Samantha

I’m sorry I failed you. And I have continued to fail you after you are gone. You are the hole in my heart that continues to bleed. I pick at the scab almost daily. Keep it bleeding so I’ll never forget. Like hitting my head against a wall as long as there is a bruise, as long as there is pain there I promise I wont forget.

You were my responsibility. I adored you, adore you still, adore your memory and hate you for leaving me. I sit here unable to see my computer screen through the tears. How many hours have I spent gasping for breath, desperate to change something in our lives. Just to be able to hold you one more time, to study every feature in your face because the horror in my mind is losing you bit by bit.

My biggest betrayal was of you Sammy. I have lied to people about you. Told people, not many, but one is too many to betray you….. Told people I was an only child. And deep inside part of me ripped open at the awful hideous thought that I wish I had been. I wished once that you hadn’t been born. I hated you for needing me. For being too inadequate to be what you needed. I remember the nights when he came into my room and you stood behind the doorway and peeked in and saw him hurt me and how you would run to your closet until you knew he was passed out in the livingroom. And sneak back in and curl up in bed with me. I hated that you clung to me. And I loved you for it.

You were so little, so cute such a brat. I had no idea what you needed, I had no idea what I needed. So many days I woke up and the only motivation to keep going was your damn insistence on toast with peanut butter. To this day, I can’t deal with that smell. It turns my stomach and takes me back to when you were 5 and I was 8. you were so independent. You would refuse to hold my hand when we crossed the street. You refused to clean your room. You insisted on putting your shoes on the wrong feet and wore all my clothes. I will never forget you screaming at me… you’re not my mom! And how I would scream back that I was sure glad of that. Then you would collapse in a fit and cry and beg me to tell you stories about her. Stories I made up because I didn't remember her either. So I told you stories that made her out to be strong and beautiful and gentle and she always saved us and she never left us. That she was actually in a foreign land where she was the queen and we were princesses and she was rebuilding her country and soon we would get to go live with her. And we would never be away from her ever again. And we would have servants to make your toast and clean our rooms. And he wouldn’t be there… ever. And it was never night and we had guards to keep us safe and when it stormed outside, we could run to her room and crawl up in her huge bed and brush her long hair and she would tell us stories about the war she fought to save her kingdom. And we would fall asleep in her arms feeling safe and loved.

But it was my arms you fell asleep in and I’m sure you never felt safe, though I hope you felt my love for you, through the frustration and squabbling. I’m sorry that I couldn’t make that dream come true for you Sammy. I’m sorry it was just another lie. I’m sorry I failed you so miserably. I’m sorry I never learned to French braid your hair like Mrs. Harris did.

I miss you. Are you out there? I’ve looked. I’ve tried Sammy.

How I hated knowing you saw me begging him not to hurt you. Seeing you biting your fingernails not sure how to respond. It all worked so well. Maybe it was mom…. That he told me I looked so like her, that he didn’t somehow want to hurt you. But I knew that some day, in a rage you would be in his path at the wrong time. He lied to so many people about us. Our lives were like that fairy tail I would tell you about mom, except… they never seemed to turn out right. This shadowland of running, moving when he got in trouble, going to school, being pulled out, having no friends, no contact. It was like a storm building.

I remember when it hit. I see it everynight in my dreams. Every night. I can smell the pizza and hear him screaming at us to shut up and go to bed. I remember fighting with you over using too much toothpaste and dropping it all over the sink. I remember you spit at me and I slapped your face. Will that forever be my last memory of you? Slapping you? Telling you I hate you. You’re such a baby, you don’t do anything right! Those words ring in my ears. Stomping off to bed. It seemed like years that I heard him walking down the hall. I got used to playing dead, acting sick, pretending it didn’t hurt, separating part of my brain from the rest of me. But when I heard him say your name and walk past my door, my heart stopped. I went cold inside. I had no idea what to do. I ran out my room and into the kitchen. I didn’t even have the intelligence to grab a decent knife, just a stupid little vegetable knife, the first sharp thing my fingers touched.

What was I thinking? I dont ever remember making a decision, I dont ever remember wondering how to approach the situation. I dont remember wondering what would happen, I dont remember anything but flying into a rage. Running into your room and throwing myself at him. I wonder if that makes me like him, that rage I felt inside. Was I capable of driving that knife into him? I never even thought about it. I have thought since then, with regret, that I had not gotten a bigger knife. If only I had gotten a bigger knife, if only I had the strength to sink it into his neck. If only someone else would have done it for us. If only mom would come back from her foreign land and take us home and keep us safe. If only he had killed me years before and spared me the pain of this night.

I remember the shock in his face, one of the few fleeting moments of power I ever felt, was knowing that I had stunned him. His little beaten dog had gotten the nerve to rise up against him. But the feeling drained out of me fast when I realized I had his full attention.

We had explored this new/ old house when we moved here 3 months before, having run from some mystery problem that father always had. Why did we tell him about the cellar outside behind the shed? He told us not to go there, which of course meant that was the first thing that we did. It was exciting to explore a new, dark hidden place. More exciting because he told us not to. But there was really nothing to the room but shelves that lined one wall and crumbled cement blocks scattered around it. It wasn’t nice enough or big enough to be a secret play place, it was just an empty room that we never went back to… until tonight.

I had learned early on, that the more I screamed and thrashed, the more excited he became, so that I got very good at lying still and being quiet. It was a benefit for him, that I never rocked the boat, never woke the neighbors. But tonight I was raising the roof. Maybe it was years of feeling his hands on me and seeing him reaching for you, that sent me through the roof. Maybe it was none of that but just that black blinding wave of terror that he would do to you, what he did to me.

I saw the rage in his eyes turn briefly to panic and he clamped his hand over my mouth to shut me up. So vivid that whole scene, so much of my past blanked out, why do I see this in stark detail? What force of nature hates me so badly that I remember all this so well, where I have forgotten other less painful details? I could smell the beer on his breath and smell the motor oil on his hands. I bit him and even remember tasting the tinny iron blood from his fingers. It was his turn to scream and he knocked me across the room. When he dragged me kicking and screaming into the garage I wondered what you were doing, back there in your bedroom. Or did you follow at a distance, wondering if you should watch or run? I know you didn’t follow us outside to that cellar, because I looked back for you and never saw you. In fact for years now I have desperately searched my mind for my last glimpse of you. I dont even remember seeing you in your bedroom when I attacked him. My last glimpse of you is in that bathroom with toothpaste dripping from your mouth, me slapping you and saying things I’ll eternally regret.

He taped my hands and legs and tied me to one of those shelves. He came back in and threw blankets on top of me. And he must have kicked me in the head, or hit me hard enough to make all the lights go out.

Why is it that after that…. After all that hell, is the time that is blank in my mind? I dont remember him coming and getting me, I dont remember looking for you. I dont remember asking where you were. I dont remember him saying that you were living with his parents now. I dont remember the giant hole I felt. I dont remember.. I refuse to remember. But everyday it comes back to me in this horrible circle…. I remember it all, but… I can’t afford to, so I ‘forget’. I dont remember. I tell myself that every day. Such a betrayal to you.

So awful to feel so grateful that for the next few weeks my life was so much better. For weeks he never touched me, rarely spoke to me, didn’t acknowledge me or look at me. Looking back I wonder…. Would I have rather had the rape or the sister. I am oddly relieved that I did not really have the choice.

I am sorry Sammy. I miss you so much. I am so sorry that I failed you. I want you back so badly and ….. I’m glad you’re not here to see me now.

I love you Sammy. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I did wrong. I want to make you toast and tell you stories again. Maybe…. I need to fall asleep in your arms now.