A handful of dirt

 It’s been fourteen days since Linda hasn’t seen her good friend Dorothy and in her mind it was about to be fourteen days more. They had been friends for years since Linda first came to stay with her mother at Dark City, a semi urban area which is 10 minutes away from town. It has been a real eventful past two years for Linda and mostly dominated by unpleasant memories, memories she wished she could forget or at least had her memory wiped off. She was not happy, and neither her mother nor her friend knew exactly what was going on with her or what had happened.

“tomorrow it’s your birthday, Linda, and not just any other birthday but your 21st”, said Linda’s mother looking straight at her daughter’s eyes with a smile, and normally she would get her gifts on her special days and this one wasn’t going to be any different. “is Dorothy going to make it?”, asked her mother. “I will talk to her mom, I’m sure she will try, she’ll be here”, replied Linda looking at her cellphone as if she was already trying to contact Dorothy. Her mother was about to leave for town and started asking Linda about groceries and other items she had to bring from town. “And oh.. your uncle is also coming tomorrow, make sure you prepare the spare bedroom for him, ok bye! see you later”. Linda’s face had changed the minute her mother said ‘uncle’ and it brought back all the memories she had tried to suppress.

Linda thought to herself, “why…is he coming back, didn’t he realize the harm and hurt he caused me?”.  She sat down for over forty minutes thinking about how she was going to face her abusive uncle all over again, how her mother didn’t know anything about it and how her uncle had threatened to end her life if she told anyone about how he repeatedly sexually abused her when they were left alone in the house and when everybody else had gone to bed at night. Her mother and her uncle were very close such that his uncle once told her, “my sister will not believe you, she trust me but then, even so, that won’t stop me from killing you if ever you open your mouth about it to anyone. I will kill you…”. It was one of the reasons why Linda had been avoiding Dorothy because she knew her friend well and she wasn’t going to let her stay with all those secrets with her, she was going to force her to report the matter but most importantly letting her mother know also which Linda wasn’t all ready for, especially because her uncle had made it clear what was going to happen to her.

She was so lost in her thoughts such that she began to remember some of the incidents that happened when she was still a child and her uncle was living with them fulltime. It was all starting to come together and making perfect sense. Her uncle used to send her in his room to fetch things most she didn’t remember but she could remember that as soon as she would enter his room her uncle would be right behind her and sometimes would shut the door so it would be the two of them. Sometimes he wouldn’t close the door because they would be all alone in the house as she would have just came home from school and her mother at work. Her uncle would give her nice things like sweets, pin pop sweets. He knew that she loved pin pop so much and he made sure there was always one in his room and he would tell her to sit on his lap. She now remembered how his uncle used to touch her thighs while she was enjoying the sweets he had offered. Tears started falling when remembered one day, her mother was bathing her in the evening and she kept complaining about how painful it was when she peered and her mother wouldn’t pay much attention to it, especially because the pain would  eventually fade away.

“it makes sense now…”, Linda said to herself with teary eyes and she began crying, pouring all her emotions out. She was disturbed by her phone’s ringing and it was her mother telling her that her uncle had decided that he was going to come later that evening instead and she must prepare enough food, especially her uncle’s favorite, pap and spinach with peanut butter. She tried wiping her tears as she went to wash dishes and prepare for supper, she felt scared, lost and vulnerable but mostly anger and betrayal.

Evening came, and Linda couldn’t stop pacing up and down the house and eventually she took her phone and called Dorothy, “my friend” she said immediately when Dorothy picked up. “hey stranger, oh hey birthday girl”, replied Dorothy and they both laughed. They talked for more than ten minutes, catching up and Linda explaining why she had been isolating herself the past two weeks, “we had a family emergency, it was hectic trust me but I’m back now”, rendered Linda. “what’s wrong?”, asked Dorothy. “everything is okay now, my uncle was sick and I had to take care of him but he’s okay now”, replied Linda. “no, I mean what’s wrong with you, Linda. I can tell when something is bothering you or you want me to come over there right now?”, Dorothy questioned. “hey, speaking of coming here, since tomorrow its my birthday, I would really love if you could come, please Dora”, asked Linda trying ignore some parts of Dorothy’s question. “since you said ‘please’”, replied Dorothy and they both laughed mostly sarcastically and Linda had to go because there was a knock at the door. “see you tomorrow then”, said Linda as she hanged up. 

She nearly fainted when she opened the door and her day mare and nightmare was standing right at the door waiting for her to invite it in. in her mind she was hoping that her mother would come back earlier and her uncle later because she didn’t know how to react, how to respond to a simple ‘hello’ to this man who was supposed to act like a father figure to her, the man who was supposed to protect her but instead he was the one who caused her all the harm and hurt the world could offer. And she didn’t know how to go about forgiving someone who was not just sorry but had threatened to cause even more harm if she was to tell anyone that he raped her, since she was a child and tomorrow she was about to celebrate her 21st birthday with this man, a monster that took away her pride and dehumanized her in every possible way, a man that was always ready to exert even more harm and for why? She hated the man standing in front of her who she called ‘uncle’ and wanted to come in, a part of her hated her mother for ignoring things that could’ve been taken seriously, “she trust and love him that much over me, or maybe it’s because she’s always caught up in her work? But I’m her only daughter for Christ’s sake…”, she thought to herself. 

She didn’t know when her uncle had entered the house and he was already making himself comfortable, “just like old times or should I say all the time?”, she angrily said to herself. She showed her uncle a crooked smile and she went to her room and she was going to come out when her mother was back from town. She stayed in her room and she was deep in her mind thinking about the man on the other side of the room and she knew right there that she didn’t feel safe, at all. A thought crossed her mind as she found herself staring at a bottle labeled ‘for extensive use only’ also written ‘harmful’ with large and red bold letters. It was a deadly powder used to kill insects but could kill a human being when taken in excess. She realized her mother was back and she was talking with her uncle. They were laughing and her mother started calling her, asking why she still hadn’t prepare food for her uncle after a long trip. “I’m coming mother”, replied Linda dragging herself out of the room. 

Truth was, she had finished cooking and she was just waiting for her mother to come back from town but now Linda was really annoyed at how much her mother was so excited to see this man that she despised so much. She hated her uncle and she promised herself she wouldn’t by any chance make eye contact with him. Linda saw all the groceries that her mother had bought and she started unpacking and she had bought her brother a special wine especially since the following day was celebration day. “Thank you for the cake, mom”, Linda said to her mother while dishing up. “You deserve it, baby and I’m glad your uncle could make it on your special day. Since your father left us before you were even born, your uncle has been there for us and he was more of a father than he was just an uncle to you”, rendered her mother. 

After listening to her mother going on and on about all that, about how special her uncle was and how she was expected to respect him and always feel grateful to everything he did for her, what came to Linda’s mind is what he did to her, “so I should be grateful for raping me, not once not twice…”, she said to herself and she saw that she was about to cry, so she went straight to her room and came back with what looked like a bottle. She hid it perfectly under her fluffy jacket which her mother had bought her on her birthday the previous year. She secretly took the bottle and emptied all of its content into one of the side plates as her mother and her uncle were still chatting, laughing out loud that they were even louder than the neighboring dogs that barked at every movement they saw and sensed outside. 

Linda received a call and it was Dorothy so she ran to her room to answer it. Dorothy wanted to know what to bring tomorrow and she wanted to come with her little brother whom he had been begging Dorothy that she go with him to the party. “he heard the word ‘party’ and he had been begging me since then”, explained Dorothy. Linda told her she can bring him, “I mean you can bring whoever you want for crying out loud, but not alcohol, you know my mom”, and they both laughed knowing exactly that Dorothy was going to bring some and Linda had two bottles of wine reserved for special occasions in her room, and tomorrow was going to be more than special. They both hung up after a couple of minutes and Linda heard someone calling her loudly from the other room and it was not her mother, “Linda! Linda! Come here”, she was hesitant at first because that was her uncle calling her and she didn’t know what and how to feel about that. 

“Whatever…” she said to herself while headed to the kitchen where she was preparing the food and it was ready to be served. On her way she wondered why they couldn’t just serve themselves because she was done dishing for them, all they had to do was to take the food and eat but she quickly remembered what she had added on one of the plates. Upon arrival at the kitchen she found that the plates were not there, and she quickly ran towards where her mum and uncle were seated. She couldn’t believe her eyes as she saw her uncle holding her mother who was having a seizure and bleeding profusely and heavily through the nose. “Call an ambulance”, her uncle shouted. “Call an ambulance goddamnit!”, he shouted again. Linda froze and started dialing numbers on her phone and after forty minutes an ambulance came but Linda’s mother was already cold and the bleeding had stopped. “We’re very sorry we didn’t have enough fuel for the only vehicle that was available and we had to wait for this one which was out attending an emergency somewhere else”, explained the paramedic. My uncle explained to the other paramedic that they’ve just had supper when my mother started complaining about stomach cramps and she started vomiting and later seizures and bleeding. 

Linda watched everything, terrified as they wrapped her mother around and putting her in a body bag. It all seemed and felt like a movie, she couldn’t move nor could she say a word. She could see her uncle talking to the paramedics, pointing at the table where they were seated explaining how it all happened, and tears started falling from her eyes. She cried so loud and painfully such that one of the paramedics came to comfort her and talked to her and later escorted her outside so she could breathe. The paramedics left and Linda was left with her uncle and they said nothing to each other. It was now close to midnight and Linda thought to herself how she had killed her mother, literally. She looked at her uncle and slowly said to him, “you kept your word, you killed me and in every way possible you made sure that I suffer and I will always suffer and hate myself until my dying day, uncle or whatever it is that you are or whatever hole you came from”, she went to her room, locked herself in and looked at the watch on the wall. It was ten minutes past midnight, “happy 21st birthday Linda”, she said to herself and she started crying.