Open palms chart the money line, love line…I see my bloodline. Fathered by an abuser & mothered by a woman who fought to stop beating herself up about it.
He held my hand as he walked my sister and I home from school. After dinner and bed time his hands held rage. Her smile was like a dream while she cooked dinner. Nightmarish screams when he assumed we were asleep.
Every time the same questions, “Why?” “What did I do?” Every time no answer. Just fists to flesh, fists to flesh. Followed by soft apologies, tear tinged whimpering and moans. Peculiar mornings. Questions that could not be asked. Silence. Forced happiness. Swollen lipped smiles always amazed me. Bright eyed girls. Worn woman. He always managed to have to leave before breakfast the morning after. I would have paid money to look into his eyes on those mornings.
She loved him. That was my assumption, because she stayed. She’d lie about the ring darker than her skin around her eye. The worst was the one about how she cut the palm of her hand while washing dishes. I remember how the look of despair, disgust and anger mangled my grandmother’s face. I received the child in grown folks business look and was excuse before the conversation was furthered. My grandmother was a strong woman. I’m sure it tore at her to see her baby girl in such a weakened condition.
Keeping up appearances was the constant game. Appear happy. Appear loving. Appear unafraid. I’ve never seen a more graceful eggshell walk than hers. Ever attentive. Always listening. Remembering to ask. Ensuring that permission was granted. I’d watch her from the couch, ping-ponging from request to fulfillment. She’d make eye contact just long enough for him to acknowledge her acknowledgement. Never lingering.
For years I watched this perversion of love. This lopsided struggle of power. Her diligently working to seem powerless and his rigorous efforts to impose his. The final battle happened behind a locked door in my grandmother’s house. The door had to be kicked down, my uncles pulled him off of her. They beat him up. The police were called. She exited the room bloody, battered, broken. I’d always seen her after the wounds had time to close slightly. Face cleansed. Bruises set. Experienced her features distended. For the very first and only time I saw the flesh of face ripped open. Blood filled sclera. Lip sliced, damn near dangling from her face. Completely pummeled. The mix of blood and tears oddly complemented her disfigured face. She could barely speak. Every attempt was a battle between her mind, tongue and lips. Hearing her efforts to speak through that thrashed mask of a face was just as heartbreaking as looking at it.
Once a week my father would visit us at school. Even after what I knew and saw, I still loved him. I can’t recall him ever raising his voice at me. He taught me karate and put sugar on my popcorn for the premiere episode of She-Ra. He helped me with my homework. Our father-daughter relationship had no semblance to who he was as a husband. I’ve often questioned my ability to see him in pieces. To disassociate the monster from the man. To know his monstrous capabilities and still love him. I cannot explain or make sense of it. Even at this very moment.
One day, he sat my sister and I down and told us he was moving to New Orleans. That was one of the last times I saw him. Tall, burnt brown sugar complexion, strong and muscular. The very next and last time was three years later, same face, dulled complexion, lifeless. He was killed in a car accident. I don’t remember crying at the services. I do recall a strange emptiness.
In the meantime, while out from under the watchful eye and heavy hand of my father, my mother turned to other form of abuse. Freedom led her to a different prison. This time she was doing the hitting. Crack. It was a complete escape. She was no longer a wife and slowly the title of mother began to dissipate. Pipe dreams and bedroom fantasies. Bartering, exchanging the needs of her habit for the desires of men. Oftimes, choosing the company of a man over the responsibilities of motherhood. Estranged. Aunts and grandmothers became mothers to nieces, nephews and grandchildren.
My mother became a stranger. Imagine me, a young girl managing bitterness, abandon, confusion. Vacillating between, “She loves me…she loves me not.” “She has to, I am hers.” “She can’t, she is gone.” “No, she is here.” She doesn’t hug me when I see her anymore. I see her shame. She thinks I left her. She left me first. I love her. I long for her. I want Her. She could be good again. She could make me breakfast again. She used to kiss me. Comb my hair. Part it in squares with bangs that framed my face. Her frame slowly parting. Meaty hips disappearing. She’d make appearances in my dreams. Fairytale visions. Sobering reality. See what I mean?
I grew from a young girl into a woman with my aunt as my guide. A tender woman. Deeply caring. Ever nurturing. Always loving. There are no words for how grateful I am. No earthly means of repaying her. She never let me call her mom. Her integrity wouldn’t let her. Only a selfish woman would rob another woman that way. I love her for that.
My mother has been clean and sober for seven years now. Our relationship is not what I’d like it to be, but we have one. It took me a long time to forgive her and I have. Forgiveness was my release from those feelings of loss and anger. I used to say, “I just don’t want to be like her.” Today I say, why not? Look at what she’s overcome. Physical abuse. Chemical abuse. Self inflicted abuse. I can’t imagine her pain. Having to reconcile her damage with the damage she’s caused. Being a ghost. Being lost. Being less than. Not being. Her past is present in the eyes of her children. She has been through fire. She is strong. She is resilient. She is a fighter. She is a survivor. She is my mother.
