Flashbacks and Memories (Part 5)
By Jenny Taylor
They wait for a few minutes to let Jaycee regain her composure, before asking that one vital question and which that duty to ask fell onto the eldest of the Tracy brothers, who spoke with comfort, reassurance, curiosity and concern.
"Jaycee… I know that this is hard for you and a massive shock to us, but… I have to ask you this… What happened after you woke up?" Jaycee sniffled as she tries to control her emotions. Scott rubs circles on her back to comfort her. She takes a few deep slow breaths before she continues with her story.
"When I woke up…"
14 years earlier on the cruise liner King William V…
A groan and a few turns indicates that one of the youngest passengers stirs from her unexpected sleep. Her eyes try to open, but had to shut quickly because of the brightness of the room. She slowly opens her eyes, squinting and blinking in order for her eyes to adjust to the natural light flooding in from somewhere.
When she is finally opens her eyes, Jaycee notices that she's facing a pair of weird windows. They were circular with a light, cream and light green patterned curtain pulled to one side each. Jaycee shuffles until she's leaning on her left lower arm when she notices the bedsheet. It was cream, soft and clean which is completely different to the bedsheets in her bedroom, which were old, dirty and rough.
She then looked at the pillow and used her free hand to touch it, it had the same colour and pattern as the curtains and the same soft feeling as the bedsheet and then she looked at the duvet cover, again it was soft and warm and had the same pattern as the curtains.
Jaycee then sat up and looked around the room. Underneath the windows was a wide, wooden oak dressing table which fitted between the two wood panelled walls. In front of it were a small wooden coffee table with two stripy armchairs set in the same colours as the curtains.
Next to her bed is a bedside table, lined with drawers and looked like it was made from the same type and colour of wood as the dressing table. The wall behind and in front of the bed, set in the middle of the wooden panelled walls, were painted cream and up a certain height above the bed was a neon light, mounted on the same type of wood as the furniture.
As she turned to look to her right, the was another bed immediately next to hers, which it looked like that it had been slept in. Jaycee looked worried in fear at the sight as she continued to look around the room. Next to it was another bedside table, identical to the one next to her bed and above that bed was another neon light.
In the right hand corner of the room was a wooden door, where it led to she was scared to know. Further to the right of the door was a pair of small wooden doors, which looked like the size of the cupboard doors back at her grandparent's kitchen, set into and halfway up the cream wall.
Jaycee sighed in sadness and confusion. She had no idea where she is, but she feels that where ever she is, is a long, long way away from her beloved Virgil. Suddenly, she heard a noise. The noise was muffled, but defiantly distinctive. It was the noise of a flushing toilet.
Jaycee froze in panic, her gut instincts tells her that the woman, who had taken her, is in the bathroom nearby and that she may return into the bedroom. Jaycee quickly shifted herself back into the bed, underneath the duvet and pretended to sleep.
She waited and froze in fear as the sounds of the first door opening and closing, believing that muffled sound belonged to the bathroom door, and then the slightly louder sound of the bedroom door opening and then slowly closing.
She can hear the quiet footsteps growing slightly louder as the woman approaches her. Then she can hear some shuffling behind her, indicating that the woman had just sat onto the bed next to her. And then, came a move which Jaycee never expected and had her frozen to the spot, the woman is stroking her hair!
Why is she stroking my hair? Who is she? What does she want? Where am I? Where is she taking me? And why is she…crying? Her mind filled with questions was interrupted by the small sound of a sad sniffle and for the first time, the woman spoke.
"I'm so sorry Jaycee." The woman spoke quietly and softly, her voice full of hurt, regret and sadness. "I've failed you…" The woman's voice trailed off at the end of the sentence and began to sob.
Jaycee's fear faded and was being replaced with curiosity and confusion. How does she know my name? And failed me? Failed me for what? What's going on? Knowing that she won't get any answers from just lying there in bed, she'll have to get up and face this woman and hopefully get the answers that she deserved.
Jaycee turned and faced the woman, her eyes locking onto the face of this strange woman. The woman was slightly startled by the youngster's movement and then smiled a sad smile as she looks down as the girl. The woman sighed, knowing that she's going to be bombarded with questions from the frightened girl. She takes a breath, straitens herself and looks straight and deeply into Jaycee's eyes.
"I take it that you want to know what's going on." It wasn't much of a question, but a statement as she knows there's no point in lying to her, now that the girl is awake, as she spoke sadly and regretfully.
Jaycee nodded slowly, meaningfully and fearfully as she is sensing that whatever is going on, it's not going to be good. Slowly she regains her confidence to speak.
"Who… are you?" She asked nervously in confusion. The woman gave her a small sad smile with unshed tears, threatening to fall from her eyes as she spoke and gave an unexpected answer.
"The last time I saw you… was when I was forced… to abandon you… and left you on mom and dad's doorstep… when you were 18 months old." She replied with a hint of crying in her voice. Jaycee looked up at the woman, wide-eyed and open-mouthed in shock.
Silence fell as Jaycee takes in what she had been told and tries to work it out by remembering her past, she looked away for a moment before returning to look at the adult in realisation of the identity of the person.
"Mom?! Is that… really you?" Jaycee asked quietly in shock and fear as she too is starting to cry at the realisation. The woman smiled and nodded as tears flowed out of her eyes and she sniffled as she looks deep into her daughter's eyes.
"Mom! MOM!" Jaycee cried and rushed into the open arms of her mother, hugging each other tightly in a death grip as they both cried in a mixture of happiness and sadness. Jaycee just couldn't believe it, after these years believing that her parents were dead and then to find out that the person who kidnapped her from her grandparent's home, was her very own mother.
But, this had led to more questions and she wants to know now. She pulled away from her mother, looked at her in the eye and began to ask her some questions that needed answering.
"Where…" She began but her mother place her finger onto her lips to silence her.
"Shhh… It's okay Jaycee. I know that there's a lot of questions that you want to ask me, but it can wait until you had something to eat, you look dreadfully thin and underweight."
Her mother spoke with concern and knowing that her daughter hadn't had anything to eat since yesterday, but seeing the state of her daughter's condition is worrying her, telling her that her only and precious daughter is having problems of her own and she wants to find out.
"Go and have a bath, put some clothes on and then I'll take you to a restaurant so that we can something to eat." She said calmly, even though she is worried about Jaycee's health. Jaycee looked at her in confusion at the orders that her mom gave her and decides to tell her mom the truth.
"Bath mom? I don't know how to use one." Her mother was shocked in confusion and disbelief by her daughter's statement.
"What do you mean Jaycee?" She asked gently in concern.
"Grandma and Grandpa have been nasty to me mom! Especially Grandma!" Jaycee replied with sadness and fear in her voice.
"What!? Why are they being nasty to you Jaycee?" She spoke in concern and disbelief.
Determined to know the answer, she gently grabbed Jaycee's shoulders turned her around so that her daughter faces directly into her eyes. Jaycee gave out a sad, sobbing sigh as her terrible memories came flooding back and then looked directly into her mother's eyes, determined to tell her the truth.
"I don't know why they've being nasty to me mom. They refused to tell me. Grandpa gives me the silent treatment, while Grandma was being abusive to me, both physically and mentally." Her mother looked at her, wide-mouthed in shock and disbelief, she couldn't believe that her own mother would treat her daughter like this.
She hoped that this isn't true, but her daughter shuffled round as she wanted to show her something. The adult watched as the child turned to have her back facing her, she bent down and pulled down both her PJ bottoms and her knickers to show her mother the horrors of her suffering.
Her mother just sat and stared in shock horror at the sight. There were red markings surrounded by black and blue bruising's nearly covering her daughter's butt checks and it looked like that she's been beaten recently. She looked up to see her daughter's face filled with sadness and hurt.
"When did this happen Jaycee?" She asked in horror and sadness as anger and hatred begins to build inside her as well as disgust as she feels like throwing up at the sight. Jaycee pulled up her underwear and PJ bottoms carefully, turns and sat in front of her mother.
"Two weeks ago." Again, shock filled the adult and she was about to hyperventilate, but she took some deep breaths to calm herself down and regain her composure as well as returning to her 'detective' mode.
"Jaycee… Can you tell me what happened?" The youngster nodded took a deep breath herself before telling her the incident.
"It happened so quickly. I just entered the house as normal after visiting my boyfriend and his brothers, when suddenly and un-expectantly, Grandma demanded me to come to the kitchen. When I went into the kitchen, she was very, very angry and I still don't know why, but… with some sort of hand signal to Grandpa, Grandpa ushered me to the table, grabbed my wrists and pulled me across the table and held me there while Grandma… pulled my shorts and knickers down and then…"
She broke down sobbing as the memory of the event was too much for her to bare, but she knew that her mother wants the truth, so she pushed through the sobbing to continue with the story. "She grabbed one of Grandpa's waist belts and then… she whipped me…" Jaycee starts to hyperventilate in shock and fear.
Her mother rubs circles on her back in an attempt to calm her down, before she could gain more information from her traumatised child. "Shhh… It's ok, it's ok." She spoke in reassurance and waited until the sobbing had died down and for the child to speak. "Are you ok to continue?" The youngster nodded, before resuming.
"After she…whipped me, she ordered me to bed without anything to eat, so I went to bed hungry and in pain…again."
"Again? You mean it has happened before?" Her mother asked in concern and the youngster nodded. Her mother makes some mental notes to ask her daughter some questions which came to mind during the story. She looks at her daughter and asks her gently if she had told someone about the incident.
"Yes." Jaycee nodded again. "My boyfriend." Her mother gave her a puzzled look as she didn't know about her daughter's relationship.
"And who's your boyfriend?"
"Virgil Tracy, second-born son of ex-astronomer Jeff Tracy." She spoke in confidence with a bit of hurt as she mentions her lover. Her mother looked at her in surprise and shock. She couldn't believe what she just heard, so much so that she didn't notice Jaycee's puzzled look as she asked her a question which she didn't hear properly.
"Pardon Jaycee? What were you just saying?"
"Have you heard of Jeff Tracy mom?" The adult took a deep breath as she knows that what she's going to tell her daughter would change her life.
"More Jaycee," The youngster looked at her, not knowing whether to be scared or amused by her mom's words, but waited for her mom to continue and from the looks on the adult's face, this is going to be a big one.
"He's my brother-in-law."
The remaining brothers looked at her in shock. John and Scott shook their heads in disbelief as joy starts to fill the Terrible Two at the new realisation.
"Wait, are you saying that you're our cousin?" Alan asked getting excited as Jaycee nodded in reply. "Awesome!"
"Alan!" Scott snapped at the baby of the group giving him a look that tells him to be quiet before turning to Jaycee, still shocked and confused and he wanted conformation. "Are you sure Jaycee?"
"Yes Scott."
"How?" John spoke blankly, "How did our dad end up being your mom's brother-in-law?"
Jaycee sighed. "Well…"