Faith, Grace, and Conquering the Impossible

My arms ached after three hours of waving them for band practice as I fished my keys out of my backpack and opened the front door. I was the drum major, and we were rehearsing the half-time show for the football game on Friday. On top of relentless practice sessions, I also had a physics test the next afternoon. I was hungry, exhausted, and my brain was barely working, but still—I could sense that something was wrong. The house was empty. The house was almost never empty this time of day. Mom was at work, doing one of her 12-hour shifts at the hospital as a registered nurse. That wasn’t what worried me though. I was concerned about my step-father, Van. He rarely left the house most evenings. He was an angry, unhappy man. If he was missing in action, he was probably out drinking. When he drank, he lost control. That’s when bad things happened. I microwaved some left overs, changed my clothes, and locked myself in my room. Uneasy thoughts fluttered through my head. Where was he? Was he drinking? If so, how much? And how enraged would he be when he finally came home? I got up and checked the lock again. I kept the music low so I could hear if anyone came home. I stared at my Physics textbook, the words blurring. I couldn’t focus. My stomach churned. I couldn’t eat. At 7:30 that night, my mom returned from work. She came into my room, still dressed in her blue hospital scrubs. She was short with blonde hair. Her eyes were tired, yet she always appeared fresh and professional. Her big blue eyes, framed by long lashes, reflected her worry. “Where’s Van, honey?” “I don’t know,” I said, dread creeping into my voice. My mom’s face reflected my sense of foreboding. He hardly ever came home this late. When he did, it was bad. When he finally did come home, there’d be hours of yelling and screaming. There’d be fighting. He would hit my mom, slap her, and pull her hair. Sometimes he punched her. “Brooke, I need you to stay in your room tonight,” Mom said. “Don’t come out.” Sweat beaded on my forehead. I bit my lip. “Okay,” I said, like I always did. She wanted to protect me. She wanted to keep me safe. But what about Mom? Who would keep her safe when Van came back, drunk, angry, and ready for a fight? He was truly terrifying when he was drunk, hurling a barrage of ugly words at my mother or worse, striking her with his heavy fists. Afterward, he would try to make it up to her. He would be “good” for a few weeks or months. “Good” for Van meant lying around on the couch all day being miserable. He watched our favorite TV shows with us and ate dinner at the table every night. He refrained from yelling, screaming, or hitting. Even when he was “good”, he could still become irate if we did something to tick him off . Mom and I had to wear the “right” clothes. The grass had to be cut a specific way. He wanted to control every aspect of our lives. “Promise me,” Mom said again. “I promise.” I stayed in my room most of the night, finishing my homework. I tried to study for my Physics test, but worry plagued me. What would happen when Van came home? How awful would it be? I prayed that he would just stagger in, pass out on the couch, and leave my mom alone. Luck, however, was never on our side. Headlights swung into the driveway. The car door slammed, then the front door. I could hear him stumbling around the kitchen. His speech was slurred. My mom’s soft voice answered his belligerent grunts. “Where were you?” she asked. I grimaced. When she asked those kinds of questions, it always touched off an argument. “That’s none of your business!” Van hollered. “You spend all your time with your little friends, anyway.” “It’s almost midnight. I just want to know where you were.” “Where were you all day?” he snarled. “You cheating on me?” “Of course not!” my mother cried. I huddled on my bed, hands clasped over my ears, trying not the hear the shouting through my closed bedroom door. It didn’t matter. I could hear almost every word. Over the next hour, things went from bad to worse. Suddenly, my mother started screaming. She was almost right outside my bedroom door. “Call 911!” She shrieked. “Brooke! Call the police!” She’d never asked me to call before, despite what went on in our house on a weekly basis. Did she really want me to call? If I did, would she be mad at me later? This sounded different, though. There was a desperation in her voice I’d never heard before. I opened my door with fearful resolve. My stepfather Van was on top of my mother, his hands clenched around her neck. He was big and broad-shouldered, much stronger than she was. Mom’s face was bright red, turning purple. Adrenaline surged through my body. My hands balled into fists, my heart jackhammering against my ribcage. “Get off her!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. But it didn’t matter. He was going to kill her this time. I was sure of it. I had to do something. I ran into the hallway and hurled myself at Van. He was short but stocky and built like a bull, somewhere north of 220 pounds. Fear gave me strength. I grabbed him and yanked as hard as I could. “Get off her!” Surprised, he fell back, releasing his stranglehold on my mother’s neck. My mother crawled out of the hallway and stumbled to her feet, gasping for air. She made for the door. But Van wasn’t finished. He ran after her, screaming horrible things. He grabbed her arm and dragged her to the door, throwing her body like a rag doll out onto the concrete sidewalk. Mom ran for the neighbor’s house. She called the police, and a few minutes later, a squad car pulled up to the curb, sirens wailing. Back then, the police wouldn’t arrest Van unless Mom formally pressed charges. But Mom was afraid he would seek revenge. She didn’t want me dragged into court as a witness, so she didn’t press charges. Even though Van was the criminal, we were the ones who fled. We were given just a short period of time to leave, with just a few belongings, from our own home. This terrible night was forever etched into my memory. How had our lives come to this?