Mama, Alton’s getting out of prison today,” Maybelle told her mother Emmaline with a sigh. Today was Little Emmaline’s fourth birthday. They had a big party planned for her.
“Ummhmm,” replied her mother noncommittally, wondering where her daughter was going with this conversation.
It was four years to the day since Emmaline’s son Jimmy rescued his baby sister from her husband, Alton. Maybelle and Little Emmaline almost lost their lives that day because of the beating Alton inflicted on Maybelle and by proxy, Little Emmaline. Thank God he hadn’t succeeded in his plans of doing away with either of her precious little girls!
Emmaline had to admit that her little namesake was a scrapper, that was for sure. Emmaline Ruth Johnson had come into the world fighting to keep her life. Every day she fought to show anyone interested that she was going to come out on top.
“Mama, Alton’s mom called to ask if Alton could come by to see me and Little Emmaline today. She says he is really sorry for what he did and wants to make it up to me and Little Emmaline,” Maybelle explained.
Emmaline thought back to that dreadful day four years ago when she and her husband arrived at the emergency room to see their daughter. Had their daughter-in-law not been in the ambulance with Maybelle, they would not have recognized their own child.
Alton had beaten their Maybelle so badly! Her face was a swollen mass of bloody pulp on her head. Her face, lips, and eyelids were swollen twice their normal size. Hair was pulled out of her scalp in various places in plugs, leaving gaping wounds all over her head. Blood was everywhere!
Everyone, family and doctors included, wondered how Maybelle could have possibly survived the brutality. It brought tears to Emmaline’s eyes just thinking about it. When her parents met the ambulance at the hospital, Maybelle was in severe pain and had lost much blood. Through it all, she remained conscious to everyone’s surprise. Upon seeing their daughter, Stanley and Emmaline cried, partly from joy that she and the baby were alive but mostly with anguish that Alton had beaten Maybelle so viciously.
“Honey,” she asked, forcing herself out of her reverie, “what exactly does Alton mean by ‘make it up’ to you?” She hoped he didn’t mean what she thought he meant.
“I don’t know, Mama,” Maybelle said hesitantly.
Since that awful day, Maybelle’s family had rallied around her and Little Emmaline and become fiercely protective of them both. When Alton’s parents came to the hospital to see the baby, Maybelle’s brothers made sure they were never left alone with Little Emmaline. When they requested to see Maybelle, Emmaline stood guard over her daughter with as much ferocity as a lioness protecting her cubs.
Finally allowed to visit with Maybelle for a few moments, Henry and Annie Johnson were appalled by what they saw. They found it hard to believe that their son could do what had been done to Maybelle’s body. Granted, Alton had changed since the incident in Nashville. They wondered if it was possible that he had changed this much.
“Mama, we’re not getting back together if that’s what you’re worried about,” Maybelle assured her mother who breathed a sigh of relief. “But I do want him to know that Little Emmaline and I are still standing despite his attempts on our lives.”
As they ended the call a few moments later, Emmaline thought about how much she loved hearing the strength in her daughter’s voice. After her stay in the hospital, Maybelle recovered slowly but steadily. She followed the doctor’s advice and never looked back. Emmaline watched her daughter grow stronger and wiser during the last four years. Maybelle had done remarkably well.
Maybelle returned to school for her Bachelor’s degree in English so she could teach. She finished her course work in two years while raising Little Emmaline alone. She never considered dating anyone because she simply didn’t want to be bothered.
Maybelle thought about what she and her mother had just discussed. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the little face peeping around the corner. She continued to stand at the kitchen sink as though deep in thought. She did not want Little Emmaline to know she had been found out.
Turning her back to the child as though to do the dishes, the shy little voice finally spoke, asking softly, “Mama, is my daddy coming over here?”
Maybelle didn’t keep any of the horrible details of that day from the child. Today though, she wished she had. She did not want her daughter tainted by what Alton had become after his experience. She neither knew what kind of attitude he had after prison nor was she willing to find out.
Although Alton’s mother said he had changed, Maybelle still remembered the worst beating she had ever suffered. She remembered the pitying yet skeptical looks in Alton’s parents’ eyes when they visited her in the hospital.
Although in a drug-induced haze, Maybelle never forgot the questions Henry and Annie asked her that day. When she and the baby were finally able to go home from the hospital, they had continued the same line of questioning as they prepared for Alton’s trial that sent him to prison for four years.
“Maybelle, are you sure Alton did this? What did you do to him? You know how much of a temper he has now after his incident, honey. Was he drinking? Did you say something to set him off? Honey, is Little Emmaline Alton’s baby? What other reason would he have for beating you like this?” The last two questions hurt Maybelle the most.
Maybelle would never forget those questions or the way they made her feel as her mother and father-in-law earnestly broached the subject with her. With time, the pain of the questions eased. Maybelle tenaciously went on with her life.
When Annie Johnson called her a week before, though, those same questions came back to mind. Maybelle forced herself to forget about them as she told Annie she would consider Alton being able to come and visit.
Putting all of it out of her mind for the moment, she turned to her pretty little chocolate drop of a daughter who came into the kitchen.
“Little Emmaline, I don’t know yet if we should allow him to come and visit us. What do you think we should do, sweetheart?” Maybelle asked her daughter. Little Emmaline closely resembled the father she had never met, the father who had attempted to stop her life from being.
Little Emmaline sat at the kitchen table quietly considering her mother’s question. In church since birth, this little one had wisdom beyond her four years, sometimes causing her mother to wonder who the Lord had given to her to be a mother over.
“Mama, why did Daddy do this to us?” Little Emmaline asked thoughtfully.
Discussing the incident before with her, Little Emmaline didn’t say very much. Much of what was told to her, she kept in her heart. A curious child who was often closed-mouthed about many things, Little Emmaline never had much to say.
“Mama, is he the same as he was before?” Little Emmaline asked seriously in her tiny voice.
Maybelle smiled gently at the curious little girl. She wondered the same thing.