Читать книгу My Cries of Yesterday - Angelica Galbraith - Страница 10

Chapter Three

Motherly Love?

The door slammed, and I awoke, feeling frightened. I knew my mom was home, and I was certain a fight was going to start, but I didn’t hear yelling. Everyone who knew my mother knew she was just a loud person. She came into my room, and she saw that something wasn’t right. I heard my mother asking him what was in the washer, and he told her he had to put in the sheets because I kept throwing up.

She walked into my room and asked if I was still throwing up. I didn’t respond. As I faced the wall away from the door, she tapped my shoulder as if she thought I were asleep.

“No!” I yelled out in a mean way.

“Why are you mad?” she asked.

“I never want to stay here with him again.”

She never asked me why or anything. “You and your brothers have to stay here with him when I am at work,” she said. “You and your brothers will be here alone when he does work.” My mother walked out, and I heard her in the kitchen, preparing for dinner and finishing the laundry.

I was hoping the blood on the sheets were still there so she could see what that bastard of a man had done to me. But I never heard a word. I stayed in my room the whole time and didn’t come out. My brothers got home from school and went outside to play. We never asked each other questions or talked about the abuse. It was always bottled up. We never knew when something would trigger Rocky, and he would come for one of us.

“Come inside and eat dinner!” Rocky yelled out to my brothers. I heard his footsteps coming my way. “You’re sick, so you won’t eat dinner. You’ll just throw it up,” he said. I just fell asleep until I heard a dish break.

I heard him calling my mother names, and then I heard a slap. I heard my brothers playing outside, so I didn’t worry. As for my mother, I was upset and just told myself, She chose a man like him over us, so maybe it’s what she wanted. If there was ever something wrong that she said, he would hit her right away.

The next morning, my mother came into the room and told us to get up for school. My whole body was still in pain, but I was not about to stay home again with that bastard. I forced myself to get up and walk to the bathroom to brush my teeth as if nothing hurt so I wouldn’t get questioned.

My mother wouldn’t cook us breakfast and would tell us to eat at school, so we would always have to leave earlier to walk and get there on time. When we walked out the door, there was never a “Bye” or “See you guys after school,” not even an “I love you.” But I would hear my mother and Rocky talk sweetly to each other when he was in a good mood. In school, we never got questioned, and if we had black eyes or anything visible, we would miss school. That day in PE, I told the coach I was feeling a little better but was sore, so I sat out and didn’t do anything.

As time passed and all the abuse was still going on, my mother just didn’t ask us anything. It was as if she didn’t care for us. What kind of mother doesn’t protect her own children from monsters? We never had money. We didn’t have great clothes. We didn’t go anywhere but to a family member’s home, and it was always so they could drink. We got to hang out with all our cousins and play on those nights. We sometimes even slept over. My mother didn’t show any love. Maybe because she was never taught how to love. My mother could not comprehend a lot of things, and her education wasn’t great. She couldn’t help us with our homework since she dropped out in the sixth grade. My mother cussed a lot and yelled a lot as well. She was always stressed out and got angry so easily, especially the day we got evicted.