Follow the Sun

by Sophia Rhodes

  It must have been sheer pride that kept mother from packing our suitcases and putting us on the first train back to Boston. I couldn’t decide which she feared more: my father’s resentment or the smug expression on Doris’ face if she were to return, tail between her legs, begging her husband to take her back. But whatever her reasons, leaving Los Angeles was not a viable option for my mother. She would rather have us end up on the streets or in a shelter than allow anyone back home to get wind of the situation we were in.

  One night as I was getting ready for bed, brushing my hair for the fortieth time in front of the dresser, she entered my room and beckoned me to sit on the bed across from her. She then proceeded to swear me to secrecy on fear of death.

  “I swear, Di, if you breathe a word of this to anyone back home…don’t even think to write your friends anything that isn’t just lollypops and roses,” she told me, eyes flashing in anger.

  I could tell she was being truthful – she would kill me, or at the very least rip out every hair on my head. I opened my mouth to protest, but the look on her face stopped me in my tracks. I’d never seen her bear as fierce an expression as she had right now. “I know what you’re thinking, but there’s no turning back,” she spat. “We’re staying put and don’t think I’m of mind to let you go anywhere, because if you ever thought that, you may as well put it out of your head.”

  The small lamp on my dresser cast dancing shadows on her face. With dark circles under her eyes and smudged lipstick, she looked both scared and frightening.

  “Maybe things would be easier for you if I wasn’t here…” I ventured.

  “You’re the only thing I’ve got now. As long as you’re a child, you will do as I say.”

  I began to protest. “I am not a child anymore, and I’m not your possession.”

  In a flash, she reached across the bed and grasped my wrist. Hard. I winced at the pressure, trying to pull back from her, but her grip tightened. “Have I made myself clear, Diana? Have I?” she repeated, her lacquered mails digging into my skin.

  “Yes! Jesus…,” I said, at last tearing my wrist away. I rubbed the spot, now encircled with thin red streaks.

  Mother got up slowly, smoothing her Chinese silk robe, and backed toward the door, still facing me. Her jaw was set in a picture of fury. “Frankly, I don’t care what you want. The only reason I even brought you to California was so as not to give that old bastard the satisfaction of keeping anything of mine. Including my child. Though I have doubts about that…”

  “What are you saying?” I stammered.

  “I’m saying that if you weren’t the only girl born at Northwestern that day, I would’ve given serious thought they might have given me the wrong baby. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined I’d have a daughter like you.”

  The way she said “like you” was akin to a slap. I blinked, trying to understand why she would turn on me like this.

  “You’re a disappointment, Diana. You are and will always be a disappointment,” she nodded with satisfaction, glad to finally get this off her chest. “I wish I’d never had you.”

  A small smile playing on her lips, she spun around and walked out of my room, shutting the door firmly behind her.

  I knew she was taking her frustrations out on me. She was sad about how things had turned out with Albert and I was an easy scapegoat. But could she have meant what she’d said? That I was nothing to her but a pawn to get back at my father and the world?

  I would always disappoint her. Always. No matter what I did. I collapsed on my pillow, sobbing until sleep carried me away.

  It was the beginning of a sweltering, tepid summer. My graduation came and went with startling speed; at the sound of my name I walked up to the convocation table, received my rolled-up diploma, shook hands with the principal, and then it was over. I was free of high school.

  “Diana, congratulations, I am so happy for you,” my father’s voice crackled over the telephone. I twisted the curly cord between my fingers, looking down at my feet. I said nothing.

  “I wish I could be there with you,” father continued. “I’m so proud of my big girl.”

  “Me too,” I said evenly. “Be there, that is.”

  “Everything’s going to be alright, sweetheart. Soon we’ll see each other again. How’s your mother?”

  I looked up at her and realized she was staring straight at me, taking in every word. “She’s good, dad. She’s happy. Don’t worry about us.”

  “Well, take care now, you hear? Call me soon to go over your options.”

  I knew that by that he meant my college applications. He would try to secure me a scholarship to Radcliffe; with my grades he thought I’d be a shoe-in. He was also friends with the rector at Smith College, a women’s liberal arts college in Northampton I’d expressed interest in back in grade ten. Its English program was supposed to be packed with amazing, brilliant people, according to my friend Susanne’s older sister who took up residence on campus.

  “Ok dad. Bye-bye.”

  I hung up the phone and turned toward my room when my mother’s voice called out, “I want to talk to you.”

  “Oh, what now?” I complained, turning back to face her.

  She was sitting at the dining room table, letting her freshly-painted red nails dry. Blowing on them, she peered to me. “Look at you,” she said with a scowl. “You don’t have any friends, you barely say two words to us and you sit in your room doing god knows what for hours on end. You’re pale and unusually quiet. What’s happened to you?”

  I sighed. “What was it you wanted to tell me?”

  Mother straightened up. “Albert and I have been speaking about you.”

  I looked over her shoulder to the patio, where Albert was sitting with his back to us, reading the paper. I couldn’t fathom what he’d have to say about me, since his conversational range was limited to rants either about “goddamn union leaders and their communist affiliations” or about the “dirty Mexicans who came here to steal good people’s jobs.”

  “Good things, I hope,” I said sarcastically.

  She ignored my disdain. “We think you should consider going to Pierce College in September. Albert talked his pal John into fixing you up for an interview in the arts department on Monday.”

  “What?” I was speechless. I’d considered going to university here, much less attending a community college with a reputation for agriculture. “But mother, it’s not even a regular college! They don’t even offer diplomas, only associate degrees!” I stammered. How could they even think of this?

  Mother appeared indignant at my outburst. “Well, I think it’s a good opportunity for you and you might just get a scholarship if you’re lucky.”

  “I might just get….mother, for crying out loud, I can get a scholarship to half a dozen ivy league schools back home! Why do you think I’ve been studying so much?” My mouth kept opening like a fish as I choked on my words. “I didn’t do all this just to go to agriculture school! Mother, please! How could you even think it?”

  She shrugged, looking miffed. “Are you finished?”

  I shook my head wordlessly, feeling my face burn with frustration.

  “I didn’t just think it, Diana, I arranged it. You’ve got an interview with the proctor on Monday and you’d better not screw it up. This is your chance to attend a nice school in Woodland Hills – it’s a good community and Albert thinks he’s found us a bigger place to live there. You wouldn’t have to commute.”

  “Why would I stay with you? You don’t even want me here!”

  Mother’s voice softened a bit. She arched her eyebrows at me. “But how can you say that, darling? You’re all I have.”

  “You’ve got Albert, remember? And as soon as I turn eighteen, I’m going back to Cambridge.”

  Light laughter. “Silly girl, you have the better part of a year before that happens, and I’m of no mind to let you go.”

  I blinked. “Then…then I won’t go to college in the fall. I�
��ll just wait until next year.”

  She shrugged again. “And what will you do in the meantime? How will you spend this year?”

  “I…I’ll think of something. I’ll get a job.”

  “You can’t get a job unless I say you can.”

  I shook my head, flabbergasted. “Why are you so determined to wreck my life, Mom? Because you screwed up yours?”

  “Watch your mouth, you little bitch,” she spat venomously.

  “I can’t believe this,” I said, running to my room and slamming the door.

  Her voice followed behind me. “Don’t forget, this Monday!”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I crawled into bed without supper, although hunger was the last thing on my mind. Pulling the cover over my shoulder, I lay on my right side, curled up in a fetal position. A tangy aroma of pot-roast and the sound of distant voices ebbing from the neighbors’ television set brought me a sensation of comfort. The high-pitched squeaks made by their young children, however faint, brought the awareness of a world where laughter and playfulness still thrived.

  Wincing, I gathered my knees to my chin and wiped the stray tear that was hanging onto my left eyelid. Sleep would have been welcome, but it didn’t come. I shivered in my thin dress as a light wind billowed the white curtains into the room. I didn’t have it in me to get up and pull the windows closed.

  My back was crisscrossed with ugly black and blue welts imprinted by Albert’s belt buckle. If I curled by toes as tightly as I could, they distracted from the throbbing pain that had taken my breath away moments before. A part of me wanted to believe that this was some sort of horrible dream, but the pain, which set my teeth gritting, made it obvious there was no getting away from reality.

  My hair matted around my face with perspiration. I reached to wipe my forehead with the back of my hand and gasped. I’d never been hurt this bad before. But the greatest question in my head was not about how Albert could have beaten me like this, but how could my mother have stood by and watched without stopping him.

  As soon as you turn eighteen in April, you’ll be out of here and this hell will be over, I promised myself. Just hold on tight and everything will be alright. But as hard as I tried, I had a hard time shaking off the image that had greeted me when I returned to the house after Rosario had dropped me off.

  “There she is,” my mother hissed through her teeth, seething. She motioned to Albert, who leaned across the sofa and snapped the television shut. They both stared up at me with disgust on their faces.

  “So how did you find your way back?” she asked.

  “I got a ride,” I answered flippantly.

  She exchanged knowing glances with Albert. “With that Mexican fella who dropped you off at the corner?”

  Judging by the shocked expression on my face, Mother snorted in triumph. “You didn’t think I’d be watching, did you, you little harlot?”

  “That’s not true…” I stammered.

  “What part isn’t true, pray tell? That he was Mexican, or that you were asking just about anybody to give you a ride?”

  “That wasn’t a fellow. It was a girl.”

  “Sure looked like a fella to me,” Albert piped up.

  I stood there limply, waiting for Mother to blow up. She didn’t disappoint. “You have no shame, do you? Getting rides from wetbacks, blowing off a great opportunity to go to Pierce…” she trailed off, shaking furiously. She turned to Albert. “I don’t know what to do with her, honestly. Half the time I wonder if it wouldn’t be better to just send her to a girls’ home.”

  I finally snapped. “What? What are you saying? If you just let me go back to Cambridge, you’d be rid of me. You dragged me here and now you want to put me in a home?...”

  Mother leaped across the room and backhanded me twice in quick succession. “Don’t you dare talk back to me, you insolent little bitch!”

  I gasped and bit my lip. She must be going mad. Refusing to give her the satisfaction of seeing me cry, I backed away slowly, watching her face grow redder with fury.

  “Albert, just look at her. She’s not afraid of me, is she? She has no respect.”

  He nodded in agreement, then crossed his arms and looked me up and down, shaking his head. What a failure I was.

  Mother touched Albert’s shoulder and pleaded. “Please darling, the girl’s wearing me out. My ulcer’s flaring up because of her. Do something.”

  I watched Albert raise to his feet and walk toward me, an unreadable expression on his face. “Your mother is too tired to teach you a lesson,” he said. “But you have to learn that what you did today is unacceptable.”

  I stared at him blankly until I saw him undoing his belt. Then I knew. “Oh, no. Don’t you dare touch me!” I shouted at him and tried to turn back toward the door, but mother caught my arm and squeezed it hard, her fingernails digging into my skin.

  I went to shove her away, resisting, and she grasped my other arm. We wrestled for a moment, until I felt Albert’s meaty paw land heavily on my back as he hauled me backwards by the collar and threw me onto the sofa. My mother stood behind him, a righteous look on her face.

  “Turn over,” Albert commanded.

  The action knocked the wind out of me. I glanced up at him and shook my head wordlessly, trying instead to get up. He shoved me back against the cushions.

  “You can’t do this,” I said. “Leave me alone – you’re not my father.”

  “Watch me.” He said, as the belt came down fast and hard.

  “Stop it,” I cried out, putting a protective hand in front of my face. I tried to stand again when he raised a clenched fist an inch away from me.

  “Bend over or I will knock you upside the head, and I don’t think you want that pretty face of yours messed up.”

  “Watch the face,” my mother called out helpfully from somewhere in the background. “I don’t want her all marked up.”

  I don’t know how many times he whipped me; I lost count. Burying my face into a cushion, I squeezed my eyes together as hard as I could and made no noise, not even a whimper.

  “Look at her,” my mother’s voice rose harshly. “No shame – she won’t even cry.”

  Albert’s anger skyrocketed. He was obviously keen on making me cry, so the buckle came down harder.

  My shoulder-blades felt like they had been minced into a throbbing pulp of bone and raw skin. I was a thin girl, and the blows reverberated up and down my spine. The sound of buckle hitting bone was rhythmical, falling like the cadence of a song I could hear within the confines of my skull, a song that sounded like a whirling boil of red and yellow flames. This song had a color and a smell of its own, a curious mishmash of senses merging into a palpable memory of being away at summer camp, sitting around a bonfire with other ten-year olds, roasting marshmallows and chanting camp tunes.

  “I’m done with her,” I heard Albert say after a while. He was breathing hard, panting. Peeking sideways from the cushion, I saw him wipe his face with a dirty kerchief he’d fished out of his pocket. “She’s not normal, this one. What kid wouldn’t cry after all that?”

  Mother agreed. “Sick in the head.”

  “Get out of here,” Albert snapped at me. “You make me sick.”

  I remained still, too afraid to move.

  “Didn’t you hear me?” he repeated. “Scoot.”

  I raised up shakily, like a colt standing for the first time. Pressing my hand against the wall to balance myself, I walked tenderly to my room, closed the door and crawled into bed.

  I woke up close to noon following a night burdened with nightmares full of with evil fairies and demons sticking pitchforks into my flesh. Radiant rays of sunshine flooded through the window into my eyes, forcing me to clamp my eyelids tightly shut. I went to turn over and all of a sudden the pain hit me sharply, taking my breath away. In a flash, all of the previous day’s memories came flooding back. “Oh God,” I groaned as I tried to get out of bed.

  The first thing I did was crawl over to the
window and pull the curtain closed. Then I walked over to the dresser mirror, afraid to inspect the damage but knowing that I had no choice but to tackle it sooner or later.

  The wrinkled back of my poor, shredded dress clung to my skin. I winced as my hands reached as far back as they could to pull the fabric loose. Lifting the dress over my head, I felt some skin that was still attached give way. Now naked, I turned to my side and braced myself as I peered at my back. Several strips of torn skin greeted me amidst raised purple welts. I gasped in shock, my eyes watering. The wounds would eventually heal – aside from the heavy bruising, most of the open abrasions were surface cuts that would close with the growth of new skin. But they stung like hell and I didn’t know how I could even sit down properly, what with my tailbone all swollen black.

  How could they have done this to me?

  I was nine the first time my mother hit me. Not spanked me lightly, as she’d done when I was little, but really hit me. She had gone out that afternoon and I found myself in her room, burying my face in the soft furs and silk wraps that hung in even-spaced rows inside her closet. Not seeing the harm, I took down the smoky blue mink my father had given her for Christmas the year before and put it on in front of her dressing mirror. A lick of red lipstick later, I looked like a grown-up lady and was just so tickled with myself. I spun around, holding the soft fur collar to my cheeks. Then my mother she walked in and, taking one look at me, proceeded to box me upside the ears. For the rest of the day I heard a dial tone inside my head and my ear smarted like there was no tomorrow.

  Profusely apologetic, she took me out for ice cream sundae the next day and promised she would never do it again. I believed her then, but not the next time or the time after that. At first her make-up gifts were expensive and appealing – a new party dress, a box of bonbons from the French bonbonerie on Stalward street, a Perry Como record I had my heart set on. She was very good at squirreling out of me what merchandise would buy my silence. But as my trust of her grew less, so did her interest in making amends, however small. Soon she stopped bothering to apologize, instead blaming me for her actions when temper got the best of her.