A Summer Thing

10 - Patricia

I brought Callie up to her room and sat on her bed. She sat beside me. It was time for the truth. Feeling my heart pounding, I started.

"Do you know how I came to work for Brenda?"

"Paige was shy, but she liked you."

I smiled, although it was the truth, it skirted the details of the story. "Yes, but I never told you how I met Paige that day. Brenda volunteered at the place I was living. It was a shelter for battered women. I had been in love like you and he nearly killed me and you. I had been beaten so badly, I was lucky I didn't lose you."

She stared at me wide-eyed, at least as wide as her swollen eye would allow. "By my father?"

"Yes, I didn't want you to know what kind of man he was."

"But you said you loved him?"

"I fell in love with him when I was seventeen. He convinced me to leave our small town in Kansas. We were planning to live by the sea and never see a cornfield again. We drove an old van to Maine, so he could get a job on a lobster boat, but no one hired him.

We took jobs that were no better than the ones we could have had at home. Things were good for a few years until he started spending our money on booze. Soon he was more drunk than sober. When he was drunk, he was mean and jealous. When he was sober, he was kind and loving. He fooled me over and over."

"He hit you."

I nodded. "I kept thinking, if I was better, he'd stop, but it only got worse. One day, I woke up in the hospital. It was pure luck I was alive, and I hadn't lost you, my baby. He took off in the old van and I never saw him again."

"Did you miss him?"

"Yes, but the woman at the shelter helped me understand he would have killed me. Darling, I'd like to take you to meet the people at the shelter. I started volunteering once you went to school on my days off."

"You never told me."

"I didn't want you to know the kind of man your father was. I was wrong, because I could have taught you better. I blame myself!"

I had been beating myself up for a day. I felt responsible, as if it were my fists which bruised her beautiful face.

"I just got fired."

"She protecting you, because you can't go back. You can't go back to him."

"I love him, Mommy."

"I know, but he won't stop. He'll kill you. You can stay with me. I'll take care of you."

I eventually left her to rest. I needed to be busy and started scrubbing the kitchen floor. Jim found me and asked if I was all right.

"I'm just angry!"

"I know. I came to tell you to expect more angry people for dinner. We're having a full house. Paige knows."

It didn't surprise me. I was planning to make my special recipe and could easily add more chicken. I knew David would be back to check on Callie.

Paige burst into the house. "Where is she?"

"Your room."

"Come on baby." She called from the bottom step.

"I think it's best I stay down here," Dan said.

"Not you! I meant my dog." She winked.

Jim laughed and slapped Dan on the back. "You're one lucky man."

"Don't I know it."

Why couldn't Callie have chosen a good man to love? The apple didn't fall far from the tree, I supposed.

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