My mother was waving a pregnancy test in front of my eyes. I’d used it a week before when my period was late. It had come back negative, but that didn’t stop me from promptly hiding the evidence of its existence at the bottom of the outside trash bin. How in the hell had she found it? Upon closer inspection, however, I realized she was holding the second pregnancy test, the one I hadn’t peed on yet. I thanked my lucky stars for small miracles. Yet the fact remained, she’d been rummaging through my drawers… and I was bleeding from the head.
“Where’s the other test, Samantha? Are you pregnant? Who is the boy?”
“I’m not pregnant. And the boy is none of your business.”
She rushed me, and I was too dazed to flee as her open palm connected with my cheek, knocking me over the side table. I landed in a heap on the carpet. Eyes glazed over in crazy, my mother jumped on my stomach, pinning me down. The power she derived from insanity was a force I couldn’t dream of fending off. But even as uncontrolled as she became in moments like this, I could not have predicted what came next – a pillow placed over my nose and mouth. At first it didn’t seem real, like she was playing a game, but as the pressure increased, I began fighting for my life.
The head wound slowing my defenses, my breath became labored as panic set in. My mother, the woman who’d given me life, was now trying to smother it out of me. I struggled mightily under her iron grip, but she was too crazed with anger, screaming obscenities at the top of her lungs. My nails ripped into her hands, trying to dislodge her, but I could feel the life draining away.I never thought… I never…
And then suddenly air flooded back into my lungs. The pillow was gone, my mother plucked from my deflated body by a force I was slow to understand. But as my vision, and wits, slowly returned, I could see who’d saved me from certain death: a nameless next-door neighbor.
“Calm down!” He yelled to my flailing mother who’d taken to using her teeth to dislodge herself from his grip. “Call the cops. She’s psycho.”
It was only then I noticed the woman kneeling beside me cradling my head in her lap. She was already two steps ahead of her husband, a phone pressed against her ear.
“You’re okay,” she said, repeating those two words until help arrived on the other side of the line. “Yes, my husband and I heard screaming. The neighbor’s front door was open, so we ran over to see if we could help, and found the mother trying to suffocate her daughter. The mom is crazy. The girl is bleeding. We need an ambulance… and the police.”
* * *
There is no greater love than that of a mother for her child. She can cure her baby’s sadness with a hug or lift a car off her trapped child or jump into the ocean to save her toddler from certain death. Once upon a time, I’d had that mother. Although faint, it was still a memory I carried inside. She’d once been loving and kind, and Sullivan and I… we were happy. I remembered in elementary school her picking us up from school, a radiant smile gracing her face as she embraced us and asked about our day. I was proud to be her daughter then.
But gradually something changed in her. Some evil force had grabbed hold and turned her into the monster I knew today. Instead of love, she spewed hate. Instead of building us up, she tore us down. What had happened to her? Where had the mother I remembered gone?
By middle school, Dad had all but disappeared, and Sullivan and I were living behind her cloak, quietly taking the abuse because we’d become conditioned to accept cruelty as a way of life. Maybe if she hadn’t been so sneaky, reserving her abuse for private times so others couldn’t see it, my brother and I wouldn’t have been so afraid to speak the truth.
Sullivan did finally speak the truth… but only after his body hit the ground.
And now it was my turn. I had to find my voice… to stop protecting her. That mother I remembered was gone, and she was never coming back. I had to look out for myself now. And so I spoke my truth – at the hospital to the officers who had arrested and escorted my mother to the county jail. With her vile words still ringing in my ears, I spilled my secrets to the sympathetic duo. Only after the cut on my head had been stitched up and the ER doc on duty cleared me was I released to the care of Shannon’s sympathetic parents.
In the coming days, my life would be turned upside down but, for now, I was safely cuddled up beside Shannon in her twin-sized bed. I knew this arrangement couldn’t last indefinitely. The O’Malleys were more than willing to take me in for a week or two, but I doubted their charity would last a school year or more. I needed a more permanent solution because even if my mother made a deal that got her home before dinner tomorrow night, I would never return.
Moving in with my father was not an option; I knew he’d never make space for me amongst his new family. My dear ol’ dad had checked out long ago. That left only one family member I could turn to – Auntie Kim, my mother’s estranged stepsister. Although not a blood relative, she was the closest thing to family I had. The case worker assigned to me had already contacted her and she’d agreed to take me in. But going to her meant leaving behind Shannon and Keith and the beach I’d come to love.
Speaking of Shannon, she turned suddenly in the bed, nearly catapulting me to the floor.
“Oh, geez. Sorry,” she giggled, grabbing my waist and pulling me back from the brink of disaster. “I’m not used to sharing my bed with a hot surfer chick… or, you know, just with anyone. Not that I’m a prude or anything. I mean, I’m into guys, but I’d totally go for you if I wasn’t.”
“You really didn’t need all that explanation,” I said, adopting my best pouty face. “I get it. I’m not your first choice.”
“Well, now hold on there.” She snorted. “You twisted my arm. Why not? Come here, chicky.”
We rolled around, laughing, as I swatted her grabby hands away.
“Honestly, though.” Shannon flipped herself onto her back. “Is it not possible for an awkward six-foot-one redhead to get a date in this town? I swear I even put my feelers out to that greasy-haired nerd Pete in AP English – you know, the one who gets spontaneous erections during the reading ofHamlet? Anyway, I’m not lying, Samantha, even he wasn’t interested.”
“Because he was probably too nerdy to know you wanted him to ask you out. You need to find a guy with at least an ounce of swagger.”
“Says the girl who has options.”
How wrong she was. Yes, maybe since my transformation there’d been an uptick in interest from the male species as a whole, but the only boy I’d allow to lay his hands on me had simply vanished from my life.
And very soon, my speckled bestie would be gone too.
Shannon sat up, gasping. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean that you weren’t still with Keith. I just meant you could do better than me.”
“I could never do better than you,” I replied, biting back the emotion threatening to overcome me.
Brushing her fingers over my bruised cheek, my best friend provided the comfort I needed.
