by Alex Bailey
“Like anyone wants that!” Dona said.
“Why can’t you just shut your trap!” Michelle raised a fist in Dona’s direction.
Ann was getting irritated with Dona’s comments, but didn’t want to start a war, so she said, “The owner didn’t want to hire me with no experience.”
“You’re not the only one,” Jasmine said, “tons of people are out of work.”
“And that’s supposed to help her, how?” Michelle asked.
Ann quickly moved on, “I even offered to be a volunteer. At Puttin’ on the Ritz. But the manager said they didn’t need help.”
“It was probably more like, they didn’t need your help,” Dona said snidely, as she sized Ann up and down.
“What does that mean?” Gloria started to rise from her seat, but Ann gently nudged her back down.
“Well, if you must perform labor,” Dona said, as she stroked Lady AdoraBelle’s fur. “I do know someone who’s hiring. My dear brother. His little receptionist left and they need someone to do the low-level tasks of filing, answering phones, and such. You know—things even you can do.”
Ann felt Gloria tense up beside her, so she turned to Dona and said, “Thanks, Dona, yes, I’d like to apply. How would I get in touch with the office?”
Dona reached into her bag and pulled out a small hardbound pink notebook and pen and scribbled something. “Here’s the address. Simply mention to the little workers in the office that I sent you. That’s all the reference you’ll need.”
Ann accepted the tip and thanked Dona. She didn’t care where the offer came from; she’d accept it from the devil himself at this point. And seeing where it came from, she wasn’t far off.
“Okay, let’s get started,” Freda said. “Now that you’re a full-fledged member, we can open the meeting in the proper way.” She rose from her chair and snatched a large framed portrait of a dark leathery-skinned Native American woman, and placed it on the coffee table in front of Ann. Freda lit thick white candles on large brass candlesticks on each side of the painting. “Someone hit the lights.”
Bubbles jumped up from her chair, rushed to the light switch, almost tripping over Tiny who had just come downstairs, and flicked off the lights.
The candles burned brightly, which wasn’t a surprise given their size. A strong scent of apple cider emanated from them. The glow illuminated the portrait. The woman in the painting seemed to be staring straight at Ann, searching her deepest, darkest secrets.
The group stood, bowed their heads, and held hands. Gloria and Dona, on either side of her, grabbed hold of Ann’s hands. She wondered what kind of opening ceremony she was involved in where you had to stand in a circle holding hands. Ann wondered if she was back in kindergarten.
The women chanted in unison:
The secret of love and loss we’re aware;
We know what we’ve done, our penance to share;
Always grateful is thy circle of shame;
We know what we owe, and we owe in your name.
Ann looked around at the heads bowed, with this strange invocation. Were they chanting to the woman in the portrait? Who was she and what did all of this mean? She was thoroughly confused.
Freda said, “Well, then, let’s get started. Who—”
“I want to. I’m ready,” Mindy offered. She lifted Testudo’s bowl onto her lap.
Ann was happy when she saw how her simple gesture of bringing cookies had made another person glow and come out of her shell.
Lady AdoraBelle sniffed Dona’s napkin as she held it away from her dog, “No baby, this would hurt your tummy.” Dona kissed her pooch on the lips. “Mommy doesn’t want you to get a tummy achey.”
The light bulb went off in Ann’s head again. She thought about how she might be able to include some of the pets. Maybe she’d make dog biscuits next time. She wondered if cats could eat them. She had no idea what Amanda’s sugar flier thing ate. But she had made dog biscuits for Honey—usually at Christmas time—stuck them in a stocking, and hung it next to her twins’ stockings on the fireplace mantle.
Mindy twisted her long blond hair up in a bun and secured it with a hair band, then began quietly, “The earliest memory I have was from about the age of three. My parents were upper middle class and we lived in the Midwest. There were farms all around us, but our neighborhood had mainly executives working at the Tuxedo Corp. They made, um, tuxedos.” Mindy grinned shyly. “My dad had some big title, like Vice President of International Sales or something. And we went to church every Sunday. My dad was on the church council and my mom was a Sunday school teacher. We lived in the Bible belt and everyone in the town went to the same Lutheran church.”
Ann thought about the huge difference in the way she grew up on the West Coast with laid back parents who would have more likely visited a commune on Sundays than a church.
“Everyone thought our family was perfect. I had a little sister, Cindy, two years younger than me. But my dad always wanted a son. I think that was the root of all of our problems,” Mindy sighed and paused.
“One day, when I was five, I came downstairs to breakfast and I heard shouts coming from the kitchen. My mom was begging him to stop, but when I got to the doorway, I could see my dad was smacking her. I was frozen in my tracks. I wanted to run to her and help her. I also wanted to run away and hide. I did neither. I couldn’t move. I just stood and watched as my mom’s face got redder and her screams turned into whimpers and she started to cry.”
Ann’s heart broke for that little girl. She wanted to reach across the circle and put her arm around Mindy’s shoulder. She could feel the pain in her voice and wished she could help her.
“He was shouting words I didn’t know and had never heard before. Telling her she was good for nothing, couldn’t even produce a ‘GD’ proper heir. Except he didn’t say the letters, ‘GD’, he said the actual words. To this day, I can’t stand to hear those words.
“When he turned around and saw me standing in the doorway, that’s when he stopped. He pushed past me and ran out the front door, shouting behind him, ‘You better not have made me late for work!’
“Some of it is fuzzy, but later that day, my Nana came over because the medics came and took my mom to the hospital.
“I later learned my dad had kicked my mom very hard in the stomach and she had to go to the hospital because she was hemorrhaging. She had a miscarriage. It was another girl.”
Ann didn’t know what to say. She was horrified and stunned. She had never known pain like Mindy’s. She didn’t even know anyone in her circle of friends who had experienced anything like the pain of watching a mother being beaten. She felt sick to her stomach and wished Mindy would skip to the end of the story; she really had heard enough.
But Mindy didn’t skip ahead. There was no skipping ahead when delivering a testimonial in the knitting club, as Ann would one day come to find out. “It didn’t get any better in the years ahead. My mom never got pregnant again and my dad took everything out on her—stress at work, bills, his toupee went missing; any excuse would do. I think he got into a rhythm with the beatings. Cindy and I said oh, it must be Sunday when we’d hear the screams from my mom. He seemed to enjoy beating her the most on the Lord ’s Day.”
Ann suddenly noticed every head was bent. No one was looking at Mindy. Have they all heard it before? Still, how could anyone sit through her tragic disclosure without showing emotional regard for this poor woman? Ann was beside herself with empathy. But she listened politely until the very end.
“I was seven when my mom left. There was a note. I got home from school and was excited because I had been chosen for a solo in the school chorus, and I needed my mom to sign the permission slip for the field trip to the concert. It was held in a town a half an hour away. It was a big deal in our small town. But I couldn’t find my mom. I searched the house and found an envelope on the table and it was addressed to ‘My Family’.
“I figured it was a note telling us we could find her at the
neighbor’s house or something, even though she’d never left a note before. And she’d never not been home when I got home from school.”
Mindy didn’t change her gaze, but she reached down and broke off a piece of her cookie. “It said she was sorry to leave us, but she couldn’t take it anymore. It was too much pain to bear and we should go on without her. She said not to come looking for her.”
When Mindy put the broken piece of cookie into her mouth, it seemed to take some of the pain from her face. “But they did go looking for her. Dad was furious when he got home. Furious at us girls for not calling him at work to let him know. We didn’t even know how to use a phone, since we’d never called anyone before. So, Cindy and I watched TV until he got home and when he read the note, every four-letter word he’d ever said, flew from his mouth. And I think he made up some new ones, as well. Then he called the police.
“An officer came to our house and took the note. The next day a group of men visited us. Some in uniform, some were neighbors. They had maps and planned out who would go in which direction. Nana came, and Cindy and I watched TV all that day too.
“When the phone rang, and Nana answered it, she screamed. We knew they’d found her. Said they found her in a shady spot beside the creek a few miles away. She was holding a picture of us girls.”
Ann’s stomach lurched. Mindy’s mom killed herself! How could that poor little girl have dealt with such a horrible loss? All Ann wanted to do was comfort Mindy, but she was stuck in her seat. Her muscles wouldn’t give way when she tried to move.
“Dad came home and went straight to his bedroom. Didn’t come out until the funeral. I have no idea who made the arrangements. Not him. There were so many bruises on her, Nana had a hard time picking an outfit from Mom’s closet that would hide them all during the viewing. Dad didn’t help his mom. He wouldn’t even get out of bed. Everyone then knew how un-perfect our family truly was.”
Ann was beside herself with grief for this young woman whom she barely knew. But even more, she was stunned by how the group, even Mindy herself, reacted with no emotion whatsoever.
“Nana went home after a month. Or should I say Dad sent her home. She didn’t want to leave us. But he said her services were no longer needed. He would be just fine without her. That’s when the hell really began. He transferred his anger to me. I was glad he didn’t touch Cindy, though I was scared that one day, when I was gone, he would.
“There were times when I ended up in the emergency room, and he made me lie, to say things like I was clumsy and fell. I had so many casts on parts of my body I got the nickname, Mummy Mindy. I think the whole town knew but looked the other way. He was a powerful man at the Tuxedo Corp. and had been promoted to President of Domestic Affairs.”
Ann felt sick. She wanted to run screaming. This was like watching a horror movie, but it was real, and it was right in front of her. She couldn’t imagine living through something like that; it was more than she could handle just listening to Mindy’s story.
Mindy glanced into Testudo’s bowl and continued, “Dad paraded us in front of his workers on many occasions. His favorite thing was for us to attend the company picnic in the summer. Everyone brought their families, and he brought us. Cindy and I loved it because he bought us new outfits to wear and acted nice in front of his workers and boss.
“When I was eighteen and had graduated from high school, I knew I’d be leaving for college in the fall and I was terrified of what he would start doing to Cindy when I was gone. I think she was just as scared, though she never mentioned it. I had to find a way to save my little sister. So, I did.
“There was a man who was retiring from the company at the picnic, Fu Woo. He had never been married and Dad told me he was retiring early—at only thirty-eight to start his own business. He had always been nice to Cindy and me. He came up to me at the picnic and started telling me about the business he was opening, an auto repair shop. He talked about his love for cars and the Tuxedo Corp. had been good to him, but he believed he could create a better chain of car repair shops with style. Since he’d worked at the Tuxedo Corp. he knew elegant, high style. He said he would hire a designer to create waiting rooms that customers would want to live in. Since there was already a major competitor in the car repair market, he was going to name his company—Jiffier and Spiffier Lube. I asked him for a summer job in his new endeavor, so I could make enough money to bring Cindy with me to college and find an apartment close by school for us to share.
“But it didn’t work out. I started dating Fu that summer and we married before Cindy went back to school. I talked Fu into letting her come live with us and got up enough courage to threaten my dad with exposing him if he didn’t sign away his custody rights to me.”
Ann was elated to hear this story had a happy ending! Mindy was one of the bravest people she had ever met. And what a sacrifice she had made for her younger sister. Ann wanted to jump up and clap, but instead, she waited patiently. She wondered why heads didn’t raise at that point. It was a joyful ending, and especially if they’d heard it before. She thought they were being rude by not acknowledging Mindy’s heroism.
“Dad of course, couldn’t refuse that deal. I haven’t seen him or heard from him since. I suppose he’s still living in that same house in the Midwest where we grew up.”
“That’s a great ending!” Ann blurted out, bubbling over with joy. “I’m so happy for you; you’ve overcome so much in your young life and look at you. You endured it all and made it through whole.”
Freda admonished, “She’s not done, Ann. Let her tell it in her own time.”
Mindy attempted to smile and continued, “I wish it had ended there. All’s well that ends well, and all that sort of thing.
“Everything was good for a while, maybe a month. Cindy got to continue going to school at the high school she was used to. And me? Well, I wanted to work at the auto shop, but Fu had other ideas. He wanted me to get pregnant right away because he said he was no spring chicken. But I was only 18 and I had a younger sister to finish raising. I wasn’t ready for a baby.”
Mindy stared off into space as though she was taken back to that time in her life. “I suppose if I had just given in, I could have avoided his wrath. But I thought I was strong enough to handle it. I’d endured my dad’s abuse all those years; I figured it couldn’t have been any worse.” She paused and lowered her gaze to the floor. She scratched her thumb on her left hand with her right-hand index finger. “But I was wrong. He hit much harder and was much fiercer in his pounding than Dad ever was. He was relentless too. It wasn’t just on Sundays; Fu wasn’t Christian, so that day meant nothing to him. It was pretty much all the time. But what really got me, was when he started on Cindy.”
Mindy’s voice deepened, “One day when I was at the dentist and Cindy had come home from school, Fu was there to greet her with a fist. When I came home and saw her bloodied face, I picked up a knife and ran him out of the house with it.”
Ann drew in a deep breath. When Mindy tensed, Ann was surprised to see it, since Mindy had remained calm through the telling of so much horror. But, apparently the mention of her husband laying a hand on her little sister, was too much for even Mindy to handle.
“I refused to be like my mom and just take it or take my own life. So, I did something no Christian should ever do.”
“You killed him?” Ann said softly, but instantly wished she hadn’t. The entire circle glared at her. She felt as though she had just broken one of the club’s rules, but so far, she hadn’t been told there was no rule against stating the obvious.
Mindy’s shocked look morphed into one of pain again as she explained, “I prayed for God to take this man. And he did. He answered my prayers immediately.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Ann blurted out, embarrassed by her mistake. No wonder everyone had given her dagger eyes. What a horrible thing for her to have accused Mindy of murder.
“The next day, Fu was found dead in his shop. A hydraulic car l
ift with a Chevrolet Suburban still on it had slipped and fallen on him. He was crushed under its weight.” Mindy sighed long and hard.
Ann was shocked. First Gloria and now Mindy both had lost their husbands. She started to wonder if this club shouldn’t be named the Dead Husbands Club instead? She felt a sudden burst of relief for Mindy, even though she couldn’t possibly have known her pain.
“That town had nothing but unpleasant memories for Cindy and me, so we decided to make a fresh start, and I moved the business here to Burrburgh. I learned the business from the ground up, managing to do each job in the shop. I wasn’t about to let someone else run it and swindle me out of my money. It only took a few years before I felt I knew enough to really run it well. Cindy graduated and went off to college in the South. She met a nice guy at school and they married last year and settled in her college town.”
Ann looked around, most heads were up now, and Mindy nodded as if to say, ‘the end’. Ann didn’t know if she was supposed to speak or keep her thoughts to herself, as no one was asking for her opinion and no one was sharing their own.
Freda stood and announced, “Okay. See you next week.”
Ann suddenly realized she had totally forgotten to take out her knitting project.
Chapter 11
Whoa, was about all Ann could think when she returned home after her second knitting club meeting. Her thoughts were jumbled, going back and forth between the horrible tragedies Mindy had endured over her young life. She felt Mindy’s husband deserved what he got, and that Mindy and her younger sister were much better off without him. But she also knew the loss of a husband. No matter how bad her marriage was, she was sure Mindy had felt the pain of loss, as much as she herself had.
She decided to make herself feel better with a large cup of coffee and finish off the cookies she had stashed away prior to the meeting.
* * * * *
Ann woke the next morning to the sound of raindrops tapping against her window. She was excited about her job prospect, even if it had been served by Dona with a side of insult. No matter, she had a real lead and was elated about the possibility of finally getting a job.
