Floorboard's filled with baby toys,
An' empty coke bottles an' coffee cups.
Drivin' through the rain with no radio,
Tryin' not to wake her up.
Cell 'phone says "low battery",
God, what if I break down?
I'm just lookin' for an exit with a lotta lights,
A safe little interstate town.
Just a cheap hotel,
With a single bed,
And cable TV:
Is good enough for me an' Emily.
Some day, when she's old enough,
She's gonna start askin' questions about him.
Some kid at school brings his Dad for show an' tell,
An' gets her little mind a-wonderin':
"Where's my Daddy? Do I have one?
"Does he not love me like you do?"
Oh, maybe I'll find someone to love the both of us,
An' I'll tell her when she's old enough to know the truth.
Will it break her heart?
Will she understand,
That I had to leave?
That's what was best for me an' Emily.
That house was never clean enough; his dinner never warm enough.
Nothing I did was ever good enough to make him happy.
So, I guess, he gave me what he thought I deserved,
But it would kill me if he ever raised his hand to her.
Big rigs are throwin' rain on my windshield,
An' I feel like they're laughin' at me.
Fin'lly the storm is lettin' up,
An' the mornin' is breakin' free.
It's a brand new day,
It's a second chance.
Yesterday is just a memory,
For me an' Emily.
Ah.
Floorboard is filled with baby toys,
An' empty coke bottles an' coffee cups.
Least there's one good thing that he gave me,
An' she's startin' to wake up
Chapter One
Abby sat on her bed, the tears that were streaming down her face stinging the cut's Richard has left her with before going out. Abby got up off of the bed and made her way to the bathroom, she gently wiped away her tears and carefully inspected her face. Her left eye was swollen shut, the gashes across her face were bleeding profoundly. She took out some antiseptic cream from the bathroom cabinet and began to clean her wounds, and even though it hurt and stung like crazy, she didn't flinch nor make a sound, she was completely numb inside. All this was because Abby had forgotten to pick up his prescription, she never knew what kind of a mood he would be in after finished work. There were the days where no one would talk to each other, they just tip toed around him, but then there were the days when everything was 'normal' and they were just like every other family in their apartment block.
At first Abby thought he could be bipolar, but after a while she knew it definitely wasn't, all she knew was that he needed help. And fast.
She then remembered her daughter in the next room, she dropped the tube of antiseptic cream and cotton wool into the sink and ran over to her daughters bedroom.
She was about to charge in slamming the door against the wall, but she didn't want to frighten her daughter anymore than she already was. She traced the door with her finger, she didn't want her to see her like this. As she placed her hand on the door handle she could hear her daughter whimpering. Quietly opening the door she looked around the room, her eyes stopped by the window.
Emily was huddled in the corner under the window in her bedroom, trying to hard to conceal the tears that she desperately wanted to fall. She had often been on the cross fire of her parents arguments, and although her dad had never really hurt her, he still frightened her.
Abby slowly made her way over to her daughter so as not to frighten her, she bent down to her daughter's eye level and lifted her tiny frame into her arms.
Emily wrapped her arms around Abby's neck causing her to flinch. Emily pulled back and looked and Abby's face.
"Mommy your face is bleeding." Emily said sniffing, gently brushing Abby's hair away from her face.
"Shhh." Abby carried her into the living room and placed Emily onto the sofa. "Do you want a drink honey?"
Emily nodded her head, Abby picked up a glass off of the table and made her way over to the sink, turning on the faucet she filled the glass with water. Abby's head started to spin, she quickly grabbed onto the kitchen table but it seemed to slip away from her hands.
Abby fell to the floor, the glass she was holding shattered into a thousand piece's on the floor.
Emily quickly jumped down off of the sofa and went over to her mother, carefully stepping round the pieces of broken glass on the floor. Gently she shook her and tried to wake her up, but no matter how hard she shook her Abby did not move. Emily left her mothers side and went over to the front door, dragging a chair over at the same time with her. Climbing up onto the chair she undid the latch, moving the chair to one side she carefully opened the door and peered out. Opening the door further placed her bare feet out onto the cold concrete floor, which immediately sent chills up her spine. She quietly tip toed over to Mrs. Evan's door and knocked.
Mrs. Evans opened the door in her dressing gown with a cigarette hanging out of the one side of her mouth, she scared Emily but then she was enough to scare any six year old.
"What do you want?" Mrs. Evans barked
"My Mommy's lying on the floor and she won't wake up." Emily said quietly looking up to Mrs. Evans for some sign of reassurance.
"Your Mommy's always passed out on the floor, she's a drunk. So I'm sorry kiddo you're going to go through the rest of your life with her passed out on the floor." Mrs. Evans stood there with one hand on her hip and her cigarette in her other hand. "So learn to deal with it!" She finished before slamming the door in the little girls face.
Emily's bottom lip started to quiver, her eyes were welling up. She sat down on the cold floor and cried, nothing had ever happened like this before, usually when Abby passed out Emily could always wake her up but this time she couldn't. Emily's sobs grew louder and louder, then she heard someone slam the front door to the apartment block. She quickly stood up and turned round, she could hear footsteps slowly climbing the stairs. Emily ran into the apartment and hid behind the door, not shutting it entirely and peeping out of the crack.
It was Gracie from upstairs. Gracie was about 25 and was training to be a nurse, but she was studying over at Mercy. Abby often asked her to baby-sit Emily if she and Richard were working.
Emily flung open the door and cried out her name. "Gracie!!"
"What is it sweetie? You've been crying what on earth is wrong?" Gracie scooped Emily into her arms. "Where's Mommy?"
"Mommy's lying on the floor, but she won't wake up." Emily pointed into the apartment. Gracie cautiously stepped inside, afraid at what she might find. She lived directly above Abby and Richard, and heard all of the arguments and fights they had. But as she walked in it looked like the place had been broken into, the furniture was all over the place cabinets had been broken and there was the remains of someone's dinner on the wall.
Gracie then looked over to where Emily was pointing. "Oh my God! Mrs. Lockhart!" Gracie put Emily down and ran over to Abby.
"Is she dead?" Emily asked holding back the tears.
Gracie checked Abby's pulse, it was very weak but she could just feel one. "No she's not dead sweetheart. But I need you to do me a favor, you need to phone for an ambulance. Can you do that?"
Emily nodded and ran over to where the phone usually was, but she couldn't find it. She looked around and found it behind the sofa, the receiver had been broken in half. Gracie looked over to Emily, she could see the fear in the little girls eyes.
"It's okay just go next door and ask if they can phone for an ambulance." Gracie said, she knew that if they didn't get one soon Abby could be in serious danger. She could have internal bleeding, her whole face was swollen she could hardly recognize her.
Emily took in a deep breath and knocked on Mrs. Evans door again.
"Now what is it you little brat?" She took that same stance as before, hand on her hip and cigarette in her other hand.
"C...c...can you phone an ambulance please?" Emily answered.
"What the hell do you want an ambulance for kid? Look I told you your Mommy will wake up once she's had a good sleep." There was no emotion in her voice whatsoever, even though there was a six year old girl on her doorstep crying. Abby always used to tell Emily stories about a princess and a witch, the witch used to live next door to this princess and all she ever did was moan. Emily knew that Mrs. Evans was the witch in her Mom's stories and she could see why.
"But Gracie said..." Started Emily.
"Look kid I don't care what Gracie said." Mrs. Evans was starting to loose her temper.
"Who is Gracie anyway? Your imaginary friend? Well why don't you go off and play with her and leave me in peace." Mrs. Evans was about to shut the door when Gracie appeared behind Emily holding the door open. Mrs. Evans stared at her bloody hands, and up at her face.
"Look! All we need is an ambulance! There is a woman in there that is critically ill and she needs medical attention. NOW!" Emily had never seen Gracie like this before; Emily slowly backed away from both Gracie and Mrs. Evans and hid in the doorway again. "So can we use the phone or not? But if something bad happens to Mrs. Lockhart then that's something that you'll have to live with for the rest of your life!"
Mrs. Evans didn't know what to do with herself, nobody had ever stood up to her before. "Look that kid is known as a bit of a liar, how was I supposed to know that she was telling the truth!" Mrs. Evans stood aside for Gracie to come in and use the phone.
"For your information Emily has never been known to lie, and even is she did do you honestly think she'd make something like this up?" Gracie headed straight to the phone and dialed 911.
Within five minutes the ambulance had pulled up outside the apartment block, everybody opened their doors and looked out of their windows to see what the commotion was all about. Gracie let them in and showed them up to Abby's apartment, Emily was lead on the sofa sucking her thumb and cuddled up with her blanket when Gallant walked in.
"Michael!" Emily exclaimed, as Michael walked over to her and gave her a huge hug, he lifted Emily up and turned around to find Abby lying on the floor.
"Oh my God." He whispered.
"Is she going to die Michael?" Emily said tracing his face with her finger.
He didn't want to promise her anything because he didn't know her condition, but he didn't want to tell her that she could die. That's just not the kind of thing you tell a six year old.
"I'll have to see how she's doing Em, so if you go and get some things together like your coat and you can bring your blanket too, we can take her to the ER and get Uncle John and Aunt Susan to look after Mommy." Gallant always knew the right thing to say.
Gracie smiled, she had no idea who this guy was but he seemed to be able to bring a smile to Emily's face, and anyone who could do that surely was a good person.
Emily ran off to her bedroom to gather some of hers and her mother's things. Gracie stood back and watched as the paramedics placed Abby up onto the gurney, her body was so limp and her face looked so innocent almost childlike. She had no idea how Abby had put up with all this abuse for so long, she had been living upstairs from them for ten years, way before Emily was even born and everything was fine. But everything started to kick off when Emily was about a year old, she used to cry and Gracie could hear Richard shouting at Abby telling her to 'shut that brat up'.
The first time Gracie looked after Emily she was about two years old, because both Richard and Abby were working. Abby returned home at about 2am, falling through the door. Gracie could smell the alcohol on her breath a meter away, leaving the apartment as quickly as she could she returned to her apartment.
"Thank you for looking after Emily, Miss..." Gallant started, extending his hand out for her to shake.
"It's Miss Bristow but please call me Gracie." She smiled and took his hand. "Are you sure you want to take Emily with you? I could look after her if you want?"
"Thank you for offering Gracie, but I'm not sure how long Abby will be in hospital for and there are people at the hospital who will be there to look after Emily too." Gallant signaled for the other two paramedics to take Abby down to the ambulance. Emily them came out of her Mothers room with her blanket and teddy and one of her Moms jackets.
Gracie went over and kissed Emily on the top of her head. "Now you be a good girl won't you." Emily nodded her head and threw her arms around Gracie's legs, she then went running over to Gallant who lifted Emily up into his arms.
"Thank you for taking care of her before we got here." Gallant smiled once more before following his two friends down to the ambulance, leaving Gracie alone in the apartment.
She shuddered at the thought of what could have happened in these four walls in the past ten years that nobody even knew about, all of the times Gracie greeted Abby if she passed her in the corridor and Abby avoided looking at her, said 'hi' and quickly slipped into her apartment. She didn't really know Richard all that well, but every time she saw him he always asked her how her and her cat was, which always made her laugh. She never thought that anyone could be as two faced as that, but then she had met so many people like that in the ER at Mercy. But she didn't know how Abby could stay with a man who did things like that to her, and how she could let her daughter grow up with all this going on. Although Richard didn't physically hurt her all the time, he constantly insulted her, and was forever putting her down. Gracie shuddered again, she didn't know when Richard would be home, but she certainly didn't want to be there when he did get home. Leaving the apartment in a haste she slammed the door behind her and hurried upstairs to her apartment locking the door behind her.
