Emmaline, we don’t want you to go into the military, honey,” Maybelle Johnson tearfully pleaded with her daughter. She trailed behind her daughter as she went through her bedroom, packing a few of her belongings to go to boot camp at Fort Jackson, South Carolina.
Emmaline had looked forward to this day for a very long time. She wanted to hurry and get out of Charlotte. Her mother didn’t understand all she had gone through, all she had endured here in her hometown.
Maybelle knew neither of the rape that fateful night two years ago with Bobby Joe Hall nor of the resulting pregnancy. Emmaline had been drugged and raped that night following the Thanksgiving dance. Two months later, she’d had an abortion from the night that should have given her the best memories of her life. All she had to remember of that night were nightmares.
Neither did Maybelle know anything about Emmaline being viciously picked on most of her life there in Charlotte. Emmaline had never told her parents of the emotional turmoil she had suffered from people she had known all her life. Her parents never knew that once people discovered she was the daughter of Alton Johnson, she was rejected and ridiculed on all sides. She could never hold her head high because of that incident.
“Nobody wants you, Em-zilla,” she was told.
“Your own daddy didn’t even want you,” they ridiculed her.
Because of rejection and ridicule, Emmaline had been forced to run home many days. She never told her parents about it. She didn’t want their pity. Although all these things had driven her almost to the point of suicide many times, something always held her back.
Emmaline looked at her weeping mother. Since her dad had passed away from a heart attack a year ago, Maybelle Johnson had not been the same. She loved her children rightly enough. Sadly, something prevented her from giving them all her heart. It was as though her heart had gone to the grave with her beloved Alton.
Maybelle never mistreated Emmaline, Cardrina, or AJ. She simply spent so much time doing good for everyone else. It was as though Emmaline, Cardrina, and AJ were afterthoughts for Maybelle.
“Mom, I’ll be right at Fort Jackson for twelve weeks for training. I’ll do all my training there, both basic and advanced. I’ll try to make sure I get an assignment to Fort Bragg if I can when I finish so I’ll be close to home, Mama. I promise.” Emmaline knew in her heart that she was lying to her mother. She had already decided that her first assignment would be in Europe, Germany, so she could put as much distance between her and Charlotte as possible.
There were so many things Emmaline wanted to tell her mother but couldn’t find the courage to say. Bobby Joe’s rape two years ago after the Thanksgiving dance was only one of the things she wanted to tell her about. The whole date thing had all been a game, a plot, to shame her and Sonora, her life-long friend.
They were both raped that night. Sonora had also gotten pregnant that night. Like Emmaline, Sonora never told her parents what really happened. Her family shipped her down to Georgia to get her away from the shame.
When her mom and dad questioned Emmaline about that night, she was too ashamed to tell the truth about what happened with Bobby Joe. Her dad had questioned her, trying to get her to open up. He knew there was more to what she had told them but didn’t pressure her. Emmaline had honestly wanted to open up but something stopped her.
After Alton had the first of three heart attacks the next year, Emmaline wanted more than ever to confide in her dad. Instead, she allowed the abuse from her classmates to continue because she didn’t want to cause her parents any more worry. She didn’t know how to stop the abuse and couldn’t see a way out of any of it.
When Alton finally succumbed to heart failure in November of 1976, Emmaline was devastated. She couldn’t take any more of the anguish she was forced to endure in school. With her dad’s untimely death, she now didn’t have a champion even if she chose to tell her dad about her struggles.
She was finally going to tell her dad what had been going on when he died. She was going to tell him how she had become a scapegoat of sorts at school because she wouldn’t and couldn’t speak up for herself because she felt so worthless. Ugly, black, skinny—Emmaline felt she was worthless to everyone around her, especially to her family—mostly to herself.
Although her grades would have given her a scholarship to any school of her choosing, Emmaline started looking at the different branches of the military. She decided she wanted to get away from Charlotte for good. There was nothing but heartache for her there and she wanted out.
“Mama, don’t worry about me. You know I’m a fighter. I’ll make it,” she promised her weeping mother as she finished packing her bag. As her recruiter was picking her up in fifteen minutes, Emmaline said a brief goodbye to her brother and sister.
Cardrina had fallen into the same trap as Emmaline. Regrettably, the trap had ensnared her. Cardrina was five months pregnant and had quit school at the age of fourteen. She wanted out of Charlotte, too. She had begged Emmaline not to leave her there. Emmaline felt she could do nothing but leave her younger sister and her family so she could find a life for herself.
When Emmaline knocked on Cardrina’s bedroom door, the door swung open to reveal the pregnant young girl lying across her bed bawling her eyes out.
“Em, please don’t leave me here!” Cardrina pleaded frantically. “I don’t want to be here anymore!” Cardrina begged.
Emmaline looked pityingly at her younger sister. If there was a God, she could probably thank Him for allowing her to get an abortion after she was raped. Poor Cardrina didn’t realize she was pregnant until it was way too late to have an abortion. She was stuck with an unwanted child. Emmaline had neither needed nor wanted a child, especially one born of rape, just like she was.
But Emmaline doubted if there was really a God. Look at what happened to her parents. Just when things were going well for them, her dad died. He was only forty-nine or so. It just wasn’t fair.
Emmaline went to her sister’s bed and sat down on the edge. She took Cardrina’s hand and rubbed it the way she had done when they were little and one or the other was frightened of something.
“Drina, I got to get out of here. Girl, it feels like I’m drowning,” she confided in her younger sister. “I hate Charlotte and most of the people that live here. I am sick of the Hell in this place. I tell you what. No matter where I go when I finish training, I will ask Mama to let you come and live with me. OK?” Emmaline offered her younger sister. She loved this one that looked so much like her. It was almost like looking in a mirror whenever she looked into her face.
Cardrina brightened up when Emmaline made the offer. “You will? You promise, sister?” Cardrina asked, hoping against hope that she would also be able to leave Charlotte.
Cardrina had been raped several times as well. She knew that no one would do anything about it because, as had always been said, she was ugly, black, and skinny just like her older sister. And just like Emmaline, she had spent most of her school-going days running home all the way from school from bullies and the pretty people, those who thought they were all that. She was tired of Charlotte, too.
“Yes, Drina-Mina, I’ll have you come and live with me,” Emmaline promised her sister. Surely in this world there was some place for those who were not as pretty as the pretty people. Surely …
Emmaline heard a horn blow in the driveway. It was probably Master Sergeant Cloussen, her recruiter. She hurried to AJ’s room to say goodbye to her little brother. He sat up on his bed when she came into his room and wiped at his eyes so she wouldn’t see the tears he shed because “Sister” was leaving him.
“AJ, I’m leaving now,” she said softly. She looked around his room so he would not be embarrassed.
AJ leaped off the bed and threw his arms around his sister’s neck. Both of them speechless, they hugged as though they would never see each other again. Emmaline cried in her heart for the family she would miss when she went to the Army. But it couldn’t be helped. Every time she rode around town and looked at some of the places in which she had suffered abuse, it caused her to relive those moments again and again. Sometimes, she felt she would go crazy from the memory.
“AJ, I’ll see you in about eight weeks for basic training graduation. Grandpa Stanley already promised to bring the family down to Fort Jackson. Don’t worry, squirt, you’ll see me again. I’ll even call home when I can. OK?” Emmaline promised her brother, trying not to let the tears fall from her eyes. It was hard. She and her brother and sister were closer now than they had ever been before.
Emmaline loosed her hold on her little brother and turned toward the door to his bedroom. “Hey, squirt. Take care of Mom and Cardrina for me, will ya?” she asked as she walked through the door, not waiting for an answer.
Emmaline hugged her mom, her best friend in the whole world. Emmaline knew how much her mother cared for her. She had proved it before Emmaline was born by shielding the unborn Emmaline so her late husband couldn’t kill both of them.
Emmaline had heard all the stories and had loved her mother unconditionally and beyond measure all these years. Leaving her was not easy. But it was something she would have to do in order to maintain her sanity and find her identity.
“Mom, I love you with all my heart,” Emmaline said, finally sobbing at the thought of leaving her beloved mother. “Mom, I have to do this. Please understand,” she begged Maybelle.
Maybelle pulled back to look up into the eyes of her wonderful first-born child. Maybelle knew there were things that had happened to this young woman, things she could do nothing about. All she could do was let her go.
“Go, child. Do what you have to do. My love will go with you. Even more importantly, God will go with you, Emmaline Ruth Johnson,” Maybelle said, knowing her daughter didn’t believe in God the way she did. Since her daddy had gone home with the Lord, Maybelle had felt Emmaline pulling away from the Lord. She continued to pray she would find her own relationship with God. She knew only He could keep her safe.
Emmaline grabbed her bags and went out the front door of the only home she had ever known. She saw the faces of her brother and sister as they looked out of the windows facing the street. As Master Sergeant Cloussen put her bags into the trunk of the car, Emmaline turned to face the house. She lifted her hand in a short wave before she got into the car. Today was the first day of the rest of her life.