“I mean,” Holly continued, “I didn’t even have sex until I was nineteen and even then Billy and I had already been together, what, two years?” Holly held up her tiny hand and showed two fingers, a testament to her virtue. Crushing out her cigarette, she leaned back.
At that moment, I felt, her sweaty shoulder stick to the plastic chair.
She took a sip of coffee that was now cold, made a face and glanced proudly into her living room. A tattered green floral couch and cheap knickknacks with dust covered neglect filled the room.
Holly was lying about her sexual past. She told the truth about her relationship with Billy, but she had omitted the fact that she lost her virginity at age fourteen in a dark musty room to someone else, which no one knew about, including Billy. We all have our secrets.
As the women continued to gossip, I knew they were talking about me, and although they were not my friends, I knew they were from somewhere in my life that was waiting. I lost all sense of time as the 3-D movie unfolded in my mind. I accepted what I saw without question or judgment. I didn’t fully grasp the meaning of what I had witnessed and, like any kid I quickly dismissed the event and returned to bitter thoughts about my mother. It wasn’t long after that day when the phone calls started between my parents.
“If you weren’t such a selfish prick,” my mother screamed into the phone, “none of this would have happened. Oh c’mon Dell,” she continued, “you don’t give a shit about these girls.”
The accusations and bitter disputes went on for months until it was decided that Isla, Maggie, and I would spend the summer with our father and his new wife, Milda. My eldest sister, Karina, whose father was from a previous marriage of our mother, did not have to go live with Dell.
After the summer passed, Isla and Maggie chose to return home while I stayed with my father.
“You’ll be sorry,” Maggie warned as she packed her suitcase. “You’re an idiot,” she spat.
But I was delighted to live with my father and practically floated on air that first week. There would be no competition for his love from my sisters. Milda had a son from a previous marriage named Dickey. He was two years older than me—the son my father always wanted. I felt no jealousy though because I was my father’s real daughter and I believed I was his favorite. But the next several years I experienced physical abuse I never knew was possible and my father did nothing to stop it or protect me from it.
Milda was short and stout with large brown eyes and black hair teased and sprayed which she wore like a helmet. She was obsessed with cleanliness. The unmistakable smell of Pine-sol on gleaming floors was what you could expect in Milda’s house. The first night as a new family, Milda prepared crispy fried chicken, mashed potatoes and homemade biscuits with gravy for dinner. The delicious smells permeated the air and the kitchen window fogged with condensation wafting up from the stove.
I sat at the table for four feeling pride that the cheap K-mart china matched. We gathered around and passed hot plates of food to one another like a real family. Milda was radiant at the dinner table, glowing with happiness and satisfaction.
“I ain’t ever had a daughter,” she cooed “and I always wanted one.” She looked directly at me and smiled as she spoke, “I’m so glad it’s gonna be you. This weekend, we can go shopping and buy some new clothes and shoes. Would you like that, honey?”
I was so happy I could burst as I eagerly nodded my head. Who wouldn’t be happy? This is fantastic, I thought. I was going to be like a real princess. What my eyes saw in Milda as happiness, was actually the glow of alcohol that shone like diamonds in the sun.
We dug into our food and my father said, “This is just the best fried chicken I think I ever had.” He looked up at Milda, smiling with greasy lips, and winked.
I scooped my spoon into my mashed potatoes smothered in southern gravy wrinkling my nose as I forced myself to swallow. Instead of using milk to thicken and sweeten the gravy, Milda had used water from the boiled potatoes. Unaccustomed to the taste of the watery soup, my displeasure was impossible to hide. I avoided the potatoes and gravy completely. As she watched me, Milda’s agitation inflated to dangerous levels. Her mood and expression changed shifting her energetic field instantly.
“What’s the matter, missy?” She hissed. “You don’t like my gravy?”
The glow was gone from her face and was replaced with a belligerent sneer and her energy frightened me. Shaking my head back and forth I whispered, “No, ma’am.”
Leaning in toward me, she snapped, “Why not? Is it because I don’t use milk like her highness?” she taunted, referring to my mother, whom she hated.
Her finger made a curly cue in the air as she spoke. A clear view of Milda’s silver fillings shone in her mouth as she exaggerated the words “her highness” and the sharp smell of alcohol whooshed at me carried on her sour breath. The chair scraped loudly beneath her as Milda pushed back from the table, the color had risen in her cheeks.
Rigid with fear, my stomach clenched in response.
Milda’s face was inches from mine as she slurred, “In my house you don’t get to turn your nose up, you hear me?!”
My father and step-brother sat mute and watched the event unfold.
“But I don’t like it,” I whined, tears spilling over.
In an instant, Milda slapped the side of my head three or four times. I’d never been slapped before. Her warm palm striking my face was shocking and it took a moment to register what was happening. She grabbed a handful of my hair, snatched the spoon from my hand and began forcing mashed potatoes and gravy into my mouth.
“Open your mouth!” she screamed.
Potatoes and gravy landed with wet thumps on my bare thighs. I gagged on the food, tears, and snot and I vomited as, Milda slapped my head again and again, screaming words I could not hear. Still holding a fist full of hair, she rattled my head back and forth. I felt helpless and embarrassed.
I had no recollection of getting cleaned up and going to bed. Lying in the dark, I sucked in air and tried desperately to hold back tears. With each heartbeat the back of my head throbbed in complaint.
My father never intervened and, in my mind, there was no question that I was at fault. Why couldn’t I just eat the gravy? I thought as I lay in the darkness worried and fearful of the mess I had made of things. Suddenly, harsh yellow light spilled into the room as the door opened. Milda stumbled to the bed crying openly.
“I’m so sorry honey,” she hiccupped. Her emotion rushed toward me like a giant wave. “You’re my daughter now and I’m sorry honey. I love you. I really do.”
She said all these things as she held me and we both cried and I patted her back to comfort her. I felt responsible for her tears. Drunk and slurring, she held my face between her hands and said, “Don’t you ever spit out my food again, you hear me? I am a right good cook and everyone likes my cooking. Everyone.”
“Ok-k-kay,” I stuttered through tears. “I won’t. I’m s-s-s-s-orry.”
A high keening whine left my throat as sobbing took hold and I bowed my head in shame. I felt awful for my behavior. The beating would be the first of physical abuse that I would endure for the next year and a half until my sister; Maggie would save me from years of beatings by bringing me home with her.
My father never spoke of the incident and acted as though nothing unusual had happened. It was one of many times I felt abandoned by him.
For the rest of his life, our father would put the woman he was married to first and his children would fit where they fit. At first, this behavior caused pain and confusion for me because I believed that I was less important to my father than the women he married. Ultimately, it was my father’s gift to me because, I had to find self-worth within, discovering that I was worth loving despite my father’s inability to show
me that. I found that receiving love was a choice I could make and had nothing to do with who my father loved. It was a powerful lesson and I am a stronger woman because of it.
The following weekend, we went camping by a lake. I’d never camped before or gone anywhere overnight as a family and I was silly with excitement.
The water chilled my skin forcing goosebumps to tighten it like dried paste. I couldn’t force the grin from my face even as I danced on slippery stones slowly going deeper into the lake where I knew I shouldn’t be. I didn’t know how to swim and wore no life vest.
Shining pinpoints across the lake’s surface was the last thing I saw before I slipped beneath the water’s edge. I could no longer feel the bottom and panic seized me. Spastically my arms and legs moved in opposite directions. Murky water got colder as I sunk and the sound of water filling my ears pushed against the noise of my drumming heart.
Something seized me squeezing my ribcage. Air bubbles carrying the last of my breath shot to the surface seconds before my face erupted into the air. I sucked a mixture of water and air gagging on both.
I lay on my side in a spasm of coughing and choking. Sharp edges of tiny rocks pricked my skin while my swimsuit was tightly lodged between my buttocks.
“That’s it child, get it out,” came the unfamiliar voice of a woman whose cold, wet hand slapped my back. “You’ll be just fine,” she said.
“Dell!” Someone screamed, “You better get over here!”
“Good god almighty” my father said kneeling at my side. “What in the hell happened? I turn my back for one minute!” he lied.
I was not attended in the water. Neither my father nor Milda sat with the other adults on the lake’s rocky shore while their children played.
The woman who saved me said, “Just leave her with me. I’ll be here all day with Deanna, my daughter. I’ll watch them both.”
“I sure do appreciate that. I turned my back for one minute…”
“Don’t you worry now. We’ve all had accidents. I’ll see to her.”
“Well thank ya now,a? What was your name?”
“Helen. I’m Helen and this is Deanna. She’s mine. Dee is blind but she plays like she isn’t, don’t ya, Dee.”
A young girl with wet curly hair, missing her front tooth grinned. Her left eye, as blue as the sky, wandered in its socket.
“Yes ma’am,” she said.
Deanna and I became fast friends and we played together the rest of the day.
At dusk Deanna and her mom went to their campsite and I headed to ours. I hadn’t seen anyone for hours and there was no one in our camper. My skin burned red from the sun and I shivered as I walked toward the scent of burgers on an open fire. My stomach roared with hunger.
“Oh-oh my god. Ahhh! Ahhhh!” I heard the screaming and crying in the distance. I followed the sounds.
I saw a camper, the door hung open wide, a dim light from within spilled down the metal steps. Milda lay on her back on the banquette inside screaming and thrashing. Her black hair piece flapped on the top of her head as she jerked back and forth. Her feet were snug in canvas tennis shoes without socks and she kicked wildly in the air. Her arms flailed landing punches on the back of the woman who held her down.
“Why! Why does everyone leave me?” She cried. “I hate him. I hate that bastard! He’s always leavin me behind!” She wailed.
“I know it, honey. I know it. Just let it out Milda. Let it out now.”
I stood mesmerized. I’d never seen an adult have a tantrum. I was too young to understand that Milda was drunk and was coming, undone.
She continued to scream, but my attention was drawn to what I can only describe as, a cloud of energy above her. I was accosted with the knowing. The cloud was part of Milda. It held all her sadness, rage and desperation. It held the thump and stinging bruises of her body’s memory.
By that, I mean, I couldn’t see physical bruises on Milda but I knew she’d had them, and I knew the imprint they left was more than what a person could see. I had no frame of reference for the word “abuse” but I felt it there. In my mind’s eye I saw a man. He was huge with dark eyes and slicked back hair. He was mean and hateful and somehow, I knew he was connected to her.
I felt tightness in my chest and I felt compassion for Milda and her pain. I knew she was lost in a fog of suffering and pain. I knew she would never find her way out. I also knew that was just the way it would be for Milda.
At nine years old, I had no words for the knowing, but what I saw that day and what I knew would never leave me.
The Boy – a father’s legacy
The boy was back at home and in middle school. He no longer feared his father. His fear had turned to hatred. The boy’s father was still a drunk and came home cursing and stinking of booze. He would stagger blindly through the house, knocking over lamps and dislodging knick-knacks from their perch. The boy resented the fact that his mother went to bed with him every night obediently.
When the boy returned home from the farm, he had a little brother, who he loved instantly. He watched out for his baby brother and protected him no matter the cost. Several years had passed now since the boy had been nearly suffocated in the trunk. The first chance he got, the boy emptied the chest, discarding it in an empty lot to prevent his little brother from the same fate.
The boy’s mother worked as an aide at a nursing home and had for as long as the boy could remember. Most days, she came home wrung out, yet she still cooked dinner and waited on her husband hand and foot which angered the boy.
One afternoon in an alcoholic haze, the boy’s father convinced himself that his wife was a sneak and was cheating on him. He was convinced she had a new boyfriend and that was why he sat in the stifling heat, of his truck’s cab, waiting for her to finish work. He stuffed tobacco into his bottom lip and watched through bloodshot eyes for his unfaithful wife’s appearance.
I’ll show her, I’ll follow her and catch her red handed, he thought as he spit bitter brown juice out the open window.
His wife, Bernadette, rubbed her lower back to relieve the ache that throbbed there. She was grateful her long shift was nearly finished. She smiled when her friend, Edie sidled up next to her, “Oh gal, aren’t you glad we can call it a day? Whew, I am beat,” Edie said blowing her short bangs from her forehead.
Bernadette lifted her pencil thin, eyebrows that were carefully drawn over her sky blue eyes and said, “You can say that again, sister. What in tarnation was I thinking when I agreed to a shift that starts at five a.m.?”
The women stood at the nurse’s station and filled out their paper work making small talk.
“Oh, say Edie, do you still need a ride home? Ain’t a problem for me. I can drop you, but I gotta get some gas first. That sound good?”
“You know, that would be just great if you don’t mind, hon. I know you need to get home to your boys.”
“Listen, I’ll run get my purse and meet you at the car. I’m just around back,” Bernadette said as she walked away.
“Okay, hon, thanks,” Edie said focusing on her reports.
Although the air that blew through the car windows was warm, it released the pent up heat as the women drove to the gas station. Bernadette pulled her old car up to an available pump and put it in park and turned toward her friend.
"I was thinkin,” Bernadette started. The next few seconds seemed like a dream. In slow motion, Edie fell toward Bernadette. In the same instant, Bernadette felt a burning in her chest. In utter shock, Bernadette saw the blood oozing from Edie’s head. Bernadette felt suddenly dizzy as she reached for her friend. She heard a shot ring out and felt her shoulder explode.
The first bullet, that Bernadette hadn’t heard, had burrowed through Edie’s brain and lodged itself in
her chest. Later, Bernadette would lose the lung in surgery. Edie died instantly. The second bullet hit Bernadette’s shoulder. Just before she lost consciousness, she saw her husband stumble toward her, with a gun in his hand.
The man staggered, though he did his best to stand straight. I done showed them, cheatin has consequences. Bleary eyed and drunk, the man bent over to peer inside the car. He could hear people screaming and running, like cockroaches in the light, but he didn’t care. He was pretty sure he killed his cheating wife. Bernadette was slumped forward behind the steering wheel. Satisfied, the man shuffled to the open passenger window and witnessed his handiwork. For a second time, satisfaction rushed through him as he thought hotdam! I got the cheatin bastard too. A smile began to curl his slick, wet, lips just as police cars roared in from four directions.
Suddenly, he had a realization that cut through his drunken, stupor. He stumbled backwards trying to reconcile his thought. Why does this turkey have tits? he pondered, as the cop nearest him screamed, “Drop your weapon!”
Chapter 4
The clashing of cymbals exploded in my ears. My neck snapped back and forth like a rubber hose. My head bounced with each blow as bloody snot oozed over my traumatized lips. I remember more how it felt inside than how it hurt, the sting of shame burned deep within long after the marks had faded away.
Milda delivered the blows. Her beatings had become regular. They occurred countless times a month now. I was beaten for not cleaning the floor around the bottom of the toilet or for the wrong expression. Sometimes a simple shrug of shoulders followed by an, “I don’t know” garnered a solid slap across the face or a punch in the ribs. Somewhere during this period of abuse I began leaving my body and observing the traumatic events from above the fray like a brazen voyeur.
My most vivid out-of- body experience happened a few weeks after the camping and gravy incident. I spontaneously left my body and observed the painful experience with an odd sense of understanding that was the knowing.
The Knowing: Awake in the Dark Page 4