Short Stories
Darkness covered the locked doors and crept through the windows uncovering the place I called home. Each pile of our neglected junk lingered beneath the shadow of concealment, but the darkness fainted under a small light burning between us. A crash of thunder subdued the very sound of my breathing, yet I heard only the strained voice of my mother. I avoided her gaze. Her eyes bore a pain I did not wish to understand. Spotting each of her tears, I pretended she was only a stranger named Darlene. I told myself that my mother's dark story was invented. I wished I could somehow disappear.
Her mother's name was Geraldine. She too lived with scars, and endured the cruelty she was meant to inflict. I could not pity her, but Darlene did. "It wasn't her fault!" she insisted. "All she knew was pain." I peered at my mother, wondering how she could defend the one who crippled her.
The doors were locked, and dark boards covered every window. Not a trace of sunlight could seep into their house. "My mother was convinced that they, the Communists, were stalking us, that they were going to find us and spray acid in our faces. I was trapped."
My mother paused, wringing her hands over the plaque she clutched, and went on.
"We hid from her as much as we could. Being small, I would scramble to my room and crawl under my bed. I waited and waited there beneath the very center of my bed for hours, sometimes days, hoping she wouldn't find me. Staring at the dust bunnies all around me, I wondered if it would ever be safe to move.
"When we did go to school, I had to hide my back and shoulders so no one would see the scratches and bruises. No matter how hard I tried, I never ran fast enough. She always caught me, and beat me until I thought I was going to die. My little sister screamed and screamed, but there was nothing I could do to help her."
It all seemed too terrible to be real. Sitting paralyzed in my seat, listening to this stranger, I pictured myself living in her nightmare.
"Crouched behind the door to her room, I would watch my mom hallucinate. Her eyes held that same wild look she had when she hit me. I never saw who she was speaking to, but she appeared to talk to cottonwood trees in our backyard. And she frequently talked to someone invisible in her room, addressing him as her friend, the Devil."
Darlene took a sip of the stale coffee I'd made hours ago. She didn't seem to mind its taste. I glanced again at passage on the plaque she gripped. It was the Lord's Prayer. Skimming through the verses, my eyes rested on four words just below her fingers: "Deliver us from evil." Wanting to laugh, I suddenly realized why countless people questioned this God. Even the darkest creature in hell would spare an innocent child. Swallowing a mouthful of cold coffee, my mother spoke again through the darkness.
"She called me a cow, and for a while I thought 'cow' was my name. So many times I remember my sister and I sitting in front of an empty refrigerator, trying to pretend there was food to eat. Charlene and I would share a stick of margarine, or spread mayonnaise on the crackers we found on the floor of the pantry. We were starving. Years later, no one could understand why I hoarded food and hid boxes of cookies and granola bars under the clothes in my drawers."
I felt sick, remembering the loud complaints I had voiced earlier about my mom's dry meatloaf. It no longer mattered that I had hours of homework, or that I still needed a homecoming dress. The weight of my college decision and my upcoming choir auditions seemed meaningless. I felt so ashamed.
"What really scared me was her ability to manipulate people. She was insane, but brilliant. My mother kept us home from school so much that one day the truant officer came to visit. As I listened to the rising voices in the other room, I can remember the hope rising in me: maybe if we were forced to go to school, we would have hours away from her. But the truant officer left quickly. I never knew how she managed to evade trouble again. Not even the authorities could save us.
"My mother was always scheming, always crafting evil plots. It was only a matter of time before she killed someone.
"My father hardly ever came home, but when he did, her fits of rage grew worse, and once he left with a gash across his forehead that bled through the towel he pressed against it. Then one day..."
She stopped. It was too much for her. I wanted to shatter the plaque her fingers clenched. Everything in me felt like screaming, and only her voice held me back. Fighting my own tears, I handed my mom another Kleenix.
"One day my dad came home to stay for a while. I stood in the filthy kitchen and watched my mom make his coffee. She slowly poured the hot liquid into his mug and ordered me to take it to my father. I hurried to obey, afraid of what she would do to me once he left. I stepped out onto the porch and set the mug down next to his newspaper. He raised the mug to his lips, and just before he touched the mug's rim, he dropped it, letting it shatter as coffee seeped onto the porch. He had smelled the rat poison. I shrieked: my mother knew about Dad's bleeding ulcers. I had nearly murdered my own father."
I let my tears fall, no longer caring. With every fiber in my being, I hated my grandmother. I hated the part of her that was in me, the evil that flowed through my veins. Once again, I felt sick. My mother stared at me with love in her eyes. With the pain gone from them, she whispered, "God allows everything to happen for a reason, Carrie."
Something inside me softened.
"Let me tell you how I met my Lord. It was late at night after my mom was done abusing me in the bathtub. This time it was longer than usual, but finally she let me go. I crept back into my room - Charlene was already asleep on our bed. I must tell you, I was so afraid. I knew Charlene and I were going to die. Trembling, I knelt beside my bed. I covered my mouth with my hands, but I couldn't stop my teeth from chattering. I did the only thing I knew to do. Silently, but with all my heart, I cried loudly out to God: 'LORD, help us, help us – help us!'
"All of a sudden this peace came over me. It was a peace I will never forget, and it wrapped around me like a soft blanket. I stopped crying. All at once I knew everything was going to be okay. Somehow, I knew that He heard me. He moved me up onto the bed and put me to sleep.
"I will never stop loving my God. He has been both Father and Mother to me."
Then I remembered my Savior: the Son of God wandering the earth, having no place to lay His head. The author of perfection standing silent at the feet of earthly accusers. The Light of the world panting, bleeding, dying at the hands of His people. I remembered the thorns that pierced Him, the crowds who scorned Him, the nails that subdued Him - yet He loved us. With the weight of the world on His shoulders, He carried His cross. I remembered my Creator, whose suffering penetrated my darkness.
My mother should have been ruined. No one can endure hell and live to tell of it, but God renewed her. Many would have repeated the curse of child abuse, but she has nurtured her two girls. My mom harbors forgiveness in place of bitterness, and those scars on her heart are just symbols now of God's deliverance, her tears a picture of His love. Only God could mold such beauty from her horror. She is a miracle, and I am proud to call her my mother.
Two years later as I rummaged through my mom's closet, my eyes rested on a different plaque, and suddenly it all made sense: "Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows."
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