Part Seven

        Christopher and I were laying down on my bed with his new baby brother Michael resting on a pillow between us. Michael was so tiny, squishy, and perfect. He looked like he had an old man’s receding hairline, bald on top and very little hair going from one ear all around his head to the other ear. I just came home with Michael from the hospital that afternoon.

            I looked at Christopher as he looked at Michael.

            “You can touch him, just be super careful ok” I said to Christopher.  

 

“Here” She said handing me the three-month-old baby, “watch your sister”.

            I was never allowed to touch her before and now I was holding her, a baby, in the living room so She could go run to the phone that was ringing. Denise wasn’t so heavy but I had never held a baby before, so I looked at the couch and slowly scooted my feet towards it and sat down. She answered the phone and pulled the long phone cord down the hallway and closed herself in the hall bathroom to talk.

            Denise looked at me and blinked. I just held her and did not move. I didn’t know what would make her start crying so I just stared right back at her and tried not to budge. I didn’t feel right holding her, I didn’t like it. She was solid but I knew I had to be careful. She was smaller than some toys I had but was warm and not empty like the toys. I didn’t know what to do with her and she was kind of ugly too. I took a good look at her face and she looked like a bug to me. She looked like her face was smaller than her head and body, like a cockroach. Now that she reminded me of a cockroach, I didn’t want to hold her at all and I stared at the empty space next to me to set her down.

She came out of the bathroom, slammed the phone down on the receiver and walked towards me. She yanked Denise from my hands and held her in one arm. Denise began to cry.

“Oh shut up” She said. She took Denise down the hall and to her own room, the farthest door on the left and slammed it.

Denise kept crying and crying and I started to get worried. I waited for a few minutes, but I could still here her crying. I got up from the couch and started to walk down the hall to my room. When Denise was born, I had to give up my old room. My bedroom was now the last door on the right and I shared a wall with my parent’s. I went into my closet and put my ear to the wall. I could hear Denise cries and I heard her crying too.

‘Get up and take care of the baby’ I thought ‘it’s not her fault you made her ugly’.

I didn’t know what was wrong, but I knew that She should have cried later. That it was more important to take care of the baby than to let her cry just because She was sad.

She stopped crying after a little while and Denise cried herself quiet too. So I got out of my closet and went to my door. She was standing there waiting.

“Spying on me?!” She yelled.

She slapped me hard across the face. She caught me by my hair before I fell onto the wall frame. I leaned back and held the left side of my face with both hands and tried to slide down the wall to the floor, but she just pulled me up by my hair and started shaking my head back and forth.

            “Whatever happens in there is none of your fucking business!” She yelled “Do you understand?”

            “Yes” I cried, “I’m sorry”.

She let me go and I immediately dropped to the floor. She bent down and kept hitting me wherever She could. I covered my face with my arms and brought my knees close to my chest and sat there until She was done.

“Damn right you’re fucking sorry” then She straightened herself up and walked out of the room. “I’m going to call this mother fucker back. A phone call won’t get rid of me”.

I peeked out from my arms and watched her disappear down the hall. My head hurt. She always hit me in the head. I stood up and went to my bed and sat down, head throbbing.

‘I need to get out of here’ I thought, ‘tonight’.

That night I tried my hardest to stay awake in bed. I had to wait until I was sure that everyone was asleep. I looked at the alarm clock by my bed, 2:22 am. I got out of bed and crept into my closet and put my ear to the wall. It was silent except for the sound of my dad snoring.

I pulled away from the wall and grabbed my purple jacket. It was a snow jacket with large wooden buttons, and a purple furry hood. It wasn’t cold outside, but I thought I might need it in the future. I wasn’t planning on ever coming back and would need to take it with me if I had to sleep outside from now on.

I grabbed my sneakers from the closet and placed them on my bed. I turned to the dresser and slowly opened it to get socks and jeans. On the dresser I eyed a piece of paper and a pencil.

‘I should probably let them know why I left’ I thought, ‘I loved my grandma Maureen and wouldn’t want her to be hurt if I didn’t say goodbye’. I dropped my socks and jeans and I began to write.

I’m not happy here and no one wants me. You hurt me and make me cry every day and I am scared all the time. I never want to come home from school. I wish I could live with Grandma Maureen, but I know you would never let me. You can’t be my real parents, so I need to find out where they are and why I had to live with you. Please tell Grandma Maureen that I love her.

Megan

 

I bent down and pulled the jeans on under my night gown and tucked the gown in like a t-shirt. I walked to my bed and put on my socks and shoes and grabbed my jacket. I picked up the note and folded it in half and put it on my pillow. Standing in the room I looked around at the little things that I could bring. The only things that really mattered to me was Snuggle and my god mother’s gold watch. I went into my seashell jewelry box and put the watch in my jean pocked. I wanted to bring Snuggle so badly but I knew that having the stuffed bear with me would bring too much attention and I needed to look as old as possible.

I put my jacket on so I could have my hands free and quietly opened my bedroom door. It did not make a sound. I listened for a while. No sounds, just the bubbles of the large fish tank in the living room. I walked through my doorway and quietly crept down the hall past the dining room and into the kitchen. I took a little steak knife from the wood block next to the microwave. I stood for a moment and looked at the knife. Sometimes I would think about stabbing myself. It would be easier than leaving, but I didn’t know how.

I held the knife by the handle and pressed the point of it into my other hand. I didn’t press hard, just enough to make a little grey dot in my palm. Anywhere I could put this knife would just make me be in pain and I wouldn’t die right away. In the movies when you get stabbed, it takes a while and there is always allot of blood. Sometimes you don’t even die, you just end up waking up at the hospital. I turned the knife towards my stomach and touched the blade to my nightgown. I couldn’t do it myself. Maybe if I held it there with both hands and let myself fall on my stomach here on the kitchen floor that would work. I closed my eyes and took a breath. I thought about falling on the knife and thinking about how it would feel to get cut on the inside. Nope, couldn’t do it. I opened my eyes and put the knife blade first in my back jean pocket.

I left the kitchen and walked towards the living room to the front door. Everything was dark and still. I reached the front door and stood a little straighter.

‘I can do this’ I thought and felt myself get a little lighter, a little cheerful.

I thought about money and food. What would I do when I got hungry? I would just figure it out. Nothing was more important than finally getting away from here.

I opened the door and let it swing open. The cool night air engulfed me, and I breathed in deeply. I felt so free I wanted to run and dance and cry. I had the same dream a few times where I finally left home and flew off the welcome mat and just kept rising into the sky. I stepped out onto the welcome mat and stood there and smiled.

‘This will be better’ I thought, ‘it has to be better, anything is better’.

I turned to close the front door behind me when I heard something. Denise’s small little cry echoing through the silent house. It wasn’t a very loud cry, more like the sound of child ghost haunting some deep part of the darkness.

‘Denise,’ I thought, ‘That woman just had a baby, and she will be next if I’m not here’.

I stayed outside and closed the door.

‘I have to go’ I thought, ‘I can’t live like this, I don’t want to be here’.

Denise’s little weird face and hands came into my mind, I couldn’t stop it. I pictured that woman hitting Denise or slapping her tiny face, I couldn’t stand it. I shook my head from side to side to get the pictures out. Denise is so small and won’t understand that She’s crazy. Denise won’t be able to duck or block, there is no one to help her.

The tears started to roll slowly down my face. I looked around at the houses. The yards were neat and clean. Everyone had their trash can in front of their house. Everything looked quiet and normal.

‘If only they knew what happened in here’ I thought, ‘could anyone help me?’

I turned back to the house and opened the door. I walked back into the living room, closing, and locking the front door behind me. I couldn’t stop crying and wiped my tears with my jacket sleeve.

I listened for a minute. Denise had already stopped crying and the house was quiet once more. I walked back to the kitchen and took the knife out from my pocket and placed it back in the wood block. I turned around and made my way past the dining room and down the hall looking at the stupid family photos hung on the walls as I got to my room.

‘Everything here is fake’ I thought, ‘everything and everyone is fake and stupid’.

I reached my room, walked inside, and closed the door behind me. I wasn’t trying to be quiet anymore. I took my god mothers watch from my pocket and put it back in the jewelry box. I took off my purple jacket and hung it back up in the closet and kicked off my shoes on the floor. I walked back to the dresser and took off my jeans and pushed them in the drawer. I stepped on the toes of one of my socks and pulled my foot out of it, then stepped on the toe of my other sock and pulled my foot free of that sock.

‘Why did She have to go and have another baby when She hates kids?’ I thought.

I grabbed the note from my pillow and tore it into tiny pieces, squished them into a ball and put it in my jewelry box. I went to my bed laid down and cried.

I woke the next morning to her repeatedly pushing down on my temple with two fingers and bouncing my head onto the bed. She stopped pushing my head onto the bed when I opened my eyes.

“What the fuck is this” She yelled.

 I saw the letter I tore up taped back together and in one whole readable piece. I pulled the blankets over me quickly and tried to cover my head.

She pulled the blankets off the whole bed in one yank and grabbed my ankle, dragging me off the bed. My side slammed onto the concrete floor and I was dragged down the hall twisting and turning and screaming for help. My night gown gathered at my neck as I was dragged down the hall.  I could feel the skin on my back, shoulders and sides peel and burn as I twisted on the wood floors.

She already had the garage door unlocked and opened waiting for me. She dragged me through the doorway and down the steps. My back slammed into each step and scraped against the concrete and I screamed “HELP!” as loud as I could. She took me to the center of the garage floor where the oil stains were and let me go.

“Shut up!” She yelled.

I tried to be quiet, but I was already crying so hard and scared that I had hiccups and I couldn’t stop so I covered my mouth with my hands.

“Stand up!” She yelled.

My body hurt. My back and arms took most of the burns from the floor and felt raw, but I stood up as quickly as I could.

“Why would you write something like this?” She asked and started pacing back and forth in the garage.

I couldn’t talk, I said nothing just muffled my crying and hiccups with my hand. I tried to pull my nightgown back down to cover myself with my free hand.

“You love Maureen more than me, is that it? And what kind of crazy shit is it that you have other parents, are you fucking insane? What the fuck is wrong with you Meg?” She yelled.

“I don’t know!” I managed to yell and cried harder and covered my mouth again.

She turned and looked at me, dropping the taped note, She stormed towards me and grabbed my neck with both hands and began pushing me backwards towards the wall and squeezed my throat. The wall itself was full of gaps from the wood frame. When I hit the frame She maneuvered my head into one of the gaps between the wood beams and pushed on my throat.

I couldn’t scream, I couldn’t do anything. I didn’t want to touch her even if it was to remove her hands from my throat. I just hit the wood beams on the wall with the palms of my hands and stood on my tip toes trying to lift myself up higher.

“You hate it here do you?” She said “Well do you?!”

I tried to shake my head ‘no’ but was starting to panic. I couldn’t breathe, She wasn’t going to let me breathe.

‘She’s going to kill me’, I thought. I closed my eyes tight. If I was going to die, I didn’t want to look at her. I didn’t want the last thing I ever saw in the world to be her face. I stopped hitting the wood frames and tried to grab at her hands on my throat.

This was easier than stabbing myself. I could finally be free. I let myself go limp and decided to give in and let everything go away.

“There is something wrong with you Meg!” She said quietly in my ear but I wanted her voice to just get smaller and go away. My body started to get tingly and I started to feel the space behind my eyes, like my own darkness was pushing its way out. I wondered if I would see my grandpa. Would he come for me when I died? Would I be alone?

“Something isn’t right in your head, you’re fucked up. Do you know how fucked up you are?” She said. Then She let go of my neck.

I fell to the floor hitting my head on the wood beams and slipped down to my side. I felt my eyes flutter and my body started gasping and choking without my doing anything. I didn’t have control over my body, it was just heaving itself. I threw up.

‘I’m still here,’ I thought, ’why didn’t She just kill me?’

She waited for me to finish coughing. When I looked up at her and She turned around, walked out of the garage and through the kitchen door. She came back to the doorway after a moment and threw my Primatene mist towards me, then closed the door and locked it. I was alone.

I sat on the floor and wiped off my mouth, could smell the vomit. I scooted closer to my puffer and grabbed it, putting it to my mouth and pumping it twice releasing the bitter metallic taste into my lungs.

 

            I squeeze my eyes shut and squinted them. I opened them again and tried to forget the images that flashed through my mind. I shook my head from left to right, making the images disappear but began coughing.

            I turned my head away from the kids and coughed and coughed. Finally, I stood up from the bed and walked into the bathroom.

            “Are you ok mom?” Christopher asked.

            “Ya, just give me a minute” I said hoarsely.

            I turned the faucet on and cupped my hand under the running water and drank. I opened the medicine cabinet with my other hand and searched blindly for my inhaler. I turned off the faucet, wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and put the puffer to my lips, pumping twice. I felt better after a moment and went back to the bed.

            “Did you drown?” Christopher asked.

            “Maybe a little”, I laughed.

“I want to make sure you understand something though. Even though Michael is new and needs allot of my attention, that it doesn’t change how much I love you ok” I continued to Christopher “I love you more than you can ever imagine, do you understand?”

            “Yes, I know mom” Christopher said.

            “Do you have any questions about anything at all?” I asked.

            “Not really. He looks like an old man” He said.

            “All babies look like that when they are born, babe” I laughed “I am going to need your extra help though, do you think you can help me?”

            “Ya, I can help” He said.

            “It’s going to be up to us to keep him safe” I said “We are his only family. We are everything he has in the whole world and we have to make sure he gets everything he needs and doesn’t get hurt. There are bad people in the world and it’s up to us to watch out for him. I won’t be around forever, and I need you both to take care of each other when I’m gone”.

            “I can do that, I’m his big brother” He said.

            “I know you can baby, you’re going to be the best big brother in the world, and he is going to love you so much. He is going to want to be just like you and do everything you do” I said, “He’s yours Christopher. He is yours and you are his. You belong to each other, always”.

            “And we belong to you right mom?”

            “Yes babe. You both belong to me and I belong to you. And I love you both more than my whole life” I said.

            “More than anything, right mom?”

            “More than anything, I would do anything for you guys.”

            “Would jump from a train?”

            “If I had to, to save you then yes, only for you guys.”

            “What about from a bridge into the ocean from a thousand miles up?”

            “I would do anything to save you and your brother at any time, even if I died trying, I would do it.”

            “Wow, that’s allot mom, I’m glad I know that.”

            “That’s how much I love you and I hope that’s how much you love each other”

Christopher smiled and softly stroked Michael’s ear with his index finger. I reached across Michael and tussled Christopher’s hair with my hand. I kept running my fingers in and out of his hair. It was comforting to us both.