Nery Legacy (3): Troubles at Home*

    For a week, Charlie had been lying low. She tried to avoid her mother every chance that she got. Her father had relented and finally put his foot down with Mama, telling her that Charlie could work the homestead with him and do her lessons on the go. Though she didn’t particularly like the brutal hard work of the homestead, Charlie was grateful to the point of crying real tears when Daddy had told her that he would allow her to come with him instead of dealing with her mother all day, every day. She was still a little bit sore from the strapping that she’d gotten on the night that she’d broken her grounding, and she didn’t want to risk rubbing her mother the wrong way.

    It had mostly been a quiet seven days. She and Daddy didn’t talk all that much when they were doing their chores, and she found that if she didn’t bring it up, he mostly let her go without doing the lessons at all. It wasn’t that Charlie minded school; what she minded was the way that her mother was constantly on her case and always seemingly looking for reasons to be angry with her. The truth was that she was feeling pretty intimidated, especially after she’d snuck out of the house on Saturday.

    The nightmare that night had been terrible. It was rare that she woke up screaming in fear from a dream. In fact, Charlie thought the last time it had happened was when she was twelve years old. This time, a combination of the alcohol and the punishment had left her weakened, and she’d awakened feeling as though somebody was standing on her chest and strangling her. Daddy had stayed with her all night, rocking her until she fell back to sleep, comforting her and reassuring her that in spite of what she’d done, she was still loved. She’d needed it, and it still hurt her to think that her mother hadn’t been there when she’d needed her.

    Mama had always scared Charlie a little bit. Even when she was little, she’d felt very much as though her mother didn’t particularly like her, and more than that, she was sure that her mother didn’t love her. It had hurt then, but after last Saturday’s punishment, it was really sinking in for Charlie that her mother’s feelings for her weren’t ideal. She’d overheard fights between her parents that left her feeling vulnerable, confused, guilty and ashamed. She’d asked for some things that she’d wanted, and to hear her parents discuss how they couldn’t afford it, and her mother saying that she felt like Charlie was selfish and a brat... Well, those things had broken her heart, and she’d promised herself that she would ask for nothing else.

    So that afternoon, when her family was at the store for supplies for the month and her father asked if she needed new shoes, Charlie had told him “no.” The soles of her sneakers were wearing thin, but she knew for one thing that her uncle Mal had paid for their supplies that month, and for another she understood that asking for even the things she needed now brought her shame. So although she needed the shoes, she figured she’d wait another month, and maybe in July they’d be better off financially.

    There was more on Charlie’s mind than just shoes, however. Now that they were home, she paced the floor of the large bathroom next to her bedroom, ignoring the sound of her sister outside, huffing that she couldn’t get into the bathroom. “There’s two more just like this bathroom! Why do you need this one?”

    “My towel’s in there!” Clarissa shouted through the door, a pout in her voice.

    Charlie sighed and went to the linen closet in the bathroom and pulled out her younger sister’s personal towel, then went to the door and held it out. “Go down the hall. I’m busy in here.

    For a moment Clarissa looked as though she was about to ask what Charlie was doing, and she gave her little sister a warning look. For a moment the ten year-old stood there with her mouth open, then she turned on her heels and stomped off down the hall to the other bathroom. Charlie breathed a sigh of relief and closed and locked the door again, confident that even her evil mother wouldn’t have a fit about her locking the bathroom door. She hadn’t forgotten the consequences of locking her bedroom door, but she doubted that her mother would take the door off the bathroom!

    Her period was two months late. It was something that had been on Charlie’s mind for the past two weeks. She had Greg had given in and had sex twice, and she had even made a note of the dates in her diary. Because she was pretty sure that her mother hadn’t been snooping in her diary, Charlie was confident that her parents didn’t know that she’d been sexually active, or that she thought she might be pregnant. That morning, at the store, she had swiped a pregnancy test. She’d been about to try to take it in the store’s bathroom when somebody came in, and she’d panicked, putting the cartridge into her pocket so that she could take it later on at home instead.

    Now it was time, and Charlie was so scared that she thought she was going to wet her pants. She read the instructions for the fourth time, then finally pulled out the little white stick that would tell her whether or not her life was over. Closing her eyes, she tugged down her jeans and her panties, sure that they were fitting tighter than they had before, and then squatted over the stick. Suddenly her bladder felt tight, and for a moment she thought that she wasn’t going to be able to do this. Then, before she could blink, she had finished, and she capped the tip of the test and then put it down on the sink, closing the lid of the toilet and tugging up her panties and jeans before sitting down on the lid of the toilet to wait.

   

    While she waited, Charlie folded her hands and bowed her head, offering up a short, silent prayer that she wasn’t pregnant. She didn’t know what her parents would do if they found out that she had been having sex, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about Greg. She liked him, and she thought that he was fun, but they had only been intimate twice and she hadn’t planned on spending the rest of her life with anybody at this point in her life. She was young, and she was scared. Worse, Charlie didn’t feel like she could talk to her mother, the only person in the world who was equipped to help her to get through this, or so she thought.

    By the time the three minutes had passed, Charlie was in tears, and almost too afraid to glance at the test. When she finally did, her breath caught in her throat, and her hands scrabbled for the instructions again. “Two lines means not pregnant, right?” she murmured, a sort of quiet prayer that she wasn’t pregnant. But when she confirmed what she dreaded, Charlie closed her eyes, then pulled out the second cartridge and forced herself to pee again. Three minutes later, she had two that said the same thing.

    Too scared to think about what she was doing, Charlie tossed both tests and the instructions into the trash, then left the bathroom on shaking feet. Not thinking, she went straight into her bedroom and reached under her mattress for her diary, so that she could do the thing that she always did when she was scared and upset; write.

    About an hour later, Charlie heard someone coming up the stairs. If she judged correctly, it was her mother. She thought nothing of it, just pulled her knees closer up to herself and continued to write in her diary. She’d already filled five pages with her worries over the pregnancy and how she was going to tell her parents. Her heart was no longer beating too hard, but was instead filled with a deep sense of sadness because she knew that her parents were going to be disappointed in her. The fear was gone, and she didn’t even dread telling them. What worried her most now was the look that she’d see on her father’s face when he found out that his daughter had been sexually active, and that she was pregnant.

    Charlie was still lost in thought when she finally registered that her mother was standing in her doorway, surrounded by the empty frame, her arms crossed over her chest, an unreadable expression on her face. Charlie started, slapping her diary shut and clutching it to her chest as she looked up at her mother, her cheeks growing hot as she watched the woman who had given birth to her and who was supposed to love her more than anything on earth. “Hey,” she said when it was clear that her mother wasn’t going to break her silence.

    “Do you have something you want to tell me?” Mama asked, raising her eyebrows.

    For a moment Charlie was sure that her heart had stopped beating. She could feel the blood draining out of her face as her heart began to race, her hands shaking so hard that she had to clutch the diary closer to her chest for support. Nervous, she clicked the pen, biting down on her lower lip, then finally giving a little shake of her head.

    “Are you sure?” Then Mama held up one of the tests in her right hand, raising her eyebrows even further, as though they could somehow join the red hair on top of her head and merge.

    Heart pounding in her chest, Charlie slowly climbed off her bed, still holding the diary tightly to her. She couldn’t take her eyes off the tests in her mother’s hand, and she swallowed hard, struggling with all of the emotions that were going through her. She had thought that she’d conquered her fear, but now, with her mother standing right there, Charlie wasn’t sure at all that she’d managed to get over her feelings. Finally her eyes rose to her mother’s steely blue gaze and she shook her head slightly from side to side. “No Ma’am.”

    Mama took a step into the bedroom, and Charlie instinctively stepped backward. She couldn’t get far before she bumped into the night stand. Flinching, Charlie stopped, holding tightly to the diary, trying hard to convince herself that she could hold her ground with her mother, though she was terrified. The look on Mama’s face was intense, a real anger brewing just below the surface of her pretty features.

    “Are these yours?”   

    “Yes Ma’am,” Charlie replied. She didn’t know what to say! Panic gripped her gut so hard that she thought she was going to throw up, and for a moment she struggled to regain control over her stomach. She swallowed several times, not taking her eyes off of her mother’s face. She knew that she was in trouble now, and that hadn’t even entered her mind before. How could they punish her for something that she’d done months ago? But now she was sure that somehow her parents would find a way to make her life hell because she’d gotten herself pregnant, and there was a sinking feeling in Charlie’s gut.

    “What have you got to say for yourself?” Now Mama was raising her voice, stepping closer again. Charlie had nowhere else to go, and she felt backed into a corner as her mother came so close that she could smell her breath, the clean scent of the toothpaste that they made at home to save even more money.

    A thousand responses ran through Charlotte’s head, but none of them felt right. After a moment, she just gave a little shake of her head, dark hair spilling into her face. “Nothing,” she she said. Her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat before repeating, more boldly, “Nothing.”

    “There you go again!” Mama said, raising her voice so that Charlie had to really work hard not to cringe back from her. Instead, she stolidly held her ground. “Do you ever think of anybody other than yourself? Of all the selfish, STUPID things that you could have done, you had to go an’ get yourself pregnant, didn’t you? It ain’t like we’re havin’ a hard enough time supportin’ just you an’ Rissa an’ all the things you’re always askin’ for! Now we’re gonna have another mouth to feed, an’ somebody else to buy or make clothes for all the time!”

    Charlie had to fight back tears. The more her mother yelled, the more frightened she got, and the more frightened she became, the more that Charlie wanted to lash back at her mother. But she suppressed her feelings even as Mama attacked her. It took her a few seconds to get herself composed enough to say boldly, “No, Ma’am.”

    “So, what? Are you thinkin’ that you’re gonna be havin’ an abortion?”

    “No Ma’am.” Charlie’s only defense against what her mother was saying was to be as respectful as she could in her responses, trying her hardest not to do anything to make Mama more angry with her. Inside, she was terrified, and angry that her mother was shouting at her the way that she was. She was fighting tears with everything that she had within her, her body nearly vibrating with suppressed anger and fear.

    As scared as Charlie was, however, nothing could have prepared her to feel the sting of her mother’s slap as Mama’s hand tore across her left cheek so hard that Charlie’s head snapped back. For a moment, she nearly dropped her diary to put her hand up to feel the heat on her face, but instead, she just held it closer and sniffed hard, fighting the tears as she turned her head back to stare at her mother, whose eyes were narrowed at her angrily. “Is that all you can say to me? Yes Ma’am? No Ma’am?”

    “No Ma’am,” Charlie said. Her brow creased a little bit with worry as she struggled to figure out what Mama could possibly want. She was still standing too close, and Charlie’s only support was the book to which she clung with all of her might.

    The second slap brought the tears. Charlie’s eyes filled, but still she didn’t cry out, or drop her book. This time, she simply dropped her head, letting the tears spill down her cheeks. What was she supposed to say? “I’m sorry, Mama,” Charlie tried, her voice more timid this time. She felt timid, frightened, and more than anything, she was starting to wonder if her parents were going to kick her out of the house now. The lump in her throat was huge, and she almost couldn’t breathe.

    “Bullshit,” Mama said, but she took a step back, and finally Charlie felt as though she might survive this. “You ain’t sorry for nothin’ you done to this family. You’re just a selfish little whore who wasn’t thinkin’ ‘bout nobody but herself when you got yourself knocked up like some back alley prostitute!”

    “Who the hell do you think you’re talking to!?” Daddy’s voice raged from the doorway. Then everything happened so fast that Charlie couldn’t process all of it. Her father pulled her mother away from her, laying a hard swat to Mama’s backside, then pointing at the door. “GET OUT!” he raged, then surprised Charlie by literally pushing her mother out the door.

    Charlie didn’t look up, but she could feel her father’s eyes on her as she stood, trembling, the diary still glued to her chest. Her heart was beating so hard that she thought it would burst forth from her chest, and she was sure that he had to be able to hear it thundering the way that she could hear it in her ears. After Mama’s reaction, she was certain that Daddy was angry with her too. She couldn’t meet his eyes.

    “My office,” Daddy snapped. “Now. I don’t wanna hear a word outta you until I come down there. You do as you’re told, understand me?”

    Charlie gave a timid nod of her head, choking on the “Yes Sir” that she tried to squeak out, but now she was afraid that he was going to be angry with her for saying it too. She skirted around him, then walked as calmly as she could down the stairs and into the office. She left the door open as she went to the couch that he kept in there and curled up on it, leaning against the arm and curling her knees up to her chest, the diary still held close against her chest, her right thumb rubbing over the surface of the pen that she still held. She was scared to death, the tears rolling down her cheeks. Her cheek stung like fire, but she still didn’t move to try to rub away the burn. Instead, she lowered her head a little bit, just letting herself cry silently. She didn’t sob; she couldn’t quite work up the energy to get that far. Instead, she just sat there, holding herself, while she listened to her father shouting at her mother in the kitchen.

    “What the hell is the matter with you, Ruby?” Daddy’s voice shouted. Charlie almost got up to close the door, since she didn’t want to be privy to another argument between her parents. It seemed that they were always fighting about her.

    There was a clattering sound, then Mama’s shrieked, “Your daughter’s pregnant, that’s what’s the matter with me!”

    “Last time I checked, she was your daughter too. An’ I ain’t the one got her that way, so you can stop shoutin’ at me. Calm it down, Ruby. I don’t care what she did, you don’t ever touch her that way again. She’s a child. OUR child. I don’t care if she’s done killed somebody, you don’t slap her like she’s nobody to you. You ever stop to think about what she’s feelin’?”

    “Why the hell should I?” Mama cried. “Was she thinkin’ about how much a baby was gonna cost us when she went out sleepin’ around an’ gettin’ herself pregnant? Was she thinkin’ about who’s gonna support this baby? About who’s gonna have to work harder to take care of another child? You think she don’t expect us to be doin’ the work for her? I didn’t want another child after we had Charlie! We just got lucky with Rissa is all!”

    There was dead silence in the kitchen for a long, long time, and Charlie found herself shaking as she sat on the couch, waiting to find out what was going to happen to her. Her father’s defense didn’t quite register with her. She was fully expecting that they were going to throw her out of the house, and that she was probably in really big trouble before they got to that point. Her heart was broken. She’d hardly had time to register that she was pregnant, and now... Now she was having to deal with her parents already. She wasn’t ready for this!

    “I don’t know you any more,” Daddy finally said. She heard a chair scrape across the linoleum floor. There was a series of unrecognizable sounds and then she heard his footsteps coming toward the office. A moment later the click of the door closing caused Charlie to raise her head a little bit. She still didn’t meet her father’s eyes, and deliberately dropped her head when she felt her father sitting down on the couch next to her.

    “Let me see that,” Daddy said, reaching out and taking her chin in his hand. Charlie whimpered, pulling back a little bit, scared that he was going to hurt her too. She turned her head away from him a little bit, making small sounds in her throat as her father inspected the mark on her cheek, then gently applied a bag of frozen peas to her cheek. “Try to stop it from bruisin’,” he said, then patted her on the knee.

    Finally Charlotte let go of her book and put her hand up to hold the bag to her face. It took her a really long time of total silence before she slowly raised her eyes to look at her father. She was still crying silently, but when she saw his face, Charlie let out a small sob. “I’m sorry Daddy!” she cried.

    “What’re you sorry for?”

    “Cause I got knocked up!” Charlie cried. She knew that her father had to know by now what was going on. She hated the expression, but what else was it? It wasn’t like she loved Greg, was it? At least she didn’t think that she did. She didn’t know what love meant, and she was too young to really think about anything permanent in her life.

    “Mama hates me,” she whispered after a long moment. “An’ you’re mad at me an’ I don’t know what to do!”

    “I ain’t mad, baby girl,” Daddy said, rubbing her leg gently with his hand. She still couldn’t look up at him. She didn’t trust herself to say anything else at all. He didn’t tell her that her mother didn’t hate her, and to Charlie, that spoke volumes. Everybody knew it now. She was sure even Rissa had heard, and her sister had a big mouth. Anybody in the family with Facebook would know by sundown that she was pregnant, she was sure.

    Needing to breath the silence, Charlie sniffled a little bit, then glanced up at her father. “Disappointed in me,” she corrected herself. It was what he always said when she was in trouble. She sniffled again and dipped her head, keeping her hand on the ice pack to keep the bruise from forming on her cheek.

    “No,” Daddy said after a long pause. “Not disappointed. I’m sad for you, baby girl. Everythin’s about to change. You’ve got a new responsibility now. You can’t be a kid no more.” There was a brief pause while he brushed her hair behind her ear, and Charlie finally met his eyes again. “But you’ll always be my baby girl. Even when you’ve got a baby of your own.”

    What Charlie wanted more than anything in the world was for everything to be alright. Her mother had made it pretty clear to her that she wasn’t wanted, and now her father was... confusing her. Charlie moved slightly, shifting tentatively toward her father. When he didn’t move away from her, she slowly climbed into his lap, still holding tight to her diary as though she was holding onto a security blanket. She leaned her head against Daddy’s shoulder and then took a deep breath.

   

    That was it. Charlie was suddenly sobbing for all she was worth. “I’m so scared, Daddy!” she cried, letting the bag of ruined peas drop into her lap. She used the hand that had been holding it to reach for her father, holding onto him so tightly that it would have taken two grown men to pry her off of him.

    “I know baby girl,” Daddy told her, smoothing her hair back and kissing the top of her head gently. It only made Charlie feel worse in a way that she couldn’t explain, and she held tighter to him. “You should be scared,” he added. “This is a big deal. I was scared outta my mind when Mama was pregnant with you. Thought I’d be the worst father in the world. Was just about outta my mind by the time you were born. But I don’t think I’m doin’ too bad, do you?”

    Charlie sniffled, then shook her head a little bit. “No Sir,” she whispered. “You’re the best dad ever. And... And I love you,” she said cautiously. If he didn’t say it back, she knew that she’d be crushed.

    But Daddy held her tighter, then kissed her head again. “I love you too, baby girl. An’ I’ll love my grandbaby too. You got a lot of reasons to be scared, but you got your family behind you too.”

    “Mama thinks I’m a--”

    “You put that right outta your mind. You ain’t what she said. Mama’s just... Bein’ temperamental. Maybe it’s the menopause or somethin’. I dunno, but she ain’t gonna be treatin’ you like that no more. I won’t have it in my house, baby girl.”

    “Sorry, Daddy.”

    “Baby, what are you sorry for? You done nothin’ wrong.” He cleared his throat, then amended, “You done nothin’ wrong today. I walked into that room, you weren’t even defendin’ yourself while your mama slapped your face like you weren’t nothin’ to her.” Scared, Charlie turned her face against her father, and he went quiet, simply shushing her as she cried against him.

    Charlie was exhausted, but she didn’t want to let go of her father. She rubbed at her eyes, then sighed. “It hurts,” she whispered to him.

    “I bet it does,” Daddy said. He shifted slightly beneath her, and Charlie was about to push out of his lap when he stood up with her in his arms. “I’m gonna take you upstairs an’ put you to bed for a bit so I can talk to Mama. I won’t let her come up an’ bother you, an’ I’ll send Rissa outside so she won’t come in an’ bug you either,” he told her as he carried her up the stairs.

    It had been years since anybody had carried Charlie at all, and she held tightly to her father as he finally went into her bedroom and laid her down on the bed, then fluffed the pillows beneath her head. She still had her diary, and when he made to take it from her, Charlie clutched it tighter to her chest and shook her head. For right now, it was the one thing making her feel safe. “Please...”

    “Okay,” Daddy said with a nod of his head. He bent to kiss her forehead. “I’ll be back in a bit. You stay here until I come an’ get you, okay?”

    “Yes Sir.” Charlie wasn’t sure if she was being punished or protected, but she didn’t argue at all, then she flushed. “Daddy?”

    “Yes, baby?” her father answered from the door.

    “Am I gonna get... Am I gonna be punished for... For bein’... For gettin’... You know?”

    Charlie raised her head a little bit to see her father shake his head. “No. This ain’t somethin’ that a spankin’ can fix, Charlie. Only two things can fix this, an’ one of those is out of the question. Understand me?”

    “What’s the other one?”

    “Havin’ a baby.” Daddy smiled at her, and stood a moment later before he was gone.

    Charlie turned her head into her pillow, giving a little sob. It was only a moment or two before she had cried herself into an exhausted sleep.