Blood On My Hands

This story contains dialog about domestic violence, and is based on true incidents from the author's past. While these elements are integral to the narrative, they are handled with sensitivity and care.

Dear Diary,

I'm the worst person in the world. Tonight I tried to help her escape but instead just got us into even more trouble. This baby is so innocent. And I was really looking out for him more than anything as he's always used as a pawn.

When Mama first moved out, I hoped I'd never see Dad again. But soon he would be dropping her off, unconscious, beat almost beyond recognition. All crumpled up like a 98 pound ragdoll, in her little fake rabbit skin jacket and high heeled Candies.

Most times she is completely passed out and my guess would be a combination of too many drugs, too much alcohol and too many punches to the head. And my mother, a newfound saint, would take her right in to nurse her back to health, the same girl that broke up her marriage. I remember asking Mom one time why are you so nice to her? She ruined your marriage. And her response was “no baby… she saved my life!”

I would say why do you keep taking her in and getting her all cleaned up just to send her back? He's going to keep beating her until he kills her. It almost feels like every time he drops her off she's just that much closer. Two times ago she was out for two days. And as much as I hated her, I actually found myself worried about her.

My life was supposed to be easier when she came into it, not harder. I hated him ever since the day at the beach when mom opened the bathroom door while we were eating dinner and he was in the bathroom doing embarrassing things that a man his age should not have been doing with a girl that young. My siblings and I sat there with our jaws on the ground as mom snuck out the back door with a bottle to go think on the beach. That's a hell of a story and I'll have to tell it to you sometime.

Now I'm 14 years old stuck in San Antonio with the man I'd have never ever hoped to see again and the woman that took him away from my mom and I had been raising their baby for well over a year now. Now my little Jacob is two years old. And even though Jacob's Mommy and I fight like devils, I feel sorry for her every time dad would beat her to a pulp. And last night was no exception. The problem is I haven't seen her since last night and I know he caught up with her and we all know with my dad you could end up slapped, beaten, in a coma or disappeared forever.

It'd be wrong for him to cause her to disappear, after all, he pursued her, got her pregnant, took her to Mexico to marry her while still married to my mom. And here my mom with her fake bravado, barely 30 years old… With the smile of a muse, the eyes of a siren, the body of a princess and the heart of a queen. For all intents and purposes he was not trading up.

I picture her now that Sunday afternoon when Dad brought Brandy home after gathering all of his kids around the dining room table, and there was mom with that look on her face. As she was figuring out she had been second bested.

And dad must have built that girl up too because she walks in there like her shit doesn't stink. A scrawny, scraggly, runaway princess ready to usurp the queen. Both women are giving each other side eyes, and I'm looking at the smug look on Dad's face. He really feels special right at this moment, two women fighting over him.

And dad makes the big announcement that we now have two moms. I was a month away from my 13th birthday, where I would become a woman but can someone please explain why nobody told me I'd be bleeding profusely and did not have any idea what the concept of a tampon or mini pad was?

And there was Brandy with her big pregnant belly and her goofy looking hair and her smile with crooked teeth that lent her an undeniable charm. Dad was smitten with her, mom was jealous but shouldn't have been.

And Mom really saved the day because she did not go to Florida to clear her head like she said she was going to do. My mom went to Alief and rented a four bedroom house with a coworker, enrolled in real estate school, and was even dating a Houston Oiler for about a minute. My dad would no longer be hurting my mom, and he wouldn't be hurting me either. But Brandy, he would be hurting really really bad.

And it became a little bit of a pattern: dad would drop off Brandy, mom would bring her back to health, dad would dangle the baby to make her come back, she would go back because she wanted her baby and in a few weeks the cycle would start again.

So fast forward to San Antonio. I spend my days with the baby while they sleep. All day. Then they're up in time to get all dolled up to hit the gentleman's club that he managed by 9. They would get up, get high, have some dinner and spend about 10 minutes with me and the baby and my brother when he was living there too. Then they'd be off to the club and I wouldn't see him again till well after 4:00 am. He thought he was a really important jet setter but he was just dragging everybody around with him from party to party, club to club. I know she was getting tired of the beatings because they were no longer having fun. And she began talking about how tired she was all the time, literally exhausted. She was so skinny and so burnout she looked like she had cancer. She did have a form of cancer. My dad was a form of cancer. I began to feel like she had realized that the aggression was increasing and that he was going to go too far real soon. I remember I called the suicide hotline several times because I couldn't stand my life but I loved that baby, that baby was the reason I existed.

So here I am wrapping up another day spent with my baby… I just put his clean jammies on. I decided that night he was probably the cutest baby I've ever seen in my life.

A yellow cab comes flying up into the yard of the house, and almost crashes right into our sun porch. My heart was flying out of my chest and I realized I was in a protective stance over the baby and that's when I realized Brandy was running through the sun porch into the house screaming as she passed me… “grab baby's diaper bag. I need to be out of here in 5 minutes”…as she heads to her room to shove everything she can into an overnight bag.

So I see this as an opportunity for my freedom and for hers because in the end I wanted Jacob's life to be good and wanted him to have his mommy. I knew if she stayed with my dad too much longer he wouldn't have a mommy so I ran into his room, shoved a bunch of stuff in the diaper bag grabbed him, kissed him goodbye… thrusting him into her hands as she was running by me. She jumped in the yellow cab and it happened so fast they were gone before I realized. They were gone! My baby was gone… what was I gonna do about my baby…did I kiss him goodbye? Did I love on him? Did I look him in the eyes I tell him baby you'll be okay? Did I do anything? Did I just shove him into her arms?

Oh my god I'm gonna die! I’m so upset. I remember that as she ran by me she was saying in a panicked way…” swear, swear to me… swear to me you won't tell him!” Promise me you won't tell him?”

I said , " Oh, I won't tell him… I got your back! I want you to get away! I want you to live! I want Jacob to have a mother!”

That entire conversation went on between us without one word being shared, it was like a teenage telepathic thing. You just knew that the other one was saying what I just said. Yeah it was really cool to be able to tell her I had her back! I watched the taxi cab pull away and then 5 minutes later I was in the worst panic of my life because there was no way he was gonna believe me that I had no idea what he was talking about. But I had no idea where the baby was… I hadn't seen Brandy… this was just not realistic. He was a reverse psychology detective from hell. He could get any information from anybody he wanted…at any time. He could make you confess things that weren't even true because you wanted him to stop punching you.

And lo and behold, about 20 minutes later he comes flying up onto the grass in his black Trans Am. The high rate of speed forced him to slam the brakes to keep from going through the sun porch. He was in the house so fast it was sort of like how the creepy ghost moves in those scary movies from Japan. I didn't even get a chance to run for cover. The interrogation started right away with the reverse psychology, with the threats, with the promises, but he was hissing and completely out of control like a madman. And the spittle was flying off his tongue right into my face and the effect was absolutely terrifying because for just a split second I thought that was the moment I was going to die.

If you tell me where she is I promise you I won't hurt her. That's the only way I'm going to not hurt her is you give her up and tell me where she went and I won't hurt her. Tell me where they are and I won't hurt the baby. And now is when the evil started.

“Can you tell me you gave her the baby? You can’t tell me you helped her to escape? I won't hurt you if you tell me where she is.

“But see, Dad, that was just the thing. I had no idea where she was going because I didn't want to know where she was going because I knew where these interrogations went and I knew you wouldn't believe me, dad, I don't know. I don't know where they were going.”

“Oh so she was here and you're confirming that you did help her take the baby?”

And God the true nightmare has begun. I'm not sure if I even want to fight it at this point or just let him take me out. I knew that he knew that I had helped her get the baby out of here, but he was not going to make anything easy at this point, it was all going to become a giant mindfuck that would usually end with me begging for my life. And admitting to every wrong thing he was throwing at me even though most of the time none of it was true. Just to make it stop.

He stopped cold in his tracks and looked me dead in the eye and said "where is my baby, and I did the one thing he absolutely hates and is guaranteed to get punched for and I shrugged.

" So you're saying to my face you did not help her get that baby out of this house?”

I'm going to die now. There's no way out of this so I decided I was going to stand up to him and say yes I helped her… you were going to kill her eventually… I love that baby… she's like a sister to me now… I don't trust you… yes I helped her escape you… and that's exactly what I told him.

And he had one more offer for me. He said if you tell me what car she was in I won't beat you that bad and so that sounded like a fair deal. I mean it was a yellow cab, how are you going to track down the yellow cab in the heyday of yellow cabs. So I said she was in a purple cab and there were purple cabs too. She was in a yellow cab but I said she was in the purple cab and he jumped up and said “I'm going to go look for her now. And you better hope I find her because if I don't you're going to have to suffer the brunt of her beating and yours, if I find her at least the beating will be divided, won't be as bad.”

And I said “yeah but what about I told you what car she was in,”

He's shaking his head at me like you're an idiot.

I belt out in desperation, “DON'T HURT MY BABY!”

And he hissed back through clenched teeth,” well, I'm not going to hurt your baby, little girl! But you better be prepared because when I come back you and me we got business”

And that had to be the longest two hours of my life waiting for him to come back. When he comes back… He was holding baby Jacob tenderly. And he was dragging an unconscious Brandy by the back of her shirt and she was worse than ever, she had already paid a hefty price for that decision to run away and he was dragging her because she couldn't walk. She was wherever people go to pay hefty prices for their mistakes in Dad's world and it's a very far away place because she wouldn't come out of it for four days. The baby was unharmed… it was a male child… probably what saved him.

He told me he was going to throw her in the bedroom and for me to put the baby to bed. Then I needed to come out here and settle his debt with him. Anyway, I didn't care what my outcome was at that point. I was just tired and dead sleep…was still sleep. The baby was okay. Brandy may or may not be but I was too tired to think about that. I pretty much decided that if he killed me so be it. If he beats me to death, fine, I can stop calling the suicide hotline. I almost welcomed it… but I thought it would be nice to hold the baby a couple of times more.

Before he let me leave the room with the baby he shared with me how he was able to find them. Such as the conniving one, he called yellow cab and said he was a police detective with the San Antonio Police Department. He asked for their full cooperation because a woman had just stolen a baby, and they led him straight to the hotel where they had dropped her off… all the way to the door. He was so proud to say he knocked on the door and she answered it not expecting him. And he popped her so hard he broke her nose. This made me sick and I said a silent prayer to God while putting Jacob to sleep, that this baby would never know who his father was. That Brandy and Jacob got out safely someday soon.

I didn't even make it in the room with one word out of my mouth before he carried out my punishment. I will say he must have gone easy on me because it only was two days before I could walk and stop peeing blood. I longed for the opportunity of being dropped off at my mom's to be put back together again, but she was in Houston so I had to sit and heal while getting up with the baby and doing my motherly duties.

Dear Diary… It's so important that if something happens to me, I just want someone to know I really did want to help her get away from him because my baby deserved his mother and I didn't want either one of their blood on my hands.