Nighttime Fireflies

          She was all of six or seven, eight at most, with a world of worry sitting on her shoulders. The days were full of light from the bright yellow sun, sweet summertime adding joy to each day. The nights would consist of pitch-black skies with fireflies swarming all around, guiding the way. But this was not the case for sweet young Janice. Her days did not have a big yellow sun that would shine bright onto her face, nor did they have pitch black nights lit up with the golden of the fireflies nearby. 

                  Her days were consumed by worrying about what was to come that night and her nights consumed by worrying about how to get out of that night. The nights that momma had to work were especially bad for her, those were the nights the fireflies did not show up, instead the devil did. She would watch her mother get ready for her overnight shift and have slow streams of salty tears hit her lips as she began to think of previous nights that started like this. Her mother never knew, she couldn’t tell her. Besides he told her that if she did that she wouldn’t believe her and that she would think she was trying to steal her husband.  So, Janice was quiet tonight, just as she was always quiet. 

                  He was a monster. One that married her mother several years earlier. The biological father of her sister Karen. He never bothered Karen, she was his, so why would he? He never interrupted her much-needed sleep that a small child having school the next day would need. Instead, he would come, and he would get me, take me, and not give me back. The things that happened cannot be imagined by the normal human mind. I mean monsters only do that to another person, a child, their child. 

                  Night after night I would be removed from my bed, the very bed that I shared with my little sister. He would carry out his master mind plans on how to steal innocence from a child, something he had no business in doing. I remember waking up every morning, not sure if I had slept at all or if I had passed out finally. Each morning, I knew it was the same time because the same song by the same artist would be playing on VH1. Real McCoy Just Another Night. I hated this, this was a song that I loved and now I had to associate it with living hell. 

                  But time moved on, and the insults grew larger. Everyone but momma knew what was going on inside the house. My half-brother James would know when his dad would wake a drunken mess in the middle of the night, stumbling and knocking on the walls, all just in hopes of making his way to me. James would barricade my door, telling his dad to go back to bed and to leave me alone. This would not come free; the smacks and punches could be heard against James’ skin through my wood paneled door. I owed him, he protected me, he did what he could to salvage me another night. 

                  Karen would protect me too. She loved her dad. She really did. But she did not understand why he was doing what he was doing to me. So, she developed a plan that would surely stop her father from being able to lift me up out of our shared bed. Packed in like sardines, Karen took a belt, a black belt with tiny holes for fastening, and she wrapped it around our arms, intertwining the belt repeatedly until there was no belt left to use. On these nights we would remember Karen’s belt trick would work and he was not able to come and remove me from our bed. She didn’t know it then, but I was eternally grateful to her and owed her a piece of me forever. 

                  Not only was I his vicitim, but momma was too. Too often he would use his fist to meet her face or push her downstairs using her hair. I remember so many times us crying and begging her to leave but she would always go back. I couldn’t ever understand why she would do that but then again, she didn’t have all the information that I had that could make this case very simple. Finally, one day she left. She did it. She just left. We didn’t have much, but she took us and what little we had, and we started over. 

                  She filed for divorce and when Karen found out that he wanted to split custody of her then she spilled the beans on what he was doing to be every night that momma was not home. I was scared. I was mortified. I didn’t know what to say. I felt like I had lied. We went to the police station the next day and Karen told them what she knew, and I told them what he did to me. In more detail than any 8-year-old girl would’ve liked to go into. 

                  So, they went to court. And his side of the family stated I made it up because mom wanted to win custody of Karen. But what type of person would be able to make up such awful, torturous details that occurred? It was a long fight. I was nervous for Karen. Not because I thought he would hurt her too, but I thought her life would be consumed with getting back at my mother somehow. 

                  It dragged on and dragged on, until it didn’t. At my sixth grade DARE concert mom and Karen had some news to share with me. I remember walking down the aisle and seeing lockers, blue lockers, and windows here and there.  My classroom was at the end of the hall with double glass doors leading to the outside. That’s when they said it. 

                  Mom told me there was an accident. That he and James had both been killed in a terrible car accident. I wept for James; I was confused for him. I wasn’t sure what to do. I just wanted to go home and get away from this school. And that’s where we went. We went back home, and mom immediately turned the news on which showed the crash and both of their pictures. The car was being chased by police officers, hit a metal guardrail, flipped in the air, and slammed into a tree. The news also showed nothing but beer cans at the bottom of the floorboard, easy to determine they were most likely drinking. 

                  I was not allowed at the funeral. Only Karen. We were allowed at the funeral home at a special time to say goodbye. As I entered, two brown caskets were all I saw. No faces, no bodies, nothing. They weren’t allowed to open caskets due to the damage to the bodies. I was relieved about this; I couldn’t see him again. I couldn’t face it. And I had done nothing wrong. I couldn’t face James; he had done nothing wrong. So, Karen went to the service, where they talked. But both and how wonderful of human beings they were. Where they had to thaw the ground to place his ice-cold body six feet down from where it belonged. There was no closure. Or was this closure? 

                  The summertime now had the joy of the bright yellow sun shining on her face and the nighttime was lit up with bright yellow lightening bugs.  A feeling she had never had before.