Living in the projects is miserably oppressive at times, but I saw plenty of people succeed. My parents just weren’t those people. They were swallowed up by it. After that last arrest my mom was locked up for ninety days. She came out completely sober, and you know the old cliché—she had found God. She told me we were leaving, to pack up whatever I could before my father got home because we were getting out of there. The clergyman in the prison had found us a shelter sixty miles away and had arranged a ride for us. She told me she was tired of protecting my father. At the time I had no idea what she meant. It seemed like my father was doing just fine taking care of himself. It was the two of us that needed protection. I was so happy to be leaving that place, and my mother was like a new person. She got a job at the mall next to the shelter. A few months later we transitioned from the shelter to a place of our own” Piper gulped back the lump in her throat.
“That was the closest to normalcy and contentment I had ever experienced. We didn’t have to worry about my father’s beatings or ripped-off drug dealers coming to our house on a vendetta. I thought I finally had a chance at a real life. We lived that way for twenty-one months and twelve days.” Piper wanted to look over and see what type of expression Bobby had on his face. Was he horrified? Sad? Maybe he didn’t believe her at all. Either way she couldn’t bring herself to turn toward him. She carried on with her story.
“Then my mother came home one night from work high out of her mind. She had fallen off the wagon. I had suspected it for a while, but I couldn’t bring myself to believe it. She told me she had made a mistake, that in a moment of weakness she had called my father and told him where we were. She said he was furious and that we’d need to leave as soon as possible before he came to get us. I couldn’t believe after all this time, after all the hard work, my mother would be so stupid and selfish. We packed our duffle bags and gathered up every dollar we had in the apartment, pulling even the loose change from the couch cushions. It didn’t matter though, we weren’t fast enough. There was a loud thumping on our door, and I heard my father’s voice booming in the hallway. I thought we’d get the beating of a lifetime and have no choice but to return back home with him. Unfortunately, it was worse than that.”
There were warm tears rolling down Piper’s cheeks now. She could feel them forging itchy paths on her face, but she didn’t wipe them away. If Bobby was going to insist on hearing this then he could deal with the consequences of what it did to her.
“My mother finally opened the door and without a word my father cocked his fist back and punched her across the face. She fell backward onto the floor and was disorientated. I pressed myself up against the living room wall, feeling like a helpless child again. I thought about grabbing a knife from the kitchen or the baseball bat from under my mother’s bed, but my father was too strong and too fast for me to take such a chance. I had resolved to endure the thrashing and beg for mercy as my mother was doing on the floor. But my father changed the game, he pulled a large metal spike from his jacket, and my mom shrieked in a way I had never heard before. She begged him not to do it, she begged him to let her live. I didn’t know it then, but my mother knew exactly what my father was about to do. He struck her again in the face with his fist and then pinned her down by sitting on her stomach, his back to her face so that he could hold down her legs. He raised the spike over his head and plunged it into her thigh. He yanked it back out and blood, an ungodly amount of blood, poured out of her. I did nothing. I didn’t scream or run over to her or try to stop him.” Piper choked back her quivering voice.
“I stood, still