Things that were in Helen's mind this horrible summer were devastating! But one thing that haunted her more than anything else was giving away her baby, not even being able to have glance at him, or embrace him for one time! This tragedy would stay with her in all her waking or sleeping hours for as long as she lived!
She remembered her mother, who acted so normal all the time while she knew her husband, the father of her children, molesting her daughters night after night! What happened to motherly love? Why was she losing her mind for a baby that she had not even seen, and her mother never even admitted of the wrong doing that had happened in her house, in front of her? She recalled her mother, who acted so normal, gave her and her sister bread and butter sprinkled with sugar in their old living room, when they returned from school in the afternoon and before dinner. She recalled the grandfather clock in the corner of the crowded living room which had two blue jay birds in a wooden basket painted at the top of it. She conjured up how her mother loved the artificial flowers and had filled the house with baskets of home made fake flowers. Everywhere she looked there was a basket of fake flower, even on each step of the stairs that went to the second floor to her sister and her room and another room that they used as storage. Her mother never threw out anything. Their house was filled with things that there were no use for them anymore, but she never got rid of them. She recalled that she had promised herself that never she would use artificial flowers to decorate her house when she was a grown up woman.
She recalled her father, who would come home tired, dirty, dusty from his hard work at the construction sites, from labouring day after day for his family; kissed the mother first, and then his two daughters, sat on the coach with one leg under the other and said:
"Oh, mama, my back. Get me a cool beer!" The name mama that he used for mom was an endearing name that he always used instead of calling his wife by her real name, Elizabeth. Then after finishing his beer, he showered and cleaned up before dinner was ready.
No one would had guessed that this was not a normal family, no one! Their uncles, aunts, cousins, church friends all admired them. They gathered every Saturday in a home of one of these group, families, church friends! It always was all day event. All women helped out in the kitchen, all men did the barbecuing and grilling, all children played games and what ever was available for them in that particular house. The friends were like the surrogate family. They were six families all together; so every six weeks the party was at their house!
Every Sunday, they all went to church. It was a great event going to church. Mother put her best dress on. She always wore hat. Helen loved the mother's collection of hats. She had so many. Sometimes Charlotte and she tried the hats when their mother was not around. Fatter put on his only suit. He took care of it as if it was the last suit in the world. Helen and Charlotte wore their best dresses. They always went to early mass which was at eight in the morning. Charlotte and Helen sat with their friends, their parents sat with their friends. They received communion. She remembered the first time that she received communion at age seven, only a year before father began his barbaric act. She remembered what a big event it was when she got her first communion. Charlotte was so envious. No matter how much mother tried to calm her little sister down, she would not stop crying.
"Why Helen can get communion and I can't?" She kept repeating herself.
Mother could not convince Charlotte that she was too young, that in a few years she would receive communion, too. She thought that her parents favored Helen over her! She never changed. She stayed the same envious little girl even when she was grown! That was the reason she fell into the hand of father and was molested, too; because she thought father loved Helen more than he loved her!!!
To Be Continued
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