Spilled Milk: Based on a true story (6 page)

She smiled and
reached across the bed and tucked a Precious Moments doll next to my face.
Angelic eyes stared back at me, wrapped in fleece. It smelled like a hospital
doll. “Daddy got you this when you were in surgery, to look over you.”

Over the next
few hours the doctors wanted me to eat some crackers and walk around so the gas
they used to fill my stomach for surgery would loosen up. It hurt to walk, to
sit, to laugh at my Grandpa when he called me on the hospital phone and told me
if I scared him like that again
he
would put me in the hospital next
time.

“Well, we’d
like to keep you another day, Brooke. Your appendix was pretty infected. We
just want to make sure nothing got into your bloodstream to make you sick.” Dr.
Destachio flashed his crooked front tooth. I glanced at my mom shifting in the
seat beside my bed. She was in pain when she did that. “Unless you’re really
feeling okay to go home. You’d just have to take it extra easy the next couple
of days.”

The hospital
was a vacation. I had slept more in the past two days than I had in years. I
had a team of watchful adults all catering to me. I never wanted to leave.

“If it’s okay,
I want to go home.” I struggled to say the words, but I knew Mom needed to be
in her own bed. It only meant more pain for her if she wasn’t.

A nurse helped
me into a wheelchair while Mom brought the car around to the front of the
hospital. Dad stood at my side. I flinched when he slid his hand to smooth the
top of my hair. “You’re very brave. And you were a very good girl while we were
here.” I pretended not to hear him as I watched a young mother get into the car
in front of us.

I struggled to
get into the van but soon we were pulling onto the highway and headed home. The
Precious Moments doll sat at my side and I picked her up. There was a string
attached to the bottom as I flipped her over. Soft lyrical music filled the air
and my stomach sank. Dad smirked and watched the outside scenery float by. Was
this some kind of joke? Mom glanced at me in the rear view mirror and softly
mumbled the words to the song. “Hush little baby, don’t say a word…”

For two weeks I
was untouchable while I healed from surgery. Mom put a little bell next to my
bed and all I had to do was ring it for a snack, pain medicine, or for the
remote. Kat ran in to help me most of the time, which she was happy to do as
long as I didn’t show her my wound.

As I healed I
caught up on school work and looked through Seventeen Magazines that Cristin
dropped off. She spent most of her afternoons entertaining me from my bedside.
I yelled at her a lot to stop making me laugh since it felt like my insides
would spill out when I did.

Soon I stopped
taking the pain medication the doctor prescribed and ibuprofen was enough to
make me comfortable. I put the pill bottle on top of the TV in my room just in
case I needed it. Walking around was easier. I was allowed to go back to school
in a week. My days dragged, and I daydreamed out the window waiting to hear the
bus for Adam, Thomas and Kat to come home.

Mom was out at
the grocery store. Dad was working overnights and usually didn’t get out of bed
until around five. When my bedroom door creaked open, I rolled over in bed
expecting to see Cristin.

“Yea, Dad?” My
heart raced. No one was home.

He held a white
cup in his hand. “I made this for you, honey.” The bedroom door was closed
behind him. My breath became shallow.

“I’m okay,
thanks though.” I supported my stomach underneath my sheets as it rumbled.
I
can’t, not now, please.
He didn’t blink as he crossed the room, hand
outstretched. “It’s chocolate milk. Your favorite.”

I took the cup,
searching my head for a distraction. “Thanks. Um, Dad can you check and see if
Mom is home yet?” I gripped the sheets. He needed to leave.

“She’s not
home, snuggle bug. Drink that up, so I can bring the cup downstairs.”

I mentally
cheered myself on.
Okay, Brooke, chug, chug faster, faster you drink the
faster he’s gone.
The chocolate milk disappeared behind my milk mustache. I
outstretched an arm. “Done.”

He sat on the
futon next to my bed. “Good girl, see I thought maybe you were thirsty.”

I stared at
him. Why wasn’t he leaving? We locked eyes. “You can bring the cup downstairs
now, Dad, I’m done.” It wasn’t a suggestion.

He must have
sensed my resistance. “I will.”

The room began
to spin. Slow at first, then so fast I closed my eyes and moaned. My body
floated above the sheets, a heaviness refusing to let my arms leave the bed.

“My…head. Why’s
my flace..Flace? Face. Whaaaat.” Words slurred out of my mouth. I wasn’t sure
Dad could even hear me. I rubbed my eyes and the room began to shrink. My
eyelids were bricks. As I drifted, I tried to focus my attention. My eyes set
on my TV. I studied the square box, the red buttons…my pill bottle was gone.
Brooke,
stop it. Stay awake. Sleep later. Stop it, stop.

A suffocating
body was on top of me, pulling down my bottoms and sheets. I smelled cologne,
spicy aftershave. My eyes wouldn’t open as I struggled to see what was going
on. Prickles of cold made the hairs on my arm stand up and I shuddered. A
violent force of pain shot between my legs and up through my stomach. I cried
out.

Consciousness
came and went. The room spun and I tried to focus on something, anything. I
remembered my bell. My outstretched hand fumbled across the bed. I grabbed air,
sheets, the side of the bed.
Come on, come on.
The smell of blood gagged
me. The bed fell beneath me, and I was falling, falling.

When I woke up,
the room was dim and the hall light was on. Voices lingered from my parent’s
room. “I’ll tell you, it was a good god damn thing I was home.” Dad was talking
to Mom.

“I don’t
understand, David. She just…fell in the shower?”

“I was dead
asleep. All of a sudden, BAM, I hear something loud. I ran into the bathroom
and Brooke was laying at the bottom of the shower, passed out cold.”

My hand reached
for my hair. It was wet.

“Why was she
taking a shower? I mean, I helped her take one this morning.”

“Damn cat peed
on her bed. She must have laid down in it before she figured it out and got it
all over her. I threw the sheets out, disgusting mess that made. Brooke’s
clothes too, piss all over them. I can get her new pajamas, I threw those out
too. I didn’t think she needed to go to the hospital, figured she just turned
too fast or the wrong way and sent some pain through her. It’ll teach her.
She’ll be fine Molly, I checked on her a few times.”

Jesus
was
all Mom said. Then there was silence, and the TV was all that echoed through
the corridor.

My throat stuck
together and my chest heaved as I struggled to hold back my sobs. My hand
lowered between my legs, praying that it had all been a dream. A scary dream.
My fingers rolled over swollen skin, and I cried so hard it rocked me to sleep.

Mom leaned
against the shopping cart as we maneuvered our way through people in Wal-Mart.
“The pain in my back makes me walk on my toes. The doctor said it shortened my
Achilles tendon, so there is a surgery to make it longer. I can’t believe I
have to have another surgery. Never a dull moment.” She stopped and picked up loose
leaf paper from the shelf. “Didn’t you need this?”

I looked at the
price. “No,” I dismissed her. “How long is the recovery?”

“A week. Maybe
two. He didn’t say. Why?” She shook her head at the notion that I had a problem
with her recovery time. “It’s a serious surgery Brooke, you can’t rush things
like that.”

I turned my
head toward the fluorescent lights hovering above our heads. The thought of
being alone in the house, again, for more than one night terrified me. It was
like catch twenty two. If I stayed with a friend, I risked Dad lurking on one
of my siblings. If I stayed home, then I was subjecting myself to the unknown
and to him. Every time, I chose to stay. I chose my peace of mind knowing they
weren’t hurting, every time. It was the right thing to do, I was older.

I threw a pack
of paper towels into the cart. “Just wondering.”

“So who’s this
Judd character you’ve been hanging out with? Your father doesn’t like him. You
meet him in school? He’s in 8
^th
grade too right?”

“Yea, I met him
on the bus. We’re in the same grade. And Dad doesn’t like any guy I’m friends
with.”

“Friends?” Mom
cocked her head and raised her eyebrow.

“Yes. Friends.
Guys and girls can be just friends.”

“Uh-huh. Well
ask this friend to come over to our house. I don’t like you always going over
there, I don’t even know if his parents are home.”

“They are.”

It wasn’t a
total lie. His dad worked on their farm, so technically he was home, even if he
was somewhere in a field miles away.

“I got a
hundred on my project,” I said, shifting the conversation.

“What project?”

“My Spanish
one.”

“You’re taking
Spanish?”

I rolled my
eyes. “Yea. And I got a hundred on it.”

“I don’t know
why your brothers and sister can’t work more like you. I don’t even know that
you have projects until they’re getting handed back to you with a grade on
them.”

It didn’t take
me long to figure out that if I asked Mom if I could go hang out at Judd’s
house, she would more often than not say yes and I could use it for leverage
when Dad asked where I was going. I already had permission. It was set in
stone. I could go.

Judd was taking
a lighter apart and I was sprawled across his bed flipping through channels.
“It’s like you use my house to sleep or something.” He focused on the little
pieces he was collecting in his lap. “Don’t you sleep?”

“Yea,” I said,
stretching my arms above my head. “I sleep here.”

“Haha.”

“You know
what’s haha? Your hair. What is it, white now? Doesn’t get much blonder than
that.”

“This is deep.”
He ran a hand through his crew cut. “Nobody else can pull this off.”

“MmmHmm. You
hungry?” I climbed off the bed and made my way to the door before he answered.

“Nah. I’m
eating a big dinner tonight, gonna save room.” He rubbed his non-existent
stomach and a hollow sound erupted from underneath his shirt.

We were both
picked on for our weight, or lack of weight really, which is how we became
friends overnight. We stuck together. He towered above me when he stood up. I
challenged him. “Are you not hungry or do you just not want to eat?”

He smiled.
“I’ll have a little I guess.”

Judd ate two
grilled cheese sandwiches and a bowl of tomato soup. I knew better than to
bring this to his attention so instead I just asked if he wanted more. “No, but
why do you eat so weird?”

I looked at my
plate. “What do you mean?”

“You pull
everything apart. It’s like a war zone of grilled cheese.” He flicked a crumb
from my cheek. “Can’t you just eat everything instead of picking it apart like
that?”

I bit my lip.
“Yea, habit I guess.”

“Who taught you
to eat like that?”

“No one,” I
shot back. “Leave it alone.”

It was a
vicious cycle. Most of the time, there was barely any food at home. My brothers
and I would start to steal pop tarts and other food from the pantry. If we were
sent to bed without dinner, or there just wasn’t anything to eat, we would dig
into the stash in our bedrooms, stale or not.

Then Dad bought
a locking system for the food cabinets. Food was disappearing, and he would get
enraged when mom would ask him to go to the grocery store more than once a
week. He brought the key to work with him. I could get food when Dad got home
just by asking. So I asked every day, just to fill my sibling’s stash.

On the rare
occasions there was enough food for dinner several nights in a row, the
experience was always overwhelming. Six bodies crammed around a table within
feet from each other, and everyone tried to get the seat farthest from Dad. His
hands would shoot out across the table faster than a whip and catch someone in
the face because of something they said or did. We were not allowed to get up
from the table until he was finished eating, and our plates had to be clean
too.

Dad never hit
me. Never. So I would often claim a place next to him at the table to give my
siblings distance between him. Most of the time, I just couldn’t bring myself
to eat sitting next to him. My stomach danced and dipped throughout the meal.

I adopted a way
of eating where I would rip whatever it was I was given into little pieces. If
I pushed these pieces around my plate enough, it looked like I ate. When there
was no food, I couldn’t eat. When there was food, I couldn’t eat. And everyone
wondered why I was so skinny?

Judd reached
over and picked a piece of crust off my plate and shoved it into his mouth. He
chewed graciously, wiped his mouth with his bare arm and smiled that wide
toothed grin that always seemed to get him in trouble.

“Like you have
any room to talk about the way a person eats,” I said.

He ruffled my
hair and threw his arms around my neck for a fake choke hold. I fell to the
ground to psych him out and laughed as I socked him in the stomach just hard
enough to get him to back off.

“Whew, all
right muscles.” He groaned getting up from the floor, smoothing his hair. “The
guys should be here soon, we goin’ swimming?”

“Yea,” I said.
I took Judd’s outstretched hand to help me up. I followed him into his room and
he pulled a bottle of vodka from the back of his closet. He kissed it with
puckered lips. “I’ll bring the refreshments.”

After a few
guys showed up we walked through two fields behind Judd’s house and in-between
an electric fence that held the cows in. We were just small enough to fit
through the middle wires, but Judd would hold the wires apart for me with
sticks anyway. “Careful, go slow Brooke.” I took pleasure in the worried tone his
voice carried. We crossed the last field and I ran the rest of the way when the
guys started to push each other into cow pies.