Faith E-Book

Ellen Morris

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Faith is about a young girl becoming a woman and trying to survive growing up with so many dramatic people around her.  Everyone wanting their way and no one caring how she felt or even bothered to ask her. She felt like she was an invisible person, yet with everyone watching her.  

Leseprobe

Ellen Morris

Faith

Mamie Ward, Lucille Pridemore, Faye White and Marie White, just some of my favorite people. I love you, all!BookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 Munich

Trip to Ohio

      I am Faith, I grew up in the hills of West Virginia.  I have a big family.  My grandfather, Nicholas had twenty-one children.  My grandmother, Ina was his third wife, she had the most children, twelve in all.  Two sets of twins who died at birth.

     My family was, also old.  All my first cousins were like uncles and aunts to me.  Some of my uncles and aunts even older than my grandmother.  I didn't figure it all out until they were all dead.

     I lived in a four-room house.  Nicholas builds the house in 1949, he was finished by January 1950.  Ina, my grandmother, gave birth to her last child in the new house.  While my mom, Sarah, gave birth to her second child in February the same year. 

    The main door was in the back yard.  As you went into the house, you entered the kitchen.  The kitchen was warm and inviting, Ina always had something ready for you to eat and a cold drink of water or hot coffee.  

     The living room was straight ahead, and the big chair was for Nicholas.  Then the front door with no porch was on the right, before going into the bedroom.  The front door had a screen door on it, so it could be opened to let the air flow through.

      The bedroom had two full-size beds, a dresser, and a gas stove.  In the other bedroom were twin beds, a rollaway bed, a chest of drawers, shift robe, and a gas stove. 

     I was born in the '60s, so there were eight people living in the four-room house until I was nine, then there was eight.  We had an outhouse for a toilet and we bathed in a Number three tub.  The tub was used for rinsing out clothes on wash day. That was every Monday. 

     We had a wringer washing machine.  I would always get my arm stuck in it when I helped.  It was pushing the bed sheets through that did it.  The bed sheets were so heavy it would strain the rollers.  So, I would push the bed sheet through, and the rollers would grab my small hand.  It didn't hurt, it was just inconvenient for the adults to have to stop what they were doing to help me out of the rollers.

     When I was five or six, I was sent to Ohio to my aunt Abigail’s house for a season, that's right four months, winter, in Ohio.  And the reason was, my grandfather stuck his finger up into my vagina and broke my hymen.  I was sore for many days afterward. 

     I had to use the bathroom that night. I decided that I wasn't going to use the bathroom in the coffee can.  I was going to go to the toilet.  I got up and put the kitchen chair at the door and took out the butcher knife.  That was the lock for the door.  I slowly got down and took the knife and placed it on the kitchen table.

      At my age, I didn't know that sound traveled.  So, before I could get out the door, Mom and Ina were in the kitchen and Mom said, "What in the world are you doing?"  I said, "I'm going to the bathroom."  Mom said, "Use the coffee can."  At that time Nicholas came in.  I was still by the knife at the kitchen table.  I picked up the knife and said, "I am going to the toilet” as I pointed the knife at Nicholas I said, "and if you ever touch me again old man, I will cut your throat ear to ear." 

     I put the knife down and Ginger, my grandmother’s baby girl, came into the room and said, "Beat her and get back to bed."  Ina said, "Shut up and get back to bed."  I went to the toilet and was there for at least twenty minutes, trying to pee, without it hurting.  When I came in the front door, I said, "Do you want me to lock it back?"  Mom said, "No, go to bed."

     Someone had made coffee and Mom; Ina and Nicholas were sitting at the kitchen table.  I heard them talking but couldn't figure out what they were saying because they were whispering, but I knew it was about me.

     Two days passed and Abigail, my aunt, came to the house.  Mom had packed a bag and I was sent home with her.  The part of the conversation I heard at the table was that I would forget in time.  So, sending me off to my aunt’s house was a way for me to forget about what had happened. 

      Abigail and I were the only ones in the car.  Abigail said, "Do you want to talk about it."  I looked at Abigail and said, "If I do, are you going to hit me."  Abigail said, "No, why would I hit you if I asked you to tell me about it?"  I said, "Because everyone else that ask me to talk about it, calls me a liar and then beats me over it."

     Abigail said, "That's because they don't like the truth.  So, tell me what happened."  I said, "Brother and I was playing "tag your it,” and we were told not to run in the house, but we were.  So, I ran through Papa and Mama’s bedroom, but Papa stopped me.  He pulls down my pants and I thought I was going to get a whipping, but instead, he stuck his big fat finger up into my private area and hurt me."

     Abigail said, "You'll forget the pain one day.  I don't expect you to forget what happened to you, but you'll forget the pain.  And who knows one day you may even forgive the one who caused you all of the pain."  I listened and thought to myself, "Not hardly." 

     When we got there the snow was coming down.  You could hardly see your hand in front of your face.  Abigail lived in a trailer.  She was a big woman, she had an overactive thyroid.  As we were going up the steps, I thought she was going to slip off, but thankfully she didn't.

     Her twin grandsons lived with her.  One of them said, "It's about time, we're starving.  What took you so long?"  Abigail said, "I had to go to the store, and can't you see how bad it is outside.  Go get the rest of the groceries in."  The boy said, "You should have made her carry them in."  Abigail said, "I did, now you get out there and get the rest." 

     As he was on his way out, he pushes me aside and said, "Brat!” Abigail said, "Hurry up."  After he came back in, she said, "Pack your bags, you and your brother are going to your mother's.” The boy looked at me and said, "It's because of her isn't it?"  Abigail said, "You called her a brat on your way out the door.  Did you not?"  The boy said, "Yes"

     Abigail said, "Why did you call her a brat and what makes you think you have a right to call her a brat?"  Abigail looked at him and he didn't say anything.  After a few minutes, Abigail said, "I'm waiting for an answer.” The boy said, nothing.  Abigail said, "Go pack, while I fix your dinner"

     The boy looked at me like he was going to beat me.  He took off down the hall and I watched him.  Abigail said, "Do you like spaghetti?"  I looked at her and said, "I don't know what spaghetti is.” Abigail said, "Well you’re in for a treat"

     I kept watching down the hall, I didn't want to get caught off guard.  If the boy was going to beat me, I was going to be ready.  Abigail looked at me and said, "Don't worry he won't be back until dinner is ready."  I didn't believe her, I could tell the boy had a mean spirit in him.

     There wasn't much I remember about the time I was there, except for one incident.  Every Thursday night Abigail went to a different house and had bible study with the women at her church.  I always went with her, because of the boys, and since they looked exactly alike.  Abigail didn't trust either one of them, she knew they had a mean spirit in them.

     We arrived at this very nice house.  In today standards it would be a wealthy family.  We were the first to arrive.  The host took me and our coats to a bedroom.  There is were Abigail said, “Stay in here until we get ready to go."  I sit on the bed and time passed, and the bed filled up with coats.  They had a maid who bought the coat to the door and handed it to me and I put it on the bed.

     Each time the door opened I could smell the food that the host had to offer her guest.  My stomach started to growl, and I kept getting hungrier and hungrier.  I tried to occupy myself, but it was hard with the stomach screaming for food.

     I jumped on the coats on the bed but couldn't really get on them.  The coats looked like they went to the ceiling, but they didn't.  If the coats had fallen off the bed, I would have to pick them all up, I didn't feel like doing that.  So, I laid on the floor and looked at the ceiling.  It was different then Mama’s and Abigail's.  There were swirls in it.

     Then I heard the women laughing.  Some of them must have been close to the door that came down the hallway.  I opened the door and looked out.  I didn't see anyone, so I walked quietly to the entrance of the hallway.  There was a table with a pot of flowers on it, at the left of me and a basket with a tree in it on the right of me.

      Everyone was quiet, and I could hear Abigail talking about the devil.  Abigail said, "He could be anywhere, he could be disguised as that plant over there."  Which was where I was at the time and at that moment, I hit the plant.  All the women screamed I took off running to the room.  I opened the door and laid down on the floor and acted like I had been in there the whole time.

     A dozen women came into the room looking for their coats.  They didn't see me on the right side of the bed.  After they got their coats, they left.  Everything was quiet again, so I tried my luck, once more.  I opened the door and looked, and no one was coming down the hall.

     I crawled down the hall this time.  As I came to the tree I stopped and listened.  The host was crying and telling everyone there, how hard it was since her son had committed suicide.  She said she had no idea he was taking drugs.  She paused and must have looked at Abigail and said, "Do you think that was a sign from him?"  Abigail said, "Let's not read too much in the plant moving."