I bathed mother's brow, trying to soothe the heat that was her constant companion. Mama was dying. I knew this without being told. Although she had been bedridden for years, I knew something had changed. Her breathing seemed to rattle, like a poisonous snake poised to strike. Her eyes were bright. Her skin hung on her bony, wasted frame.
Her compulsive racking cough, forced me to stop wiping her brow. I eased my arm beneath her shoulders and raised her up, hoping to ease her torment. With my other hand, I placed a cloth over her mouth. When the cough subsided and I took the cloth away, it was filled with blood.
In a faltering voice, Mama whispered, "I don't have much time left, Delilah. Bathe me and dress me in my finest garment so that it won't have to be done after I'm gone. I don't want others to have to touch me."
Seeing the tears sliding down my face, she reached up to wipe them away. When she touched my face, I jerked away. Misinterpreting my action, she said, "I know you don't want to believe me, Delilah, but rejecting my touch won't change the fact that I'm dying."
Wiping my tears on my sleeve, I leaned down and hugged mother. "I'm not rejecting your touch, Mama. I just was surprised to find that I was crying. I did not want to add to your sorrow." The real reason for the instinctive withdrawal, my father's unwanted caresses, was knowledge my mother would never know.
I carefully removed Mama's tunic. Her translucent skin looked like it would tear when I touched it, but I gently washed her anyway. I even used the cloth to try to wash her tangled and disheveled hair. I could not dress her where she lay and so I helped her to struggle into a sitting position. I carefully eased her only silk dress onto her thin shoulders. She had lost so much weight, it swallowed her. As I eased her back onto the bed, she smiled at me.
"You're such a good girl, Delilah," she said. "This illness has been hard on your Papa. It has driven him to drink, but he's a good man. If he chooses to take another wife, do not fight him. He deserves some happiness. Take care of him until his time of mourning is over." With those words she closed her eyes, took a long ragged breath and then lay still.
"Mama," I said into the sudden quite. I reached down and touched her face. "Mama," I said, much louder this time.
I leaned down close to her face to feel her breathe. I felt a faint wisp of air. She was alive still, but barely. My mind whirled in confusion. I felt sadness, but I also felt relief. Her sudden descent into unconsciousness had saved me from making an impossible promise. I could not have promised to take care of the father I had come to despise. I reasoned that I would have to take care of him as his daughter, but to promise Mama would have implied caring for him in a loving manner. I would never love my father again. Of this I was certain. The only emotion I felt for him was hatred.
Mama's tremulous voice brought me to her side late that night. I had not expected to ever hear her voice again. She had remained in a deep sleep all day, unknowing but breathing. Unsure of what to expect, I picked up the tiny oil lamp that I kept lit in case she needed me. It put out very little light, but it was enough to guide me through the dark to her bedside. It was sufficient to illuminate the basin and cloth kept nearby to ease the fever.
"Delilah," she said with a sigh. "I have tried to stay so I could teach you the things a girl needs to know. I know I haven't been much of a mother, but I have held tight to life for you. It is no use, child. I am so tried. I cannot hold on any longer. I have failed you, but it is not because I do not love you. When things seem hard, just remember your mother. Remember she loved you and perhaps you will have the strength to hang on."
It seemed she had forgotten her request earlier in the day. With a sigh of relief, I replied truthfully, "You have not failed me mother. You have shown me what it means to persevere. I know that you love me and that love will sustain me no matter what comes."
What I did not tell her was that her love was what had sustained me during the night terrors I had already suffered. Her love helped me escape to a place where father could not follow, a meadow filled with love and laughter.
She closed her eyes. The rattle stopped. I grabbed her gown and shook her. I cried out in pain, "Do not leave me with him. It is bad enough with you here. Please, Mama, please. It is only his fear of you that affords me any protection."
There was no response from the bed. Then from behind me in the dark, I heard a soft chuckle. In desperation, I slapped my mother's face, over and over, begging her to awaken. As my activity became more and more frenzied, the chuckle grew to a soft laugh and finally to a loud cackle. My drunken father staggered to the bed, pulled me from my mother's dead form, threw me to the floor and raped me. As he pumped he chanted, "Love kills, Delilah. Love kills"
The days following mother's burial are a haze. During the years of her illness, my concern for her kept me grounded in the present. Now, I retreated into myself, going through the motions of life but not really living. I knew father left every morning, supposedly going about his daily business. He still came home drunk most evenings. Sometimes he simply staggered in and passed out on his bed. Those were the good days. On the bad days, he came home and demanded food. After sitting back and belching, he would grab me and pull me onto his lap.
"You're almost too big to cuddle," he'd say, placing a sloppy kiss on my check.
I learned quickly not to try to dodge it. If I did, the result was anger that always ended with me on my back, my father on top of me. My healing bruises were testament to what he would do in his inebriated anger.
During this time of volatility, I attained my womanhood. I knew that bleeding between the legs signified womanhood but that was all I knew. I didn't know what to do about it. I didn't know it could be accompanied by cramping and pain. When I began to bleed, I assumed it was a sign of womanhood, but then came the excruciating pain in my abdomen. I took to my bed, unable to eat.
When father came home, he found me abed. "Where's my supper?" he demanded.
"I couldn't fix any," I stammered. "I'm sick. My stomach hurts. I can't eat." I looked at him in fear. "Is this how Mama's sickness started?"
"She didn't have a painful stomach," he said before asking, "Are there any other symptoms? Any bleeding from down there?" he finished, pointing to my crotch.
"Yes," I said hesitantly, reluctantly drawing the word out of my mouth.
"Congratulations, daughter," he said. "You have attained womanhood.
"Bu, but," I stuttered. "What about the pain and nausea."
"Most women have those symptoms in the beginning," he said, sighing. "Your mother should have told you those things..." he trailed off. Squaring his shoulders, he continued, "You will bleed for four to seven days. You must put cloths in your undergarments to keep the blood from spoiling your clothes. During the time of the blood, you are unclean so I'll leave you alone. When the bleeding starts, mark the days on a stick until the next time it starts. It usually comes every 28 to 35 days, although when it first starts, the bleeding may be more sporadic. Your mother only bled every 45 days or so at first. Sometimes it was slightly longer or shorter.'
"You knew my mother when she first started to bleed?" I asked in surprise.
"Of course," he said. "We were betrothed, as are most girls your age."
"Why am I not betrothed?" I asked.
"Don't be a fool, Delilah," he said with a laugh. "You have a comely face and body, but any man would know when he bedded you that you are not a virgin. You will never be betrothed."
"But father," I said. "What will I do?"
"Don't you worry about that," he said. "You will continue to take care of my needs, and I'll continue to take care of you."
None of this prepared me for the day he came home sober. He sat me down at the table and gave me a father-daughter talk that seemed to seal my fate.
"We don't have any way to buy food or other necessities," he told me. "You are going to have to earn money so that we can stay together and keep our home."
"Who would want such a puny girl for a maid?"
"It is not your cleaning skills that are marketable. Your body is blossoming. Men will pay to lay with you. You will do for my friends the same things you do for me in the night. They will pay handsomely for the chance to have you, if you treat them better than you do me. You will have to smile at them and use honeyed tones."
"Will they all be drunks like you?" I asked boldly.
He raised his hand as though to strike me. Then he slowly lowered it. "Don't you ever use that tone with me again," he said. "And don't you call me a drunk. Do I smell like I've been drinking?" he asked. "If I'm going to sell your favors, you can't be bruised and ugly, but there are ways to inflict pain without bruising. I don't think you want me to show you."
"You're bluffing," I said.
He stood up and grabbed me by the hair. He dragged me into the kitchen. He forced my face into a basin of water and held me under. I struggled to pull my head up. I couldn't breathe. I began to see dark spots before my eyes. I was sure I was dying, but then he jerked my head up. As I gulped for air, he said cruelly, "I do not bluff, Delilah. Don't try me again."
I hung my head, my wet locks dripping onto my dress. Total despair engulfed me until a voice in my mind demanded, "Hold up your head, Delilah. Don't give him the satisfaction of thinking he has bested you. Keep your pride and wait. Your time will come."
Slowly I raised my head and looked my father in the eye. "What do you expect of me?" I asked.
"You will continue to keep house for me. You will meet my needs, all of them. You will learn how to entice men with your eyes and your words. If the men I bring are pleased with you, I will give you things to keep you happy."
"What things?" I asked.
"Clothes, jewelry, face paints, perfumes, or whatever frippery you want."
"Will you stop drinking?"
He laughed. "Probably not," he said. "But if I come to you drunk, you can remind me that I can't harm you because you have to look good so that we'll be able to keep our house," he finished sardonically.
The voice that saved me from further abuse that day became my empowerment. Although the timid child remained, more often than not, the voice that belonged to a more hardened woman dictated my actions. I learned that if I listened to her instead of the cowering child, my life was no longer completely controlled by my father. That voice that took over at this important juncture in my life.
"Very well, father," I said. "I will do as you say, but before you bring your corrupt friends, you must do something for me. Bring me a prostitute to give me pointers in how to please a man."
"You are in no position to make demands," he responded. "I would have to pay someone if I brought them here to teach you. We are short on funds."
"True. But surely you know that I lack in the womanly graces you speak of." Making my voice as girlish as possible, I continued, "I know nothing of the honeyed tones you speak of. I don't know anything about how to please a man, either. All I know to do is lay there and let him have his way. I need a tutor. You can promise her a percentage of my first wages."
Looking at me sitting there in my bedraggled state, he seemed to recognize that I was probably correct. "All right," he said. "I'll bring someone, but I'll only pay for one day. You had better learn quickly. And remember," he concluded, lifting a still damp lock and kissing it, "water costs nothing."