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Me? I didn’t understand why the little girl wasn’t pleased for getting attention. She wasn’t being left in a locked room to wither away, barely anyone ever knowing she even existed.
The shame of not agreeing with Mammy would keep me up at night, confused, but that is a grave part of abuse. It can stunt your perception. It can make you believe things that simply, and very complicatedly, aren’t so.
With innocents crying beneath me, I had no idea there were terrified family members searching and longing for those missing girls. I had no idea their worst nightmares had come true. I didn’t know what a nightmare was because I’d never not lived in one. You can’t have an outside view when always stuck inside the terror.
My new room was at the back of the house. The only other bedroom was on the small second floor. When permitted a shower, I would walk to the bathroom, staring at the closed door I wish Mammy was still on the other side of. Sometimes I lied to myself, saying she was there, waiting for me.
Where I now slept, I no longer had a beautiful tree to admire, though I had a few other homes to watch. There was no alley between us, only fences and back yards.
There was one house directly behind Eejit-Da’s. It held my attention the most, giving me a reprieve from tears. Many tenants would move in, then out, all with stories I’d witnessed. Not that I understood them. Not that I knew most of them had drug-related problems.
I did understand they were drugs—needles that can make a little girl sleep, as I experienced myself—but not why they would give the shots to themselves on purpose.
At night, that back yard would have late-night parties and more drug activities, along with loud music and arguments.
In the wee hours of those mornings, I’d sit by my one window and watch other neighbors yell out their windows, demanding the drug users “shut the fuck up”.
I started sleeping more during the day because it was quieter when people were at work and the loud neighbors were sleeping off the night prior.
Eejit-Da never queried why my sleeping habits had changed. From time-to-time, he would just quietly set some feminine products on my one chair, bags of food in my little refrigerator, and a case of water bottles on my floor. I used to sit up, happily, hoping for some sort of communication, but this seemed to displease him. With a blanket to my chin, sitting against the wall at the head of my bed, I’d whisper apologies for saying hello.
His beady eyes would scan me, displaying disgust and frustration, then he would say, “How are you feeling?”
Elated that he was talking to me but scared to show it and cause him to stop talking, I’d quietly answer from behind the blanket. “My stomach ban javed.”
“Stop talking like that! What does it mean?”
My heart broke to not be able to speak like my mammy. “Broken, Eejit-Da. My stomach is broken.”
His nostrils flared. “No ‘eejit’, either.”
Pain racked across my chest as my sadness deepened. “Okay.”
His jaw ticked. “Be sure to eat what I brought you.”
I didn’t want to. Food always made my stomach hurt more, but disappointing him hurt worse. “Okay,” I whispered, hoping for him to give me an ounce of approval.
“Good.” He sternly left the room, leaving me depleted and feeling deserted.
I would lay in bed, on my side, daydreaming that Mammy was laying behind me, holding me, her fingers stroking my hair. “I’m with you, a stór.”
But… she wasn’t.
The overwhelming sadness that I’d been left with was eventually too much to take. I no longer sat up when Da would enter my room with food. Not that I had much energy to talk. I was becoming more and more tired. My stomach would cramp, causing me to curl up in a fetal position. My toilet bucket was putrid with horrible bowel movements.
One day when my father entered the room, he staggered back a few steps before rushing forward, nose covered, while opening my window. “Elleora, that is awful.”
From my fetal position, my weak head scraped along my dingy pillow to peer up at him. I whispered, “I’m sorry, Da. Bad dose.”—serious illness.
At the open window, me calling him Da, without the ‘eejit’ he hated, seemed to grab his attention. His face slowly changed from annoyed to pity. He then stared out the window in pause.
I slowly sat up as I witnessed his head fall into his waiting palms. He just stood there, covering his face, taking deep breaths.
I’d never seen him do this before. That’s why I whispered, “Daddy?” repeating the doctor’s word.
His head moved slightly to see me, still partly covered by his hands.
Then… he rushed out of the room, leaving the door wide open.
