Novel: Filling the Cracks—Chapter Two

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Welcome to the second installment of my novel, Filling the Cracks, posted exclusively here every Wednesday for the next twenty-four weeks! Check in every week for a new chapter. (Chapter One here.)

Trigger warning: The following story contains topics that may disturb some readers, including child physical and sexual abuse, domestic abuse, substance abuse, violence, and suicide. Although there is no explicit sexuality or language, this is written for an adult audience and may not be suitable for children.

Chapter Two

Virgie stood with her shoe gripped in her hand. The vein in her forehead had popped, her jaw was set, her nostrils flared, and the muscles in her neck flexed. Her mother was beyond rational. Livid, she repressed her fury only long enough to terrorize Beth’s heart from anticipation.

“Mrs. Nestor called me this afternoon. She said you and she talked at lunch.” Virgie’s voice was dangerously soft.

Beth’s mouth went dry, and she tried to swallow but couldn’t without any saliva. “Mommy—”

She didn’t get the opportunity to finish her sentence before Virgie wound up with the shoe and brought it down fast and hard, heel first, against Beth’s forehead. The blow stunned her long enough that she didn’t feel the second and third blows. Beth raised her arms to block the rest and protect her head from further attack. She searched for a place to escape. She sprinted past her mother into the living room, but Virgie was right behind her, swinging away with the shoe, beating Beth across the back and her skull. Each strike was painful.

Sitting on the sofa watching Gilligan’s Island, Otto observed the beating with detached interest, making himself small in his seat. He made no other movement to avoid drawing attention to himself and perhaps redirecting his mother’s irrational wrath in his direction.

“Mommy, please!” Beth screamed, tears blinding her; she ran a circle around the living room and doubled back to the kitchen, then from the kitchen to her bedroom, realizing she was trapped once she got there. Virgie blocked the doorway, not allowing her any means of escape.

“How dare you tell lies about Uncle Gary!” Virgie screamed, followed by calling Beth a stream of disgusting epithets. “How could you embarrass our family like that? How could you embarrass me like that?”

Beth jumped on the bed and curled up in a ball with her face buried in her pillow, her back to the ceiling. She protected her vital organs from the continuing, vicious blows. They hurt her body but not as much as her heart. Here, she came home thinking she would be safe. Instead, Mrs. Nestor betrayed her by telling Virgie what Beth had revealed in sacred confidence. It had been a trap, and Beth had fallen for it. Never again would she trust another adult—if she survived for another time.

                    Her pleas got her zero compassion or mercy from her mother, and eventually, the blows to her head knocked Beth senseless.

#

It was a dreamless sleep. When Beth woke up, she lay alone on her bed; Virgie had exhausted herself and left after Beth passed out. There was blood on her pillowcase and sheets. Beth eased herself onto her back, wincing from the pain from whatever damage Virgie had caused her with the shoe. There was more blood where her head pressed against the bed. She brushed a hand over her face and found the culprit—a large gash on her forehead right above the bridge of her nose, where Virgie’s first blow had struck her. It still oozed blood, though not as much as at first. How would she hide that from the teachers at school?

Beth’s head ached, and she was fuzzy-brained, like when her mother gave her cough syrup when she was sick. Due to the blows to the back of her head, she hoped her brain hadn’t been damaged. Her brain was one of her only redeeming features. Virgie had told her so.

Upon first waking, Beth couldn’t remember what had brought on Virgie’s attack. It took several minutes of staring up at the popcorn ceiling before memories returned to her. She’d gone to Mrs. Nestor and revealed the biggest secret of her life to someone she had believed she could trust. That had been a colossal mistake. When Mrs. Nestor assured Beth that she’d handle the situation, Beth thought the counselor meant she’d stop the abuse. Instead, she’d meant telling Virgie about Beth’s confession, ensuring the girl received one of the worst beatings of her life when she got home. It had been a setup. Beth was a fool.

The worst part was that Gary had been right—instead of helping her and protecting her from her uncle’s abuse, Virgie had chosen to blame Beth and punish her for revealing the truth to a stranger. Telling the truth was not only stupid, but it was also dangerous. She wouldn’t make that mistake again.

The house was quiet. Beth glanced sideways at the alarm clock on her nightstand. It was five-thirty-three. She’d been out cold for about two hours, and Virgie had gone to work. Gary would arrive in about an hour if he came straight from work. Usually, he stopped first at the Coverville Hotel tavern for a couple of hours. That was a relief. It gave her time to recover and clean herself up.

It hurt to roll off her bed and stand up. At first, she swayed on her feet and needed to hold onto the nightstand until the dizziness passed. She shuffled from her room to the only bathroom in their tiny bungalow. Sounds of laughter from the TV met her coming from the living room. Otto still was watching sitcoms. Beth hoped he was safe, but she had to look after herself before she checked on him.

In the bathroom, she surveyed the damage done to her body by the shoe Virgie had wielded like a club. Aside from a deep, oozing gash on Beth’s blood-smeared face, bruises were developing. A couple were on her face, but most were on her arms, neck, and shoulders. A large lump on her head also oozed a little blood into her dark, short hair. Virgie kept Beth’s hair cut boyish and short; it was simpler to deal with that way. Her hair had a natural curl; the longer it grew, the more care was required to keep it free of tangles and mats.

Beth splashed lukewarm water on her face over the basin; rusty swirls spiraled down the drain. Once the blood had been washed off, she reached into the medicine cabinet and grabbed the small tube of Crazy Glue kept there. Gary had taught her how to close cuts that required stitches using Crazy Glue. After closing the cut above her nose the best she could, Beth covered it with a Band-Aid. There wasn’t much she could do about the cut on the back of her head because it was surrounded by hair. It wasn’t bleeding hard, so she figured it would stop soon. With a fatalistic shrug, she returned to her bedroom.

She changed out of her bloodied clothes and put on clean. Beth did her own laundry. She had enough experience to know that blood wouldn’t likely come out of her pink cotton t-shirt, but she’d try. She took it to the bathroom sink, filled the basin with cold water, and put the t-shirt in it, hoping that soaking for a few hours would keep the stains from setting.

Returning to her bedroom, she changed her sheets, stuffing the stained ones in the hamper. She washed her bedding frequently, too, but it didn’t matter if they had blood stains. That could always be explained by Beth’s menstrual cycle, which she’d begun having after turning ten. Or Gary’s abuse, which Virgie never seemed to notice, anyway.

Once she’d cleaned or hidden the blood, she went to the living room to check on Otto. He munched on a bag of ketchup-flavored potato chips, watching Hogan’s Heroes.

“Hey, you okay?” Beth asked him.

Otto didn’t even look at her. “Yeah. Mom made supper. It’s on the stove.”

Beth nodded in acknowledgment.  She wasn’t hungry, but she had to eat. She tended to have low blood sugar and needed three good meals daily plus snacks to keep herself from feeling shaky or faint. That was sometimes hard to do in their house.

She went to the kitchen and peeked inside one of the pots. Hamburger Gravy with boiled potatoes and canned corn. It was typical of Virgie’s idea of cooking—tasteless and quick. Beth had taught herself to cook cheap meals that tasted good, but she wasn’t complaining—she didn’t want to cook, so she was glad Virgie had done so before leaving. Serving herself a plate of room-temperature food, Beth returned to the living room to watch the rest of Hogan’s Heroes with Otto while she ate. It was one of her favorite programs.

Once the show was over, Beth said to her brother, “Do your homework now.”

“Don’t feel like it. You’re not my boss.”

Beth didn’t argue with him. She was the closest thing to a parent that Otto had, but he didn’t appreciate that fact, and she didn’t have the energy to force him. She returned her plate to the kitchen and rinsed it in the sink. She’d wash it along with the rest of the dishes, pots, and pans once Uncle Gary had come home and eaten. Until then, she found her book bag near the side door where she’d dropped it earlier and took it to her bedroom, where she did her homework while lounging on her bed. The room was too small to accommodate a proper desk for her to work at.

Gary didn’t make it home until after eight; he went downstairs to his room without eating. Beth put the food on the stove into the fridge and washed dishes in the sink—they couldn’t afford a dishwasher, or a microwave, for that matter, like Lisa’s family. Beth sighed, drying a dish with a tea towel. What was it like to be a member of Lisa’s family instead of her own?

She wouldn’t have been beaten with a shoe if she’d lived with Lisa. That much was certain.

At nine pm, Beth dragged Otto from the TV to his bedroom before preparing for bed herself. She climbed between the clean sheets and prayed to the God they told her about in Sunday School, asking Him to keep Gary in his bedroom that night so she could get a decent night’s sleep.

God didn’t hear her. Around midnight, Gary opened the door to her room and stepped inside, closing it quietly behind himself so as not to wake Otto in the next room. Beth woke from the subtle movement when he sat on the edge of her bed. It was such a common occurrence; she slept with one eye open.

As Gary violated her body, he muttered in her ear, “Virgie said you told the teacher. You little dummy. Didn’t I tell you what would happen if you told anybody? You’re lucky Virgie already punished you. If I’d done it, you wouldn’t be breathing.”

That night, he used a broomstick to torture her—the consequence of her opening her big mouth.

#

Beth walked to school beside Lisa the next day. She was quiet and lost in thought, walking ahead of Lisa at one point. That’s when Lisa grabbed her by the arm and spun her around.

“What?” Beth asked, startled.

“Your pants,” Lisa whispered, pointing to her backside. “There’s blood.” Lisa cursed. “What’s going on?”

Beth felt the seat of her faded jeans. Sure enough, there was a damp spot. She couldn’t go to school with that. She turned around and walked back toward home without a word of explanation to Lisa. Her friend followed her.

“Did you start your period?”

“No,” Beth said, wishing she would let it go but knowing she wouldn’t. Lisa grabbed her arm again.

“Stop!” she protested.

“You stop!” Lisa exclaimed and then lowered her voice. “Why are you bleeding? Oh my—what did Gary do to you now?”

Beth swallowed back a sob. “Please. Don’t ask me any more questions.”

“What happened to your head, anyway?” Lisa pressed. “Talk to me!” She took Beth by the hand and led her back to the Jones’s house. Once there, they slipped past Mrs. Jones in the kitchen and went to Lisa’s bedroom. She handed Beth clean panties and a pair of jeans; they wore the same size, more or less.

“Tell me what happened to you,” Lisa insisted; Beth changed and took a maxi-pad from her to prevent further staining.

She sat on the edge of Lisa’s bed. They were late for school anyway, so she told her best friend everything that had happened the previous day after school. Lisa listened with her jaw slack.

“I have to tell my mom!” she said, taking hold of Beth’s hands. “Please let me tell her. Mom’ll help you.”

Beth shook her head. “No. No way. I’m not trusting another grown-up again. I trusted Mrs. Nestor, and I got punished for it. Next time I’ll end up dead.”

“Bethie—”

“Lisa?” Mrs. Jones called from the kitchen. “Is that you? Why did you come back home?” Her voice grew louder as she approached the bedroom.

Beth flashed Lisa a look of warning. “Not a word. You swore!”

Lisa’s face contorted with pain.

“Just changing clothes, Mom!” she shouted through her bedroom door. “Beth had an accident. Heading to school right away.”

Mrs. Jones stopped right outside the bedroom door without going in. “All right. But hurry.”

The girls waited for Lisa’s mother to leave but didn’t. They stared at each other, uncertain of what to do.

Mrs. Jones was impatient. “Let me in right now. Something’s not right. Open the door.”

Lisa shrugged, unlocking the door. Mrs. Jones eased it open and stepped into the room. She glanced at Beth and took a sudden breath, her hand flying to her mouth.

“What happened to you? You look like you’ve been hit by a car.”

Beth stared at the floor, too ashamed to meet the adult’s eyes. “I… fell down the stairs to the basement.”

Mrs. Jones’s hands went to her hips, and she frowned. “I don’t believe you. Tell me what truly happened.”

“Mom,” Lisa protested, “we’re already late for school. Can we talk about it another time, please?”

Silent communication occurred between mother and daughter, their eyes meeting and speaking without words. After a couple of seconds, Mrs. Jones relented, stepping aside. Lisa took it as their cue. She grabbed her school bag and hurried out of the room. Beth did likewise, following her out of the house.

Beth wasn’t out of the woods yet. Classes had started when she and Lisa arrived, and their teacher sent them straight to the office for late slips. Once there, the school secretary looked at Beth, sighed, and directed her behind the desk and toward the nurse’s room, ordering Lisa back to class. Her friend departed. Beth was on her own to explain her visible and covered injuries to the medical professional on staff.

Fortunately for her, all it took was a carefully practiced lie about falling down the stairs to the basement to satisfy the less-than-interested school nurse and be sent back to class. Lisa gave her a questioning look as Beth entered the classroom and took her seat. With a shrug, she focused on Mr. Montague’s science lesson.

#

Thanks for reading! Chapter Three will be posted next Wednesday here on my blog, so be sure to return next week. If you missed Chapter One, you can link to it here. If you have any comments or questions, please leave them in the comment section below. Also, remember to subscribe to my newsletter and share this blog with your family and friends. Check out my other blog posts, also found here at paulinejgrabia.com. God bless and have a great week!

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