CHAPTER 4
I take a sip of my coffee, and enjoy the warmth as it slides down my throat. It’s that time of the month again. Even though I’ve done it so many times before, I still find it nerve-wrecking. I can barely type out the name I’m looking for, even though you’d think my fingers would get used to it by now. I guess they never will. It will always be a name connected with Hell.
The screen welcomes me cheerfully, as if what I’m doing is some happy affair. After I click enter, a sheet filled with basic information opens up. I don’t need to read that. I know all that by heart. It skips a beat every time I have to read that name, or see that photo that is etched inside my mind, as if branded with hot iron. I check the date. It’s still the same as before. I guess he wasn’t good enough, yet, at least. But, a part of me is always afraid that he’ll get out sooner and I won’t know. He’ll find me. He’ll find us.
I click on the little X in the upper right corner, and try to forget about it. But, it’s impossible. My wrist hasn’t healed well, and every once in a while makes a sort of a click sound, like an old, worn out cuckoo clock, which chimes in at its own accord, just to remind you that it’s still working. Not that I need reminders anyway.
With my cup still in my hand, I get up, and walk over to the little bookshelf. I see that one of my albums is poking out, as if someone recently pulled him out, then didn’t put it back properly. I reach out for it, and sit on the sofa, with the album in my lap. Dominick must have skimmed through it, because I’m sure I didn’t. It’s my childhood photo album, one that shouldn’t be of particular interest to him, unless I’m there to explain who all these people were.
I open the first page. It’s me as a baby, cradled in my mother’s arms. My father is watching over us, his hand resting on my mother’s shoulder, as he hovers above me. They’re both smiling. She has that horrible frizzy hair which was so popular back then. But, she is radiant. The next page reveals my first birthday. It’s a chocolate cake, with a pink candle, number 1. She is holding me over the cake, my dad pouting his cheeks to show me to how blow out the candle. My mom’s hair is in a bun now, slightly less frizzy. Her cheeks are flushed. She is beaming. The third photo is me on my trike. My dad is pushing me towards my mom. I’m wearing some horrible looking mustard yellow overalls and my pigtails are uneven. But, I’m laughing with the few teeth I have, fully visible. My dad is like a tower, strong and mighty. My mom like the morning star.
I turn over the next page, my throat already dry because I know what I will see. A part of me hopes that it might be a movie with a different ending, but it never is. The ending is always the same. My parents always die in a car crash that same year. And, my aunt always takes me in after that.
I was too little to remember much of it. I wasn’t in the car, and everyone said it was so lucky. I’m not so sure of that myself. My parents went out to celebrate their wedding anniversary, and my grandma convinced them to go out to dinner, just the two of them. I don’t know if it took much convincing or not, but they were a beautiful young couple with so much life left in them. Of course they wanted to go just the two of them. They were sure I was safe, with grandma. And, I was. It was themselves they should have been worried about. And, that truck driver who looked down at his map for only a single second, before he slammed right into them.
They didn’t tell me anything about it for a very long time. I had to find the newspaper clippings on my own, even though it wasn’t big news. A couple dies as truck slams into them. Tragedy over at Higgins Bridge. Couple dies in horrible accident, leaves daughter behind. The first time I read them, I cried. Next time, it was easier. Grandma told me what happened. I wanted to blame her, but I couldn’t.
There were other people to blame, and one of them was my aunt. She shouldn’t have taken me in. That I will never forgive her for. She should have left me with grandma, but she went out of her way to prove that grandma was unfit to take care of a toddler, and that she would be better. Better to take government money for caring for a foster child. Because, she wouldn’t even adopt me. Said I’m not her child, but I’m family. My little mind at first couldn’t distinguish between the two, but eventually it did. It matured into this idea, slowly but surely.
She was never abusive. I had to emphasize that a few times. She simply didn’t care, and that was more than enough. She relied on the Bible. Whores and bikers. She said those were the two worst kinds of people. I guess I can understand whores. But, bikers? I never had any desire to ask for an explanation. I simply tried to escape any way I could. I rebelled. I smoked. I snuck out of my room on numerous occasions. She’d lock me in, so I learned to pick a lock with a hairpin. Something I’m still proud of today. Trouble is the mother of necessity... or something like that.
That’s when he came along. I was young and naive. It was easy to do what he did.
Angrily, I slammed the photo album shut. I don’t know why I always do this to myself. There is no point in making sense of nonsense. I pushed the album as far into the bookshelf as I could, then lay down on the sofa. That photo of my first birthday lingered on in my mind, and I was grateful for this image.
Slowly, I fell asleep, nestling on my sofa, listening to the sound of my late mother’s sweet laughter.