by The Awethors
Resolution
By Delia Stillwater
(The vow)
“I won’t ever let anyone make me cry again,” said the little girl with welts on her back and legs.
She had been so excited when Isabel came over, bringing her new jump rope to play. It had bright red plastic handles with silver jingle bells on its ends. When the girl’s baby brother wanted it and she tried to give him her own jump rope instead, he threw himself down—hitting his lip on the bottom step. His screams of anger turned to ones of real pain. Daddy came out on the porch. She started to cry too because she knew the blame would fall on her. Crying never made him stop. It only made it harder to talk and explain. Daddy grabbed Isabel’s jump rope from her hand and used it for the spanking. He yelled that he would teach her to be mean to the baby. That didn’t even make sense. Shouldn’t he have said that he would teach her not to be mean? Isabel ran home. Now she would never want to come over to play again. It wasn’t fair!
The next time her daddy got angry, he spanked her with a piece of wood until it broke, but she didn’t cry. She held her breath until the pain and yelling went away. When she woke up, mama was holding her and crying. Didn’t she understand that tears didn’t help?
(She couldn’t)
“I’d love to dance,” said the teenaged girl through her gritted teeth. “Could I catch a ride home with you and Betsy after the party? Donny seems to have forgotten he was my date in his eagerness to make the new girl feel welcome. If I let him take me home I will have to kill him!” She tossed her head and stepped out onto the dance floor with Mark. She couldn’t cry. She wouldn’t give June the satisfaction. She didn’t want her friends to pity her.
(She wouldn’t)
“Why can’t you understand? I need to go to college for at least one year. I have to be myself and find out who that is before I step from being my parents’ oldest daughter to being your wife.” Chuck was ten years older. He had a good job. He owned a home, and her parents were so thrilled she had found a man to take care of her. All of her friends were envious over the half-karat diamond he had given her. She was a senior in high school and had won a scholarship. Was she asking too much? Why couldn’t he believe she would come back to him after she had proved to herself that she could make it on her own?
“You had better take back this ring if you can’t trust me out of your sight,” she said, slipping it from her finger. Entering her parents’ quiet house, she closed the door. She took deep calming breaths. She wouldn’t allow herself to cry.
(She could)
“How can you think I would be so shallow as to pretend to be his friend just because he has a car and can drive me whenever I need a ride? I thought we were friends!” said the college girl as she fled the dormitory room. For twelve years, she hadn’t cried—no matter how much they’d hurt her. It had never been safe to cry. If you shed tears, they had won. They had made you give in to the struggle and they hurt you more because you were weak. She knelt on the cool grass, pressing her face into the glossy, black fur of her guide dog and let the tears flow. For the first time since she had been a child, she wasn’t afraid to let someone else know she was hurt. She wasn’t alone against the world. She was safe within the shelter of her dog’s love and it was all right to cry.
Professor Anderson slowly laid the manuscript back down on his desk. He studied his student. She sat stroking the silky head of the dog resting on her knee. Her long dark hair screened her face from him. The black Labrador’s gaze was fixed on the downturned face of the girl. The dog’s eyes shone with a golden glow of devotion.
“Miss Stillwater, this piece is very different from what you usually write. It is almost minimalistic in its lack of descriptives. It doesn’t have the vivid texture and color of your other work.”
Dee lifted her head to face the man who never seemed pleased no matter what she wrote.
“You asked for truth. I don’t think there was much color in that girl’s life. She was like a spindly weed struggling to find some sunlight and nourishment in a vacant lot. I’m not her anymore. If I choose to glory in the bright, beautiful things all around me, rather than pick at old wounds to watch them bleed, then that is what is true for me. I won’t keep exploring the past when there are so many tomorrows to look forward to. I have always loved the poetic beauty of Steinbeck rather than the stark ugliness of Hemmingway. Maybe I will never achieve the elegance of the one, but I don’t intend to be a mediocre imitator of the other. If it means failing your course, I will write the way that seems real to me.”
Dee rose quickly and her hand dropped to the handle of Tammy’s harness as the dog swiftly fell into position at her left side. The two whirled away out of the stuffy little office belonging to Professor Anderson.
John Anderson watched them flee. He was only mildly irritated. The stupid child had missed the point entirely. Only by forcing her to stretch and struggle would she reach her potential and find her voice as a writer. Even the ones possessing a grain of talent were too egotistical to see that he was only trying to bring out the best in them when he demanded more effort. If he was never going to write the great American novel, then he was going to keep prodding and pruning in the hopes that one of his students would someday write it instead.
DeAnna Quietwater Noriega’s Bio
DeAnna Quietwater Noriega is half Apache and a quarter Chippewa. She has been a writer and story teller since childhood. She has had work accepted in six anthologies. Her writing has appeared in online magazines like, Magnets and Ladders and Generations, a native literature magazine. She has been totally blind since the age of 8. DeAnna lives with her husband, youngest daughter three grandchildren, 9th guide dog, five horses, barn cats, a donkey and assorted other critters in Fulton Missouri.
Little Bird