Stormy with a chance

‘Don’t you remember? I do. It was a day for dreamers. I stood at the Belfast sink and watched the late spring sun shimmer across the field of rapeseed. The field sat in front of this pretty 2 bed cottage, turning the white washed walls yellow when the light hit it right. It was the thing I loved most about it. Yellow ruffled and danced with the breeze that day. You danced too. A tighter squeeze for you, inside my cramped belly. Hardly any room left for you now. The faded red A on the mug I was rinsing caught my eye. A for Adam. I scrubbed it hard to try and make the A disappear. As if it would be that easy. To wash him away. To carve away the dented bones, sooth my soul. It was the only piece of evidence left that he had been in my life at all and you of course. This life that grew inside me, this chance to begin again. The mug slipped from my hand and smashed as my cell buzzed loudly against the oak top counter. It was just you left now, the best of him.

‘Do you hear what I’m saying to you?, he spat. The smell of whiskey turned my stomach and added fuel to the fire sparking in his dark brown eyes. His black hair stood on end, morphing him into a  monster in my 7 year old eyes. ‘Yes Dad, I hear you’. It didn’t matter what my response was, it was coming, like it always did at the weekends. Things went black for a little while after the 2nd punch but I’d come round. My mother whimpered in her almost passed out state on the couch, blood trickling down her face, a deep gash on her limp, dainty hand. It dangled over the scuffed leather couch she’d never wanted. She’d sworn that the time before this was the last and the time before that. As he swung unsteadily to grab something I was sure I didn’t want to see, I ran. Into the angriest of storms. The wind whipped at my long blonde hair, thunder shook me and the rain drenched my tiny frame in seconds. I had no clue where I was going but I wasn’t stopping. I awoke the next morning with golden straw scattering my hair and a donkey nuzzling my cheek. I’d made it to the old barn about a mile from home. ‘Thought I might find you here’. My mothers slender frame appeared in the doorway. The morning light lit her short blonde hair golden, turned her black bruises blue. There was something about the way she stood that morning, unfurled, alive. ‘I’m sorry honey. I’ve thrown him out. It’s taken care of, for good this time’. It was there in her voice. I didn’t recognise it then but looking back I see what it was now. Certainty. I never saw my father again.

It was Adam’s eyes. They had me from the start. Always searching, never finding. The saddest blue eyes I’d ever seen. Like when he’d opened them for the first time, a turbulent sky dripped in, spread and then settled, like food colouring seeping into water. But that’s the thing with turbulent skies. You never quite know when a storm is coming. 

The first time he hit me, it came from nowhere. We were 8  months in and his charm had me hooked. We’d had a little too much to drink and I disagreed with something trivial he’d said. In an instant, his eyes clouded and he slapped me so hard across the face, I fell backwards onto the red tartan couch. We’d just gotten it the day before. We were filling up each room one at a time, starting with the lounge like he’d wanted. Maybe he was right, I probably should have agreed with him so that’s what I began to do. Until I’d lost who I used to be and what I believed to be true. I told myself it was different to when my dad did it. That I was fully aware what was happening and wouldn’t let it happen again, until it did. He was always so apologetic afterwards. The scent of baby pink roses permeated the walls,  my moms favourite too. Their sickly sweetness makes me nauseous still. The bruises were never as bad as hers. Light blue like the 2 lines that appeared in the pregnancy test window 6 and half years in. His eyes stopped searching for a while. The marks on the outside healed  and when they did, I’d allow myself to look at my reflection. Who was this thing staring back? This depleted, defeated creature, bereft of hope, stripped bare of dreams, of joy. I deserved this because he told me I did and I let him, did nothing to stop it. I was the vermon who threw itself in front of their hunter, to get a tiny taste of heaven before being eaten alive. I would never be or do enough. The humidity made my cotton dress stick to you that night. The smell of summer rain drifted on the breeze when storm clouds started to rumble in the distance. He said I’d laughed too hard at the barman’s joke, was looking for it. I saw it then, burning in his eyes. Thunder. He punched me, right in the stomach where you lay. Trying your best to grow, a single red poppy through the weeds. I clutched at the fire in my belly. My heart told me you were safe in there but this fire was a force, a match thrown onto the driest of hay. It engulfed me and I ran. The rain did nothing to quench it as the wind whipped my short blonde hair this time. I dived into the car and stamped on the accelerator. I saw you for the second last time then, blurring into the storm clouds as they mingled with the gravel ones.

The moment I saw it, I knew it was right for us. This 2 bed cottage with pink roses growing around the door. The ones I tore down as I crossed the threshold. This smaller room, perfect for a baby boy. I step over the ceramic remains of him and pick up my cell. ‘Are you ready sweetheart?, my moms soft voice  on the line. ‘I am,’ I say with a certainty that takes me by surprise. The flawless sky watches as I drive on auto pilot to see Adam for the last time. Numbness sits heavy on me. I try to feel but nothing stirs. My mom stands waiting, her face awash with sorrow. She is furled again. ‘I’ll let you have a moment with him’, she whispers. His eyes are closed. His chest is still. His hands are powerless now. The venom dry in his mouth. I feel a spark inside then, jumping from the dying embers, trying hard to reignite me. It had been my fathers own gun. She’d kept it ever since that night. ‘I’ll take care of it from here,’ my mom urges, ‘I remember the spot’. Before she turns to go, she catches my hand and places hers on top of mine, dainty still but with a strong, steady grasp. We say nothing but I can see it in her eyes. The unspoken words that only those who have seen thunder can understand. I gasp as that first contraction catches me unaware. 

Don’t you remember? I do but you won’t. It’s a day for dreamers. When nightmares end and dreams come true. I place you down in the hospital cot, swaddled in your blue blanket. ‘There’s a storm coming,’ my mom remarks, glancing out the window, then reaching tenderly for you. I tell myself it’s the reflection from the window as I see it in your eyes.