in front of Mrs. Cowan’s apartment. I was going to miss her so much. I wondered what she would think once she realized we had picked up and left town. I was sure Josh would ask her what she knew about our disappearance. I hoped he wouldn’t be too hard on her. I got the feeling she wouldn’t take much, if any, of his disrespectful nonsense anyway.
Momma and I barely said a word to each other the hundred or so miles to D.C. Since the radio in the LeMans had been busted for years, I hummed songs like “Amazing Grace” and “His Eye Is on the Sparrow” most of the way. The same songs Grandma used to hum to me.
When we got to the 14th Street Bridge, I reached over the seat to get the piece of paper out of my duffel bag with the directions to Union Station scribbled on it and then proceeded to direct Momma the rest of the way there. We parked in the indoor garage, just like Irene had instructed us, grabbed our bags, locked the car, and caught the escalator down two levels to the terminal.
My eyes had a hard time adjusting to the bright lights as Momma and I searched for Irene. Union Station was packed. I remember thinking I had never seen so many people in one
place in my entire life.
“Momma, I don’t see Irene. Do you?” I asked in a panic. The huge clock in the center of the terminal said five minutes after twelve. I was hoping she hadn’t left because we weren’t there exactly on time.
“Isn’t that her over there?” Momma pointed toward a tall brunette in a gray trench coat. I thought she was right until the woman turned around and didn’t look a day over twenty.
“No, that’s not her.” We walked hand in hand past hordes of people rushing to catch this train or that train. “She has to be here someplace. She just has to be,” I whined.
Then I heard it, a faint but distinct cry. Someone was calling out my name. I swung around in the general direction of the voice and spotted Irene half-running toward us. She had these deep-set gray eyes that were so piercing you could see them a mile away.
Momma let out a heavy sigh. She wasn’t the only one relieved. “There she is. Our angel,” Momma remarked.
Irene caught up to us and hugged us both simultaneously. “It’s so great to see you,” she cheerily stated. “I was beginning to be afraid you wouldn’t show.” Momma and I ogled at each other for a few seconds. If Irene only knew how close she was to hitting the nail on the head. “I see you only have one bag each. That’s great! We have to travel light.”
“That is what you said, one bag apiece,” Momma replied, shifting her weight to her other foot and pulling the thick strap of her bag higher onto her shoulder. “The last thing we’re trying to do is impose.”
“Nina, it’s my pleasure to help you and Kandace out,” Irene quickly retorted. “There was a time when someone helped me and I feel it’s my duty to continue freeing women from their oppressive situations.” She glanced down at her watch. “I hate to rush you, but we better hurry to the gate. The train is already boarding.”
The curiosity was killing me. “Where are we going?”
“I’ll tell you once we’re on board.”
“What about my car?” Momma asked.