Sadie's Mountain Read Online Free PDF Page A

through the screams.
    “Please, sir, don’t hit her,” Dillon said, frantically as he stood in the doorframe with his right arm reached out to me.
    “This ain’t none’a yer concern,” Daddy said, “Go on home, Dillon,” he ordered as he came at me with the belt held above his shoulder ready to strike.
    “Daddy, no!” I yelped as he slapped the belt into my back. I slipped on the blood on the floor. He whipped me again as I pulled myself up. The belt stung me over and over as I crawled on my hands and knees into the corner of the room. Momma was trying to grab his arm. She pulled like a slight wind on a steel frame.
    “Stop!” Momma yelled.
    “Don’t hit her,” Dillon said, his voice rough like a callous.
    “Sinner!” Daddy yelled as he flogged me over and over. I curled into a fetal ball. “Please, God almighty! Forgive this child of her sins! Rebuke the demon enemy that makes her weak and wanton!”
    “Dillon!” I screamed, as if my life depended on it. Through the hair covering my face I saw Dillon’s boots running toward us and he grasped Daddy’s now tired arm.
    “Please, sir. That’s enough, ain’t it?” He sounded like he was crying.
    I was so worn-out. My shallow breaths weren’t enough.

    Momma was holding me. I don’t know where I was—maybe still in the corner of the living room. She wiped my feverish forehead with a warm cloth. She looked scared. She kissed me with small, newborn kisses all over my cheeks.
    “You’re okay now, my baby,” she kept saying over and over.

    I was on my bed. It was dark but I felt a bandage on my neck. I reached down and felt that my clothes were off and a nightgown was buttoned up over my chest and down my tummy. Missy wasn’t there. I was shaking so badly that the bed felt like an earthquake. “I’m s-s-s-so cold,” I said, to no one but myself. The chill was coming from the inside of me. Nothing would make me warm.

    I was curled up on my bed. Alone. Alone .

Chapter Three—Come Home
     
      I can do this! I think, waking up on the airplane with a jolt as the little speakers are telling me to put my seatbelt on. Looking at my phone on airplane mode it’s 10:30 a.m. I’ve been traveling all night. I left last night from the Sacramento Metropolitan Airport at 10:20 p.m. There was the one layover in Charlotte, which I trudged through sitting anxiously in the first class lounge drinking a too-sweet cocktail with a plump fresh cherry slinking around on the bottom of the glass.
    My mantra has been: It’s just for a few days. Momma needs me. She’s so sick and all she wants is to see me again one more time. This is what got my bag packed. What got my feet to actually propel me forward as I walked down the ramp to the airplane in the first place.
    I haven’t been back there since, it’s been how long? Well, it was just before my fifteenth birthday when I left, so yes, it’s been ten years. I don’t have to stay long if I don’t want to. I can just rent a car at the airport, drive over to her house, hug her, talk to her, say our goodbyes and come back home the next evening. A quick trip won’t hurt me. If I don’t let it, that is.
    The jet is making its descent, pulling my stomach down with it. But I know that’s not the only thing wrong with my stomach. Nerves are bouncing around in there like a boomerang in a cage of foil. I realize just then, as I have to concentrate to keep my horrible airplane salad down, that I’m nauseated. I can’t run to the restroom now with the little seatbelt light shining up above my head.
    I hastily grab that little bag so nicely provided for people who are sick and push it up to my face in preparation for the impending projectile vomiting that feels imminent.
    The wheels touch down and hop, pushing me into the back of my first class seat. I hold my breath and put my head back. The brakes do their job and slow the human-filled-missile to a stop. The pilot is talking now about arriving at the Roanoke Airport and