Skyla's Stormy Days

Little Secrets Part 2
By Sugaree

Skyla's Stormy Days
Part Two

When Skyla heard her mother enter the back door, she got out of bed; careful not to wake her four-week-old baby sister she had been up with all night. Suddenly, she heard her mother hight pitched angry voice shouting. Skyla walked to the kitchen to assess the damage the children had left after their treat. An hour ago the kitchen had been spotless, just the way her mother commanded.
          Her seven younger siblings and her mother’s friend’s three children wanted ice cream. Thinking this would be a way to calm them for a minutes rest, she let the oldest, Sabrina, serve. Skyla decided that while they were eating and her baby sister was sleeping, she would take a much needed nap. She told the oldest that they could have some ice-cream under one condition; that they cleaned the kitchen back up.
          “Ok, ok! Sabrina, the eleven-year-old shouted excitedly then rushed to the kitchen to serve the desert, Skyla recalled.
          Skyla could tell by the tone in her mother’s voice and by the fact that her mother had company with her that she was in serious trouble. She started explaining to her mother that she had cleaned the kitchen to no avail.
          “Bitch, didn’t I tell you to clean the gottdamned kitchen before I left?” her mother shouted.
          “Yes, Momma, I did. They wanted ice cream and I told Sabrina to straighten it back up once they were done. I guess she forgot,” Skyla tried to explain. “those are just the ice cream bowls, Mamma.”
          Skyla’s mother’s ears were closed to rationalizing or even analyzing in the front of her company. Skyla was aware of how her mother acted when she had company.
Her mother continued shouting obscenities. In Skyla’s defense, Deana, her mother’s friend said, “Eloise, calm down. “Those are just ice cream bowls.” Deana looked at Skyla sadly because she knew that her friend was not listening to her.
          Skyla could also tell that her mother had been drinking. Her mother did not listen to her friend and continued shouting the profane language irately walking towards Skyla.
          “Bitch, don’t you hear me talking to you?” she said as she struck Skyla across her face with an open hand.
          “Yes, Ma’, I told you that I did! She shouted.
          “Bitch, who are you raising your voice to? I will fuck you up! Her mother continued, ignoring all reason. She drew her hand back to strike her again but Skyla’s boyfriend had walked in during the quarrel. He grabbed Skyla’s mother’s hand, stopping her from another lash to his girlfriend’s face.
          “You don’t have to do that, Terrell said to Skyla’s mother. She is coming home with me. For good!” He let go of her mother’s arm, staring her in the eyes, a nonverbal warning not to move. He grabbed Skyla by her arm, pulling her away from sixteen years of abuse. Skyla was too nervous to move, but her feet walked anyway.
          Terrell opened his car door and guided his scared stiff girlfriend into it. Skyla sat in the seat motionless with heavy tears dripping her sad and bruised face. She was not sure what was going to happen from that point, but she knew that she felt relieved and would never return to the horror house she had once called home.
         She watched as her siblings, at least the ones old enough to understand, cry as they backed out of the driveway. Sabrina cried the hardest because she had forgot to clean the mess back up. Skyla was sad for them, but at the age of sixteen, she did not know what to do to save them from the torture their mother was inflicting upon all of them, especially her.
         She had considered calling Child Protective Services several times but feared even more abuse at the hands of strangers. She also knew that they would be separated since there was so many of them.
          Terrell drove them around until Skyla was calmed. He stopped the car for a while to talk about what had just happened. “Well, I what do we do now? You know if you go back there, she is going to beat the daylight out of you.” he sighed. You will just have to go home with me. I have told my mother how your stepfather tries to have sex with you already. She loves you too and did not like what was going on in there. She probably wont mind you staying with us,” he said, searching Skyla’s face for an answer.
          Skyla’s hands were shaking. She was also ashamed of the fact that she had been having sex with her stepfather. She never told Terrell the full story. She never told him how she knew that he was going to have her whether or not she wanted it and that was why she did it. She felt like she would be able to buy herself things she needed with the money she earned from him. Her eyes were blank as she stared off into the vacant lot where they were parked. She watched the little children playing in the yard across from the lot, thinking about her own little sisters and brothers. Her tears resumed as she thought of how they were going to live without her care. Reality soon struck her about her own fate as well. She wondered if her dreams of finishing high school and college were over since she would have to finish raising herself. She was not sure if she should return back to her home in Grambling since she had escaped the scrutiny of a small town scandal that revolved around her cousin’s suicide.
          Skyla was more confused now than ever before. She wasn’t sure if she should just go back to her mother’s house and endure the beating. They sat silently for a while until Terrell broke the silence by telling her that he was taking her home with him. Skyla was relieved and scared simultaneously.
          Terrell drove into his driveway. Skyla’s heart was racing. He got out of the car, went to Skyla’s side, opened the door, and pulled her reluctant thin frame out. She walked slowly into Terrell’s mother’s house where she sat reading the newspaper in the living room. Mrs. McAuthor looked at the pair and knew that something was wrong. She waited for her son to explain the look on his face.
          “Mamma, you know what I have been telling you about how Skyla’s mother treats hers? Well, I just couldn’t take it any more. Please let her stay with us for a while until we figure something out,” he asked.
          Mrs. McAuthor looked into Skyla’s tear stained face and told her that she was welcome to stay.
          “You two are not married so you will have to share the room with Sasha,” she explained. She bad felt as if she was imposing on her daughter that was one year older. She must have sinced that Skyla felt like that and reassured her that Sasha was fund of her as well and would welcome her company. She walked over to Skyla and hugged her. This tenderness provoked another flood of tears in Skyla. Mrs. McAuthor led her down the dimly lighted hall to her bedroom where they sat and talked until Skyla stopped crying.
          “I have loved you like my own daughter since the day I met you. I knew something was wrong, just couldn’t put my finger on it, Mrs. McAuthor spoke softly and sincerely to Skyla assuring her that she was welcome in their home. Well, Terrell will be leaving for the Marines in two weeks. You are still welcome to stay,” she continued.
          Skyla smiled and thanked God silently. She thought about the fact that she hadn’t grabbed her still packed suitcase and did not have any clothes or personal items. She started thinking about being a burden on the family not having anything to contribute. She realized that she would have to search for a job.
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          The days passed slowly as Skyla adjusted in her new home. She found a job since she was out of school on summer break. Terrell had left for the boot camp and would not be able to send money for six weeks. Her new job as a waitress in the nearby plaza was walking distance. Since the restraint served alcohol, she had to lie about her age in order to get the job. She said that she was eighteen. The resturant owner flirted with her and did not ask for identification.
          Skyla only lived a few blocks from where her mother lived. She was able to get her things when her mother left. Her siblings cried as she gathered them and begged her to stay. She hugged them and told them that they could visit her. She gave the oldest the number to where she was staying.
“Call me when Mamma is not going to be here and I will come to visit you all,” Skyla said as she hugged her sister goodbye.
          On Skyla’s first day at work, she was told that she would have an hour lunch on her full days. She noticed that all of the grown folk would sit and smoke cigarettes. She had never smoked before but decided that she should so that she would appear grown too. She recalled a billboard for Virginia Slim cigarettes with a beautiful lady accompanied by the handsome Billy Dee Williams. She went to the cigarette machine choosing that brand and sat to take her needed one-hour lunch. Since she had no prior experience with smoking, she smoked the entire pack within the hour. When she stood to resume working, she fainted.
          Skyla came to as the owners and some customers patted her face with cold towels. She was embarrassed as the owner said to her, “I was wondering why you were smoking those cigarettes back to back like that. You lit one with the other,” he laughed. That is when Skyla realized why they were looking at her so strangely. She thought it was because they were admiring her adult like behavior.
          Skyla collected her daily pay before leaving work that day. While she walked home, she made to call her grandmother. She was sure her grandmother was worried about her. She stopped at a payphone to call her grandmother collect. Her grandmother was elated to finally hear from her. She told her that she needed to come back home to Grambling. Skyla finished her conversation and walked home with tears streaming down her face from the joy of love she felt from her grandmother.
          Only three days had passed since she talked to her grandmother when she looked outside to see her car parked out front. Skyla thought that she was dreaming as her grandmother walked up to the door of her new home. She ran to the door, opened it and cried profusely in the wraps of her loving grandmother’s arms. She had driven eighteen hundred miles from Grambling, Louisiana to Markham, Illinois to get her.
          Mrs. McAuthor smiled at the lovely union. She had known that Skyla’s grandmother was coming for her but kept it as a surprise. Skyla packed her belongings and said her goodbyes and appreciations to the family. They left but not before stopping by her daughter’s, Skyla’s mothers, to see and say goodbye to her siblings. The children were very happy to see their grandmother. They stayed a while waiting for Skyla’s mother to come home from the bar in the neighboring town. The ice between Skyla and her mother was there, but null in the presence of her own mother.
         Skyla went into her former room to finish getting her remaining items. Her grandmother sat and talked to her grandchildren. Skyla took a last look at her former home, knowing that she would never reside there again as a child. They left within the hour for the long eighteen-hour trip back to Louisiana.
         Skyla was fairly quiet on the trip as she replayed in her mind all the events that led to this day. She recalled how she was forced to sneak away from the McAuthors and sleep with a man that wanted her for exchange of much needed money. She recalled how she went back to her mother’s house and demanded money from her stepfather. She told him that she would tell how he had been forcing her to have sex with him for money since she was fourteen years old. She recalled the day he started having sex with her and wanted to hysterically cry.
         Skyla closed her eyes pretending to be asleep. She could not bare to share that information with her grandmother. She envisioned the day her stepfather, Gill, walked up behind her as she fed one of her younger siblings. He had been drinking all night and reeked of the stale stench. Skyla thought that he was just passing through on his way to another room when he stopped behind her and grabbed her breast. She didn’t know what to do. She was only thirteen and was still angered by the incestuous relationship with her birth father for as long as she could remember.
         Skyla looked at him with venom as he ravished her well developed breasts in his rough construction worker's hands. She was so furious that she positioned the fork in her right hand then stabbed him in his chest.
         He grabbed his chest and stared at Skyla in disbelief. He left her alone and went to tend to his flesh wound. Skyla recalled telling her puppy love, Marcel, about the incident. He was so angry that he made plans to catch her stepfather coming home one unsuspecting evening and beating him with a bat.
         Her grandmother pulled into a gas station to refill. This stop broke her trance that was draining her of all the little self-dignity and esteem she had left. Her grandmother told her to wake up and use the washroom since there would be no more stops during the long stretch through the southern parts of Illinois. She was not sleep, but pretended to stretch as though she had been so not to explain why she had not been talking to her grandmother. As she entered the small dirty washroom, she broke into a hysterical crying fit thinking about her life. A knock at the washroom door startled her back into reality.          She shouted through the metal door, "I'll be out soon." She washed her face attempting to straighten herself up so that her grandmother would not be able to tell that she had been crying.
         They returned to the car after the short break. Skyla decided not to go back into that horrifying trance of memories. She talked to her grandmother a while about irrelevant things just to keep her company as she drove the distance. Soon she did drift off into actual sleep.
         Skyla was awakened by the nightmare that nearly drove her out of her mind. She had continued where she’d left off thinking about the day she had to stab her stepfather.
         She remembered how her mother had come home in a drunken stupor that evening. She was afraid that her stepfather would do what he said which was tell on her for stabbing him. He did. Skyla’s mother called out to her to come to her room where she was laying naked next to him. She asked Skyla why she had stabbed him. Although Skyla feared her stepfather’s threat to tell that she had boy company if she told on him, she told her mother the truth.
         ”I stabbed him because he grabbed my breast while I was feeding the baby,” she said angrily. Her mother turned to look at her husband and asked him if he had done this.
         ”Naw’ Eloise, she is lying! He said looking at Skyla with threat in his eyes.
         ”Yes you did! You wouldn’t stop so I stabbed you! She shouted at him.
         ”Well, you don’t stab him no more and you don’t touch her no more,” her mother stated then turned over to go to sleep, but not before dismissing Skyla from her room.
         Skyla was hurt and furious. She went back into her room and cried all night long till the baby woke her up. She staggered into the kitchen to make her baby sister a fresh warm bottle, changed her pamper then rocked her back to sleep. She started feeling that strange way she used to feel when her father played "tickle" with her. Skyla started thinking about the way her mother handled the situation. She walked into the kitchen, grabbed a long butcher's knife and went towards her mother’s room. Skyla stood at the door until tears rushed her thirteen-year-old face, for the third time that night. The sound of the baby cry startled her waking her from the floating trance like feeling. She regained her composure yet still wanted desperately to kill her mother for not protecting her, again.
         ”Skyla, baby, wake up! You are having a nightmare,” her grandmother shouted to her while still driving. Skyla woke to find that she was safe and that she had not killed her mother.          She was having a hard time distinguishing reality from her dreams lately. Skyla felt like she was loosing her mind but was too afraid to admit it thinking she would be put into a mental hospital.
         She closed her eyes back, turn her head away from her grandmothers’ view and cried again.
         It was daylight when they arrived home. Some of Skyla’s friends were sitting outside and rushed over to welcome her back to town. She laughed and talked to them. Her close friend came in to see what Skyla had brought back from the city. She helped her unpack and put her things away. She waited for Skyla while she took a much-needed shower. Again, under the excessively hot streams of water, Skyla cried in the agony of her life, wondering why she had been chosen to live such a nightmare.