24
The storm’s gale force winds left Jon and Carlie’s living room a soggy mess, covered in leaves, debris, and mud. Downed tree branches, barn shingles, and even the odd piece of frog-green lawn furniture littered the front yard.
It was well past lunchtime when Jon and Carlie finally ventured from the security of the stairwell closet.
The first thing that caught Jon’s attention was the organized chaos of the living room. There was, of course, the destruction caused by the storm itself, but there was also the mess that wasn’t due to the wrath of Mother Nature. The pounding on the closet door didn’t seem to be due to anything storm related. The journals—not all of them, just specific ones—were scattered on the floor in front of the closet door. The rest had been hurtled against the far wall.
The carpet was drenched from the deluge of rainwater. Glass shards and soggy leaves were scattered on the rug between the window and the couch. However, that was where the brunt of the actual storm damage seemed to end.
With his arm wrapped firmly around Carlie’s shoulder, Jon pulled her protectively against his side. He walked her carefully through the mess on the front room floor as if he were guiding a blinded soldier through a live mine field.
Head down and eyes diverted, Carlie allowed Jon to maneuver her to the base of the staircase before she managed to wriggle out of his grip and run up the stairs. Slamming the bedroom door behind her, she turned the lock and sat down on the edge of the bed.
Amazed by her reaction to what she had just experienced, everything inside of Carlie screamed for her to have a nervous breakdown. She felt that she should at the very least cry, but she couldn’t.
Jon understood the fight-or-flight instinct that Carlie was struggling with; he felt it too. He had two choices: give in to it, and retreat back into the stairwell closet, roll himself into the fetal position, and give up, or buck up and mindlessly go about the job at hand, cleaning up the living room and fixing the window.
Miraculously, he chose the latter.
Jon was, admittedly, a neophyte when it came to any kind of construction work. Standing in the barn, his father’s voice still echoed that all-too-familiar code of carpentry: “Measure twice, cut once.”
Some twenty 4' x 8' sheets of ¾-inch plywood had been left behind when the construction was finished, and boarding up the window seemed pretty cut and dried. However, after three failed attempts, he was grateful they had left so much plywood behind.
He really had no idea what he did right the third time; the wood just happened to fit perfectly into the hole. It was almost as if someone else had done the work for him. A couple nails to hold it in place, and he was well on his way to being finished.
After cleaning up the mess he had made with the window patch, he ventured back into the house to assess the rest of the damage.
Carlie hadn’t come downstairs yet, so before he started working again, he needed to make sure she was all right; he didn’t want to alarm her with the noise he was about to make.
Finding the bedroom door closed didn’t surprise him, but finding it locked did. He could understand the fear she was feeling when she retreated to the security behind a locked door, but what Carlie didn’t seem to understand was that a locked door was no defense against Mother Nature—or the things that go bump in the night.
Knocking on the door, he got no response. He waited a minute and then knocked again. This time he could hear Carlie—or someone—stirring around in the bedroom. He heard the bed squeak, and then he heard footsteps. He waited, but Carlie still didn’t answer. In a panic, he was just about to throw his shoulder against the door when he heard the faint click of the lock as it turned.
Reaching for the door handle, he watched as someone turned it from the inside. The door whispered softly across the carpet as it swung inward. Jon expected to see Carlie standing in front of him. However, she wasn’t—in fact, no one was.
Stepping into the room, he saw Carlie—or what appeared to be Carlie—lying on the bed with the comforter pulled up tight around her neck.
He could see her mane of auburn hair sticking out at all angles from the end of the down bedspread, but he couldn’t see any movement.
Stepping to the edge of the bed, he reached down and gently touched her shoulder. She moved restlessly for a few seconds, inhaled deeply, and then exhaled softly, settling back into a deep, peaceful sleep.
Jon checked the bathroom and the closet, but he didn’t find anyone there either. He really didn’t expect to—and he was glad that he hadn’t. After checking on Carlie again, he left the bedroom and softly pulled the door closed behind him.
As he started down the hallway, he heard the soft click of the bedroom lock as it snapped into place.
It had to have been well after midnight when Carlie awoke from a restless sleep. She was freezing. Her hands and face were numb from the cold. She could actually see her breath billow in the pale flickering light of the candle on the table next to her bed. The fire in the wood-burning stove had burned itself out again.
One thin cotton blanket would never stave off the cold of an Iowa winter, nor could one single log heat the room for an entire night.
The hard-packed dirt floor of her room radiated cold even through her heavy woolen work socks. As she made her way through the dimly lit room to the door, she held her breath, praying he had not locked it tonight.
With apprehension, she touched the handle. Slowly turning it, she held her breath and waited.
Pulling the door open just a few inches, she peered around the edge. No one was standing in the hallway waiting for her. Pulling the door open the rest of the way, she was overwhelmed by the glorious heat that radiated from the living room fireplace.
She strained her ears to hear any sound that would send her scrambling back to her room, safe again behind the closed door. But there was none.
In stocking feet, she crept silently down the hall. A quick peek showed her that the living room was empty, lit only by the glow of the roaring fire. Wrapped in her thin little blanket, she padded across the floor and sat down cross-legged in front of the warmth of the fireplace.
Finally warm and comfortable, she nodded off to sleep.
At first Carlie heard the baby crying in her subconscious. When she finally realized what she was hearing, she jumped up to run back to her room, but it was too late. She could hear footsteps coming down the hall. The only path back to her room was blocked.
The stairwell closet was only a few feet away, so she slid across the wooden floor, turned the handle, opened it a few inches—just enough to pass through—then pulled it silently closed behind her.
From the oppressive darkness of the musty closet, Carlie held her breath and waited.
The coats and boots in the closet reeked of cow manure and sweat. Carlie could barely breathe in the enclosed space. Afraid she would pass out, she lowered herself to the floor and wrapped the blanket around her tiny shoulders and face.
Outside, she could hear the sound of the giant maple rocker as it ground against the wooden floor, the same rocker that he had made for her mother years earlier. She listened intently to the baby as it nursed. The soft, gentle sounds of the infant sucking accompanied the soothing voice of its mother as she sang an old religious song.
Carlie sat patiently in the dark. She was sure that eventually both mother and child would fall asleep, or they would go back to their own room. All she had to do was wait.
Falling asleep, Carlie’s head slipped off her hand, snapping her neck forward. Wide awake now, she had no idea how long she had been sleeping. She listened for the sounds of the mother or the infant and waited until she felt that it wasn’t safe to wait any longer. Standing, she opened the door just enough to see the rocking chair. The woman and the infant were both there and appeared to be sound asleep. Still wrapped in her cotton blanket, Carlie tiptoed across the living room floor toward the hallway.
When she was next to the rocker, the baby made a soft snorting sound that caught Carlie’s attention. Pausing, she caught a whiff of lavender soap and chamomile-scented powder. Carlie stopped and watched as the baby sucked gently on his mother’s exposed breast.
Carlie knew she needed to go back to her room. However, for some reason, the sight of the mother and her child fascinated her.
The mother opened her eyes to find Carlie standing in front of her. Carlie’s eyes widened, knowing the woman was about to scream at the top of her lungs, waking everyone in the house.
Except she didn’t; she just stared at Carlie with a questioning look on her face.
Carlie was thankful for the reprieve, so she made a mad dash down the hallway to her own room and closed the door.
Carlie wasn’t sure if her room had actually warmed up or if she was just scared, but it didn’t matter anymore. She jumped back into bed, covered up, and, in a matter of a few minutes, was sleeping soundly.
Carlie awoke to an accented voice whispering softly in her ear. “Wake up, you little motherfucker. It’s time to die.”
She opened her eyes just in time to see the massive fist as it crashed into her face.
There is a state of consciousness that lies somewhere between fully alert and complete unconsciousness. This peculiar state was exactly where Carlie found herself. She instinctively knew that being dragged backward by the hair hurt. She also knew that she could feel the pain of having her head and shoulders slammed into every wall they passed. However, she knew instinctively that she didn’t feel it anywhere as bad now as she would later—if she survived to have a later, that is.
Carlie heard him cussing at her, cursing the day she was born. She recognized the voice. It wasn’t the voice of her normal tormentor—it was the voice of her eldest brother. His wife must have told him about last night, watching her and the baby as they slept. That’s what this beating had to be about.
Carlie couldn’t talk, or she would have told him that it wasn’t what he thought. She’d only wondered what it would have been like to have a mother who loved her—what it would have been like to have a mother hold her and sing to her.
The last thing Carlie remembered was how it felt when he kicked her on the side of the head.