Page 4 of The Heart That Breaks
One day when I was at the school library, I had to do some research on a paper I was writing for health class. When my teacher was on the other side of the room, helping another student, I typed VICTIMS OF ABUSE in the Google search engine. I scrolled through the first few topics, and then added another phrase. GROW UP TO BE.
Some of the articles were completely over my head. But there was one that made my heart sink as I recognized its truth in my mama’s story. “Childhood victims of abuse often become perpetrators of the same kind of abuse inflicted on them. In some cases, victims subconsciously choose mates who continue the abuse they experienced as a child.”
The article went on to acknowledge that nothing about this made sense, but that human beings tend to seek out what they know. To act out what they know. And I guess that’s how Mama ended up with Lance.
I actually tried to talk to her about it one night when he was late getting home from work. I told her what I had read. “Maybe you can’t help that you picked him. Maybe there’s a doctor you could see who-”
That’s when Mama slapped me across the face so hard that my ears rang. I stared at her, too stunned to say anything.
“Do you think I would intentionally pick a man who would treat me like dirt? That I would deliberately let him be a father figure to you?”
It took me a few seconds to think how to answer. In my heart, I knew the truth, but I also knew that even if she deep down thought she deserved what she had in Lance, she never meant for it to affect me.
“No,” I said softly, tears leaking out of my eyes despite my best efforts to hold them back. “I just thought maybe someone could help you know what to do. He hurts you, Mama.”
These were the words that made her break right in front of me, her shoulders hunching forward, her hands covering her face.
“I’m sorry, Ann-Elizabeth,” she said, crying. “I’m so sorry. I’ll figure this out for both of us, okay? I promise.”
“You don’t have to do it by yourself,” I said. “I want to help.”
“You’re still a child. You shouldn’t have to.”
As much as I didn’t want to hurt her any more than she’d already been hurt, I could not stop myself from saying, “I stopped being a child the day he moved into our house.”
And with the the growl of Lance’s truck in the driveway, I turned and left her standing in the kitchen, still crying.
I pull the blankets tighter around Henry and me now, the cooling night air somehow managing to slip through its woven threads.
The night Mama slapped me for the first time was when I realized there wasn’t any way I could fix our broken life. It was never going to be what it had once been, just the two of us and Henry. Poor as heck, but peaceful and as safe as you could be, living paycheck to paycheck.
I feel this awful sense of mourning and grief for those times. Right behind it comes a wave of anger that is far more familiar to me these days, an anger that has begun to shape who I am, as much as I resent it.
In the curve of my arm, Henry snores quietly. I start to sing softly in his ear, the latest Barefoot Outlook song I’m stuck on. The words and melody are already seared in my memory. And in my head, it’s CeCe MacKenzie’s voice I hear over my own. I love her voice, know every word to every song she and Barefoot Outlook have ever recorded.
At home, I don’t sing to anyone except Henry. I used to sing in front of Mama, but the last time I did, I overheard Lance telling her after I went to bed that it was too bad I thought I could sing because it didn’t do anybody any good to live under illusions of grandeur.
To her credit, Mama stood up for me, telling him she loved my voice and that I got asked to sing at church all the time. He had laughed and said it was the church’s job to make people think they had God-given gifts even when they clearly didn’t.
I force myself to think about something else now because thinking about Lance and anything he says just fills me with an anger I don’t have an outlet for.
Besides, this is the point of the night that I love the best. When Henry starts to snore, I know he’s completely relaxed because for the first time that day, he feels safe enough to sleep because I’m here.
Maybe it’s the most important thing I’ll ever be in this life. Henry’s protector. But if it is, that’s okay with me. Henry loves me because I’m me. There’s nothing more required between us. Unlike people, he lives in the present moment, unencumbered by the bad things that have been done to him. And there have been plenty already. He focuses on the good in his life. These hours we get to spend together are all he holds in his heart. Gladness for now. And hope throughout tomorrow that I will come back again as I’ve promised him I would.
I fall asleep with my cheek on his big, blocky head, and even the cool night air doesn’t bother me.
*
Ann-Elizabeth
THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL I attend in Davidson County, Tennessee is huge. It’s easy for me to stay lost in the crowd. There are plenty of other kids vying for individuality with their pierced noses, tatooed biceps and mohawks so that my bland poverty doesn’t make me stick out too much.
I spend as little time as possible in the halls during the five minute break between classes. Since the school is so big, it takes most of that time anyway to get from classroom to classroom.
The truly determined can sneak in a make-out session in front of a locker here and there. These interludes challenge the life expectancy of Principal Calhoun’s Nikes as he jogs down the hallways, shooing the offenders apart and demanding they get on to their next class.
It’s actually a pretty funny sight if you happen to be following along behind him on one of these missions. He carries a riding crop. Yes, a real riding crop. I don’t know if it’s left over from a chapter in his life where he had once ridden horses, or if it simply seemed like a tool that said giddy-up in a way that meant business.
