Under Veiled Protection

Jerry took a deep breath in looking across the table. “Thank you for coming, sir. We really appreciate it.”
He acknowledged the comment with a grunt and short nod of the head. “Is this about wanting a raise? Because I told you, no one is getting a raise until they earn it. Which you haven’t.” Then glancing to the side he said, “What’s she got to do with it?”
“No, it isn’t about money.” Jerry looked at his beloved. “We have been seeing each other for eight months and we wanted you to know. We don’t want to keep it a secret anymore.”
His eyes went black. “Absolutely not.” His voice was low, a rumble from the bottom of an ocean.
Jerry cleared his throat. “Mr. Alden, with all due respect, we aren’t asking your permission or even your acceptance.” He paused and took a sip of water. “It’s just that, you need to know. We are going to have a baby.”
Robert Alden’s head whips to his daughter demanding silently an explanation.
“I’m pregnant.” Her voice only slightly above a whisper.
“I will not have a nigger in this family!” Robert threw his napkin on his plate and pushed his chair from the table. With calmness in his eyes, unfamiliar to those who knew him, he drew his gun in smooth rapidity. A silver revolver kept hidden in his coat pocket glimmered in the sun glazed room.
And with one shot, it was over.
~
My mother always used to tell me, “First impressions are so important. Always put your best face on. You never know who sees you.” That was irony at its best. Perhaps slow-to-catch-on irony but one that ended explosive nonetheless.
Maybe it was me that was slow to catch on. Maybe she was just that good.
~
“Mama, can my friend come over?”
“Lauren, we’ve been over this, honey. The answer hasn’t changed. People aren’t trustworthy. You have to be careful who you let in.”
I didn’t understand why I had to be careful about bringing friends in. We were eight now. They wouldn’t make a mess but she never listened when I tried to tell her that. She was always busy coming up with more ways to secure our house. She bolted down windows, checked and rechecked door locks. It became a constant. It was her routine.
Even at 2:30 in the morning.
The first time I really remember, I was probably five. I needed a drink of water when an attack of dry mouth woke me from a sound sleep. I made my way up the dark hallway to the kitchen. The only illumination came from the blue neon numbers of the microwave clock.
There sat my mother at the kitchen table. She was smoking a cigarette, something I had never seen her do, and watching- just staring- at the door.
I cautiously walked over to her, “Mama?”
She turned in slow motion to look at me. “Are you trying to get us killed? Get your fucking ass back to bed!” She took another drag off her cigarette and blew it in my direction.
I ran. It was my immediate reaction. She had never talked to me like that before. She looked so scary. I lay in the dark, terror washing over me.
I heard her footsteps coming up the hall many minutes later. Then I heard her bedroom door open and finally close.
I let out the breath I had been holding in.
~
My best friend when I was very little was this girl named Nina. We would play together in my room for hours pretending to be princesses, movie stars, or mommies. She was always so nice to me and never got bored. But there were times that she was scared of something. I never understood why but when she got scared, I got scared. She was bigger than me. If she was so scared and she was seven, it must be something bad. We’d hide under my bed together with my scratchy pink blanket around us.
“Don’t worry, Lauren,” she’d tell me. “Nothing bad can happen if we’re together.” I knew she must be right.
And then one day, she was gone.
She had disappeared. No one could tell me what happened to her. Decades later and I can still see their sad smiles looking down at me when I would ask.
~
I challenged the issue of having a friend over once more when I was thirteen. We had finally stayed in a house long enough for me to make a friend and I was in one of my particularly stubborn moods.
“Please, Mom! I actually have a friend again. Why can’t she just come over for a little while?”
“Lauren, listen to me. I love you so very much and the rules I have are for a reason that you are too young to understand.-“
I started to protest but she held her hand up to silence me. She looked at me hard for several minutes before speaking. “You know the rules about our home. This is our safe haven, Lauren. Here’s what we’ll do. You can invite her over for an hour or so, no overnight, and you have to stay in the living room.”
I jumped up and hugged her. “Thank you, Mom! I’m going to go call her. You won’t regret this. I promise we’ll be good.”
Cara came over after dinner that night. It was the first time I could ever remember having someone in our home. And it was the first time someone ever told me that my mother was different than other mothers. Different than other people.
We were playing on the Nintendo when she came walking into the room. “Who the fuck told you that you could have someone over?” Then she turned to Cara. “Who sent you here?”
I stared at her. How could she embarrass me like this? It was one thing when she talked to me like that but she was doing this in front of my friend. My only friend.
“Don’t you remember? You said that Cara could come over as long as we stayed in here.”
She slapped me hard across the face. “Don’t talk back to me. Who do you think you are? Get her the fuck out of my house. Now!”
Horrified and humiliated, I stood up. Cara slowly stood up as well unable to speak. “I- I’m sorry.” Cara darted for the front door.
“How could you?” I asked, the tears falling free, as the front door slammed shut.
She looked at me in disgust. “Look, kid. All the drama and tears ain’t buyin you no sympathy. I thought you were taught better than that.”
I knew she was leaving. She always left when she got really mad. I ran to my room and waited until I heard her truck start and back out of the driveway. Then I grabbed the hall phone and dialed Cara’s number. Answering on the third ring, I begged her to not hang up.
“I’m not going to hang up. But what is with your mom? Is she a total bitch or just crazy? Does she always do that? Is she always like that?”
“No, not always. Sometimes she’s really nice and fun. But sometimes she has bad days and kind of snaps like that. I hate it but that’s just how she is.”
“She hit you! And she was really scary.”
“Yeah but she doesn’t do that very often. She’s just in one of her moods.”
There was silence on the other end and I thought she might have hung up. “She was so nice to me when I got there. I mean my mom gets in bad moods too but not to that point. It’s just not normal, Lauren. She’s not normal.”
I heard the words but refused to process them. I silently hung the receiver up and pushed Cara’s concerns out of my head. I knew my mother would go out for awhile, have a few drinks, and come home sometime around midnight. Tomorrow, she would be fine. Back to normal.
I fixed myself something to eat for dinner and put ice on my face. I didn’t want another bruise. There were too many questions the time she hit me for dropping her cigarettes on the floor when she asked me to hand them to her.
Before going to bed, I looked at myself in the full length mirror. I hated that I had long hair. When she would get mad sometimes, she’d wrap it around her hand like a bandage and yank it. Once, she actually pulled a handful out. I think I was seven then. I so wanted to get my hair cut but she forbid it.
The smell of alcohol wafted into my room. I looked at the clock. 12:42 am. I put a pillow over my face when I heard her laughter drifting down the hall. I heard an unfamiliar voice ask, “What’s in that room?”
My door opened and from underneath my pillow I could see the dirty cowboy boots standing next to her bare feet in the doorway.
“Just where the kid sleeps. Come on, baby, my room is way more fun.”
He laughed like it was the funniest thing he had ever heard. But he continued to stand at the door a few minutes longer before conceding. “Alright then, Eileen. Let’s go have some fun.”
She always told strange men that was her name. I thought Bridget was a much prettier name but maybe that was the point. I listened to the bed creak in the next room. They made no attempt to be quiet. She never made any attempt to be quiet.
When I got up for school the next morning, my mother was already in the kitchen making an apology breakfast. It was just her way.
“Hi, baby. Do you want some French toast?”
I shook my head. “No, that’s okay. I’ll eat at school.”
“Oh.” Her face showed the disappointment and hurt all the way across the room. I put my book bag down and sat down at the table. She brightened immediately as she made my plate.
“Thanks, Mom. It’s delicious,” I said.
“Of course.” She kissed me on top of my head and then saw my face. “Oh, what happened to your face, Laur?”
I knew better to fall into the trap of answering with the truth. I had done that before. “I must’ve walked into a door when I was asleep or something. I gotta go.”
“Such a klutz. You get that from me, I think.” She smiled as though it was some kind of special secret we shared.
I began walking towards the school. I remember every step I took that day, every word I spoke, every sound the air held. It was the day that everything shattered.
I strolled into the school right before the first bell rang. Mr. Phillips stopped me as I started past the office doors.
“Ms. Alden, may I see you for just a moment?”
My mind raced at why I was being called into the Principal’s office. I hadn’t done anything wrong recently, had I? I sat down and he began, “I noticed that you have a bruise on your face again, Lauren.”
I looked at him and said with complete confidence, “Ran into a door.”
He took his glasses off and rubbed his tired eyes. “We’ve had a report of some violence in your home. I want you to know you are here to help.”
“There isn’t any violence.”
“There are witnesses, Lauren.” A knock on the office door jarred me from my rising panic. A nicely dressed black woman came through the door.
“Lauren, I’m Patricia. We’re going to help you.”
~
It was all a whirlwind after that. I remember the words ‘protective custody’ and ‘child services’ being used. The next thing I knew, I was in a car headed to a group home.
While I was being taken away, my mother was as well. They didn’t let me say goodbye and over French toast was the last time I saw her. When she was so certain she had never hit me or hurt me in any way, she was brought to the state hospital for an evaluation. The findings were released during the State vs. Bridget Alden trial. During the taped interview evaluation, some answers were made clear and some questions remained hidden.
~
When the camera came on, she could only stare at the device. The psychiatrist repeated his question.
“Could you please state your name?”
She pulled her knees up to her chest and began to rock.
“Would you like something to drink?”
She shook her head no but offered no words.
“Where’s Lauren?” she finally whispered. “I have to see her. She needs me to protect her.”
“What are you protecting her from?”
“I told her I would always protect her. It’s always been the two of us. I promised her.”
“If you are in danger, we can help you. All you have to do is give us a name.”
She looked around as if she had a grand secret. Then she said in a voice barely audible, “Eileen.”
The psychiatrist sat back in his seat. “Who is Eileen?”
“I don’t know. She’s mean to me though. She’s mean to Lauren. She doesn’t like us. We hide. I try to protect her but Eileen is too strong. She’s grown up.”
The psychiatrist studied the woman. “Aren’t you grown up?”
At that, she laughed for the first time. “No, silly. I’m only seven. I’m not really a grown up.”
“I see. Will you tell me what your name is now?”
“Nina.”
“And how do you know Lauren, Nina?”
“She’s my best friend. She’s always been my best friend. They made me hide for a long time though.”
“Who did?”
“Those ladies- Bridget and Eileen. I’m scared. Can I go home now?”
Dr. Andrews observed the grown woman sitting in the chair. Her knees pulled up to her chest, her finger pulling at her hair, her meek voice. He studied her mannerisms and listened to her speech. When she fell silent, he began to scribble notes on his pad. He stood and reached to switch the camera off. She was hospitalized that day, pending further evaluations.
She was never released.
~
It was another decade before my mother found peace. I laid her to rest the day after my twenty-fourth birthday. I put three roses in the grave that morning. One for my mother, one for Nina, and one for Eileen. I had long since digested my resentment after being given the full story as an adult. I knew that Bridget was protecting me from a trauma, even foreign to her. Her brain was unable to wrap completely around my father’s death but somewhere in her, she knew she had to keep me safe. Nina gave me a friend when no one else could be around. And she taught me how to protect myself from the unknown fears. Eileen was there to keep people from getting too close. A misguided attempt at protection the only way she knew how. The only way any of them knew how.
I’ve been asked by many people many times, How could you not know? How did I not know something was wrong with her? How did I learn to deal with it? The answer seems trite but it’s the only one I have. I never knew my mother was any different than other mothers because to me she wasn’t.