A Glimpse

Memories are a funny thing. They twist and flow and bleed together. Her childhood holds so many small things...maybe it is the small things that led to the big.

The Girl remembers loving chocolate Yoo-Hoo. After her brother was older, she was always given strawberry instead...She recalls drinking Mountain Dew from a glass bottle, and being admonished to not knock it against her teeth. Another blink and she's sitting on a bucket in a power boat. She asks to lift a crab pot, intent on putting the crab beneath her overturned bucket to keep. She remembers tumbles that led to skinned knees, playing with sticks, and climbing trees. These and so many more have softened with time, and run together instead of being fixed in time and space.

It all leads back to hearth and home, and her father.

When things didn't happen his way, he was angry. Some was surely justified. After all, what about cleaning her room was so difficult? He'd stand the mattress against the wall to force her to clean under the bed. She learned to hop to it quickly when asked to retrieve something he wanted, or to do something that was commanded. She learned to be quiet when he was watching the television. The girl tried to keep out from underfoot and keep her cat to herself. More than once, her furry companion was booted - literally - through the front door.

Punishments were swift, and often not much. She got spankings, as was the norm for most children. The Girl assumes that she was first hit with a hand on her bottom. Hazy remembrances of him using the blade of ceiling fan to paddle her come to her mind. She can't remember the number of times, or the infractions. Backtalk, not listening...normal childhood things. It progressed to getting hit with a leather belt.

The Girl recalls these instances vividly. Bent over, hands on the bed rail. Three licks! If she instinctively tried to cover her bottom from the sting, then it didn't count. She remembers waiting for him to go get the belt on the rare time he wasn't actually wearing it. Waiting for it, anticipating the pain, was worse than the beating. The belt itself stands out in her mind. Blond leather, embossed with deer. It had a shiny eagle buckle.

Her tears were inumerous. They rolled down her face, hot and fast. It never occurred to her to tell anyone about the belt, even as the "licks" got worse. In her child's mind, her mother must have known. How could she not? Adults knew it all, and it was her father doing the deed. She never realized that help could have been had, even before the glimpse of what was to come.