Broken Girl(45)

But even with Briggs making my apartment comfortable again, every time I closed my eyes some nightmare would take over. If it wasn’t Sybil’s sister, Martie, who told me how she loved Shane, and how she’d never lose him to a whore like me, or the visions of Dax beating the shit out of Sybil, it was the reality of my life before meeting Shane tainting my mind. It was my f*cked up life that I so desperately hated, but tightly clung to for refuge. Insecurity once again wrapped its gnarled hand around my thoughts and made sure my sleep wasn’t peaceful.



“Well, I like the way the mud feels squishing through my fingers,” I say as I push my hands back into the cold wet mud, and pull out a glob I roll between my palms.

“Well, then I’ll be the salesman and you be the baking lady,” Billy says looking at the dry mud pies we left out from the day before. “Because my momma doesn’t want me dirty before church.”

I think about the word church, something my parents really never talk about. I wonder if Billy likes going, because every time he talks about it he scrunches up his freckly nose. I wonder if God lives in his church, but I never ask because I don’t want Billy to know we aren’t “God people” like he and his family are. It makes me feel lonely and that makes my tummy ache.

I scoop up a clump of mud, before I pat it into a round flat pancake, I guess I’m the only one making the mud pies today. I don’t care, I like playing with Billy, he makes me feel special.

“Look at all these pies!” I sing, hoping to erase the God fear in my belly.

“They are so pretty, just like you Rosalie,” Billy answers before he leans over and kisses my cheek.

My tummy does somersaults.

It scares me.

I don’t understand why he kisses me.

It confuses me.

I drop the mud pie and I run all the way home.

My Mary Janes are caked with dirt, I flip them off at the front porch, and hurry into the kitchen. I don’t want any reason to make mom mad and I hope I catch her before she swallows the devil’s poison.

“Mom, mom, Billy and I were making mud pies and he kissed me, right here!” I cry, pointing to my left cheek. Swirly feelings are rumbling around in my belly.

Worrying about boy germs making me sick, when I look up at her and notice her blood-red eyes, and then see the devil’s poison behind her and on the counter, half empty . . . I’m too late.

“Dirty hands and a dirty face make for a dirty filthy girl. Didn’t I tell you to never play in the mud with that boy? I bet you let him kiss you! Look at your knees, just covered with filth. Little girls that play in the mud like pigs will be treated like pigs,” she slurs.

My mom’s monster eyes look through me. Her face crinkles up and her breath smells like the whiskey more than her skin this time. She’s tasting the devil’s bottle again, already finished it half-way down, even at seven years old; I know what that means . . . I’m in for a beating. Nothin’s gonna to stop her, I look up at the old metal clock in the kitchen above the sink, five o’clock at night; dad will be home in a half hour and if she’s already beaten me he won’t find a reason to punish her for not keeping me in line.

She grabs my arm, grabbing it so tight I feel the pinch of her nails through the ruffle of my sleeve. The devil’s in her again, spit’s flying from her lips as she screams at me. I didn’t mean to ruin my dress, my favorite pink floral dress. She doesn’t care, her hands are so tight, so sharp, as she pulls at the collar of my dress. The same dress I had worn to see my pee stinky grandma in her hospital bed. I wanted grandma to get up, and take me away from my life. But she didn’t, she just brushed her fingertips over the pleat of my dress and smiled. It was the last smile I had gotten from her that meant anything to me. The smile I tucked in my heart, locked away as the only memory of her which held any value.

“You filthy, dirty little shit! Look what you did to your dress. It’s ruined, ruined!” my mom screams tearing me from the memory of my grandma. Her hands bunch to fists over the rounded collar of my dress, and she yanks, ripping my dress apart. The back of my collar digs into my neck, my knees buckle and I fall to the ground. The air brushes across my bare chest and tears splatter across my skin. When I look down, my dress is ripped clear down the front. My favorite dress, the dress I visited my pee smelly grandma in, her smile dress.

“Little girls that act like pigs will be treated like pigs.” My mom takes a wooden spoon from the counter, slams it into the Crock-pot of chili and slops a heap of it into the cat’s dish. “Go on; eat your dinner like the pig you are. Letting boys kiss you, did you let him reach up under your dress too?”

My voice is hiding, my heart hurts—I hate her. My toes ache from being cold, and my dress flaps around me.

“I hate you.” I cry so loud it makes my belly shake and my lungs burn.

“You have no idea what hate is, you conniving little spoiled brat. But don’t worry, when you grow up and you’re forced to marry a man you don’t love and he makes you kiss him, you’ll find out what it feels like to really hate someone. When your father comes home, he’ll see what you did,” she answers, pointing to the front of my dress before she catches the back of my head and throws me down onto my hands and knees. “Now eat your dinner before you get your punishment for bringing dirt into the kitchen.”

She holds my head down into the cat bowl until the tip of my nose is buried so deep I can’t breathe. She makes me stay down on my hands and knees until the chili’s all gone, even the old chunks of cat food at the bottom of the bowl. She swats the spoon across my back before I get up and run to my room.