A note before reading:
This is a difficult story about domestic violence, child abuse, and the things children learn to survive. Please read gently and take care of yourself.
Once upon a time, there was a little girl born into a storm of chaos.
She grew up knowing the language of violence before she knew the language of much else. The endless screaming, the hard thumping of bodies against walls, the sickening sound of knuckles connecting to skin. The deafening thwacks, followed by her mother’s muffled sobs and her father’s grunts and growls.
And then, the morning after, came the apologies.
Roses on the dinner table. A cuddly teddy bear. A small box of chocolates. Their sweetness mingling with the musky smell of cigarettes and the stale, sour scent of beer and trauma that seemed to linger in the walls.
Empty Pabst cans still sat on the countertops.
And silence.
It happened again last night.
Ma and Daddy got into another fight.
The little girl wakes to sunlight streaming shamelessly through her bedroom window, bright and golden and utterly oblivious to the horrors that had unfolded behind those closed doors only hours before.
She stretches and sits up in bed.
Then she listens.
She listens for footsteps. For voices. For the opening of a door. For any sign of life beyond the four walls of her bedroom.
Nothing.
Quiet as a church mouse pissing on cotton.
Her stomach begins to rumble.
Slowly, she gets out of bed and walks toward the door. She turns the knob as delicately as she can, with her eyes squinting and face scrunched up tight, holding her breath so she won’t alert anyone that she is awake and up and at ’em.
The coast is clear.
She tiptoes down the hallway toward the kitchen, hoping to pour herself a bowl of cereal. Relief loosens something inside her. Her teeth unclench. Her shoulders soften.
Then he walks through the back porch door.
The little girl stops.
Daddy stops, too.
They stare at each other. His lips press into a thin line. There is an unspoken language between them.
He knows she knows. But he isn’t going to bring it up. She knows he knows. And she decides to change the subject.
“Hi, Daddy.”
The words barely make it out of her throat.
He grunts and closes the door behind him.
“Where’s your Ma?”
The little girl shrugs. Then she notices a shadow moving in the hallway behind him. She points. He looks toward the shadow. Then back at her.
For a moment, she thinks he is going to walk down the hallway.
Instead, he turns toward the coffee maker. He pours himself a cup.
Lights a cigarette and inhales deeply, filling his lungs with smoke and poison, then takes a loud slurp of coffee. Smoke billows from his nose as he swallows.
The little girl stay still at the table. She knows better than to move. Not while he is in the kitchen.
She waits.
Daddy gives her one last glance before walking into the living room, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, coffee mug in hand.
The little girl watches every step he takes.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
She doesn’t move until he lowers himself into his worn-out La-Z-Boy, the armrests sun-bleached and scarred with cigarette burns. Only then does she begin to stand.
And that is when Ma peeks around the corner.
She quietly slips into the kitchen, like a mouse avoiding a trap.
The little girl immediately settles back into her chair.
Ma raises one finger to her lips.
“Shhh.” The little girl sees the bruise on her mother’s chin. It’s big and black and purple. But she was told to shhh.
So she becomes even more rigid. A mannequin sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for permission to exist.
Daddy turns on the television. Loud. He always did that.
The little girl keeps one eye on him and the other on her Ma.
Caught in the middle. As usual.
She watches her mother reach carefully into the cabinet for a coffee mug. Every movement is slow and deliberate, carefully timed to the noise coming from the television.
A little to the left.
Pause.
A little to the right.
Pause.
Don’t make a sound.
Then—
Clink.
The mug touches the countertop.
The little girl and her mother freeze, lips pursed and bug-eyed. Their hearts seem to pound loud enough to give them away. Ma closes her eyes and slowly exhales.
Then she looks at her daughter.
One finger rises to her lips again.
“Shhh.”
The little girl doesn’t move.
The phone rings, slicing sound through the kitchen. The little girl startles.
And suddenly, she feels warmth spreading beneath her nightgown. She has wet herself. Panic rises in her chest.
How will she hide it?
How will she keep Ma from knowing?
How will she keep Daddy from knowing?
Then she hears the unmistakable clunk of the La-Z-Boy as Daddy pushes down the footrest.
Ma takes the coffee mug and slips out of the kitchen like a ghost. She hasn’t even filled it.
Daddy walks toward the phone. “Hello?” He begins talking to a friend.
The little girl realizes this is her chance. She slides out of the chair.
Quietly.
Carefully.
She shuffles down the hallway toward her bedroom, leaving behind a small puddle of urine on the chair.
She makes it to her room and peels the wet pajamas and panties away from her skin. She changes into clean clothes. Then she wraps the dirty ones inside an old duffel bag she finds in the back of her closet and pushes it deep beneath her bed.
A secret. Something she can hide. Something nobody has to know about.
Satisfied with her hiding place, she begins crawling out from beneath the bed.
The bedroom door flies open.
Before she can react, a large hand grabs her by the leg.
He yanks.
She flies across the floor in one violent motion.
Her shirt rides up.
The carpet scrapes against her stomach, burning the skin raw.
She is so terrified she stops breathing.
Her screams become trapped somewhere inside her throat.
Daddy is yelling.
He pulls down her pants.
And then his huge hand comes down.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Each blow burns.
The screams that were trapped inside her finally break free.
Until, suddenly, they don’t.
Her mouth hangs open. She searches for air. Her lips begin to turn purple. She gasps.
But he doesn’t stop.
He screams at her for wetting herself.
Through the chaos and pain, the little girl notices his pants are wet. He must have sat in the puddle on the chair next to the phone.
And then, just as quickly as it began, it is over.
He leaves.
The little girl lies on the floor, trembling.
Weeping.
Her body aching.
And even though he is already gone, she keeps whispering the same words over and over again.
“I’m sorry, Daddy.”
A sob.
“I’m sorry, Daddy.”
Another sob.
“I’m sorry, Daddy.”
As though apologizing enough might somehow make the world safe again.
Her legs and backside are sore to the touch. They burn. The skin feels hot, red, and raw.
Ma stands in the doorway. The little girl looks up searching in her Ma’s eyes, begging her to make it better, to protect her. To whisk her away and never return to this house of horrors.
But she just looks at her daughter.
She says nothing, and turns around and quietly closes the door.
No hug.
No comfort.
No rescue.
Just witness. And leave.
The little girl reaches for the stuffed animal closest to her and buries her face in its soft belly. She cries until the tears soak into its fur. She wonders why her parents hate her. She wonders what she did to deserve this. She wonders if God hates her, too. Why he makes her suffer. She wishes she was dead and says it out loud to her teddy.
She is only five years old. Why is the world so cruel?
Hours pass.
The little girl still hasn’t eaten. Her stomach growls.
No one checks on her.
No one comes.
Nobody seems to care.
So eventually, she stands. She places her teddy bear carefully back on the bed and walks to the bedroom door.
She turns the knob.
She listens.
Nothing. Silence.
She steps into the hallway and slowly makes her way toward the kitchen. She looks out the window.
Daddy’s truck is gone. The little girl exhales.
Then she looks through another window. Her Ma is outside pulling weeds in the garden.
The little girl runs back to the kitchen. She grabs whatever she can find.
A banana.
Bread.
Peanut butter.
She pulls a spoon from the drawer and scoops up a large hunk of peanut butter. She grabs two slices of bread and the banana, then slips out the front door with her makeshift lunch clutched in her hands.
And she runs.
Down the road.
Around the corner.
Far enough that the house disappears from view. Far enough that, for a little while, nobody can find her.
Nobody comes looking.
Nobody cares enough to.
When she finishes her lunch, she tosses the spoon down a manhole and lies back in the soft grass beside it.
She looks up at the sky. And for the first time that day, she lets herself imagine somewhere else. Somewhere far away.
A place where Daddy’s don’t hurt.
A place where Mommy’s don’t turn away.
A place where a little girl can wake up in the morning without listening for danger.
A place where someone notices when she is hungry.
Someone notices when she is hurting.
Someone gathers her into their arms and says,
You are safe.
So she lies there in the grass, staring into the endless blue, and lets her imagination carry her somewhere the world cannot reach.
Somewhere beyond the walls.
Somewhere beyond the screaming.
Somewhere beyond the silence.
Somewhere a little girl is loved.
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~Eevie
Very important piece.
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