I Was Sure I Knew the Ending

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by Mary Brown
July 20, 2023

*TRIGGER WARNING: Emotional violence and mention of sexual abuse*

I pulled up in front of my yellow shotgun rental right when the July afternoon shower began. Huge raindrops sizzled on the street and sent up the steam that all New Orleaneans know, with a smell somewhere between a stink and an aroma. It was the sort of rain that heats things up before it cools them down. I felt like I’d been stuck in that hot rain most of my life. I’m ready for the comfort I never had, ready for hard times to ease up. What was that song my gramma used to sing, washing dishes at her old cast iron sink? “Showers of blessings, showers of blessings we need…” Yes Lord, yes indeed. I still miss my gramma. She died when I was seven. I couldn’t cry.

When I went inside, I saw Miss Kitty lounging smack in the middle of my path to the kitchen, acting like it was her house and not mine. She’s sometimey, meaning sometimes she’s affectionate and sometimes not. Like today, she barely looked at me and did not move. It was raining harder; thunder made my little bargeboard home shake. Miss Kitty got up. Then I heard that low ringing in my ears. Oh no, not again. 

I sucked in my breath as the cat expanded to ten times her normal size. Then she was as tall as my piano and I was growing too, my head shooting up to touch the ceiling before I shrank to the size of the peace lily in its large blue pot. Everything swelled and shrank, over and over. I was dizzy and nauseated, furious because I thought the daymares were finished. I thought I’d never have to live through another one of these, where part of me was controlled by something else and I could only watch while my thoughts carried on.

I’ve been working so hard on my mental health. I didn’t start right away, after I remembered about my father abusing me when I was just a little girl. Five years old is when I recall, but who knows how long he’d been at it before that? It took me a while but I finally called my job’s employee mental health line.  Wanted to fix what he’d done to me. He had no right. 

The help line folks gave me a number for a place, STAR, that has free counseling for people like me. Victims or survivors or whatever. There was a wait list but I was finally able to start talking with a counselor, Sharice. You would not believe what a difference she made. She’s the one who turned me on to journaling. 

I love words. Someone had the cheek to tell me once that I don’t talk like a poor girl. Exactly how do you think a poor person should talk? It’s not my fault that I barely had anything growing up but I still had a brain and a right to use it. I used mine to learn words but I don’t usually get to say a lot of the words I know. 

Now that awful swelling and shrinking has stopped but I see myself curled up in a ball, smaller than the cat. I’m helpless. The cat sniffs at me and walks away with her tail in the air. She doesn’t want to be close to me when I’m like this. Nobody does. I hate it but I can’t control the timing, don’t know when this will be over. My thoughts keep going. 

Like I said, I’ve been working so hard. Haven’t had a daymare for almost two years now. Been talking with my counselor—she says I’m doing great—and signing in for online group sessions every week. 

My father’s long dead and my mom says I’m just making stuff up, nothing ever happened, and my sisters say they don’t want me to tell anyone else what happened to “protect the family name,” and I don’t care what anybody says. I know what he did and I know he was wrong, wrong, wrong. And it was not ever my fault. Five years old.

Would Sharice be disappointed that I had a daymare again? No, I thought about her voice the day she told me, “You are the hardest-working client I’ve ever met. I could never be disappointed in you.” And I remembered how I felt when I heard that. Like a hard shell around me was flaking off.

Sharice said yoga might help so I found a free yoga class at the NORD* center. It felt weird to be the only 20-something in a room full of middle-aged ladies, but I kept going because I knew it did something good in me.

The little ball that was me got smaller and rolled behind the bookcase. I knew what was happening but couldn’t stop it. I felt stuck, powerless. Felt like nothing had changed. And I was sure I knew the ending. 

Ugh. So much dust back here. I have to do better with cleaning but my little house is really drafty and the fans pull in a lot of dust and grit from outside. I don’t do air conditioning—people think I’m crazy, living in NOLA without AC, but I think it’s healthier. I have enough health issues, I don’t need any more. Anyway behind the bookcase there’s a few dried leaves too, and spider webs. I see some cats-claw vine creeping in, actually growing inside my house. A random rubber band, the copper earring that I lost, and me, stuck. Too small to even cry. And there’s nothing I can do but wait for it to be over, wait till he goes away.

I forget sometimes that he’s already gone. Dead, can’t hurt me, but he’s done enough damage. People talk about renewal but he’s not here to apologize. No way he could take it back, even if he wanted to. I feel like it’ll always be a part of me. Always be hanging around my neck like that bird we learned about in high school—what was it—the albatross.

I watched myself still rolling in the dust and grime. Now I saw a chain wrapped around the ball that was me. This time it was attached to a tiny figure of a white bird. I shut my eyes, took a deep breath. Knew what was coming. 

I rolled away from the bookcase to the middle of the floor. My body wasn’t a ball any more but stretched out, still small, with that bird-chain around my neck now. I was growing, slowly. This was the worst part. Why couldn’t it be quick? It hurt so much, nothing I could do. The chain was getting tighter as I got bigger, like it always did. When I got to be full-grown the chain would be so tight that it choked me and I died.

Still thinking, fast thoughts in a slow death. There was that other guy, the old teenager around the corner. Out of school, grown enough to find a job and start settling down, but instead he was grabbing at little girls, scaring them and putting his hand in their drawers. It took me years before I realized why I never told my mom about him, but when I remembered about my dad I understood. She hadn’t protected me from one man and I had no reason to think she’d protect me from another, so what was the point of telling her? I handled it on my own and figured out how to stop him.

I could see shapes, scary spirits of people packed in my small front room as the albatross chain tightened. It would have felt like an ambush except they all looked so relaxed. Nobody cared what was happening to me. They were floating over the piano, sitting on the sofa laughing like they were at a party, lying on the floor with their legs spread, swinging from the overhead light—disrespecting my home like they disrespected me.

After I made that nasty teenager leave me alone, I realized there was no one I could depend on, nowhere I was safe, and I had to take care of myself. Six years old by then, abused by two different men. (I think there may have been a third but I’m not sure.) One with a college degree from a big-name school, settled, blue eyes and thinning blond hair. One uneducated, unemployed, brown eyes and thick black hair. Punks, ready to steal what’s most precious from little kids. Cowards. Weak, deceptive, conniving, evil. Wish I knew the right words to describe them. Now that I’ve graduated from Delgado, maybe I can go to Loyola and learn how to write, use my words to help people. 

With that thought, for the first time ever, the daymare ending changed. I yanked that chain off my neck. Before my eyes the albatross lost its head, wings, and feet and grew into a white baton, like the red ones that the Roller Derby girls use. I could do Roller Derby. I’m big and strong; a lot of my 200+ pounds is muscle and my elbows are fierce. I love watching the derby girls chase runners and pretend to beat them up during the bull run** in the French Quarter.  

I shouted NO as loudly as I could, and I kept hollering. NONONONONONONONO. Started remembering steps I took, successes I fought for and won. Sharice told me every single yoga move and each journal word helped me get stronger, made it possible to claw back a little more of what was taken from me. My small choices had built up power. 

Now the albatross was in my hand, a glowing club with a core of steel. I’d grown big enough to handle it with skill and strength, and I pounded at the haints that surrounded me, those images of woundings and disappointments and failures. I remembered a line from a movie that I watched as a kid; I don’t speak Spanish but this stuck with me. Si, se puede! Yes, I can! I wasn’t screaming NO any more; I was shouting YES, smacking the affirmation into everyone who told me that I couldn’t, everyone who took advantage of me, everyone who let me down, everyone who acted like I was less than a child of God. Pow, pow, whap! Si, se puede! I pounded all those evil spirits out of my home. They slithered and squeezed through the cracks and crevices, out into the moist silver day.

The room was calm now. Exhausted, I rejoiced at my new authority. Thought about what the Lord had done for me and I started shouting, swinging that baton again but this time in victory arcs. My throat was raw but I roared anyway: I AM A CHILD OF GOD.

I don’t need my father to apologize. I’m getting free without him. Maybe this is called renewal.

Miss Kitty twisted around my ankles, purring. We went to the back door and I stepped down alone into the tiny green yard with the flaming red hibiscus bush. Lifted face and hands to a sweet, steady rain. Cool. Comforting. Yes, indeed. Showers of blessing for sure. I am going to be just fine. And my gramma, somewhere, is smiling at me.

*NORD stands for New Orleans Recreation Department.

**Every July, New Orleans offers its version of the Running of the Bulls.