so reckless. Things are bad, but don’t make ’em worse. One of these days, Ivey. One of these days...”
I sprawled out in the dirt and let his voice fade off into the distance. My eyes closed and, just like that, I was back in the Sting Ray—the leather beneath my fingertips, the wind cool on my face, Mom and Dad at my rear, and the endless road ahead.
chapter three
The sun set over the corn and our world. A whistle came from the house as Mom waved us in. Louie and I grabbed the lemonade, sign, picnic chairs, umbrella, and then divided the two quarters between us. With our arms full, we ran up the driveway, dropped everything under the patio and headed inside. The screen door slapped at our rear, and Louie gasped. I chuckled and then realized the spank of the door wasn’t what scared him. In front of us, waiting at the kitchen table, sat Mom. From her hand swung the rope, which meant only one thing. Her eyes glowered at Louie and me and then fixed on me.
“Louie, to your room!”
He jumped in his oversized shoes (the soles never leaving the ground), glanced at me sympathetically, and then sped upstairs like he was being chased. I heard his door latch seconds later with him safely behind it, me still on the other side.
Mom paced back and forth across the room. Her nose twitched to the left, a subtle tic that meant she was beyond angry, about to explode. After a long silence she stopped and took big, deep breaths. There was nothing more I wanted to do than run. And I don’t remember for certain, but I must have eyed the door longingly because as soon as the impulse hit me from one side, the rope in Mom’s hand struck me from the other. The blow knocked me down and like a dog with wet paws I sprawled out across the floor. My vision pulsed. The blur looked down at me.
“In the name of the Holy Father and all that is sin I will show my daughter the ability to repent. Psalm 9:17 and the wicked shall be turned into hell.”
“Wait. Wait! What did I do?!”
She sneered, tying the end of the rope into a knot. “This is for your continuous sins against chastity. Don’t think I didn’t see you get into that car with that man. Don’t think I don’t know how you work. You’re a disgust. Despicable. A man’s trash can.”
She had been working herself into a frenzy, but fortunately calmed a little while fastening the thumbtacks into the rope.
“Ivey, I will not have you contribute to this family’s fall from grace. You were being so good and obedient. What happened? What happened to the angel I brought into this world?”
“I didn’t do anything with that guy,” I tried to explain, but there was no explaining to be done.
There never was, because she didn’t possess the ears to listen.
“You’re only making things worse. He knows and He sees.”
She put her index finger to her mouth.
“Now be calm. Be quiet. Brave.”
The rope wailed through the air, striking my back. The tacks took root in my shoulder and were immediately ripped out. The skin mangled, the first spill of blood lapped over the floor. Screams rang throughout the house, echoed in the den, the back room, and then returned as though they were coming from somewhere else, from someone else. And in a way they were. I fled the scene. I was an observer, disconnected, a recluse to the one haven she couldn’t penetrate. And there I waited until it was over. I hugged my knees tight against my stomach and protected my head. Resist and it’d only be worse. The rope whirred through the air.
“Repent!” She screamed, slamming the knot down over and over. “Repent. Be brave. Repent.”
It was a triadic sensation. First came the whip of the rope, followed by the punch of the knot, and ending with the agonizing bite of the tacks. If I was lucky, the pins lodged themselves in and stayed put, that way I didn’t have to deal with them again and there wasn’t mutilation at the jerk of the rope. But often times I wasn’t so fortunate, another permanent scar.
Although it felt like she would go on forever, the beating finally stopped. How long I lay there wreathing, crying, convulsing on the floor I do not know. Ten minutes? An hour? Two hours?
Content that I had “learned my lesson,” Mom ordered me to get up. I used a chair and stood in front of her. My clothes were in tatters all around me, torn from my shoulders, thighs, and ankles. I stood naked with nothing left. The rope dripped blood, so she tossed it into the sink, even though the floor was a mess already. It accurately looked as if someone had been sacrificed. Not a life, but a soul by virtue of a million little deaths. With no desire to speak or be lectured to, I turned and limped upstairs. She was done with me.
“Ivey...”
From the kitchen Mom gazed up and half-smiled. As if ashamed of her hands, she tucked them behind her, smothering them between the counter and her back.
“I love you.”
I continued down the hallway and turned into my room, stood by my bed aching to climb in, knowing that if any blood ended up on the sheets I would “be sorry” once more. I grabbed a book I was done with and started tearing out pages, making a space for myself with a blanket of paper. When I lay down, the black lettering dampened and copied itself across my legs and torso, mixing with the blood, making me a splotchy black and red mess. I ran my hands over my shoulders and picked out two tacks. Plucking the skin from the tacks, I got them clean and then placed them on the nightstand to return. I had to. If I didn’t, it too was a punishable offense. It showed that I didn’t understand I had done wrong, that I wasn’t repenting and delighted to be “free of sin.”
With a whimper, I rested my head on my folded hands. I closed my eyes and tried to envision beaches, sand, and waves, but the only thing I saw was Mom towering over me, screaming and uttering the cruel words “I love you.”
chapter four
A band of light streaked across my bedroom wall and woke me. At first I thought it was Dad getting home late from delivering our leftover produce to the supermarket, but our tractor didn’t have headlights or a rhythmic engine; it was much more clunky, like bricks in a washing machine. Putt, puff, putt, puff the vehicle murmured as it sat idle below the window. The car’s high beams switched off, and my room fell dark again. I wrestled my body into a sitting position and pushed my legs to the floor. The forming scabs on my thighs split apart. My head grew light and the room started to spin. I dropped back onto the paper, unable to move as my eyelids drew closed. Outside in the twilight a car door slammed. Then—whether I was dreaming or not I do not know—came a shriek of curdling terror, a rustling, a clank of chains, and then everything went dark again.
I awoke some hours later, this time to something poking my ribs. I kicked and flailed about, ignoring the soreness throughout my body. My left heel caught Louie in the face. He dropped, hand clasped over his jaw.
“Why do you do that?” Louie gasped.
I groaned, asking myself the same question.
“Sorry. You should have stayed further back.”
He chuckled, “This is the largest branch I could find.”
He held it up and I too laughed. It hurt to do so, but it was nice to feel a tinge of warmth in such a cold body. Louie lit a candle and stopped nursing his chin the instant he saw the damage. He sat next to me and tended to what he could. Between the two of us there was an unspoken pledge to mother the other (although maybe that’s not the best word here). At any hour Louie would come to my side and I would come to his. On many occasions, he saved my life.
In a bucket of water he soaked a towel and pressed it to my back. The coolness was soothing. He repeated this until I was clean and then dressed the wounds, which covered all my body except my head. This, of course, was done intentionally. Mom knew better than to leave marks that couldn’t be concealed with a turtleneck, sweatpants, or an ankle-cut dress. With my face pressed against the torn pages, I remembered the strange