Don't Call Me Mother Read Online Free PDF

wedges me against the wall and unfastens his pants, releasing a pink thing. I don’t see it clearly because I squeeze my eyes shut. I know this is all very bad.
    “Do you want to touch it?” he whispers.
    I shake my head. I think fast—how can I get him up without making him mad? Vera might find us at any moment.
    “I won’t hurt you.” He climbs on top of me. “Just let me put it between your legs.” He’s breathing hard. He pulls at my underpants, but I push against him. I have to get away. Now.
    I start babbling, “Freddie, I have to go to the bathroom bad, really. Please let me get up. Pretty please.”
    Freddie blinks and gets off me. I dart up the stairs and he follows, fastening his pants.
    “You won’t tell anyone?” he whispers.
    I shake my head no, but I’m terrified that Vera will see inside my brain and know anyway.
    When we burst through the door into the bright lights of the kitchen, I have a smile plastered on my face to cover up any other feelings that might be there. The others ask us what we were doing. “Playing.” I feel dirty and confused, terrified that Vera will read my mind about Freddie in the basement, but she doesn’t seem to sense anything about it.

    Vera accuses me of sneaking food between meals. I am always hungry, and mealtimes are so unpleasant that I can’t eat much for fear of being teased. It’s true that I did take some sugar bread, but how does she know? Vera’s eyes are even smaller than usual. She’ll spank me whether I tell the truth or lie, but the truth is worse. I shake my head. She grabs me by the arm and drags me to the closet for the paddle.
    “Pull down your pants,” she yells. I wonder how I can stall her, get her to change her mind.
    “Pull them down, I tell you!” She yanks down my pants and bends me over, spanking me hard, screaming, “You no-good liar. How dare you? You’re nothing.”
    I cry in spite of myself. I hate myself for breaking down, giving her that power over me. She points at me, her face twisted. “Look at you, you’re a mess. No wonder your mother and father…” She starts hitting me again. “Repeat after me, my mother doesn’t love me, my father doesn’t love me, only you love me, Vera.”
    They don’t love me? She is voicing my worst fear—that they have forgotten me, that they don’t really love me. If they did, why would they leave me here? My stomach sinks in misery and dread. Inside my head I try to fight what she says: no, they do love me, they must love me.
    “Come on—repeat after me.” Her glittering eyes bore into my brain, my very soul. Her terrible words bang around in my head. For a long time, I cry, refusing to say the awful words that seem too true. Finally I have to give in because she won’t stop unless I do. I say the terrible words; darkness falls inside me. I feel like a piece of lint on the floor, to be swept away. I must be a terrible, bad person just as Vera says. I drag myself to my room, my mind flying around frantically, trying to reassemble the pieces.

    One day Vera announces that Mommy is coming to visit. I try to remember my mother—her face, her wavy dark hair falling to her shoulders. I want to remember her soft voice and her touch, but now there’s just a blurry picture. At the train station in Wheatland, Mother steps out of the mist in all her loveliness. She bends down to kiss my face, and I put my arms around her, inhaling her musky, sweet scent. I want to tell her everything, but Vera stands behind me like a sentry. I know that if I tell Mother, she’ll have to take me away now or Vera will make everything much worse.
    They drink coffee by the hour, chatting and giggling. Mother clicks her knitting needles, talking on and on, punctuating the air with her wild laughs, kicking her legs in the air. I peek around the doorways, watching them have a fine time. Vera smiles as she always does with strangers, saving her sour face for us kids.
    I begin to understand that Mother loves her