Fade to Black (The Black Trilogy Book 1) (4 page)

chapter Five

I heard my papaw’s snores. I smelled bleached sheets. It was a heavenly sound and scent. I believed I was dreaming. I lay perfectly still, waiting for the putrid smell of Daniel’s filthy mattress to hit me. After a long moment of feeling my foreign surroundings, I began to realize I wasn’t dreaming at all.

When I opened my eyes, I saw Nana sleeping in a makeshift bed beside mine. I lay staring at her. It was dark outside, and the light from the bathroom fell on Nana’s weathered face. She looked like no other woman I’d ever seen. She was beautiful. Even being in her sixties, she shone with light.

She wasn’t wearing makeup. I thought this funny and completely out of character. She would not leave the house without her face perfectly lined and colored. I had the sudden urge to laugh. Her neat blonde hair was fanned out around her face, making her appear even more angelic.

I looked to see Papaw asleep in a chair at the foot of my bed. His head hung to the side, resting on the chair back. I wanted to give him my pillow, afraid he would wake with a sore neck. I tried to sit up a little, but my body was so stiff I couldn’t move. I felt oddly heavy, and my head foggy.

I must have made a sound, because I saw Nana jump. I turned my head to look at her. She looked at me blurry-eyed and smiled. Then she was at my side placing cool hands on my cheeks, “Thank you, oh Lord. Thank you,” she breathed then kissed my forehead.

I wept as she held me. She didn’t sound or act like she didn’t want me. She was holding me as if I were not dirty.

I felt her body shake from sobs as Nana’s arm circled and rocked me. I was safe. I was home. Wherever Nana was, it was home.

After what seemed like forever, I heard Nana call to Papaw.

“Nathaniel? Nathaniel!” she said twice, and he was there crying with us a second later. The smell of his cologne made me cry harder. It was my favorite smell in the world. I felt wet spots in my hair from their tears and the pressure from their kisses.

We had our private reunion for a while. I felt heavy with drugs. Absently, I knew there was no more bump in my belly. I’m not sure if I was sad, or relieved, but I felt that somehow evil was no longer in me. I would have recovery. Lots of recovering. I had not yet realized the damage that had been done to me.

From the moment he stood waiting for me to exit the shower, Daniel had injected me with poison, a poison still swimming in my blood and my mind. It began working its way through me, possessing all parts of me. It would rob me of many things if I allowed it, but how do you say this to a twelve-year-old kid? How do you undo what has been done? How do you mend the aftermath of evil?

chapter Six

I was released from the hospital a week later on super-strong antibiotics. Nana wanted me to heal in her “birthing room,” where she practiced her midwifery. I loved the room and the hugeness of it. Tucked away were the instruments and items Nana used to deliver her babies, but it was a simple, pale yellow color, with all the comforts you could ask for. Nothing about it looked clinical.

The room was surgically clean but was fit for royalty. Papaw had it built for Nana years before, so she would be able to stay at home and work. This would also have allowed her to keep an eye on the many children they once planned to have, but sadly never did. My dad was the only surviving child among three miscarriages and a stillborn baby girl. Nana could barely speak of the babies she lost. I always thought she blamed herself for not being able to have more kids. We had cousins that visited from time to time, but for the most part it was just Nana and Papaw.

Just two weeks after being discharged from the hospital I was settling in the birthing room. I could move around in the big bed and oversized chairs comfortably. I slept a lot and when I was awake I stood in the streams of sunlight that filled the room, letting it drown me head to foot. I missed that, never knowing what a glorious thing sunshine was before I was forced to live in the dark. I watched the sun rise the fall day after day in silence. I could not speak. The doctors said I was shell shocked mute and would eventually speak again when my brain would allow it.

Nana and Papaw never pushed me to say anything. They placed me in the birthing room and it quickly became more than a place of other’s births. It became a sanctuary where I could feel safe if only for a little each day. I could rock in the padded rocker, or soak in the birthing tub that was at least three times the size of a normal tub. I enjoyed the tub most of all and soaked in it often, placing my toes over the pulsing jets, breathing the warm mist that floated in the air while I soaked and felt almost normal.

I sat, as always, in uninterrupted silence. Nana said silence healed the mind, and she allowed me to take my time in the healing process. As I soaked in the water my mind wandered over the bump that was now gone from my middle. I touched the puffy line under my belly button with my index finger, feeling the rigid thin jagged flesh where I know I was opened up and emptied of the baby.

Nana watched me sitting on a stool, always within my reach to wash my back or hair for me.  I looked into her eyes after touching my scar and watched as an expression of the deepest pain entered her face. Her eyes crinkled slightly as if witnessing me thinking of surgeon’s hands inside me had somehow injured her. She got down on her knees beside me as I soaked in warm milky water of “healing” salts.

The water was running, and steam rose from the spout. Nana’s light blonde hair looked oddly withered like a sunflower faded in the dark. She seemed to search for what to say. Reaching for my hand, she drew it to her chest not at all concerned with its wetness.

“Love?” she whispered to me. “It’s gone,” she said with her slight German accent, sadly or maybe Nana was relieved?

I felt nothing, as she told me what I knew already, I just watched her lips move as she spoke softly. I was aware of a movement inside my stomach like bubbles then it was gone. Silent. Dead. I hadn’t spoken yet. I heard the doctors tell Papaw and Nana I was in shock, and my mind would need to recover as well as my body.

“It’s the scars unseen we need to be concerned with,” he had told them grimly.

I sat wondering if I may be mentally damaged and that’s why Nana was speaking low and with caution. Maybe if I looked closely in the mirror I wouldn’t see me, but a disfigured person that would need a scarf to hide my face when I went out in public like the Muslim women in papaws stories.

When my skin began to wrinkle, I stood and allowed Nana to wrap me in an oversized towel and brush and dry my hair, like I was smaller than I was. Truth is, I was much smaller than I was aware of. My once shiny strawberry blonde hair hung limp and lifeless like fragile little twigs. My collarbone and ribs looked grotesque, sticking out like a horror movie. My brown eyes looked dull even after days of sleep still set too deep in their sockets.

After my hair was brushed and dried I slipped into one of Nana’s soft knit gowns. I had my own nightgowns at the house, but I preferred Nana’s things that smelled like her, as if I could wrap myself in clean things, and the aroma could drown my thoughts.

I believed, as I slid in between the sheets, that maybe I had died and this was heaven. The cool clean bed covers, the goose-down pillows, the clean gown. But the reality of it was, I wasn’t at all cleaned. I was soiled to the bone. Daniel made sure of that. No matter what I put on, or how long I stayed in the tub, I was still nasty on the inside.

Nana stayed with me every night, as I tossed and turned. She sat silently in the oversized chair in the corner of the room, where I’d seen new mothers nurse their babies. She was waiting on me to talk. I knew that.

I wasn’t ready for her to know how deep the poison had gone. I was being weaned off of medications I’d been given. Sleep was hard for me without a pill now, but Nana felt it was time I tried on my own. I drifted to sleep, or what I considered sleep, but was more like moments of suspension then a crash back to the present. I may have slept an hour each night, and every time I looked over at the chair, there she would be, a solid reminder that I was loved. I was too broken at that moment to feel it, but I knew in my head it was so.

The days came, and each one was the same as the one before. I stayed in bed, trying to recover. My wounds were deeper than the bruises or cuts. I had my meals in bed, and I remained silent. I watched the sun rise and set. I watched Nana as she spoke to me. I was afraid if I slept long, or began to speak, all of it would disappear, and I would wake in the trailer.

Nathan came and sat quietly with me. Much of the time, he just stared out the window, watching the sun with me. Nana continued to sit with me, and Papaw came in to tell me my favorite stories. Up and down his eyebrows rose and fell as he did this. It made me physically ache for my dad. Little by little, each day I felt my heart close up around the broken shards within it.

Sleep was my enemy. I would wake suddenly, thinking Daniel was on top of me. Nana would come sit on the bed with me until I calmed down, but finally, after several nights of this, she remained in her chair, watching me by the soft glow of light coming from the bathroom. I looked for her when I woke enough to miss her. I found her shadow in the corner. I knew she could see me better than I could her, mostly because she wanted it that way.

“Nana?” I said in a hoarse voice, for the first time.

“I’m here, love,” she said, but didn’t come to me.

She would not push me to speak, but in her way of thinking, she had given me enough silence. Now it was time I purged myself of the things making me sick. Like a stomach virus. I stayed perfectly still and thought of what I wanted to say to her. Of how I would tell her. I watched the moonlight dance across the ceiling for a long time.

“Nana,” I said finally

“I’m here,” she said, still not coming to me.

“It died?” I asked in a whisper.

Knowing I meant the baby, she said, “Yes, honey. It had died. That sometimes happens.”

I could not explain why this was on my mind. I had never thought of being a mother. I don’t even think I had realized what that was at twelve, but I knew that there had been a living creature inside of me because I had felt it move. Now I knew it wasn’t there, and I needed confirmation that it was not alive but dead, like my father.

Nana sat silent. I could hear she was holding her breath, ready to hear what I had to tell her. It was easier not to see her loving face and see the anguish as I flinched in pain or cried for no reason.

I told her the things that had happened and where I had been for so long, pausing only to wet my lips occasionally. Nana never interrupted. She allowed me to tell my story without asking questions. When I finished I lay numb and silent for a while. When finally it was out of me, my mind was clearer. I turned a little in Nana’s direction. Even though I knew she loved me I did wonder if she could still love me after knowing everything.

“Will you tell me what has happened since the funeral?” I asked.

She sniffed and began clearing her throat.

“After your father’s funeral, Deborah asked us to give you and your brother some time before we made a visit. The insurance money paid for the funeral, and when she began to ask for money she felt entitled to, your papaw tried to reason with her, which only made her angry. She just wanted money and had we considered what she was capable of we would have sold everything to pay her. But had we given her anything we feared we would never see you. We tried to talk her into letting you and Nathan stay with us. I think this made her even angrier. She insisted that we not come and always had an excuse for you not to visit. I wanted to respect her, but I also wanted you with me. In the end, I thought it would keep the peace between us if I did as she asked. We decided to give her a little time.”

Nana coughed, and then continued.

“After weeks passed with still no word, Nathan came here, and told us your mother was drinking heavily. He said he was headed to Nashville and would be in touch. He asked us to check on you. We did, but by then the apartment was empty, and a notice was on the door. We looked everywhere. We could not find you, Piper. There was no trace of you or your mother anywhere. When we asked around, a lady told us you all had moved to Nashville with family. Nathaniel and I immediately began searching for you there. We heard nothing. The police wouldn’t help. She was your mother.”

Nana made a face at this.

“She had the right to move, and to take you with her. We hired a private investigator, who reported different men Deborah was seen with, but none knew anything. He then searched the place your mother is from, thinking she might have gone back there, but turned up empty. We searched Nashville for you as well. We never gave up. Nathan checked in, and said he thought you would turn up.”

Nana breathed deep, trying to compose herself.

“Matthew Logue found you on the holler road that morning,” she began again before I could ask. “He brought you to the hospital and called us immediately. You were in bad shape. An infection had formed, and that’s why you had surgery. There was little hope, but you got stronger as your body and mind slept. You know the rest of it. You have had many people wanting to visit. When you are well you should see them, but now I think you should rest.”

I knew Nana well enough to know she wanted to think in silence. I felt better after talking with her. We had skated over some things we needed to talk about more, but there would be time for that. For now I was content and as happy as I could be, knowing I really was loved and wanted.

I allowed sleep to come again, just before dawn. Daniel’s voice carried me away saying, “They’ll never love you, and you know it.”

I had nightmares on and off all morning until Nana finally gave me something to help me sleep. Maybe this was the first time I understood relief could be found in a pill.