A Simple Life: Chapter 185

“Ha ha ha ha!” Winona’s laughter rings through the suite, bringing a huge smile to my face. Turning this way and that she checks out her makeup through the hand mirror. “Perfect! It’s perfect, Sprout. Better than what I coulda done!”

“Thank you.” I say bashfully.

After that she takes me to the bed and has me kneel down behind her to teach me how to braid so that she rap her braids around her head with bobby pins so the wig would fit over it. Separating her long, straight, raven locks into two even tresses and then each one into three equal strands. These she has me fold over each other in an alternating pattern. After finishing the first braid she has me pull it apart again so I try it again without direction, and I am only too happy to do so. Her hair was so silky and smooth in my fingers, it’s black sheen so lustrous, and it felt so nice to do this for her. Everything about this was soft and caring and bonding, and undeniably feminine. I loved it! I loved everything about it. Everything but what came next.

Braiding Winona’s hair and listening to her talk about our upcoming get-together with our friends brings back memories of listening in on Paige’s sleepovers as she and her group of high school besties as they did fun things like doing each other’s hair. Huddled by her door, which was right beside mine, I used to close my eyes and fantasize about being a part of their giggly gab session. Even though I rarely got the references or humor I would quietly laugh along with them and react to all the juicy gossip as if I was in there among them. That memory leads abruptly to another. The one and only time that I got caught listening by the door. It was the only time because I never did again after that. I certainly learned my lesson about eavesdropping that night.

Knowing what came next I raise my defenses to hold the memory at bay but, to my surprise, this time it comes flooding through unabated.

Generally when I was doing something bad I had the ears of a fox but that night I was so caught up in their laughter and the television in the living room had been so loud that I completely missed the telltale creak of Mom getting up off her chair. Before I even knew what was happening my ear was in a pinch and I was being lead out into the living room.

My mom immediate thought the worst of my intentions as she had caught Jack creeping around Paige and her friends, in a really gross way, on the last sleepover. I wasn’t even old enough to get an erection yet but she was convinced that my intentions were perverted. I wanted to explain that it wasn’t like that but I knew that telling her that I was imagining myself as one of the girls would only lead to an even worse punishment. How I pleaded for her not to tell Dad. How I BEGGED her! She did tell him of course, the moment he walked through the door. When it came to someone in the house doing something wrong she always told dad everything…except for the fact that she had cheated on him evidently. Had she waited even a couple of minutes it might not have been so bad, but in annoying him the instant he stepped foot into the house it acted as a spark to his powder-keg temper. Why couldn’t she have just waited?

In a silent panic I scramble to push back against the flow of events and return the terrible night back to the secure little box I kept it locked away in. One box among many. But this time it was like trying to hold the tide at bay.

I was made to stand still beside the television as an episode of CSI played way too loudly while mom told dad that she’d caught me ‘playing with myself’ in front of the girls. I didn’t really understand what that even meant but I could tell that it was bad. Real bad. I wanted to defend myself and tell him that I was only listening at the door but my fate was already sealed.

Right away he started yelling at me and telling me that I ought to be ashamed of myself. He grabbed me by the arm, his grip making it so I had to wear long sleeve shirts for the next two weeks despite the warm weather, and dragged me back down the hall. I tripped along the way he was going so fast but he didn’t care. He pulled me along with him even as he wrenched my shoulder nearly out of its socket. He stormed into Paige’s room, scaring the hell out of her and her three friends, and forced me to apologize to them for my sins. Hoping to hasten the end I confess to the things that I didn’t do much to the confusion of the girls who knew the door had remained closed until just this moment. I could see pity and concern in Paige’s eyes and I’d hoped that she might speak up for me. I could see that she wanted to, but she didn’t. Like me, courage was not one of Paige’s gifts.

Though I knew it would only make things worse I was crying at this point. I just couldn’t hold my emotions in like Joshua could. The one silver lining that I clung onto was that I knew Dad wasn’t going to hit me because of Paige’s friends being over. But that silver turned out to be a dagger. Oh how I came to wish that he just beat me.

Dad took me into my room and threw me on the bed, berating me for crying like a girl and stuttering like a ‘retard’. I tried so hard to stop both but the more I did them the angrier he got and the angrier he got the more I cried and stuttered. Knowing he couldn’t touch me like he wanted to he searched for another way to hurt me. I could still feel the terror grip me as, in a fit or rage, his burning eyes left me to start casting about my room…until they fell on my stuffed dolphin laying beside my pillow. Her name was Bluey. She was a gift from Grandpa on my third birthday. She wasn’t just my favorite stuffy she was my nighttime confidante and my closest companion all through my childhood. She was a little bit of Grandpa when Grandpa couldn’t be there.

I begged, I bawled, I bargained, and eventually I even threw myself at my father in a futile attempt to save my friend. He ignored it all and tore her to pieces in front of me. He told me that if I’m old enough to play with myself than I’m too old to play with baby toys. Little scraps of foam rained down all across my room before the tattered, empty, lifeless rag of Bluey’s skin was thrown in my face. And when he was done he yelled at me to ‘clean up this fuckin mess’.

Looking down at the limp remains of my friend in my hands…I lost it. I screamed and wailed at the top of my lungs. Dad’s bellows shook the house as he shook me and kept asking ‘what is wrong with him?’. But there was no threat or act of violence that could silence my agony. I was inconsolable. Even Mom knew Dad had gone too far and she called Grandpa so he could come take me for the night. To this day I am thankful to her for that small mercy.

I can still smell the tobacco smoke steeped into the upholstery as I sat alone, grieving and afraid in Grandpa’s truck as he had it out with mom and dad on the front steps of the house. I hated watching Grandpa confront Dad. Even though I believed he was invincible it always bothered me to see how much bigger Dad was than him. Just then I catch a face lit up by a nearby streetlight. It was Joshua peeking out at me from his bedroom window as the adults argued. At the time I thought he just wanted to look at me and laugh at my misfortune, but reliving this memory again after so long of not confronting it I could now see that he wasn’t laughing. He wasn’t even smiling. He was scared! Scared and wishing that he could be whisked away with me.

“Sprout?”

“Huh?” All of a sudden I am back in the present with Winona sitting in front of me, one braid done and the other hanging loose from where my hands had stopped working.

Seeing my haunted look she reaches for me. Crawling forward I curl up in her arms. “What happened?”

Closing my eyes I press my cheek into her chest and savor her strong arms around me. “A m-memory. About m-m-my d-d-dad. Sorry.” I take a long deep breath and let the fear and trauma drain from my tense body. “I’m s-so f-fucked up.”

“Shhh.” She pets my hair. “It’s okay.”

“Whoooo.” I let out another breath. “I haven’t thought ab-bout him in a l-long time. N-Not like that. N-Not specific memories.”

“It was the braiding that reminded you?”

“Mm.” I nod. “N-Not directly but…it j-just all came flooding back. I don’t know wh-why. M-Maybe the barbecue knocked s-some things loose or…m-maybe it’s all th-this talk about m-my real dad or…”

“Or maybe you’re ready to heal.” Winona says softly. “And some old wounds need to be opened again before that can happen.”

“M-Maybe.”

“You wanna talk about it?”

After a few seconds I whisper. “Yes. Yes, I do. B-But not right now. Th-This’ll take some time.”

“I’ll cancel the game.”

“No! No, p-please. Please don’t do that.”

“Okay.” She kisses my head. “I don’t mind braiding my own hair.”

“No.” I say, clutching to her. “I like it. I really like it. It w-wasn’t really the braiding.”

“Okay, baby.” She strokes and soothes and holds me close. “Let’s just take a minute here and regroup, okay?”

“Thank you.” Snuggling higher I rest my head on her shoulder. Leaning against her I reflect again on the unbidden memory and marvel at how, with the clarity of time and hindsight, fucked up it all was. At the time it just seemed…normal, which made it even more fucked up. If not for Grandpa I fear to imagine what might have happened that night after the company had gone to sleep. “Winona?”

“Yeah, baby?”

“Um…about my ch-character tonight. About Althea…”

“What is it?”

“My G-Grandma…”

“The Grand Mage?”

“Mm.” I nod. “She really…r-really loves her. I-I know it’s y-your w-world and y-your story and your characters and I know there are d-dragons and m-monsters and…vampire lords, but…um…I-I…um…”

“Avery.” She pulls back to look me in the eyes. “The Grand Mage Shaeladrine has nothing to fear in her forest home. There is no spell or power or divine intervention that can touch her there. She is as ageless as the forest itself and in that land her roots run as deep at the mightiest tree. She is wise beyond the machinations of her enemies and FAR too powerful for even the likes of a vampire lord. Althea has her challenges, but on her Grandma she can rest assured.”

With a sigh and smile I lay my head back down again and whisper. “Thank you.”

Chapter 186