Cut Too Deep (13 page)

The doctor’s low voice lured Hadley into the murkiest reaches of her consciousness, to a place where her memories were no longer clouded by years of manipulation, a dreadful place where she hoped to recollect exactly what happened the night she lost her parents.  Did she truly want to remember? She’d led her life purposefully, steering far away from the darkest moments of her childhood. That night, she willingly raced toward her memories in a dead run. For what?

Answers?

Answers to what?

Why she was incapable of love?

Why she avoided friends?

Why the dark terrified her?

Her mind usually smacked into a wall before Hadley could recall everything from the night that left her traumatized and abandoned. Her inability to remember is what guided Dr. LeClair to suggest regression therapy, although she still doubted if she actually believed it would work. She’d always considered hypnosis a myth you heard about as children.

Despite her guarded skepticism, Hadley went into the appointment with an open mind. She would attempt anything, no matter how far-fetched it seemed, to figure out why life continually worked against her.

Hadley’s heavy eyelids blurred her vision. The lights dotting the ceiling multiplied from a few to hundreds before her eyes finally fell closed. As though the back of her lids were a movie screen, her old room appeared exactly as Hadley remembered it. Her pink comforter with lime-green polka dots dressed up her old rod iron day bed. A shiver jolted through her when she noticed the peeling ivory paint she used to chip away at when her parents sent her to her room. Every horrifying detail awaited her under that bed. Her mouth opened slightly when she heard a voice. It was her voice, but it was also someone else’s, someone fragile, scared, and alone.

Together, they remembered the night eighteen years ago that forever altered their life.

Somewhere, down deep in the pit of Hadley’s soul, she knew this day would come. Her eight-year-old mind understood, in most homes, parents didn’t fight to this degree. Children didn’t have fathers who abused their mothers. Kids her age didn’t know the meaning of the words her father spit at her mother when he raged. He’d come home late from the bar. Her mother didn’t like it, and she had the gall to tell him.

Hadley covered her ears, accidently slicing her cheek with the kitchen knife clutched in her tiny hand. She couldn’t scream, only absorb the searing pain in her cheek as a dull ache traveled slowly though her body. Fear wouldn’t allow Hadley to let go of the knife, terrified she might actually have to use it. Each warm drop of blood that trickled down her cheek etched a reminder of why she was afraid. The metallic drops stung her tongue as they entered her mouth.

Her father called her mother a cancer, telling her how she was slowly killing him because she wouldn’t behave the way he expected. Her mother tried hard. Hadley did too. Mother and daughter attempted to act the way he wanted, but his expectations always changed. They never knew exactly what was right or wrong. Though they wanted desperately to please him and do the right things, they could never make him happy.

Her mother cried out loudly and begged him to stop. Their voices lowered. Mumbling transitioned to complete silence. The sudden quiet worried Hadley. Were they okay? Did they leave her? It felt like forever, but an instant later, her father’s booming voice made her jump. She hit her head on the metal springs supporting the mattress. Her hair tangled in them. It hurt when she tried to pull it out. Finally, she reached up with the knife and sliced her hair free. The long brown strands stained with blood from her cheek stuck in the springs and dangled in front of her face. Her father would disapprove of her cutting her hair. He would yell at her later.

The windows in her bedroom rattled as the train passed. Hadley welcomed the noise as it drowned out the yelling coming from the room next door. When she was small, the shaking walls scared her and kept her awake, but she’d grown used to the sound. The noises from the train came with living on the Brighton line and had become expected, much like her arguing parents.  Before long, the train passed, and she heard them yelling again.

Tears continued leaving her eyes at a furious pace. Her entire body shook violently. Snot and tears mixed in the back of her throat and burned when she swallowed. The pounding of her heart thumped loudly in her ears. Hadley wanted to help her mother, but terror rendered her frozen. She curled up in a little ball under her bed and cried.

Her father would say she was a coward.

Hadley would believe him.

She was deathly afraid of him and angry at her mother for letting him abuse them.

With another loud smack, her mother’s screams pierced her ears. He hit her again, no doubt he left another purple bruise on her face. One she would cover up with makeup and pretend wasn’t there. Her inner scars could never be concealed. They showed themselves in every silent tear she spilled when he wasn’t home.

Careful not to cut her face again, Hadley reached up and covered her ears, but it did nothing to drown out the screaming. She rocked and hummed, but their yelling only grew louder. When she removed her hands, she heard her mother shout something she never heard before. Her mother told her father to get out, yelled at him to leave and never come back. If he left, this nightmare would finally end. Her mother would smile again. It felt wrong to want her father to go, but he hurt them.

He didn’t hit Hadley like he hit her mother, but he kicked her, pushed her, and called her names, awful words—bitch and cunt. She wanted him to love her, read to her, act like her friends’ fathers. He never did.

His words were no longer recognizable. Hadley knew spit escaped between his teeth. She’d seen him this angry before when her mother left the house. He always said they were not allowed outside because he wanted to keep them safe, but Hadley knew it was so no one saw her mother’s bruises, or asked questions. They weren’t permitted to have friends or go to their neighbors’ homes.

The last time he was this angry, her mother stayed at the hospital for a few days.  A lady came to speak with Hadley the next morning. She knew what to say to the woman from family services.  Her father prepped her well for the visit. She made sure to tell the woman how her mother fell down the stairs. The woman asked her the same questions again and again, but Hadley stuck to her story to make her father happy. He was. He said he was proud of her.

The door rattled as a loud thud vibrated the walls of Hadley’s room. A passing train didn’t bring about the quake this time. Someone in the next room hit the wall. Feet pounded up and down the hall. Her father screamed her mother’s name “Helena” over and over followed by frantic pleas of “no” and “why”.

Fear gripped hold of Hadley and squeezed tightly. She swallowed her cries and tried to yell, but continued to choke on her anxiety. Her fingers curled over the cold plastic of the knife handle, barely holding on and trembling with fright. Her mother wasn’t answering her father. He stopped calling Helena’s name. The alarming silence grew thick. The only noise was the racing beat of Hadley’s heart.

He would be in her room soon, telling her what to say to the policemen when they came. Hadley didn’t want to lie. He hurt her mother. She wanted to tell someone.

Hadley hated her father.

“Hadley…Had.”

Her father’s muddy work boots taunted Hadley from the doorway. His voice soothing, the one he used when he needed to talk to her about what he expected, how she should act, and what she should say. He knew he did wrong. He would say he was sorry, but he wasn’t sorry. If he were sorry he wouldn’t keep doing these things to them. He would tell her mother she was beautiful and take care of them properly.

“Had, honey, please.”

His voice, still calm and controlled, urged Hadley to come out and talk to him. She couldn’t. Fear held her hostage. Why wasn’t her mother coming? Where was she?

“Hadley…Had…sweetheart. It’s okay. It’s Daddy.”

Her ‘Daddy’ was precisely why she stayed hidden.

His boots marched toward her, clumps of dried mud dropping to the carpet with each step. “You little bitch, I said get out here! We have to go!”

His voice crashed through the air like thunder as his hand reached under the bed. He drug Hadley out from under the bed by her hair and lifted her into the air like a rag doll. She tried hard to fight—kicking and clawing at him with her free hand, the other still desperately clinging to the knife.

“Had, calm down! Listen to me,” he shouted, but Hadley ignored him and continued struggling. His palm landed on her cheek with a smack, the same one she’d cut with the knife, and she winced, a whimper leaving her mouth like a scolded puppy.

Oh, my God! He hit me.

The painful sting felt like a burn. Her voice caught in her throat. Unable to scream, Hadley started kicking him more forcefully.

His giant palm rose in the air to strike her, again. Fear guiding the way, Hadley stabbed the knife into the side of his neck and pushed with every ounce of strength she had, twisting and turning, until he finally released her. Blood stained her hands. She wiped it off on her flannel pajama dress, smearing bright red streaks everywhere. His eyes, big and haunting, glared at her as streams of blood seeped out around the steel blade and dripped down his neck. He stumbled one step back.

Hadley stood in front of her injured father. Her jaw hung open. She waited for him to hit her again. She’d made him angry. She should run, go far away so he couldn’t hurt her, but her legs were frozen in place.

His big hand, full of thick fingers reached up for the handle on the knife. He slowly withdrew the blade from his neck. It dropped to the floor. His mouth opened slightly as gurgling and coughing sounds rumbled in his throat. Blood poured over the wall of his bottom lip and ran down his chin. As he fell forward, his arms wrapped around his daughters small body and he collapsed to the floor, taking her with him. He sucked in a quick breath of air as he released the words Hadley longed to hear from him her entire life.

“I love you, Had.”

My father loves me.

He loves me.

“I love you, too,” Hadley cried. “I love you so much. I’m sorry I was a bad girl, Daddy.” With his heavy weight pushing into her, she struggled for a full breath. Her nightgown stuck to her, wet with blood and warm against her skin. “Daddy?” He didn’t answer. He wasn’t moving. “Please, Daddy, say something.”

Oh no! Why isn’t he moving?

Hadley pressed her shaking fingers to his nostrils and held her breath. Still as a mouse, she waited for warm air to leave his nose. She felt nothing.

Oh, God! Where’s my mother?

Panic engulfed her. She needed to find her mother.

Will she still love me? I killed my father. Will she forgive me, or will she be mad at me? Will she hate me forever?

Hadley pushed her bare feet into the floor, dug into the carpet, and wiggled out from under the heavy weight of her father’s limp body. He descended the rest of the way to the floor, his head hitting with a thud.

Quietly, she tiptoed to her parents’ room. Through the inch wide opening of the door, she peeked through the crack. Her mother lay on the ground next to the bed, a puddle of blood pooling at her head. Her eyes were half open. They didn’t move toward Hadley’s voice when she called her name.

Hadley pushed the door open and rushed to her mother’s side. She curled up against her mother, brushing the long brown strands of hair from her face.
It’s like my hair.
Her mother told her all the time. Her mother’s cheeks were swollen into her eyes. Her father’s fists did that to them.

Hadley rested her tiny palm above her mother’s heart. Her chest didn’t lift and sink beneath Hadley’s fingers.

Why isn’t she breathing?

She pressed her ear to her mother’s breast, listening for a heartbeat. Hadley didn’t hear anything, but knew her mother would be okay.

She has to be.

She can’t die.

Hadley decided to stay with her mother until help came. She couldn’t leave her. Her mother would need her daughter when she woke up.

She reached over and grabbed her mother’s heavy arm, draping it over her body. Regardless of if her mother knew she was there, Hadley needed the comfort of her embrace.

Help would come soon. It had to. Her eyes were heavy. Hadley tried to hold them open, but didn’t have the strength, and she drifted to sleep.

It would be okay.

“Mommy…Mommy,” Hadley Walker screamed through her cries from the hard couch of the doctor’s office. Suddenly suffocating and gasping for air, she heard herself shouting. The room went black. She no longer saw young Hadley or her mother. “No! Goddamn it, Had!  Why don’t you save her? Don’t just lie there. Get up and do something!” She screamed at her eight-year-old self to do something, anything to save their mother, because she knew how much their life sucked without her. They needed her. The life that awaited them was black and dirty and undeserving of love. Their mother was the light they needed to live and be nurtured, to avoid the travesties of a life in foster care. “Get the fuck up, Had!”