The Angry Woman Suite Read Online Free PDF

footsteps, trembling hearing Mother tell Daddy how bad I’d been while he’d been at work, how tired she was, how sick her head felt for having to deal with me all day. Mother was becoming increasingly difficult to figure out. She cried for reasons that eluded me, but my forgetting to make my bed, to get dressed properly, to hang my towel up, all those things that made Mother cranky made Daddy solicitous of Mother, which made Mother feel better, and me more anxious.
    But no matter how well I hid myself in closets or under beds, Daddy always found me. “I love you,” he’d start off, fingering his belt. “But you worry your mother when you don’t mind the rules. You worry her sick. You know that, don’t you? Now I don’t want to do this …”
    So why did he?
    I wouldn’t cry when he held me upside down until the blood rushed to my head and I thought I’d explode. I didn’t even cry when Daddy used the two by four, leaving welts on my legs that the long pants Mother made me wear in the Mississippi heat covered up. I didn’t cry for so many reasons. Because I was afraid of making Daddy’s hands shake more, of making him sadder, of letting Mother hear me and making her head sicker. I was afraid of poor Bean cowering more than she did already. If I stayed quiet, Bean didn’t get as scared. I was afraid of the killer in Daddy’s trousers. I was afraid of a horrible death.
    But he always cried. Daddy always cried after slapping or punching me, or hitting me with whatever was closest. Especially if there was blood. Blood really upset Daddy.
    So if there was blood, I’d comfort him afterward, my trembling fingers massaging Daddy’s wet, scratchy cheeks.
    Anything for peace, for not having to die that day.
    Every night. We did this every night. Until Mother smiled, signaling Daddy could stop his shaking.
    Bean wasn’t much of a talker, but she was a good listener, and her solemn brown eyes widened when I told her stories of the little people who came awake at night, breathing heavy under our beds, waiting for just one false move so they could grab a foot or a hand. These were Papa’s “safe scaries,” albeit embellished for Bean’s benefit.
    “What happens if the little people get you?” she whispered. It was a Sunday, nap time. We were supposed to be sleeping.
    “They eat you,” I replied, rewarded by two fat tears sliding down Bean’s plump cheeks. I couldn’t resist: “And blood dribbles out their mouths.”
    Bean’s lower lip trembled. “I don’t want to get eaten.”
    “Of course not,” I said imperiously. “Who does? So, if you don’t want to get eaten, if you want to win, you have to outfox the little people. That’s what Papa says: you’ve got to outfox . Hush. Daddy and Mother will hear you.”
    “But how?” Bean persisted. “How do you outfox the little people, Elyse?”
    I told her what Papa had told me, that everything is a game. And that the best game players lay low until the name of the game is revealed. They pretend to go to sleep until the little people (the not so hot players) get lazy and fall asleep themselves. And that’s when the good game players made their moves, pulling the checkmates out of their pockets. “Daylight in the swamps!” Papa would bellow each morning, the edict bouncing off the walls, corroboration that the coast was clear and we’d won the morning by default.
    Bean was only almost three and had a short attention span, so I had to be brief. “Watch me,” I instructed her. “Stay right beside me. I won’t let the little people get you, not ever. I promise I’ll always take care of you, Bean.”
    Bean became my shadow. Even our new uncle, Buster, commented on how close we were.
    “Unusual for sisters, Francis,” he laughed, sitting his big bulk down on our little couch. “They always get along so well?” Uncle Buster was jovial and always brought me and Bean suckers, but he didn’t stop by often enough, what with Daddy leaving so early for work