She may not be dreaming, but she was thinking and it was worse than the dreams. There was no vague shadowy world to blunt the harsh reality of what happened. There were no monsters faces to substitute for the real monster. Recollections were vivid and sensations were acute.
Olivia was huddled under a down comforter wearing sweat pants and a heavy sweatshirt. The thermostat in her apartment was on 74 and she was still freezing. She wondered if memories could be so intense that a person could feel the sensations related to that memory.
Little Olivia was now 10 years old on winter break from school, alone and sick. She had been left alone many times in her short life, but there was just something about being alone and sick that made you feel so much more…well alone.
It was 8pm on Tuesday, December 24th. She had not seen her mother since she left for work at 7am the day before. Serena had said that she was going to pick up a tree and they would decorate it, after work, along with the rest of the apartment.
By 3am Tuesday morning, Olivia knew that she had been blown off. She was used to being second to the bottle, but not to some guy in a bar. Not with Serena's drunken lectures echoing in her mind.
"Men are all bad, Olivia. Don't ever trust them. It will only lead to misery and unhappiness. They only want one thing from you and will take it if you don't give it to them, then you'll be saddled with a child just like me. Looking into her eyes everyday reliving the horrible things he did to you."
"Hello, honey, I'm home." Serena only called her daughter 'Honey' when she knew she had broken a promise to Olivia. "Olivia, Mommy's home. Where are you?"
"Not that you really care." Olivia growled into the book she was reading.
Serena pondered the silence of the house; a moment of panic seized her. What if something happened to her? "Olivia Lynn Benson if you are in this apartment you had better answer me!"
"I'm in my room! Now leave me alone!" Raising her voice started a small coughing fit.
She may have been gone for a while, but there was no way that she was going to put up with that kind of talk from her daughter, plus she made her worry. Serena Benson silently crept upstairs and stood outside Olivia's bedroom door. She slowly opened the door hoping to catch the girl off guard. She was greeted with her daughter's dark piercing eyes. "How does she always know?"
Olivia heard the quite snap of a toothpick. She didn't care; she was ready for a fight.
"Ms. Benson, what seems to be your problem?" Serena asked.
"What was his name?" her eyes bored holes through her mother.
"What are you talking about?"
"What was his name, or did you even find out?"
"I don't know who you who you think you're speaking to…"
"I'm speaking to you, Serena." Olivia mocked her mother's tone.
"Serena? I don't think so. You will call me Mother!" she shouted.
"Then be one!" Her daughter shouted back.
"Oh I see, you're upset about my parenting skills? You don't know how lucky you have it."
"What, are you going to tell me that all parents leave their 10 year old children alone for almost two days?"
"Other parents don't have to try and keep a roof over their child's head and food in their stomach and clothes on their back alone, with no help from anyone."
"You weren't at work, Serena! You let some stranger in a bar pick you up and take you home." Olivia hopped off her bed and stood toe to toe with her mother.
Serena looked down and thought briefly how tall Olivia was getting. She was growing up so fast. Her face was beginning to lose its childlike qualities. You could almost see the shade of the beautiful woman she would become. Serena knew that she herself was a pretty woman; she never had trouble getting a man's attention…when she wanted it, but Olivia was going to be exotically beautiful. She was going to be tall, with olive skin tone, beautiful dark hair and those big dark eyes. She was going to get all the attention she wanted and more and this scared Serena to death. She wanted to lock her daughter away to protect her, to save her from the terrors of the world.
"What are you staring at?" Olivia's words snapped her out of her thoughts. Deep down she loved her daughter deeply, but like most alcoholics, she was selfish. No one tried to lay a guilt trip on Serena Benson.
"Apparently a very spoiled little girl. Do you think it would be easier somewhere else? Do you think anyone else would put up with you? Not when they find out what you are. You, my dear, are the daughter of a rapist. Which means you are predisposed to violent behavior. Who would want to deal with that, other than me? Maybe I should put you on the street so you have to beg for food and change like those kids who hang out in front of the university." (Actually she ran into them outside of the bars but she wouldn't admit that.)
"Whatever." The comment about her violent conception and her predisposition to violence took some the edge out her bravado. It always did.
"Whatever? Well then let's just see how you'll fair." Serena reached into Olivia's closet and threw a backpack at her. "You have 5 minutes to pack up a few things."
She looked at her mother. Was she serious? She was really throwing her daughter out of the house on Christmas Eve? Part of the little girl was immediately terrified, but there was the secret part of her that screamed, 'Freedom.' She kept one eye on her mother as she quickly gathered items and stuffed them into the backpack.
"Time's up, let's go." Her mother grabbed her arm and headed out of her room. Olivia was shocked when they didn't head for the stairs, but to her mother's bedroom. Serena opened a sliding glass door and motioned for Olivia to go out onto the small deck.
"What are you doing?"
"You think I'm going to let you run loose on the streets telling people God knows what about me? I don't think so. Now out."
She turned and watched her mother slide the door closed; "You better not call any attention to yourself up here either. Remember what happened last time you tried something like that?" With that Serena locked the glass door, put a stick in the track to keep it from opening and closed the curtain.
"She'll be begging for me to let her in before morning. I don't know where she got that attitude, but it's her will against mine and I will win." Serena brought a bottle of vodka into her room and waited.
Olivia dusted the snow off the lounge chair and sat down. She started to go through the things she grabbed. She had her winter coat, hat and gloves and a couple of changes of clothes, but she hadn't brought any blankets or food. She drew herself into a ball and tried to go to sleep.
She had just dozed off when another coughing fit woke her. The cough was starting to make her throat very sore.
Suddenly another though seized her, coughing on the deck in the middle of the night would certainly draw some attention. She might be determined to show Serena she could do this, but she certainly didn't want to risk any outside attention. She pulled a shirt out of her backpack, using it to stifle further coughing.
It was still dark out when Olivia realized she had to go to the bathroom. Coughing only made the situation a little more dire. She sat and pondered her options. Sorting through the less than desirable options before deciding to try and go through her mother. She squared her shoulders and knocked on the glass door.
It was almost six-thirty am when Serena heard the knock on her slider. She smugly went to answer the door. "Yes?" she was going to make her beg for it.
"I have to use the bathroom."
"Not my problem, go out there."
Olivia looked at the deck, "You told me not to call any attention to myself. I think that would draw some attention."
"I'll get you something then."
"You know if I were on the street I could find my own bathroom."
"Fine! Use the damn bathroom. But I'm not letting you back in."
"I'm not asking to be let in." She was very cold, but wasn't about to give in.
The bathroom was between her and her mother's bedrooms so she quickly snuck into her room, opened a window and threw a blanket and pillow over to the deck. She also snuck out some books and a flashlight from her room. "A little better," she thought to herself, as her stomach growled, "but still no food."
Serena was furious. She couldn't believe that her daughter was not begging to be let in; it was Christmas Day after all. If life had a soundtrack, "You a Mean One, Mr. Grinch," would have been echoing through the apartment.
Olivia heard the slider unlock and quickly hid the books she had brought out. "Merry Christmas, Dear." Her mother's voice was nauseatingly sweet.
Olivia didn't look up until she heard the slider violently close. She could feel tears standing in her eyes. "Why are you crying over this, it's not much different that most other Christmases?" she scolded herself.
On Friday, the third day of exile, she was caught trying to sneak into the kitchen after she was let in. She used the excuse that if she were on the streets she would at least be able to go through the garbage, but it didn't work this time. Her mother was furious that she still hadn't given up and would not give her any more 'privileges'. What Serena failed to notice was the paleness of her daughter's skin and the raspy sound when she breathed. Her sparkling eyes were now dull and pained.
She thought she would easily break Olivia with this little 'lesson', but greatly underestimated the child's will and independence. It would take more than four days to end this little stand off and it would not be Olivia who gave in.
Sunday morning when Serena woke up it was already 10 am. She had gotten no knock on the door asking for the restroom. "This is just a game, she's just trying to get to me." She walked over and looked out the slider. Olivia was lying on the chair, curled in the fetal position, shivering violently.
When Serena opened the door she could hear her daughter wheezing. "Olivia? Are you okay?" She touched Olivia's forehead and felt the fever burning under her skin.
"Mommy." She said weakly, "It hurts to breathe." She broke into a deep bone-rattling cough.
"It's time to come in." Olivia willingly crawled into her mother's waiting arms.
Serena set her daughter onto the bed, stripped her down to a t-shirt and her panties, then covered her up with a sheet.
"I'm so cold Mommy, can't I have another blanket and something warmer to wear?"
"You're running a fever, putting on warmer clothes or using another blanket will only make it worse." She went and got the thermometer and some cold medicine out of the bathroom. "Now let's see how high of a fever."
"What's it say?" She asked before breaking into another coughing fit.
"102 degrees. Now take this medicine and lay down, we're going to take a nap."
A couple of hours later Serena woke up to more coughing. There were tiny blood specks on the sheet and in Olivia's hand.
"Oh my God," she exclaimed. She got her daughter dressed, loaded her into the car and headed for the hospital.
"Your daughter has double pneumonia. She's in very serious condition. Her fever has hit 104 degrees and she is very dehydrated; we're going to have to keep her for a while."
"Are you saying that she may not make it?"
"I'm sure she is going to be fine, kids are strong and usually bounce back very quickly. My concern is that she seems unusually weak, how has she been eating?"
"Not very well I'm afraid. I fix meals, but she just won't eat," she lied.
The only thing Olivia really remembered about her week in the hospital was that she never thought she would be warm again and the nurses were very nice. She almost wished that she could stay there forever.
Serena visited her a total of three times, (including the initial visit to the hospital and the day Olivia was released). She did, however, take full advantage of being childless. She celebrated New Years Eve in a bar drinking unheard of amounts of alcohol and dancing the night away with several men. She began wishing she didn't have to go back to being a single parent.