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Some time later, I woke up in a soft bed with Arthur’s mother looking over me. She was mopping at my forehead with a wet cloth. When she saw my eyes flutter, she leaned back and breathed in. She called out to Arthur, and he was standing in the doorway less than a second later.
“I think she’s going to be okay,” she told him. He came straight to my bedside and held my hand. Jonnie was seated on the other side of the bed, fast asleep with her arms crossed and her head resting peacefully on them as a cradle. “I offered her a room and a bed of her own, but she refused. She wouldn’t leave your side.” Arthur’s mother smiled at me, and it was filled with something besides kindness. I looked harder and tried to see past the pretense. She was harboring pity for me!
“I’m fine,” I told her and tried to get out of bed. I could barely breathe, and it hurt to even think about moving.
“You’re not fine. You have five broken ribs, a broken arm, and a fractured skull, and I have no idea how you were still walking with that cut on your back. What happened to you?” She glanced at Jonnie. “We asked her, but she refused to tell us.”
“That’s because she’s been told all her life that she’s not allowed to talk about it with strangers. But you’re not strangers to me. My mom’s husband did this.” Jonnie crossed her arms angrily.
“Your step-father?” Arthur’s mom grew upset.
“I don’t call him that. He’s never been any sort of father to us. He’s just her husband is all.” I wanted to explain but I didn’t think she would understand.
“But why would he do this to you?” She mopped a bit of blood from my lower lip.
“I was late coming home.” I winced, both from the pain of my lower lip being touched and from having to admit I’d been so violently treated for such a minor indiscretion. Arthur bristled.
“I'll kill him,” he growled. “That’s it. I’ll just kill him.”
“Don’t talk like that, Arty,” his mother soothed. “I’m sure you and your father could go have a conversation with him to straighten things out. Do you know where their house is, or will you need the little one to take you?”
“I know exactly where it is,” Arthur stomped.
“Don’t you go doing anything dangerous or illegal,” she prompted. “Take your father and go have a word with the gentleman. That’s all. A word. Nothing more. Understood?”
“Yes Ma’am,” Arthur agreed to appease her. I could see murder in his eyes.
“Better yet, call Bobby in here to help care for our patient, and I’ll go with you myself.” She looked back to where I was, and there was more concern than pity this time, but I feared for her safety.
Arthur collected his younger brother Bobby from the other room. Bobby was studying medicine as an apprentice to the local doctor and knew some basics of medical care. I had no doubt he’d do just fine taking care of me, but I wasn’t sure that was what I wanted. I wanted Arthur. I wanted his mom to stay at the house and be safe. I wanted the whole thing to be a bad dream. I wanted to go back in time and never walk to Arthur’s house the night before. Everything was going wrong.
Everything, that was, but Jonnie. When she woke up, she and Bobby became nearly inseparable, and I witnessed the first sparks of love between them that day. They couldn’t get enough of one another, very much like Arthur and myself. It was beautiful.
It was nearing late afternoon, and Bobby had brought food to me when Arthur and his mother returned home. Bobby and Jonnie went outside to pick fruit from the tree as though they both feared what would come from Arthur and his mother. The two entered with hushed voices amid the deep discussion. Moments later, Arthur’s father joined them, I could hear the three of them discussing something privately but growing louder by the minute. Suddenly, Arthur shouted out that he didn’t care what they thought He knew what he wanted. I sat bolt upright in bed, terrified of what this could mean. Arthur came rushing into the room and sat beside me on the bed. He took my left hand in his, patted my ring gently, and whispered low.
“Don’t listen to anything they have to say, you hear me? Don’t you dare listen. It’s not true, and even if it were, I wouldn’t care. I love you, you got that?”
“Yes, of course, but I don’t understand -”
“Of course you do,” his mother growled directly at me. “You’re a gold digger.
“Excuse me?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “I certainly am not.”
“You’re a gold digger, and you only want to marry Arthur for his money. And that won’t ever happen. I’ll never let you marry my son, not in a million years. You hear me?” I was stunned. The worst night of my life rolled directly into the only thing that could ever have been worse.
“I’m not a gold digger. I love Arthur with all my heart.”
“You love his money. I want you and your little gold-digging sister to get the hell out of my house right now. Go back to that white trash family of yours. You deserve that life.” I couldn’t understand what I’d done to deserve these words from a usually emotionless woman I’d known for nearly two years. It didn’t make sense to me, and I figured I’d probably never completely understand.
“I don’t deserve that life. Nobody deserves that life. And my sister is only sixteen. She doesn’t even know what a ‘gold-digger’ is yet. I don’t know what happened or what was said to you, but whatever it was, I can promise you it was a lie. Willie did this to me, my mother tried to defend me, and he punched her, and Jonnie got me here after everything.”
“They didn’t lie to me. They just told me the truth. They told me what you’ve been doing with my son and why you were so late last night. They explained that you only wanted Jonnie to come with you to introduce her to my next son, trying to set him up with a gold-digging wife, too. Willie didn’t beat you because you were late. He beat you because you were being a tramp, sleeping around, and corrupting my boy!”
I could feel my jaw fall open. My eyes narrowed. How could anyone say such things? Arthur and I had been going together for almost two full years and he only just asked me to marry him. He was my best friend and my most loyal companion. He was everything I never knew I needed in my life. He was the only love I’d ever known aside from Jonnie. How could anyone ever say that I had corrupted him? How could anyone say I only wanted him for his family money? I didn’t care about his money.
“I don’t care about his money. I don’t even care about your money. It means nothing to me. I love him, not his status.” I fought back, tears stinging in my eyes.
“Stop filling our heads full of lies, and just leave. Before I call the police on you.”
I pulled back the covers on the bed to reveal my battered and severely bruised legs. My lungs wouldn’t fill with air all the way.
“Arthur, can you get Jonnie for me,” I asked him.
“No, you’re not leaving.”
“Your mother will call the police, and to tell you the truth, I don’t even want to be here anymore. Please, just get Jonnie.” Reluctantly, Arthur headed out of the room and went to find my treasured sister. I fought my way to my feet and squared nose to nose with that horrible woman. “Don’t worry., Once my sister and I leave, I’ll never be back again.” I felt brave saying the words, but they terrified me. I had no idea what that meant for the future. I turned my engagement ring upside down so she couldn’t see it and kept my fist balled up tightly.
She seemed to waver only a moment before regaining her composure. Perhaps she feared losing her son for having turned me away so harshly, but the weakness didn’t remain long. She squared right back up to me, though several inches shorter, and merely pointed to the door. It was one of the longest walks of my life, the night I walked to Arthur’s house covered in blood. But it was the most painful walk of my life, leaving that house that day.