One Lifetime Only

Our Mother

Our mother was crazy. She cared more about her hair than she did us, or her new boy toy, or where her next hit was coming from, or anything about her life besides us.

It wasn't always like that though. She did care about us. Once. Maybe. It was so long ago and we were so little the memory fades. All of the good times run together in a blur. But the bad times, they are crystal clear. And I can't escape them.

This story all started on a day that is supposed to be the happiest day of any parents life. Unfortunately, I believe our mother saw it as the last day of hers. My brother and I were born on April 16, 1952 and eleven minutes apart. That day two beautiful blond hair, blue eye, dolls were born. Eliot and Evangeline Watercress, a matching set. And we were perfect. We never cried, screamed, of whined. We were smart, strong, and healthy. We were polite, friendly, sociable, and obedient. That was only at age three, who knew what we would have grown up to be? What parents could ask for better children than my brother and I? Our lives were perfect and we never had to care about anything growing up.

Until our father passed.

April 16, 1959 the police came to our door. All of our friends and our parents friends were there. At the time we didn't know why but there was a lot of crying and people talking to our mother. Everyone looking at my brother and I and said, "poor darlings."

Our father had gone out before the party started to get the strawberry ice cream that I wanted. My brother liked chocolate but I liked strawberry. I didn't cry or throw a tantrum. No, it wasn't a tantrum that persuaded my father to go out minutes before a party. He left because of the look he saw in both of our faces. The fact that we were sad and upset but wouldn't complain. I guess he felt pity. His pity lead to his death and our mother blamed us.

She fell into depression and my brother and I became quiet. Even outside the house we barely talked. People stared as we became as close as possible, shutting everyone out, speaking with our eyes, mentally growing older than our years. We were always smarter than our age so we knew what had happened and what it was doing to our mother. We tried to comfort her a much as possible, do everything she asked, be even better children than we were, but after time she resented us. It wasn't quietly either. It was worse when she was drunk. She was an angry drunk.

"It's your fault," she would scream and throw an empty bottle across the room if she was in one of her worse moods. There were never good days anymore. "If he hadn't gone out for your damn ice cream." There would be another bottle that flew across the room. "Get the hell out of here!" She'd then collapse on the couch in our living room and scream and cry.

My brother and I didn't make the mistake of crossing her path too often. Our mother started to ignore us too. We had to take care of ourselves. Those nights when our mother was passed out on the couch were the nights we got spending money for food, cloths, and other supplies. She never noticed. She never cared.

Six months after his death our mother met Chris. He was young and stupid. She grabbed hold of him and used him dry. He got her hooked on the drugs. She needed something new to numb the pain and Greg had the answer. After Pete there was Ryan, the mentally unstable war vet, then David, the lazy bastard, and finally came Henry, the abusive. Each one of them started out okay, not like my brother and I met them more than once but we watched. We watched how each one made her crumble a little more each time.

A full year of man after man, day after day, fight after fight. We weren't in school because we didn't know what to do to be in school. Staying out of her way was harder and staying out of Henry's way was harder than that. The abuse was the worst. There was no escaping it once he got started. He was always home and our mother was always home. I think he was the one that finally broke her.

I remember the last fight that ended it all. They were too loud to try and sleep through so Eliot and I sat at the top of the stairs and peeked through the bannister. Our mother looked like she had hit an all new low. Bottles and trash all over the floor. She was wearing the same shirt she had been for the past three days, her hair was a nest, her makeup smudged, and her skin looked five years older.

Henry stood a couple feet way from her but we could tell that he dominated her. His posture was tall and menacing. Our mother hunched and cowered in fear. Henry was big and made a habit of reminding us, all of us.

"How could you," our mother whispered.

Henry laughed and took a step forward. Our mother backed up but there was nowhere for her to go. She pressed herself into the wall visibly hopping it would open up under her weight. "Simply, actually." With each word Henry spoke he took steps forward. "You are dull, boring, and needy. You take all of my money for your stupid habits. You bitch constantly, you're lazy, and you're an addict. And I certainly don't need those idiot children upstairs. So it was very easy to find someone better than you to please me. You worthless little bit-" he had gotten so close that he had her pinned to the wall with his body pressed to hers. That is when she finally decided to defend herself and slapped him across the face. After months of the beating and the screaming she chose now to fight.

She would lose. She would lose more than she ever thought possible.

That one little slap was all it took to unleash his true rage. He was bad before but right then, he was something that no one wants. There was nothing my brother and I could have done but watch as Henry grabbed hold of our mother and slammed her into the wall. He started beating her then a lot harder then he ever did and when she slid to the floor, he began kicking her.

The second there was an opening our mother got up and ran. We could see then how hard Henry had actually hit her. She was bleeding. There was too much blood to tell where it all came from, but there was blood on the wall and on that ugly old shirt. She didn't get far before he grabbed her by the waste and pulled. She kicked and swung her arms wildly trying to get free. But Henry had an iron grip squeezing tighter each time our mother hit him.

He threw her down onto the couch and came down right on top of her. They wrestled around, our mother fighting to free herself scratching and clawing, Henry trying to contain her beating with fists and grabbing with strong hands. But rough hits and angry bursts of energy turned into more snake like movements as Henry's intentions chanced. Our mother started to struggle under his heavy body but she had lost her strength and the will to fight. Henry's pressed against her and pinned her down. She had given up and let Henry have his way with her completely.

My brother was the one to pull me away. I would have stayed there and watched, and felt pity on her. But she was the woman that left us to fend for ourselves, that left us to die.

Henry was gone the next morning and didn't show up the rest of the day. We waited until mid day to show ourselves and make our way downstairs. Our mother was there on the couch where he left her with her cloths ripped and half exposing her bruised and beaten body. She looked at us then. It was the first time she had really looked at us since our father died. Her eyes were hollow and sad. There was something broken inside of her.

She cried then. Nothing gut wrenching or soul shattering, but something that meant more to me than anything in the world. Tears fell from her eyes like gentle streams. They came from deep inside where no man could touch them and made me believe she truly cared. They showed how weak she was and how she needed us. Our mother held out her arms and beckoned us to her. We let her take us in without hesitation. We needed our mother. We wanted our mother. She needed and wanted us too. I felt weak in the knees and joy in my heart.

She loved us and needed us.

Oh, how wrong we were.