“You get back here!” The sound of my pa’s voice echoed through the house.
I raced down our two flights of stairs only to find my sister Marie curled up in the corner with cuts in her feet from when my pa threw our last glass vase at her.
Marie has schizophrenia. It’s an illness that causes you to hear voices. It wasn’t that bad until our mom died.
“Stop it, leave her alone!” I yelled at my pa.
My pa’s red face turned to look at mine. I was his new victim. I tried to run past him to lead him away from Marie.
“Marie, run!” I yelled as my pa grabbed me. I screamed and screamed as loud as I could even though I knew nobody would hear me.
He carried me to the door and threw me onto the porch. I screamed in agony as a rusty nail that was sticking out of the wood pierced my skin. I tried to ease my leg up. Desperately I let out a scream of pain. Then I quickly ripped my leg off of the porch. My stomach turned as blood ran down my leg. I ripped off one of the sleeves from my shirt and wrapped it around my leg. Then I heard the sound of Marie screaming. I banged on the door yelling as loud as I could. Then it was quiet. After a few seconds, I saw my dad dragging Marie by her arm; he threw her out onto the porch with me.
“If you both want to misbehave, then you can sleep outside, and you can forget about dinner.” Then he turned around and without looking back said, “And if you try to run away again, I’ll get the dogs out of the barn.” Then he walked away, closing the door behind him and locking it.
“Marie, what did he do to you?” She didn’t move from the position she was in. Her long hair covering her face, she held her bruised knees. “Marie, answer me! What did he do…what happened?”
She looked up her face covered in a mixture of dirt and blood. She scooted closer to me and I set her on my lap.
“One day, Marie, one day we’ll get him back.” That was the last thing I said that night.
I woke up to the bright sun. I looked around I noticed that something was missing.
Where’s Marie? I panicked.
“Marie! Marie!”
I saw her head poke out of our cornfield that lay across the dirt road a couple feet ahead. We both laughed and headed down towards the pond. Marie held in her hands two ears of corn. This would be what we would eat for breakfast. When we got to the pond, I washed off my leg, and Marie washed her face. Then we walked back to the barn to do our chores.
First I went to go feed the chickens. Then I walked over to where the dogs were and fed them. There are three dogs. One is shy; she was our mom’s dog. Next there are Dozer and Crank. Those are my dad’s dogs. Those were the ones that my dad threatened to let get us if we try to run away again. Those dogs are really mean. They bite everything and everybody except my dad. Once I finished feeding them, I went over to the pigs. Feeding the pigs was the job I didn’t like. I love pigs; I just don’t love the way they smell.
Next and last for feeding were the cows. After that was finished, it was time for lunch. I found Marie by the garden.
“Let’s go eat,” I said, leading on towards the house.
She followed quietly behind. Once we reached the house we went inside, asking Ronda what we were having for lunch.
“If you go sit down at the table, I’ll bring it to you,” she replied.
Ronda has worked for my dad since I was three years old. She cooks for us. I’ve always been jealous of Ronda. Her brown eyes matched the color of her chocolate skin, along with her long brown hair. Her smile was amazing, her teeth as white as snow. To Marie and I she was like our mom. One time Marie said that to our dad and he got angry. He said nobody could ever be like our mom.
We sat at the table with our stomachs growling. Ronda brought out two plates, each with a sandwich and small serving of corn.
“Now what do you say?” Ronda asked.
“Thank you,” we both replied.
We ate quickly, knowing that we had other chores to do. Ronda was only there to cook and clean up the mess she made while cooking.
I got up and went outside with Marie. We went along the garden; we both had a basket for putting all of the harvests in. Ronda came out to pick the different foods with us.
“I want to talk to your pa about bringing you two into town with me one Friday after school,” Ronda said, not looking up from the tomatoes that she was picking.
“And how do you plan on convincing him on doing that?” I asked, hoping for a good response.
“Well you girls are growing out of your clothes if he would give a couple dollars to me then I could go get you girls some clothes.” She said.
“When do you think you’ll talk to him?” I asked.
“Tonight, after dinner. I’m making chicken, mashed potatoes and corn. Then for dessert, blackberry pie,” she said.
“All of his favorites,” I said.
She nodded her head. “Now come help me and pick some blackberries,” Ronda said. “Child, be an angel and go grab another basket out of the kitchen,” she said, looking at Marie.
“Okay,” Marie said with a smile.
We both watched as Marie ran happily to the house. We started toward the blackberry bushes only about fifteen feet away. I looked back to see if Marie was at the house yet and I tripped on one of the vines that had been lying in my path. I hit the cold ground hard. A couple of thorns pricked my skin on the same leg that had been pierced last night. I let out a cry, even though I tried not to show too much pain.
Ronda helped me up.
“Let me see your knee.”
I lifted up my knee for her to see. She picked out all of the thorns and then noticed that a spot on my leg was pouring blood.
“Was this from you falling?” she asked.
“No.”
“What happened to you?”
“Last night pa threw me onto the porch, and there was a nail. The nail stabbed me,” I said hesitantly.
She looked enraged.
“Did he do anything to Marie?” she asked.
“Marie wouldn’t tell me what he did, besides that he did cut her feet with a vase.”
“Another vase gone! That’s the last one,” Ronda said, frustrated. “Well, does Marie have any marks on her?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “Last night her face was a little bloody, though.” Ronda looked cross.
When Marie came back we both looked at her face very closely, I could tell she felt uncomfortable but we still observed the small lines going across her face.
Ronda looked at me, and then back to Marie. She smiled and then led us to the bush were we forgot about everything and picked hundreds of blackberries.
“After we fill our baskets, we’ll go inside,” Ronda said after we had been picking for what seemed like hours.
“Okay.”
“We should have a race!” Marie said cheerfully.
It was hard to say no to her pleading face, so I decided to grant her wish.
“All right.” I smiled. “Ready, set, GO!”
We both ran as quickly as we could, trying to dodge the thorns.
No comments:
Post a Comment