Her light eyes were filled with fear, and he’d promised that he held her until all that frightened her had drifted away.
I’d since come to learn that my father’s promises were nothing more than sugar-coated lies.
The actual truth was that he cared about my mother the same way he cared about me—minimally and abusively.
It was Foster who’d found the evidence, hidden in the only photo I had of her. The film had captured the smile painted across her red lips and the shiny pins holding back the blonde curls in her hair. My chubby face was buried in her neck as she held me in both of her arms. It wasthosearms that guarded the truth of everything I suspected.
Five, barely there bruises were wrapped like jewelry around her slender wrists. They matched the ones I often wore around my ankles.
I’d inherited all of my mother’s wounds… as though the pain of them was stitched throughout her DNA.
The thin weeds and overgrown acreage around her tombstone often treated me like a friend, concealing my cries and protecting my grief the same way they protected my mother’s soul.
My father had attempted to disguise her memory with the thick of the forest, burying her between the trunks of two trees, a mile from the house she died in. He wouldn’t admit it, but I think he was trying to keep her locked behind these gates forever, trapped beneath his proverbial thumb.
It was the same thing he was doing to me… exceptno.
Not anymore.
My jacket made a soft noise when I peeled my arms from her memory and slid across the cold ground. Draping my body over the spot she lay, I pressed my cheek to the frosted blades of grass that covered her and listened as though she might have something to say.
Legs curled tight to my chest, I wrapped my arms around myself and closed my eyes. A vision of her appeared on the backs of my eyelids, and I matched her smile with one of my own.
My lips parted, and though no sound came out, she heard every word I said to her. Her spirit often acted as a balm to my wounds, and she came ready to tend to them.
Except, this time… I didn’t speak about pain.
I spoke about my daddy bird…
I spoke about my wings…
I spoke about life…
… and all the ways I wanted to learn how to live it.
* * *
I climbed to my bedroom the same way I always did, cautiously, as though there were eyes in the walls that surrounded me.
The stairs creaked beneath my weight, the echoed sounds of my steps synchronizing with the clock above my head. There were railings on either side of me, coated with a layer of dust. The sconces that lit my path had burned out months ago, and now I relied on the dull light of my cell phone to guide me up the spiraled trail.
My curls swayed against my face, my fingers tightening around the edges of my jacket. A yawn tore from my throat when I reached the landing, and I carefully avoided the rotted planks, stepping over them like landmines.
My keys clinked together when I pulled them from my pocket. Positioning my phone, I cast the beam of light across the lock in my door and fit the key inside. The release made a heavy sound. I turned the brass handle at the same time I used my toe to kick the door open. As quickly as I was stepping inside of my bedroom, I was being thrown back out of it.
A grunt left me when he rammed his fist into my middle, hitting me hard enough to knock me off my feet. Oxygen surged from my lungs, my mouth opening and closing as it gasped for relief. I flipped to my stomach, fingers struggling to find purchase against the wood floor as I crawled away from him.
The sound of my fingernails snapping was cast back to me, vibrating in my inner ears when he wrapped his fingers around my ankles and dragged me over the threshold. Adrenaline raced through my chest, and I threw my arms over my head, tugging my knees into my stomach.
My father laughed at the passive way I protected myself, the ugly sound like nails down my spine. My strength was no match for his, and though I fought against his attempts, he managed to untangle my limbs. He placed his thighs on either side of mine, and I saw the blur of his fist right before it crashed against my mouth.
My eyes rolled. Blood danced across my tongue, pooled in my bottom lip, and dribbled down my chin. I gagged against the familiar, pungent taste, pursing my lips just enough to spit it back in his face. The color that haunted my nightmares was dotted along his reddened cheekbones, and I smiled to myself right before his hand surged forward and locked around the base of my throat.
“Speak, you coward!” He screamed. “Speak!”
His eyes were wide, pupils blown and impossibly dark. He appeared anything but human as he snarled down at me, jaw bone quivering hard enough to break skin.
He used his free hand to wipe the spots of my blood off his face, saturating his fingers with evidence of my pain before smearing it across my lips.