Every time I breathe, wood creaks and glass tinkles. I don’t know how long I’ve been laying here on the floor. The hutch is pinning down my right arm. I know the glass from the door is smashed and I suddenly become afraid to move. Shards of glass decorate my hair and I feel something warm running down my neck.
I am putting the pieces together in my head. He’d brought home some ground beef and I’d made mashed potatoes. But I forgot to put the salt on the table…
I remember being screamed at that I was stupid. I guess I was. How hard is it to put salt on the table? I was lost in the thought of eating real food and I forgot. His plate went flying across the room and smashed into the wall beside the table that has an old hutch sitting on it. He found it in the garbage and thought we could use it. As I scrambled to clean up the food before he yells at me to do it, I look up to see him push the hutch off the table, falling over on me. Then there’s darkness.
The babies! I listen for the babies and I feel relief that they are asleep for the night. I listen for him and I remember the back door slamming. He is gone…and I wonder how much time I have before he returns. I shift and with my free hand push out from under the hutch. The door is broken and glass crunches where I move. I stand and step on glass and the pain makes me wince.
In the bathroom, I sway before the mirror and clean up. I have more bruises than cuts and the face looking back at me mocks me. See what happens when you don’t pay attention.
I return to the living room with a broom and dust pan. I’ve put what’s left of the hutch back on the table. If I remove the other door, it can be used for shelves. Glass still tinkles and wood scrapes as I begin to clean up. Then I see the food he’d pitch across the room. On my hands and knees, I begin to pick up bits of ground beef, mashed potatoes…and I eat it. I am careful to make sure there are no bits of glass and I push the cold, greasy food into my mouth. It tastes like salvation…My mouth is not as quick as my hands and I rock back and forth on my knees, mouth too full and hands holding on tightly to one more morsel.
I clean up the rest of the nightmare, wash the floor and then me. Aside from the missing doors on the hutch, it looks like nothing happened, like nothing is different.
But something is very different this night, as I heave the mattress, throw it on the floor and make my bed.
This night as I lay in the darkness, my soul is empty but my stomach is full…
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Tags: broken door, darkness, empty soul, ground beef, nightmare, wood creaks