Gun Shy(94)

Mother wasn’t accidentally hit by a car.

She knowingly, and with purpose, walked in front of traffic that day.

My father either didn’t know, didn’t care, or just didn’t acknowledge the possibility that it wasn’t an accident. But I wasn’t surprised. He had a way of believing what he wanted and expecting others to believe the same. Even if it was all lies.

Even if those lies were about himself.

Like the one about him being an upstanding citizen. A leader in the church. A devoted and loving husband and father. A man of God.

Father played the part well. He looked just like a widower in the throes of grief with his head bowed. When in reality, he was probably trying not to nod off after downing a large portion of a new bottle of whiskey that morning.

“She was an obedient woman...” the Reverend continued his sermon of half-truths.

Obedient? That was the best he could come up with? Obedient?

My head spun at his sermon.

The whole truth was that my mother, Caroline Dixon, was someone who rarely smiled. She lived under a roof ruled by constant fear. She rarely left the house. She apologized a lot and often. If anyone was keeping a running tab, ‘I’m sorry’ was the sentence she spoke most often during her life, and even then, it was only said in a barely audible whisper to the floor.

A realization hit me so hard I felt like I’d been kneed in the stomach. I doubled over and stumbled backward, muttering apologies to the women I’d knocked into who hopefully thought I was having some sort of fit caused by my overwhelming grief.

Father glanced back, and although to anyone else he appeared sympathetic when he flashed me a sad smile, I knew better and could see the fury forming behind his cold eyes. There was no way my outbursts were going to go unpunished.

I kept walking backward until I was clear of the tent and the crowd. I dropped to the ground and slid all the way down until my back was flat on the grass and the top of my head was pressed against a shiny granite gravestone.

The revelation I was having would turn out to be the thought that launched a thousand ships. That day my life was changed forever, turning down a path there would be no coming back from.

If I kept on living the way I was. The same way Mother had lived. Subservient. Submissive. Abused. Battered. Then that sermon, those very same generic words and lies about a life she never lived, would be spoken at another funeral someday.

Mine.





TWO





SAWYER





Restless was the understatement of the century. My right knee bobbed up and down so quickly it was a blur of dark denim skirt. I sat on the edge of my bed tapping my heel so hard I was sure if I stayed there long enough I’d make a hole and fall right through to the

first floor below. Restless wasn’t allowed in his house. Neither was wearing any article of clothing that

showed more than an ankle or elbow, cell phones, or any internet access that wasn’t being used for his pre-approved purposes.

Mother’s funeral was hours ago. Father was attending the gathering following the service that only men were permitted to attend.

I caught my reflection in the small mirror above my dresser. My hair might have been brown with a tint of red where my mother’s had been a sunny shade of blonde, but underneath the obnoxious number of freckles that ran across the bridge of my nose and cheeks, there was no doubt it was her face staring back at me.

I pushed down my cuticles and glanced down at my hands, turning them over and inspecting each side.

I had her hands too.

And since stillness was the enemy I stood up and paced my small simple bedroom. The only picture above my bed on the white wall was a little painting of the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus.

My father had suggested I handle my grief by prayer, and if that didn’t work, some old fashioned hard work. Like cleaning.

Cleaning.

He’d actually suggested that in order to get over the death of my mother...I should clean.

The suggestion was the real problem. Grief wasn’t. Little did my father know I’d yet to experience it. I felt numb. Frustrated. Angry. But grief was late and I’d decided I wasn’t going to keep the lights on and wait up for it to arrive.

In all my pacing around the room, I managed to knock over a pencil cup from my desk. I knelt on the floor and began to collect them. Reaching under the bed to get the ones that had rolled under there my hand brushed against something hard.

Upon further inspection, I discovered that it was a box.

A box I hadn’t put there.

Sliding the box out from under the bed I sat up and propped it on my lap. It was a worn shoe box. Faded pink with white lettering. There was a thick envelope, the kind you’d send large documents in, taped to the lid with my name scribbled in my mother’s hasty handwriting across the top.

The first page on top of the thick stack I pulled from the envelope was a reader. As I read it to myself, it was her voice I heard.

Sawyer, My beautiful girl. There is so much I wish I’d told you. Despite everything, you somehow still became a kind, smart, and capable young woman. You have so much to offer this world. More than you know.

I have learned in my life that there are two kinds of people. The weak and the strong. Those who are truly strong try and lift others to make them feel just as strong. Those who are weak do their best to make others feel as helpless as they do. Surround yourself with the strong.