WHITE WALLS
LAUREN HAMMOND
White Walls
Copyright © Lauren Hammond 2012
All rights Reserved. No Part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever except for brief quotations in articles or reviews.
Any character or location in this novel are fictitious and are completely derived from the author’s imagination and are not to be misconstrued as real.
Cover Design ~ Stephanie Mooney
Acknowledgements
There is a lot that goes into writing a novel. A lot of hard work, passion, dedication, etc. But as much work as I put into writing a book it’s worth all the blood, sweat, and tears when a reader tells me how much they enjoy it. So for the readers…
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you a million times over.
I’d also like to thank Kaycee at PWL editing who whips my books into shape.
To Stephanie for the crazy-amazing cover.
And lastly to my Papa John for inspiring me daily and teaching me that sometimes when you want to achieve your goals it’s a struggle, but in the end…
Giving up should never be an option.
I love you Papa. Thanks for believing in me and showing me how to believe in myself.
You whispered into my ear, caressed my heart with your words, and breathed life into my soul.
Prologue
January 1954
Only God can judge me.
That was one Daddy's favorite things to say to Mommy whenever she was trying to get him to change something about himself.
“What do you think the towns-people say when you walk into the liquor store and spend over twenty dollars every week?” Mommy asked. She was trying to get Daddy to understand the severity of his problem.
He replied with, “I don't give a damn what they think, Monique. Because only God can judge me.”
But you're wrong Daddy.
So very, very wrong.
Because a jury of your peers can judge you too and something tells me that God would be more lenient.
Especially with the prosecution's secret weapon.
Me.
~ ~ ~
It's during Daddy's trial that I recall the first time he ever hit me.
When Mommy was around she talked him into building me a sandbox. I remember watching him build it. He spent four days straight, outside in the hot blistering sun. Sawing and hammering. Sawing and hammering. When he finished it and I dashed out the back door to play in it. I remember seeing a twinkle in his eye. He seemed happy that I was happy.
But I was wrong.
He didn't build that sandbox for me.
He built it for Mommy because she asked him to. Later I realized that he was on his best behavior during that time. Mommy was already drifting away, a glittering particle of dust in a ray of sunshine, and he was trying to catch her and keep her.
Forever.
Sometimes Mommy would stare off. She seemed lost in a world that no one else was invited to accompany her to. At the time she might have thought I was too young to notice, but I wasn't.
And I did.
I did notice.
Once I asked her, “Mommy, what's wrong? You look so sad.” We sat at her vanity and she dabbed lavender roll on perfume on my wrists. It was a ritual of ours. I frowned up at her through the mirror and grabbed her hand.
The sad look quickly evaporated from her face and Mommy replaced that look with a bright smile. She squeezed my hand. “Nothing my little bird.” Then she crouched down beside me, kissed my forehead, and took my wrist in her hand, sniffing it. “You smell lovely.”
“So do you Mommy.”
Another bright smile.
I knew she was lying and I knew she was lying to protect me in her own way. After dusk, I used to lie in my bed with my pillow wrapped around my ears to drown out the screaming from Mommy and Daddy as they argued and the sound of our household items shattered against the hardwood floor.
Then one day, after one of those arguments I woke up, and Mommy was gone.
A few days later, I was playing in the sand box Daddy built me. All of a sudden I looked up and Daddy was next to me. He didn't look right. His eyes were rimmed in red. He kept sniffling. All the color was gone from his peach colored skin. I hurt because Daddy hurt. And because I loved him, I wanted to do something to make him feel better. “Daddy, I'm building sand castles,” I said in a light-hearted voice. “Come build some with me.”
Daddy dropped his gaze to my hand as I extended it, reaching for his. When he raised his eyes, it was like something inside of him had snapped. He wasn't sad anymore. He didn't look hopeless. He looked mean. His eyes narrowed and he jerked me to my feet by the collar of my dress. “You don't have any buckets.” His voice was hoarse. Gravelly.
“What, daddy?” I didn't know how to react. I'd never seen him like this.
Then he brought his hand down and cracked me across the jaw. The slap stung. Tears welled in my eyes. I kept asking myself where my nice Daddy went. But before I could ask him that question myself he shoved my face in the sand and screamed in my ear, “You build sand castles with fucking buckets!”
I never played in that sandbox again.
The courtroom where Daddy's trial is being held is small. There are rows of wooden benches. Eight on each side. I'm sitting in the first bench on the right. The room is filled with hushed chatter and as my eyes sweep over every bench I realize that I'm looking for two people that I know won't be in this room.
Mommy and Damien.
In the last bench on the same side of the room as me are Damiens' parents. Seeing them sends a surge of pain through my heart. I clutch my chest, my eyes water, and I have difficulty breathing. I gasp out as the pain spreads to my side and center my gaze on my lap, watching as the tears fall from my eyes, dotting my daffodil colored dress.
Suddenly, all of the chatter in the room cuts out. The doors in the back of the courtroom swing open and I see my daddy. He's dressed in a jumpsuit the color of slate. His hair is long and shaggy. He has scruff on his jawline. Two police officers escort him down the aisle and his hands are cuffed behind his back. His feet are shackled and the jingling of chains ring out through the silent courtroom.
And his eyes are locked on me.
There's no love in them.
No remorse.
Once again, to him, all of this is my fault.
The only thing present in his eyes is pure hatred.
I keep my gaze deadlocked with his because I realize what he's trying to do. He's trying to get me to submit. He's trying to abuse me in an emotional way, by terrifying me from testifying against him. He thinks that his deadly stare will cripple me, turning me into a blubbering, pleading mess of the past. And his look does strangle me, but not because I'm afraid. No. I'm done letting this man terrify me. His hateful glare strangles me because I realize that to Daddy, I'm a nuisance and that he doesn't love me at all.
I drop my gaze to my lap, sucking back tears. All I've ever wanted was Daddy to love me in some way. But I know somehow that some people are just incapable of loving. Daddy is one of them. How can he love someone else if he doesn't even love himself?
You can’t find love at the bottom of a bottle, daddy. All you’ll find is a headache and maybe a worm.
The judge leaves his chambers and every person in the courtroom rises to their feet. Daddy's eyes are still on me. They cut through my skin and all the hair on my arms stand up.
I exhale and throw my shoulders back.
I won't let him intimidate me.
For once I want him to know what it feels like to be treated the way he treated me all of these years. I want justice for what he's done and I'm thankful that he's going to g
et what's coming to him. And because I'm nothing like him, because I'm not full of hatred, I pray that when the judge reads the verdict that God has mercy on his miserable soul.
Chapter One
My cell is a hot box.
It is filled with a barrier of smoke so thick that I can’t see past it. “Help!” I shriek, twisting beneath the restraints of my straightjacket. “Help!”
Marjorie came in earlier and fastened me into the straightjacket. She told me I’d be safer that way.
Fuck Marjorie.
Fuck this straightjacket.
Why?
Because it’s going to be the death of me.
Every time I yell, I suck more of the vicious, gray smog into my lungs. I can feel it burn as it travels down my throat. I can feel the smoke cover and char my lungs, poisoning me with every passing second. I should be holding my breath and trying not to inhale. But I can’t. I am desperate. The fire bell has been tolling for the last thirty minutes and no one has come to rescue me.
I shriek again, this time louder, trying as hard as I can to punch through the fabric of my straightjacket. Tears have welled in my eyes from the smoke, panic is rising in my chest, and I realize it’s no use. The thick fabric on the straightjacket is like burlap. There’s no way out of it.
The sad reality hits me.
I'm going to die in this room with white padded walls. I'm going to die, stuffed into a straightjacket like meat and rice into a pepper.
And there's not a damn thing I can do to prevent it from happening.
My heart beats with a vengeance.
My lungs clench.
I place my back flat against the metal door to my cell. More smoke flits in from the crack beneath the door and I listen to the panicked screams as they filter in from the hall. Now is one of the times where I wish I'd see Damien, but sadly the illusion of him never comes.
I give up on holding my breath, eager to get this over with and start inhaling the musty gray smog that's taken up my entire room. It stings my throat, brings more tears to my eyes, and I cough as it snakes its way through my lungs. Part of me wishes I could speed up the process of dying. It's taking longer than I thought it would.
Lying back on the floor, I try to make out the ceiling, but I can't see anything. The smoke in my room reminds me of the four white, padded walls of my cell. It's a barrier, I can't escape. And just when I think I'm about to succumb to a miserable death, the smoke begins to evaporate. I watch it swirl, hang down then slowly exit through my open door. I roll over, elated and weak from all the inhalation and I see Aurora with a mischievous smirk sprawled across her freckled lips.
“Well, why are you lying there?” she snaps. “Get up! This is our chance!” I roll onto my stomach and she notices the straightjacket. She moves swiftly into action undoing the straps and buckles. Finally she yanks the cream contraption off of me and chucks it to the side. Then she helps me to my feet. “Come on! We don't have much time!”
I'm on my feet, using one of the padded walls as a crutch and I stumble after Aurora down the empty hall. Everyone must be outside all ready.
Aurora moves quickly, snatching a knapsack from the floor and takes my hand. She pulls me down the darkened hallway, making a quick left at the fork between the rec room and infirmary. Smoke is suspended against the ceiling and I can feel the heat from the fire even though it's somewhere behind us. I can still hear it snapping and hissing as it rips through the rooms and causes devastating damage. Hunks of plasters fall behind us and crash into the wood floor. We need to get out of here and fast.
“Where are we going?” I shout. I don't know why I bother asking I know where we're going.
“The basement!”
Of course. We mapped this plan out weeks ago. We sat in the rec room during free time, and I’d said to Aurora in a voice barely above a whisper, “I’m going to try. I’m going to try and escape.”
She quirked me a devious grin and replied in a sing-song voice. “Not without me, you’re not.” She set down the red crayon she was coloring with at the time and went on. “And I know just the kind of diversion we’ll need to get us going.”
I knew she was planning something crazy, but a fire?
I never thought she’d actually start a fire.
“How’d you do it?” I ask, shouting over the snap and crackle of the roaring flames behind us.
She gives me another mischievous grin over her shoulder. “You know I have connections.” She’s been here so long that she’s started this barter system with some of the staff members. She must have traded something for a book of matches.
I don’t ask what she traded and I don’t want to know.
I’m the one who found the window in the basement for us to escape out of. The lone window in the entire asylum that doesn’t have bars on it. What I had to do to find that window…
That isn’t something I’ll ever want to talk about.
At the basement door, Aurora whips it open and heads down first. I hesitate for a second then follow, closing the door behind me. Aurora is already at the end of the stairs when I finally start down them myself. I’m moving much slower than she is, probably because my lungs have been bogged down with smoke.
The cement walls all blur together when I reach the last step and I inhale the musky, damp odor of wetness and mold. Walking swiftly, I walk straight down the narrow, pitch black hallway to the fruit cellar at the end of the hall. Aurora stands below the window, piling a few books on top of one another. The window is long, but wide and she already has it opened.
She motions me over with her right hand. “Here!” she yells. “You go first!”
I’m not going to argue. I’m the weaker of us both and if I go last I’ll slow us down.
I step onto the books and stick my arms out the opening of the window.
I tell my feet, don’t fail me now as I shimmy out the basement window onto the cold damp earth.
Aurora has her hands on my backside and she grunts, giving me one final shove. Once I'm all the way out, I bend down and reach for her. First she hands me the khaki burlap sack she packed for us with items she managed to steal without the staff noticing. Then she sticks both of her short arms out the open window. I clamp my fingers around her wrists.
I pull.
With force and fierce determination.
We're so close to freedom I can taste it like bittersweet chocolate melting on my tongue. “Use your feet,” I growl.
“Where would you like me to put them?” She huffs out in a sarcastic undertone.
“Scale the wall with them while I pull,” I force out breathless. Aurora isn't that heavy. In fact she isn't heavy at all. She has a petite build and can't possibly weigh more than one hundred pounds. But I've never been the strongest person and my tight grip on her wrists is slipping.
Stumbling backwards, using as much strength as I can, I dig my heels into the muddy ground to give myself some traction. That's when I hear the voices.
“Oh no!”
“Keep pulling!” Aurora shouts as the voices get louder and are followed by a door slamming.
I do. I pull so hard I'm worried that I might pull her dainty arms out of her sockets. By the time I've managed to get her partly out the window there are members of the staff filling up the small room. Frantic shouts seep out the window and I hear someone yell, “Get them!”
At that point Aurora looks at me sternly. “Go!”
“What?” I shake my head and refuse to let go of her. “No! We promised we'd do this together! I'm not going to leave you!”
“Damn it, Adelaide just go!”
I plant my feet firmly into the ground and Aurora glances over her shoulder. Marjorie is inches away from her. Guilt penetrates the walls of my stomach and brings on a bout of nausea. In a way it’s like I'm reliving Damien's death all over again. “I can't.”
Aurora grits her teeth. “Fine if you won't go on your own, I'll make you.”
I stare at her puzzled. I'm confused. “Wh
at do you mean you'll make me?”
Just when I least expect it Aurora opens her mouth, pulls herself up the slightest bit, clamps her teeth down on my skin, and bites me hard. Pain travels up my arm at lightning speed and I stumble backwards releasing Aurora's hands. My butt slams into the cold, wet ground and I scramble back to the window just in time to see Marjorie yanking Aurora away. Aurora thrashes beneath her grasp, but manages to meet my gaze. “Run, Adelaide! Run!”
I hear what she's telling me, but I can't react. It's like my hands and knees are cemented into the soil.
Dr. Morrow enters. The wicked leer on his lips chills me to the bone and I glance frantically between him and Aurora. I know he's got something sadistic planned for her, but Aurora doesn't seem fazed by it. She stares at him, a defiant scowl on her lips. She's taunting him. It's like she's telling him, do your best because it won't affect me.
Dr. Morrow shouts at one of the orderlies. “Go outside and get the other one!”
Then Aurora looks in my direction one final time. “Adelaide, run now!”
My feet don't start moving until I see the orderly dressed in white rounding the corner. He sprints toward me and I hop up forgetting the sack at my feet and take off. I pump my legs as hard as I can, staring at the forest in front of me. There are trees of all shapes and sizes.
I'll be safe in those trees.
I can climb them.
I can hide in them.
I used to climb the giant willow tree in my back yard. It was like a game for me and mommy because she'd always come looking for me. The funny thing is that she always knew where I was, but she played along anyway. I was perched above her head in the tree, trying to contain my laughter and she was below, her forearm positioned against her forehead. She squinted out into the field full of yellowed, dead grass. Then she said, “Little bird! Where did you fly to?”
The orderlies’ footsteps thunder in my ears and sound off in sync with my hammering heartbeat.
I've never pushed myself so hard in my entire life. I'm winded. Starting to feel exhausted.
Don't stop now.
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