And there went the plate, cake and all. First it stuck to the wall, then slowly slipped and fell. Glass shattered and I was stunned. The wall remained tinged with green and I don’t think the smell went away, the whole time we lived there. For all I know, it might remain as the ghost of childhood trauma. And of course, have I ever liked pistachio ice cream?
That was my mother, she very rarely ever cried from anger. Instead she hit what she could. She suppressed all the rage and fears, until it was too much and it poured out of her like a black light.
SMASH.
She took him out another time. The blood poured from his nose like a faucet. Daniel screamed and Rebekah started sobbing silently, shaking. We were in a new house and years past from pistachios. He lay on the floor like a baby, blood soaking his pale Irish face. My mother grabbed Beck and Danny.
“I’m leaving and I’m not coming back!” she shouted. “I’m not coming back ever, we’re gone!”
She took the kids and ran to the car. I, in the middle saw Her loading them in, and on my other side was He reaching out a bloody hand as I shrank against the wall.
“Stay, don’t leave me,” he begged me. “Don’t leave me, let her go. Just stay, you’ll stay with me won’t you. Be a good girl and stay?”
I went to the bathroom and got two toilet paper rolls. He pressed one to his face and I watched in wonder as the entire roll became damp. The car started and its loud rumblings, nearly drowned out his pathetic moans. She stood in the doorway, waiting for me.
“Faith! Come on! We’re leaving; we’re going to LA. He can’t stop us!” she shouted.
I stood between them paralyzed, unable to leave him. Him, a man who forced me to cut the grass with scissors. Him, who “spanked” us often for no reason at all, a man without any reason in the world. She would leave and never come back; She would leave me with him as she often had. He would say, “Come rest your head in my lap, take a nap,” when I wasn’t tired. Yes, you see he liked head; he patted it and played with my little braids. Here, in my head I could not live without him. Here in my head, I never believed she would leave. The car motored away, and we were left together.
I sat against the wall and watched him struggle. I sat against a wall that he had pushed me into dozens of times, a wall that held me in comfort when no one else would. I watched him, and he did not see me.
He cried after her, “Lori!” and sputtered as the blood continued to flow.
And I, for the first time left myself. I didn’t leave the house; I didn’t travel to another magical world. I just hovered above myself, and slept. She came back and wordlessly put the children into their beds. She took him to the hospital, where he stayed overnight.
I wondered endlessly, would we have escaped then? Was I the only thing my mother couldn’t leave behind? She didn’t speak to me for hours, and then she sat me down.
“What I did was very very wrong. I had to ask God for forgiveness, and Pa too, “ she said. “Will you forgive me?” she asked.
Yes. I could do that easily. She would be forgiven over and over in my mind for every broken nose, slap, and slight. For myself, I resolved never to make the wrong choice again.