Page 27 of Saving Grace

I slept in the locked bathroom in the tub. I dreamt of Atticus that night, he’d come and saved me, but when I woke up, I was still in my momma’s house. I forced myself to stop thinking about Atticus at all after that.

The next time he raped me I got pregnant. My momma escorted me to the abortion clinic.

I could remember it clearly as day, sitting across from her in the car. “Ralph gon’ take care of you and me if you do right by him,” she said after parking.

I could have beat her to death when she spoke those words to me. She was using me to secure a future for herself. I swallowed back the rage, got out of the car. I followed her into the abortion clinic. Not only did I need the abortion they were paying for I wanted it. The thought of the devil’s spawn growing inside me made me want to die.

A couple of days after the abortion I ran away. I was going to Chicago because that’s as far away I could go with the money I had stolen from Ralph’s wallet. I made it all the way to a small town in Virginia. My momma and Ralph were waiting for me at the bus stop. They dragged me out of the Greyhound station kicking and screaming. I put up such a fuss the police were called. Even after I accused Ralph of raping me I ended up going back with them. I was only seventeen. Two months away from my eighteenth birthday and my momma told them I was lying and who would believe that a mother would lie to protect a rapist?

When I turned eighteen my momma made me sign over my grandma’s house, life insurance policy and on top of that I had to fuck her husband without complaint. When I fought back he’d beat me or lock me in my room for days without food. By the time I’d turned nineteen I’d thought about killing myself hundreds of times just to get away from them.

I was already living a nightmare. I didn’t realize it could get worse. It got worse, so much worse.

Ralph the rapist had one day gotten it in his head that we were in love. He ordered my mother to start planning a wedding, a big one, for all his colleagues and family. He wasn’t a bit ashamed of his actions. For a year after he declared us engaged I was virtually a prisoner in their home.

My own momma—calculating and cold. She methodically helped him keep me hostage and planned our wedding. She booked a space. She found the caterers and photographers. She was willing to do anything to continue living her extravagant lifestyle, even if that meant marrying her only daughter off to a man that was supposed to be hers. I knew it for sure when she took me to pick out my wedding dress.

I’d taken a chance when I was at the dress shop. The little Black lady Ms. Joyce reminded me so much of my granny it almost brought me to tears. While we were in the dressing room I blurted out what I’d been going through. She wanted to call the police and beat my momma’s ass for me, but when I explained to her that the police had never helped me before. She promised that she would.

She told my momma to bring me back the next day. When I got there, she took me to the back and let me slip out the back door where her grandson was waiting for me in a car. We drove from Georgia to a small town outside of Dallas Texas. Mrs. Joyce’s daughter lived there and had survived an abusive relationship. She told me she understood my pain and was willing to do whatever it took to help me survive. But I knew my momma and Ralph would come looking for me and I didn’t want anybody hurt because of me.

A week after I arrived I had them drive me to Bank of America. I used a check I’d stolen from my momma and written it out to cash. They didn’t even question me at the bank. Fifteen minutes later I walked out of the bank with the fifty thousand dollars from my granny’s insurance policy, and a day later I had a new identity. Molly Cruise. From that day forth I promised myself to let the past go and I had. Then Atticus showed up, bringing back with him everything ugly and all the hurt that I’d pushed deep down. If I didn’t love him so much, I might have found myself hating him.

“Grace!”

I shook myself from my memory, I glanced up to find Ralph coming towards me.

Rage overtook me.

He reached for me and I snatched away

“Get the fuck away from me.”

He shook his head, “You’re behaving like a child. Get up off this filthy floor.”

He was right. I need to get up. Using the bed to pull myself up. I kept my eyes on him and wiped away my tears.

“Get the fuck out of my room Ralph.” My tone was deathly calm because I had made peace with myself and the fact that I might have to kill him in that room. If he didn’t do what I said and quickly, one of us would be leaving in a body bag.

He chuckled instead of leaving. “Still feisty as ever. Oh, how I missed you.”

“Get out, Ralph.” I yelled.

Ignoring me, he rasped “Your mama’s dead, girl. Drank herself to death, right after you left her.”

The accusations in his tone made it sound as if he wanted me to feel responsible for her death.

I wish.

I would have traded that bitch’s worthless life for mine in a heartbeat, she didn’t deserve to live. She was a waste of space. My granny had said many times before that momma had something evil in her, driving her to do terrible things. I only half believed her back then. I had learned the hard way that she was right—that my momma just wasn’t right in the head. She had no morals, was selfish and loved material shit more than she was capable of loving any human being, even her own daughter, so fuck her, may she rot in Hell.

Hearing that she was dead made me feel nothing, not even guilt for not caring.

He continued. “I have cancer, I need you to come back and nurse me to health” He sounded pitiful and weak, which caused me to look at him, like really look at him. Gone was the man who had overpowered and raped me— instead an old tired, weathered man had replaced him.

He took a step towards me and that’s when I noticed my gun laying on the table behind him, but I wasn’t too worried about it. Before he could react, I charged him and swung while he was distracted trying to block my fist. I reached for the gun but knocked it to the floor, it slid under the bed.

It was a lost cause. I’d never get to it before he tried to attack me. I redirected my energy to really fighting him. He was doing his best to restrain me without physically hurting me or maybe he was too weak to beat me down like he had before. I scratched his face, punched him in the stomach, and bit his ear. I’d temporarily lost my mind.