It happened when she was thirteen-years-old. Just out of the blue, with no warning or building of tension or anything like that. She had just come home from school and was in her bedroom sorting through her homework, trying to decide where to start. For once, she didn’t hear the familiar drone of the television from the living room, which was odd, since it was always on. From the moment everyone got out of bed in the morning until late at night, long after she fell asleep, the soft murmur of the television underscored everything that happened in the house. She had just turned from her pile of books on the bed to go in search of her mother when she heard their voices coming from the kitchen.

She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she knew the voices belonged to her mother and father. What is he doing home now? she wondered, with no small measure of irritation. Kimberly treasured the few stress-free hours between the time she got home from school and when her dad arrived home from work, always with a six-pack or two under his arm. The fireworks always started soon after. Either that or the frozen stillness that was louder than any sonic boom ever could be.

Tossing aside the idea of leaving the safety of her room, she settled on the bed with books strewn about her. She was deep into a math equation, when her father walked into the room. A quick assessment revealed he had probably already downed a few beers, but was nowhere near the incoherent drunk he would be later in the evening.

“Hi, Dad,” she muttered, quickly focusing back on her homework, hoping to discourage further conversation. The springs on her bed screeched against his weight as he sat down near the footboard. Crap, what now? she thought, with equal parts irritation and trepidation.

“So, how was school today?”

“Fine.” Not looking up, no eye contact. Go away.

“Fine? That’s all? Jus’ fine?” Slurring his words a little. Maybe more than a few beers. Great.

“Dad, I have to do my homework, okay?” She pushed by him as she made her way to the door and took hold of the doorknob as an indication for him to leave so she could close the door. He sat there on the bed for a minute, looking defeated, head hanging down, quiet. Emotions swirled about in her heart and she was torn between giving him a hug and standing her ground. His next action made up her mind.

He swayed a little as he stood up, tried to get his balance, almost made it, then stumbled over to the doorway, where he stood, unmoving, between her and freedom. They stood like that, motionless, for what seemed like a very long time, just staring at each other, each of them separately heading toward a point of no return.

He reached out a hand to touch her – on the arm, the shoulder, the face – she didn’t know and it didn’t matter. Her decision was made. Before his hand could cross the space between them, Kimberly opened her mouth and screamed.

“DON’T TOUCH ME. DON’T EVER TOUCH ME AGAIN! JUST GET OUT, GET OUT NOW!” She put both hands on his chest and started pushing him out of her room. He reached for her, to balance himself, and she twisted away from his grasp.

Still screaming, “MOM! HELP ME! GET HIM OUT OF MY ROOM! I DON’T WANT HIM IN HERE! GET OUT, DAD, GET OUT!” He fell against the wall in the hallway, his back making a loud thud just as her mother came flying around the corner with a shocked look on her face. She looked at her dad and saw the same shock on his face as he leaned heavily against the wall. Something else, too, though. Behind the shock, beneath the affects of the beer, she saw a crushing sadness in his eyes. So much sorrow, it almost broke her. For the briefest moment, she wanted to run to him, put her arms around him and comfort him. Time slowed to a crawl as father and daughter locked eyes. In that instant, a devastating knowledge passed between them, the truth floating silently in the dead air; the truth of what had been lost to both of them, of what could have been but never would, of a loss so immeasurable as to be lethal.

Kimberly stepped back and closed the door, locked it. She stood there, listening, heard nothing. Finally, her mother’s voice. “What happened?” Then her father’s heavy footsteps trailing away down the hall. “What happened?” her mother cried after him.

“Nothing. Leave it alone.” She heard the front door slam. Then, nothing.

She waited for her mother to come to her, to ask her about what had happened, what had caused the explosion. She never came. Kimberly crawled onto her bed, curling up in the middle of it, pushing books out of her way. She pulled a pillow to her, cradled it close to her and cried. She cried for the knowledge she didn’t want to have, the murky memory of those times when she was a very small girl, the realization of the brief, scary flashes that haunted her, the ones she tried to push from her mind. But most of all, she cried for what she never had; the one thing she wanted more than anything—a daddy who would love her the way daddies are supposed to love little girls.

There weren’t enough tears that night. There never would be.
 

The years passed, time went forward and life in Kimberly’s family became a mixture of hope deferred and turmoil. Some days were better than others; some days were filled with simply survival. Kimberly and Michael learned to be as invisible as possible. It wasn’t a foolproof plan. Sometimes, the house wasn’t big enough for both of them to avoid the cloud of anger and disappointment that filled the rooms and seeped under the doors to envelope them.



Kimberly never knew which Daddy would show up at the end of the day. At times, he was the good daddy who would sit with her as she proudly showed him her schoolwork or read to him from one of her many library books. The good daddy would even play football or softball with her and Michael, and he laughed at their jokes. Those were the times when Kimberly would convince herself that this daddy was the real daddy; she could almost believe that his good heart would grow big enough and strong enough to blot out the meanness that exploded from him without warning. Eventually, though, the bad daddy walked through the door at the end of the day and all hopes were dashed. The man who walked through the door on those days was scary and angry. His presence sent Kimberly and Michael scurrying in search of a place to disappear.



Kimberly’s mother seemed to have perfected the art of disappearing. Every day she faded away a little more. Occasionally though, without any warning, the heavy clouds surrounding her would lift and she would become the mother of Kimberly’s dreams. During those times, when their mommy was happy, Kimberly and Michael were happy, too. Happy Mommy took them to the library, taught them to play Scrabble and even arranged for picnics at the beach with their cousins. But, the best part of all was Happy Mommy’s laugh. Kimberly lived for that laugh and knew that if there was just some way to make her mommy laugh like that more often, their lives would be very different. The best times in her life were when she could make her mommy laugh. Happy Mommy’s laugh could even make the cloud of anger disappear from their house for a while.



But, Happy Mommy always went away, disappearing back into the cloud of anger, fading away as unexpectedly as Happy Mommy had appeared. As Kimberly and her brother got older, their daddy got angrier and their mommy faded away more and more. By the time they were both teenagers, both Kimberly and Michael had learned it was too painful to hope that their lives would ever be any different. They took solace in knowing they had each other, like survivors of a war.



………to be continued………..

 

The little girl named Kimberly was very smart so she quickly learned all the rules of her new family. She also learned to keep all of the secrets, even from Gommy and Bert, although this made her sad. She didn’t remember very much about being happy, now. But she was so busy taking care of her brother, Michael, that she didn’t have time to think about much else. It wasn’t so hard to take care of Michael, but Kimberly wished her mommy and daddy would stop buying him toys that were dangerous. Like the chemistry set they bought him one Christmas. She spent all morning reading the warnings on the box and didn’t even get to play with her new Barbies. Then her mommy and daddy went out and the first thing Michael did was get his chemistry set out and open all the little plastic containers at one time. He lined all of them up on the coffee table and started pouring some of them together in the little plastic bowl that was for mixing.

Kimberly kept telling him to be careful, be careful; but Michael was never careful. She was in the kitchen looking for breakfast for both of them when she heard a big sneeze and then Michael started wailing. She ran to the living room and there sat Michael with a face full of powdered chemicals and powder dust all over his clothes, the table and the couch. He was crying and rubbing his eyes with powder-covered fists and he kept licking his lips and spitting. Kimberly grabbed him by the shoulders, guided him into the bathroom and splashed gallons of water all over his face until he finally wouldn’t let her keep doing it. She made him sit in a chair while she cleaned all the powder from the table and the couch and carefully put the lids back on every container. She made Michael sit beside her on the couch while she read the lid of the box, panicking every time she read something that said do not get chemicals in eyes, nose or mouth.

After a while, Michael stopped crying and wanted to go play, but she made him sit there with her because she was scared of what the chemicals might do to him. She kept asking him if his eyes hurt, if he could see, if he felt dizzy, until finally he told her to stop asking so many questions and he went to find his Mr. Magoo doll. Kimberly was sitting on the couch crying when her mommy and daddy finally came home. When she told them what happened, her mommy ran to Michael’s bedroom and her daddy started reading the box. She could have told him what it said, but she was mad at both of them, so she let him read it for himself.

A few months later, for his birthday, they bought Michael a wood-burning set. Michael was very happy. He went in to his bedroom with his new toy and made burn marks on his headboard, and his dresser. Then he started burning the plastic off his toy box. That filled the house with a terrible-smelling smoke and made Kimberly’s mommy and daddy take the new toy away from Michael and put it away. Kimberly didn’t like hearing her brother cry, but she was glad he wouldn’t have the wood-burning tool anymore.

It was about then that Kimberly knew she would never be able to go back to live with Gommy and Bert. Even if her mommy and daddy would let her, she couldn’t do it, because someone had to be there to take care of her brother. It made her sad to think about never living at the farm with Gommy and Bert again, but she tried to think about the fun she had with her brother instead of about that. She really liked having a brother, and at least they did get to see Gommy and Bert at Christmas. Maybe it will be okay, she told herself.



What Kimberly didn’t know was that everything was about to change.



…to be continued…



 

And so it was that the little girl called Kimberly found herself living a life entirely different from the one she had grown accustomed to during the first three years of her existence. Where there had been peace, there was now tension; where there had been security, there was now fear; and where there had been love, there was now anger. She wanted to go back to the farm, to her Gommy and Bert. She knew not to ask for that, though, because the child-woman kept saying to her, “Do you like living here with your new brother? Mommy and Daddy are so happy you are here with us.”

At least she did get to play with the baby boy whenever she wanted and that made her happy. Since her new mommy liked to sleep a lot, Kimberly learned quickly about taking care of her brother. After a while, she stopped wishing she could go back to Gommy and Bert, because if she did, who would take care of the baby boy? Kimberly liked to push her brother in his walker; it always made him laugh. She would push him faster and faster, screeching around the corner into the hall as he squealed louder and louder. When she reached the end of the hall, she always turned around and went back the way she had come. Even when she was tired, she didn’t quit, because when she did, the baby boy would start to cry. Then the child-woman (“I know you can say mommy, you say Gommy, that’s practically the same. Say ‘mommy’, Kimberly, say it.”) would come out of her room and ask her what she did to make the baby cry. She was smart; she knew it was her job to make the baby happy.

One day she had the idea to push her brother very fast in his walker and then let go. Her legs were tired, that was all; she didn’t know he would crash into the corner of the wall. When she ran to him, he had blood on his forehead and coming out of his mouth. She tried to pick him up, but he was too heavy for her, so she pushed him in his walker into her mommy’s room. That was the day she learned the best way to wake up her mommy. She tried shaking her and begging and pleading with her to wake up. Her mommy just kept sleeping. When Kimberly looked at the baby, he was crying even harder and now the blood was all over his face and on his fists as he banged them on the tray of the walker. She was so scared; she didn’t know what to do. She just stood beside her mommy and leaned over her to stare at her eyes, hoping she would wake up. She was thinking to herself, “Wake up, wake up, wake up,” when, suddenly, her mommy’s eyes popped open wide and she jumped like she was scared. Then her mommy heard the baby and saw the blood and she flew out of the bed. Kimberly followed her mommy into the bathroom and watched her clean the blood from the baby’s face. Her mommy kept asking her, “What did you do, what did you do?” Kimberly didn’t want to tell her that she pushed the walker and let go. Finally, the baby quit crying and her mommy stopped asking.

Later, she heard her mommy telling her daddy that she had pushed the baby into the wall. It scared her when her daddy looked mean at her, but then her mommy put her hand on his arm and said, “It was an accident.”

“Where were you?”

"Oh, I was in the other room for a minute,” her mommy said, “they were playing, weren’t you, honey?” Kimberly nodded her head. She was smart; she had already learned that secrets were very important in her new family.



…to be continued…