I'm giving fair warning that Chapters 29-33 have more graphic scenes of abuse. I debated whether or not to post these chapter together, but I figured it was like ripping off a bandage. Do it all at once. As always thank you for sharing your thoughts with me. Enjoy...
Chapter 29
There's a cool breeze running over my heated skin. It feels good. It's one of the best sensations I think I've ever had in my life. The sun is setting and it looks beautiful. I'm standing with the sand between my toes and I feel like I'm at home. There's nothing that can touch me here. Nothing can touch me here at all. But the cool breeze unexpectedly turns cooler and it picks up speed. It doesn't feel good anymore. It feels like a whip against my skin. I turn around to go back to the house, the house made of glass, and the door slams shut before I can reach it.
My hand reaches out for the handle, fighting against the wind, but the door has locked. It can't be opened. I look into the window and see Catherine curled up on the sofa tightly held in Sara's arms. They look happy. They look incredibly happy. I pound on the glass and scream as loud as I can, "It hurts! It hurts!" They turn to me and look at me and start laughing. They point and they laugh and they say things I can't hear. They say things I don't want to hear.
I turn away from the happiness I can't reach and am faced with the harsh wind. I take a step into it, but it's too much for me to take. I can't walk through that. It hurts too much. I curl away from the flow of the wind and lean up against the house. Slowly I slide to the ground and put my head down to my knees—the wind constantly beating against me. It starts hurting so much I'm convinced it is a whip against my skin.
I'm no longer at the beach when I lift my head back up. I'm back with my "mother". I'm back with the woman who raised me. I'm back with her and she's standing over me with a belt. It's my father's belt. He never wears it anymore. Now, it's just for her to use.
"You think you're smart, girl?" She asks me but I know not to answer. I know this time I shouldn't answer. "You don't know anything. You're stupid, do you hear me? You're worthless."
I still know not to say anything. I'm not supposed to talk now. If I say something then she'll hit me harder. She'll hit me hard enough to break the skin and then I'll have to clean up the cuts. All we have is alcohol to clean the cuts with. That might hurt worse than the actual cut. I think it hurts worse.
"No one wants you, Girl. I don't even want you. Your real mother didn't even want you."
She says stuff like this all the time, but she doesn't mean it. She gets angry sometimes and she pretends like I'm not her daughter. Sometimes I pretend that too. I write my sister and ask her if these really are my parents. I ask her if I wasn't meant to be someone else's child. I tell her that I'd be happier that way. I tell her that it wouldn't even matter if we weren't sisters because it's not like we're sisters anyway. I know that I have a sister. It's like knowing that there's a moon—it's good to know it but it doesn't mean much because it's so far away. It's so far away and untouchable.
But I'm not untouchable. I get hurt easily. I'm never strong enough. Melinda, she isn't strong enough. She breaks easily and can't handle the pain or mother's words. So, I can't be Melinda anymore. I can't be weak like her anymore. I'd die if I stayed like her.
I don't want to die.
I promise I'll be better. I promise I'll be stronger. I promise to be someone else. I promise to never be Melinda again.
Mother places her hand on my shoulder. It's warm to the touch and a sharp contrast from the sores on my back. If she hadn't given me the pain then I'd be comforted by her touch now. I'm not comforted.
"Don't touch me," I plead. "Please, don't touch me." Don't pretend like you love me when you really don't. I've seen how other parents treat their kids and it's not like this. It's never like this.
"Mel?" Don't talk to me either. Your voice is hatred. "Mel? Sweetie, why don't you come back inside? It's raining too hard for you to be outside right now." That's not Mother's voice.
"Mel, come back inside off of the roof, please." No. That's not Mother's voice either.
My eyes open and I'm so surprised I almost lose my footing on the shingled roof. I'm standing outside the window of the room Sara gave me when we first got here. I think it was three days ago. I'm not sure about those kinds of things these days. I wish…
It's raining out here and there's a lot of lightening crackling around me. I should probably get back inside. I turn around and see Catherine directly behind me. She's standing right here next to me. Her clothes are soaked through and her makeup is running, and her hand is on my shoulder.
"We need to go inside," she says to me softly.
I nod once and let her put her hands on my waist so that she can guide me back into the room. She follows me closely and always has at least one hand on my skin. She leads me to the bathroom and sits me down on the toilet. Carefully she removes my clothes and starts drying me off.
She needs to dry off too, but she doesn't. When she's done with me and I have fresh clothes on she leads me to another room in this small beach house. She takes me to the first floor and puts me on the couch. She says she doesn't trust me to be alone in the upstairs room anymore. There's a part of me that understands that.
I curl up on the couch and she throws a blanket over me. She says that my skin is ice cold, but I don't feel cold. I don't feel cold at all. I feel numb.
Sara walks in the front door carrying two grocery bags. She takes a look at Catherine and asks her why she's wet. Catherine takes a look at my unblinking eyes and I guess decides it doesn't matter what she says in front of me now—I'm not there to hear it. At least, that's what she must think.
"Melinda went out on the roof," she walks up to Sara and takes one of the bags away from her. "She was out there in the rain, curled up in a ball crying."
Sara takes the bag back from Catherine and lays both bags on the floor. "We should get you dried off." She reaches for Catherine but Catherine pulls away.
"She didn't know who I was, Sara." Catherine crosses her arms in front of her, tightly. "When I looked into her eyes, she didn't know who I was."
Sara looks at me but quickly looks away. "We should get you cleaned up." She reaches again for Catherine and this time Catherine lets her touch her. Sara unfolds her arms and pulls Catherine closer to her. "It's okay."
Catherine looks away from Sara and fixes her eyes on me. "What happened to her, Sara? What happened to her to make her like this?"
"My mother," Sara answers flatly.
Sara leads Catherine to the stairs and the last thing I hear before they are too far away from me to hear anything is Sara telling Catherine, "I did this to her. It should have been me."
I pull the blanket Catherine covered me up with further up my body. I'm starting to feel cold now. It was probably Catherine's intent for me to go to sleep, but I know that I won't sleep. I'm not tired.
Keeping the blanket wrapped around my shoulders, I get up off the couch and walk over to the forgotten grocery bags. I pick them up and head over to the small kitchen that is almost one with the living room. I put the bags on one of two counters available to me and start putting the supplies Sara got away.
When I'm finished with that I fill up the tea kettle with water and put it on the stove. I'm sure Catherine could use some warm tea. If she feels anything like I do, then she'll need it because the cold has seeped into her bones.
It doesn't take long for the kettle to start whistling. I start preparing the tea and together Catherine and Sara walk down the stairs. They look at me standing with the blanket wrapped around me and seem surprised.
"What are you doing?" Sara asks walking over to me. She moves the hot kettle further away from me and checks to make sure the stove is off. I guess I should expect this kind of treatment for a while.
"I'm making tea." I pull the kettle back to where it was. "I thought we all could use some." I give a slight smile. "We've all been out in the rain."
I don't think they find that funny. I don't think they find that funny at all, but that's okay because I don't really think it's that funny either. I don't know how I ended up this way. Before, I thought I was fine. I thought I had work to do, but I thought that I was fine.
Sara takes the kettle away from me and says, "Let me do this. You should be resting." I can't be trusted with hot tea. I can't be trusted to be in a room by myself. I can't be trusted to do anything these days. They don't trust me and I don't blame them. I don't trust myself. I don't trust myself to do anything.
Maybe that's why I don't mind so much that Sara's treating me like a three year old. It's probably for the best. So, I step out of the kitchen but don't go back to the sofa. I want to say something to Sara while my brain is still…well while my brain is still in the moment.
"You're right," I say looking directly at her. "This should have been you, but it's not. It's happening to me. So now you have to be my mother and make sure I survive, okay? Cause that's what you have to do for me to forgive you, and if we can't do that then you have to at least promise me that you'll survive and have your family without me. There's no point in all of us going crazy." I give another weak smile—one I know doesn't reach my eyes.
My mother doesn't bother to smile back at me. I guess she's not in the smiling mood. Sara looks like she wants to step closer to me, but she keeps her distance. "I promise you that you're going to make it. I owe you that much."
In the grand scheme of things, I'm really not sure if she owes me anything. I'm not sure if I owe her anything. Right now, at this specific moment, I don't know what it means to owe someone else anything at all.
"Why don't we all promise each other to do everything we can?" Catherine does step up to me and puts her hand on my back. She's been touching me a lot more lately. They both have. It almost seems like they're trying to hold onto me. It's like they're afraid of me disappearing.
I put my arm around Catherine's shoulders. I'm afraid of disappearing too. "Is that tea ready yet?" I ask Sara who hasn't done anything with the tea at all.
My question snaps her back to this moment and she starts up with the tea again. When she's finished she hands each of us a cup and we move over to the sofa. They sit on either side of me and we sit staring ahead at an old fireplace sipping our tea. I don't think we're in a comfortable silence; it seems more like a thoughtful one.
"I don't remember going out on the roof," I say for no specific reason.
"We know," Catherine pats my knee.
"Laura used to hit me with a belt," I take another sip of my tea. They don't say anything. "She'd tell me I was stupid for asking questions. She said I'd be better off not asking anything at all." I take another sip. The cup shakes in my hand. "She called me worthless and stupid so much that I started to believe it. She made me believe I'd be better as someone else."
Sara slowly reaches out and clasps my hand in hers. "She was good at making us believe we were lucky to have her, because no one else could possibly want us."
"Dad didn't care," I squeeze Sara's hand just a little bit tighter. "He said that whatever she said was true."
"He always said he loved us though," Sara picks up. "He said he loved us but didn't do anything to stop the pain."
"He always said to try harder." We say together.
Sara lays her cup on the floor and takes mine away from me and does the same with it. When she leans back up she pulls me closer to her and wraps me in her arms. "I'm sorry," she whispers into my ear. "You should have never gone through any of that."
I hear Catherine put her cup on the floor and see her move behind Sara. She pulls us both to her and wraps her arms around Sara. "Neither of you should have gone through that. No child should."
"Why can't I just forget?" I ask sinking down to Sara's chest. "I thought I forgot most of it, but it came back. Why can't I forget?"
"I wish we all could forget," Catherine replies. "I wish we all could live our lives and not have this haunt us."
"Well maybe tomorrow will be a more beautiful life," I burrow further into Sara's body. "Maybe tomorrow we'll find a way for all of us to be okay."
"Yeah," Sara runs her hand through my matted hair, "maybe tomorrow."
It's a wish that I'm not sure will make it past this moment. Already I feel another dark memory pushing itself into the light again. I squeeze my eyes shut tighter hoping that I can push it away just a little longer. I don't want to see it now. I don't want to remember right now. Please, just give me this one moment. Give me this one moment of being held in my parents' arms without fading away into the past. I just want this one thing that I can hold onto without having it become another moment where I remember something that doesn't need to be remembered.
I just want this one moment. Please. Please.
"You've come home late again," HER voice seeps into my ears. "Have you been messing with that boy again after I told you not to? Have you been with him?"
I tell her I haven't. I tell her I'm not interested in him. She doesn't believe me. I wish she'd believe me. As she pulls at my clothes and wrestles me to the ground, I wish she'd believe me.
