The Battered Heiress Blues - By Laurie Van Dermark Page 0,2

to pull my right arm with conviction, causing the red juice to splash against the ivory quilt.

“Look what you did. You let that child loose,” she demanded.

“Or what? Your benefactor is not here, is she? Run along, Sissy. Go tell Nana.”

Father was committed to his present course of action, but a scrappy African goddess who was part sugar and part salt raised me. I wouldn’t go down without a fight and I had absolutely no intention of being removed from my mama’s presence. “Leave Julia. Now,” he yelled, making Mama flinch, though her eyes remained closed.

“The hell you say,” I responded, grabbing hold of Mama’s hand that barely fell below the edge of the quilt.

Both Father and Sissy said my name in unison, in its entirety, the very second the profanity left my lips, “Julia Grace Spencer”. Just as quickly as they came together on common ground they receded back into their corners.

“I am sleeping in Mama’s bed again tonight and I’m not leaving,” I said with resolve.

Father scooped me up from behind, breaking my connection to Mama, and began making forward progress toward the door, but my hands found the wooden posts at the end of her bed. He pulled and pulled until the sweat began to gather around my fingers, causing me to lose grip. Catching the doorframe as we passed through it, I recommitted to my cause. Sissy began speaking with wild contempt at a speed that no mere human could understand, cursing him to be sure. Thoroughly frustrated and impatient, John finally grabbed my hands and ripped them across the metal doorplate, sending a stabbing pain straight through me. Blood spattered across the planked floor and Sissy spun into action, removing the scarf from around her neck and winding it around my hand.

“You’re wicked. You’ve done gone crazy, John Spencer. Get out of here. Go on, you hear? Your heart has turned as black as the night. You’re no good to no one.”

Father looked at me with both hostility and remorse. He was as broken as the woman that was bound to her bed. I had one parent dying of cancer and another dying to share her fate. Thomas and I weren’t enough to keep him engaged in reality. We were reminders of the life he had envisioned with a beautiful Southern sorority girl all those years ago.

He left that night and didn’t return from New York, until the day that Nana signed the papers to shut off her only child’s life support. After the funeral, I rarely saw Father, with the exception of holidays. Sissy died soon after Mama in a terrible car crash, leaving me disillusioned and jaded. No doubt, her exit was planned all along to reunite her with her dear white sister Grace. Nana did her best to trudge on in Mama’s place, giving Tommy and me many years of happiness and affection before leaving to join those rowdy women in heaven.

But I was heir to the Spencer fortune. There had been no contingency for sorrow. Weakness wasn’t an option. I grew up, only sure of one thing-my father and I were done, forever.

1

Slowly surrendering to the fate of dying alone, I struggled to keep my eyes open. The clinic’s light swung overhead casting shadows on the dusty floor, making me question whether he was gone. A strange voice, angelic in nature, commanded me to remain still. As my body shivered with each shallow breath, the warm red blood pooling under me was oddly comforting. I was cold.

An eternity seemed to pass in silence. No one came, but I remained obedient to the voice that made me motionless. In the distance, I heard the faint sounds of crying, but my mind was too detached to assign a sense of familiarity to the voices. I was slipping away. I welcomed the end.

There she was- the African goddess of my childhood, sent to protect me. I felt my body move upward and find its rest in her small lap. Leaning toward me, the braids brushed over my beaten face and the smell of my blood was replaced by the fragrance of a hundred honeysuckles. My guardian had returned to keep me safe. I called and called to her in a loud whisper, still fearful that my attacker was not quite done, but she never answered. Sissy only began to sing as she stroked my matted hair. His Eye is on the Sparrow, filled the room- its notes forming a cocoon around my frail and