Didi
Something’s wrong.
My skin tingles with how thick the air seems as I walk up the overgrown pathway to the house. It’s quiet, too quiet, and the door is open. No candles flickering through the window, making the house edge into darkness.
I freeze as the breeze hits my cheek, looking around for any sign of Clyde, Billy or any of their cousins.
Surely, they know we live here. Who’s to say they wouldn’t come here and take me to their hamlet?
I take a deep breath and creep to the side of the house, along the small path toward the well.
A stream of moonlight shines on the scarecrow, which, to my relief, is still rooted in its spot.
I glance down and notice the outline of a boot print in the mud, and my hairs prickle along the back of my neck.
Someone’s been here recently. Perhaps whoever it is, is still here watching me.
“Remy,” I whisper into the wind. “Is that you?” It can’t be…unless he followed me. The breeze caresses the grass in response.
I hold my groceries in one hand, and the knife Remy gave me in the other, remembering what he said to do if anyone touches me again.
Stick it in their flesh and twist.
I step up to the house and pause, wondering if the light is playing tricks on me. The door isn’t open; it’s broken off the hinges entirely, and a low static sound is playing from Mama’s battery-powered radio.
My stomach knots, and a profound emptiness washes over me.
I should have a sense of freedom, but a rolling ache fills my gut instead, knowing Mama is going to think I’m one of those whoring girls who slid away from the arms of Jesus. That, and my suspicion that Remy wants to kill me…
Screw Remy for making me yearn for him the same way I used to crave the Holy Spirit. And damn Tommy for being so cute, even when his darkness shines through.
The very thing Mama’s making me pray for is coming to fruition. I will end up with both of them, Tommy and Remy simply won’t allow any other outcome.
Lust is consuming me…I’ve let it take control.
I hold my breath as I step through the carnage that was once the door frame, only now noticing the broken window.
“Mama,” I call out. “I’m home.”
I set the groceries down, check her dark room—which is empty—and quickly hide the knife under my bed.
I head back into the living room and my eyes fall onto a single, flickering candle almost extinguished on the floor.
A shiver runs through me as a cool breeze cuts through our otherwise stuffy and stale house.
“Mama,” I call out again, but no answer.
The cassette player is blazing, the sound higher than usual, giving off a crackling sound. I walk over to it and turn it down, and that’s when I realize what’s playing.
The only song Mama ever let me listen to. The only song she played repeatedly during the lonely nights when Papa kicked her out and she got exiled from the church for her sin.
Nights in White Satin.
My stomach still remembers those raw early days when Mama was grieving. She didn’t feed me for five days straight at one point, when things were at their worst.
This song reminds me of that—of mourning, sadness, the death of our family. Before that Mama loved me—I know she did—and I’ve been chasing her love ever since.
I see her lying lifeless on the ground in the living room, wearing her white nightgown—the one she always wears under her robe.
Blood sullies her face.
“Mama,” I scream, running and crouching down beside her.
I nudge her head up, and she complies, but she won’t look at me.
She keeps her head facing the window, staring out into the darkness.
I check her over and find the blood is from a slight cut on her chin, but otherwise she looks fine.
My heart sinks when I see a trickle of blood on her arm, too.
No deep wounds, but someone hurt her. Someone was sending a message.
“Mama.” I lower my voice and help her up. “What happened?”
“Where were you, Diana?” she asks darkly.
“I was at work, Mama. Who did this to you?”
She pulls her arm away. “He came to me…”
“Who did, Mama?”
“The devil himself, you filthy girl,” she spits.
Clyde and Billy. It must have been them.
“Mama, don’t worry about those men. They won’t hurt you again, I promise.”
I help her to the couch, and she’s fine to sit on her own. Mama acts like she’s older than she is, but that is only because she drinks so much and smokes. Her muscles are weak, her belly protrudes. I stroke her face right where her gash is.
“Here, I brought you some food, and I brought home that tea you like.” I pass the box to her, but she won’t take it. She stares out into the darkness, clutching her cross.
“When I was a little girl, I had a dream…something I wanted more than anything else…” Her head hangs low, her voice barely a whisper. She’s talking to me like she used to…before this all happened. When she loved me.
“What?” I whisper, clutching her hand, trying to understand.
She squeezes my fingers, intertwining them with hers, and pulls me down. I kneel beside her. It’s painfully obvious now how desperate I am to be loved by anyone. How much I crave companionship.
“I wanted to be the closest girl to God. I was the prettiest, you know, out of all the girls in town. That’s why your father wanted me, chose me. God had a special place for me; He made me pretty for a reason. I got to be the preacher’s wife and because of that, I was closer to Him.”
I rub my thumb on her hand, worried that she hit her head. She reaches over to her pack of cigarettes and lights the last one, blowing the smoke right in my face, leaning back on the couch.
I crinkle my nose. “What are you saying, Mama?”
“God blessed me with gifts, girl. He spoke to me, allowing me to communicate with others. Because of this, the devil despised me, and he tested me with temptations.”
Mama’s babble…
She’s never told me the whole story, but I suspect the man I grew up believing was my father wasn’t actually my father.
“Mama, what do you need right now? I can go get you some water from the well?” Although, the well’s been somewhat dried up the last couple of days.
She finally looks at me, and in the last of the candle’s light, her eyes flicker. “You were with him, weren’t you?”
“Who, Mama?”
“That boy with the devil face who broke in here and did this to me.”
I shift away from her, and my skin crawls. “No. I was at work. I didn’t do this.”
“Show me your belt, Diana.” My stomach curls in on itself, the shame of what I let Remy and Tommy do to me manifesting as heat on my face and chest. So hot, I think I might actually be in hell. My blood thickens as it struggles to pump through my tortured heart.
“Mama, please don’t do this.”
Her eyes grow dark as she rises, and I back away from her. “Show me,” she whispers.
I wipe the tears from my eyes. “Mama, please. I’m an adult now. You can’t act like this.”
I freeze, waiting for the sting of her slap, but it doesn’t come. “What did he do to you?”
I cup my hand over my mouth. “Nothing. I promise, he was trying to help me. No one’s ever touched me.”
“Turn around.”
“Mama…”
“Turn around, Diana.” She reaches under the coffee table for the belt she has hidden there. Three times, Mama’s had to use it on me. Each time I got a scar worse than before.
“You know what you need to do.”
Repentance.
I sob, knowing it’s pointless. Most churches accept prayer, most accept confession, but in the book of Mama, the belt is divine enforcement.
“Diana, honey, this is for your own good. Look at me, look around at how we’re living. Do you know how many men I’ve been forced to sleep with just to survive? I had no other options.”
She’s never admitted that to me outright—she’s never once brought them to the house—though I’ve had my suspicions.
“It’s because of my sins,” she whispers. “Do you understand?”
I nod, wiping my tears and sniffling. Of course, I understand. I’ve been weak, letting these awful thoughts about those two men fester in my mind.
I’ve had awful thoughts, not just about Tommy and Remy…
evil thoughts about Mama, who loves me so deeply.
Kneeling beside me, her voice is clearer than it had been since Papa left.
“My mistakes cost me everything. Weakness allowed the devil inside me, and he never let go. But he gave me you, and I can’t lose you to him.
” Overwhelmed, I dropped to my knees, sprawling across the couch, my back bare.
“God will forgive you, child,” she continues, “but first, you need to forgive yourself.”
She strikes me once with the belt, and I remember little of what happens afterward.