Child's Eyes

The silence in the house was deafening. I was snuggled deep beneath the caves of my sheets and Beauty and the Beast comforter. My door was snugly secured before I entered the fields of my dreams.

I remember being shaken awake by my mother. She was trying to hide her frantic fear behind a mask of calm. But yet she still grasped my arm and dragged me out of bed.
Mommy? What’s going on? I asked, my fists wiping the sleep from my eyes.

“Just stand there. Hush now,” she’d said.

So I stood there, shivering in my blue pajamas, with teddy bears playing baseball all over them. The shirt had the teddy’s face on my tummy, a sideways ball cap perched on its head. These were my favorite. I huddled with my sister and little brother, unsure why Mommy was so upset. So angry.

The he came home, worn leather cowboy boots crunching on the gravel of the driveway. His face was a mask of anger, of pure hatred.
“Give me the fucking keys, Vanessa.”

I heard them arguing, their rising voices echoing the darkness. Why was Mommy crying?
Smash.

I remember the window shattering as steel fist connected with glass. Blood ran down his arm, and droplets decorated the grass. It painted a picture on the blue, wooden screen door.

“Go! Get the fuck out of here, you bastard.” Mommy tossed a patchwork kitchen towel at his snarling face.Fists snatched the keys roughly from her outstretched hands. Even at that age, I knew he would have liked to break her fingers.

“Fuck you,” were the last words he spoke. I knew then, even at four years old, that I would always be left standing on the edges, watching his retreating back.

He stalked down the driveway, cursing her and cursing us, the towel masking his bloodied hand.

Like it was our fault.

He left us standing there, shivering, and scared, on the edge of our lawn. Mommy was shaken up, her fists clenched, but she tried to pretend everything was okay.
To protect us.

My sister wailed into the night.
“Shhh, Baby, it’s not your fault. You’re okay,” Mommy silenced my sister.
She knelt then, her knees on the gravel, and wrapped the three of us in a bear hug.
Like her arms were the armor, the fortress against the evil of the world. She would do anything to shield us from the pain thereafter.

I stood there, my tiny fingers rubbing her back. I hugged her with everything I had. But still I stared over her shoulder at the driveway, where the blue Caddy should’ve been. My blue eyes searched the darkness for any sign that we was still there.
I was greeted by emptiness.

My heart broke then, a gouge larger than my murmer growing rapidly. I was already born with one hole in my heart, but he, he’d created another one. He would never kneel before me, as Mommy did, and wipe away the tears from my innocent blue eyes.