Hurt

BETTE LOOKS BACK

She lived there all her life with her mother, Eliana Adkins, a housewife – a devoted one – and her father, Simon Adkins, a fisherman. At the age of 7, Bette had learnt that her father that once she adored very much was nothing more than a drunken man who treated his wife badly.

Simon didn't like to socialized with anybody at all, maybe that was why he had a secluded house to live in so, that nobody would ever bothered him with chit chat and got nosy over his household affairs. He wouldn't let his wife and daughter to socialized with anybody either, and frankly nobody ever dared to set foot in his land anyway.

Ever since Bette first started school she was already an outcast; a queer, fat girl. Nobody ever looked at her twice, she had no friends; nobody ever bothered to start a conversation with her, and she was picked on at school for being fat and weird.

There was a rumor circulating in her school that her father ate children and that Bette was the one that cooked the children for her father. It was a stupid rumor but that rumor kept Bette away from any possible friendship.

Simon Adkins loved his alcohol, he couldn't lived a day without it. When he got very drunk he would came home and yelled at Eliana and then hit the woman until he passed out. If Bette ever tried to stop her father than she too would be hit. Every night there would be yelling in her house. Life was hard and hurtful.

Life in fact was very hurtful that one day Bette finally had enough and implored her mother to leave her father, her own father! She begged her mother to leave the house and started a new life somewhere far away -- just the two of them -- but her mother was a devoted Christian wife, for Eliana, a promise is a debt. A wedding vow especially is a debt to God and she'd go to hell if she ever denied to fulfilled her debt. So, she stayed with her husband for better and for worse. Only perhaps the worse dominated the marriage life. Eliana though was a strong woman; always able to bear it all, kept on being patience through everything and to Bette's amazement never lose a smile on her face.

One day, when Bette was 15, two men knocked on the door. Eliana opened the door. The two men turned out to be fellow fishermen and they brought news about Simon Adkins.

They found his fishing boat floated in the middle of the sea and then they found the man dead inside. Doctor said it was alcohol poisoning.

The next day her father was buried and as much as Bette was ashamed to admit, she actually felt joy and relieved that finally she and her mother was freed from Simon.

It was the one and only funeral that Bette remembered ever brought joy to her life. It changed her life for the better.

But of course there were no absolute happiness in this life, money were scarced and hard to get. Eliana did what she could to provide food on the table; she grew vegetables on the little patch of land in front of the house, she did laundry for her neighbor, she cleaned their houses, she cooked for them, she sold her vegetable on the market to be able to afford meat. She did everything she could think of to get money.

Bette also worked, she took up an after school job, a waitress job in a diner.

Better and Eliana didn't live abundantly but the mother and daughter never felt a bit of sadness in their life, they were in peace and tranquility that were much better than wealth.

But even living adequately could only lasted for sometimes before things change for the worst when Eliana was diagnosed of cervical cancer a year after her husband passed away.

Money were enough to provided food only, it was too much to asked for hospital bills and medication bills. Eliana asked to be sent home and refused to be treated. Bette was hurt and despondent to watched her mother suffered every day and she couldn't do anything to ease the suffering.

Bette worked even harder but she could only afford some of the medication that was prescribed for Eliana, even to buy the medicine meant that Bette had to worked double her shift in the diner, then took over her mother's job to clean, cook and doing laundry for their neighbors. She would came home very late with a brown bag filled with prescribed medicine for her mother.

It was 6 months after her mother was diagnosed, on a cold night Bette came home and found a black Roll Royce parked in front of her house. She was scared and worry when she first noticed the big and luxurious car. She thought that her mother was dead. She could feel the ground beneath her feet going unsteady and swayed under her. It took her biggest courage to awoken herself from her fear, to go, no, to ran to the house to faced all its worst possibilities.

Bette opened the door in a haste and stopped cold when she saw who was talking to her perfectly alright mother; a posh, rich looking old lady was hugging her sick mother and they were both crying.

The old lady looked at Bette with tears in her blue eyes. She smiled somberly as she walked nearer to the dumbfounded Bette. The first words that came from the old lady's mouth as she embraced Bette was;

"Hello, Bette. I'm your aunt, Elda."

And just like that another complicated story of her mother's life was revealed.