Early 1970s and mid 1990s, Indiana

By Rayne Watson

My mother and I are calmly folding towels, each of us enjoying our peaceful conversation.

Generally, I experience more than my fair share of yelling matches with Her, as I affectionately referred to my mother among my friends. But this gentle conversation, the only scenario where She acts like a real, live human, leads her to tell stories of her childhood.

It begins innocently, recounting the love of her mother’s pump organ, which her petite child’s frame had struggled to play. Or of the 10-inch-tall Barbie substitute she got for Christmas, which only magnified her own growing adolescent height.

The conversation changes as she picks up a green striped dishtowel. She begins telling me, her 12-year-old, innocent daughter who still plays with Barbies, of a time when she sneaked out of the house to go to a party. The dishtowel in her hands slowly drifts to her lap as her gaze shifts above me.

She was 16 or 17 at the time, and she hadn’t directly disobeyed anyone by leaving. Only a block away from home, she was at an early ’70s, “Brady Bunch-esque” party (or so she paints it to me).

She stood in the living room at Dean’s house, playing records with her friends, sipping sodas from cups. She glanced over her shoulder, looking out the sliding doors to the patio, where the party had spilled into the backyard. She saw a figure looming in the shadows of early dusk.

She blinked in horror as the figure violently slid open the door, storming into the house. The sounds of startled teenagers drifted over her ears as everything slowed. His face, blotchy from anger, danced in front of her eyes as a hand knocked the drink from her grip. At 6′4″ he stooped over her to yell, his spittle attacking her eyes, cheek, and chin.

Dean’s parents ran into the room, attempting to break up whatever commotion was going on. She saw them standing in shock behind his hunched shoulders. Before they reached her, his arms were on her, shaking her shoulders, her head rattling around without support. As Dean’s father tried to pry him away, he turned and single-handedly threw the man against the wall, his other hand clenched around her shoulder.

Then he began walking, moving his grip to her upper arm. When he pulled her across the door frame and back-porch step, she stumbled. He swore vehemently as she fumbled to get up. Impatient, he finally grabbed a handful of her long, brunette hair and yanked. Her body slowly moved the more he pulled, dragging her around the patio furniture, through the lawn and gate, and down the street. She slid across the concrete on her bottom, her feet reaching behind her, back toward safety, toward her friends. She lost both shoes - shoes she had bought with her own money from baby-sitting countless hours - and tore her dress.

Her face narrows as color mounts. Twenty-five years have not yet diminished the embarrassment of that night. She stills as she glances at the neatly folded green striped dishtowel, then calmly opens it and refolds it. She places it on top of the clean towel pile. She semi-grins as she points to the green stripe running through the hem. This, she tells me, was the color of those shoes.

After a few minutes of silent folding, I look at her and ask what had happened next. Before she can look back at me, I hide my head, busy folding a bath sheet.

The full block, from Dean’s house to her parents’ house, he dragged her. All her friends had watched, some had even followed, but none approached him. His bright red nose envied Rudolph, the smell of whisky potent on his straining breath. Each house they passed, the lights turned off as people peered out the window, looking for a glimpse of crazy man Chapell and his bloodied daughter. From some houses she ever heard the phone ring, then watched as the occupants ran outside to watch. But no one interfered after what he had done to Dean’s father.

By the time they reached his home, he had slowed considerably. His step faltered as the anger-fed momentum burned out. With one final pull, he threw her onto the grassy front yard. Blood poured down her legs, cuts and dirt covering her ankles and feet. She scrambled to stand, but he kicked her before she could. On all fours she ran from him, only to receive another kick. Once to her side, twice to her stomach, once very close to her head. She finally maneuvered to the door, where she gathered her strength and bolted inside.

Convinced now that grandmother - my tender-hearted, loving grandmother - would intervene, I interrupt her and ask what the family did when they saw her. For the first time since beginning, she looks me straight in the eye.

When she entered the house, the family was gathered in the living room. They glanced up to see who made it home first. Without a word, her older brothers continued their game of checkers. Her older sister ran to the bathroom, where she gathered first aid materials. Her younger sister helped her into the bathroom, where she locked the door behind them. Her mother shook her head, then went back to her knitting. Through the bathroom door she heard her mother say, “You knew better than to go without asking.”

Tears are now falling from her cheeks as she adds another neatly folded towel to the pile. In silence we sit there, both unsure of what to say next. While my childhood is no picnic, my mother has never laid a hand on me, instead verbally attacking me. For the first time, my young mind understands why she thinks I have an easy childhood.

I offer her the laundered, stained washcloth I hold in my lap. Wordlessly, she accepts it, reaching to quell the liquid flow from her eyes. The silence continues as I begin to fold another towel, knowing that no words I can say will help heal her heart, instinctively knowing that this instance wasn’t the first nor last time he had hurt her.

That night I steal the kelly-green striped towel from the cabinet. I hide that towel in my hope chest, just as she hides those memories deep in the recesses of her heart. I know that the towel will be my only link to what happened today; she’ll never speak of it again.

Rayne Watson is discovering life as she absorbs her surrounding details of humanity, desiring to create a communal scholarship as her readers learn alongside her. Fiction, poetry and personal essays are the expressions of her heart, mostly derived from personal lessons and reflection. She is using a pseudonym, as this story is close to the heart of herself and her mother.

Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Monday, April 9th, 2007 | Email This Post

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