The Old Farm House

         It had been years since I went back to that place. As I stepped out of my husband's old Ford pickup truck, the memories filled my lungs. This was my past, the past I was too afraid to face, the past I just couldn't deny any longer.
         The old farm house looked like something from a horror movie. The lace curtains that once hung in the windows were gone, leaving a bare eerie feeling pasted on the dirty white outside walls. The old pig barn still stood but the doors were gone. The feilds had grown over with wild-flowers and weeds, giving the place a feigned sence of once happy memories. But, I was once one of those children who had lived there and I knew the only happy memory was leaving that place and never looking back.

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         "Supper!" Mom screamed from the doorway. She was dishelved, as she was everyday since Dad's death. His sudden illness reaked havoc on all of us, including my brother and I. But mom took it the worst. The entire two years right after his death she had spent in bed. Tony, my brother was only a baby then and the responsibility of his well-being was shifted to my shoulders. It had only been a few weeks since she started getting up in the mornings, but she wasn't the same. Suddenly, the spankings became beatings and I lived for one purpose, to protect my baby brother.
         We hurried in the house, quickly washed up and sat promptly in our seats at the table. We dodged her eyes, trying our best to not provoke her as she slammed our plates of food down in front of us.
          "Eat." she commanded, almost military style, like we were nothing more than burdens. We obeyed and ate our food quietly as she raced around the kitchen doing everything but completing nothing. Then, my brother did the unthinkable. He pushed the plate away after only a few bites.
         "What's wrong with your food?" Mom questioned him in an off-puttingly calm tone of voice. I started to get nervous.
         "I'm not hungry..." my brother replied softly. It was an innocent statement, but I knew Mom wouldn't take it as such.
         "Why not?" she asked him, her voice getting more irritated. I watched as she headed towards the wall where the Switch hung. I had to break in. I wasn't going to let my brother get beat for this.
         "We were eating apples from the trees down in the holler. That's why he's not hungry, Mom. That's all... Just apples..." my voice faded as I tried desperatly to call off her anger. The switch was in her hand now and her face began turning a shade of purple. There was nothing I could do.
         When the state people came they found me, bloodied and battered cradling my brother's corpse in incoherant tears. The police had to come to drag my mother out of the celler where she had barraced herself. She knew what she had done. I was hauled off to live with our Great Aunt, who I had never met before. I never knew what happened to Mom, but deep down in my heart I hoped she had rotted away in a jail cell with the realization of what she had done haunting her for eternity.
         The tears streamed down my face as I still stood staring at that old farm house. My husband wrapped his arm around me.
         "You don't have to do this, baby. I'm sure you can heal in another way." I shook my head no, knowing that this is what I had to face. I had to remember what happened. I had to put my brother's memory to rest.





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