AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I saw her.
Her soul radiated like an angel dancing right in front of me, so I followed her light, trusting her every action. When she put earphones on my tiny little head and pushed play on the old tape recorder connected to her worn pants, we would hold hands and move our feet to the beat. As a toddler, I didn’t realize she couldn’t hear the music that was singing in my ears.
So, in bliss, I danced, unaware of the horrid living conditions she was doing her best to shield me from. I danced… oblivious to what she didn’t want me to hear. I danced… clueless to the fact that she was far too young to already have a child of her own.
She was Mammy.
Mammy and I lived on the second floor of a small house in a neighborhood of a bustling city. Neighbors, busy with carpools, children, and house chores, were too consumed in their everyday life to notice the two pale faces through the glass panes of the closed window. It is truly mind-blowing what can transpire in the ‘house next door’ without anyone realizing it.
By the time I was three, Mammy had become too old for my father’s ‘preference,’ but, because of me—a child he mistakenly produced—she was kept.
Unlike the others.
We received food, discarded second-hand clothing, and a few items for hygiene, but were only permitted a shower occasionally. We didn’t have a TV or any leisurely possessions, not that I had any inclination that we were missing normal household items or furniture. All I knew was what we were given, including books and some tools for Mammy to school me.
Books were like a dream. Through words on pages, my imagination would wander far past the walls that imprisoned us.
Another dream of mine? Crayons. On every scrap piece of paper, my tiny fingers would scribble in delight. Mammy would even draw pictures for me to trace. A wonderous activity for me. Following her drawn lines with my own was like becoming everything she had been. With her, I was everywhere I wanted to be. On paper, as in life, we were as one.
When I was four, Mammy even started teaching me how to write.
Sitting on a rickety toddler stool, at a small lopsided table, she had me trace letters she’d written on a little black chalk board. From behind me, and over my shoulder, she pointed. “That’s your name, a stór.”
Her strong Irish accent, being mostly all I had ever heard, sounded like home. And her nickname for me, Treasure, was like a precious kiss from the one you adored most.
At the table, I was writing my name, and ecstatic about it. “E. L. L. E. O. R. A.”
Due to our living conditions, we had an abundance of spare time. Since that is how it had been my entire life, I was blessedly unaware of what boredom was. I say blessedly because had I known, I would have lived in a constant state of anxiousness, hoping for time to pass more quickly. Ignorance was the most humane way, for our circumstances, that my mother had me living by. Time simply passing without me feeling the loss—moments I’d never get back, and childhood experiences that would never come—was a gift.
I was five when I asked, “Mammy, why don’t we get to go outside?”
We were both staring out the window, past a tree with branches growing more leaves each year, making it harder to see the world that was unaware we existed. Rain fell from the sky littered with clouds of all shades of grey.
Mammy sighed, her elbows resting on the windowsill. “Some caílíní,”—girls—“are just supposed to stay inside. Some of us are only meant to gander, I suppose.”
Her simple answers and her never-ending love protected my mind and sanity and allowed me peace. Even with my father. Her name for him, Eejit-Da, made him not terrifying so to me like he should have been. Eejit was slang for fool.
Instead of living in fear, of circumstances far out of my control, I laid my head on the windowsill and watched the rain drops dance on the small roof above Eejit-Da’s front porch. The water would then slide down, only to fall out of sight and onto grass, something I yearned to know what felt like under my feet.
On the day Mammy and I were celebrating my sixth birthday, I asked, “How old are you, Mammy?”
At the tiny toddler table, Mammy was on her knees because we only had one stool. I was sitting on that toddler stool, that I was now outgrowing.
Lost in a trance, Mammy stared at the center of the table that held a single cupcake with pink icing. “I am eighteen.”
Yes, in that little bedroom on the second floor, a child had been raising a child.
“Mammy, do you think someday I will be able to have a candle for my birthday?” I was learning about such things from books. Some little girls got to celebrate on a grand scale. Not me. Eejit-Da didn’t permit such things. But I was still a lucky one. Mammy never got a cupcake at all.
Her light green eyes lifted to see into me. That’s what it was like to receive her stare. Her knowing placed her far beyond her years. That showed when she smiled, and a tear dripped down her cheek. “I pray, every day, a stór, for you to have a candle and so much more.”
Too naïve to understand all that she was praying for, shedding a tear for, I reached up and caught it. “Mammy, if I had a candle, I would give you my wish.”
As her mouth gaped, something beautiful happening in her expression, a rumble was heard in the distance. Mammy rushed to the window, only to fall to her knees as the rumble got louder.
Finding my way to sit next to her, we watched as a motorcycle passed by the house.
“Mammy, why do you like the strong bicycles?”
