My mother had made it clear that she never wanted to get married again. In fact, she had never dated in all the time I was growing up. Helen had managed to drag her out to the bars a couple of times when they first met, but my mother would come home and tell me how bored she’d been.
“There aren’t any interesting men my age,” she’d complain. “They are either married or fools. What do I need with a man around, anyway? All they do is sit around with their feet on the coffee table while the women vacuum around them. And they expect to be waited on hand and foot. Who needs that?”
Even so, throughout the years I had noticed that my mother was different around men. She seemed to afford them extra respect just because they were male. This is probably true of many women of her generation, who grew up at a time when men were the dominant sex. But she also seemed to like men more than women.
My mother was especially charming with one boy I dated, Gilbert Lucas. He was really cute, with curly black hair and large brown eyes, and he was always polite to my mother. I guess she started out with the intention of checking Gilbert out the first night he came to pick me up, but there must have been something about him that interested her because she continued to chat with him for quite some time. I had to sit patiently, waiting for her to stop talking so we could go.
Gilbert was a respectful boy and he didn’t seem to mind talking with my mother. In fact, he seemed charmed by her. I had never really seen my mother in action with men. I’d seen her charm women, but this was something different altogether.
I didn’t like the fact that Gilbert seemed pleased by my mother’s attention. I felt like she was infringing on my territory and that she was doing it on purpose—trying to show me she could conquer him if she wanted to, that she could win. I stopped going out with him shortly afterward.
All during my growing up years, my mother punished me by spanking me, and then, later on, by using a tree switch or strap. I always felt like she had a right to hit me in these ways and that I deserved the punishment when I got it. But starting my junior year, her tactics changed and she started slapping me in the face. It often happened quickly, without warning, and it wasn’t punishment—it was pure rage. It was usually in reaction to something I said to her and it hurt far more than a beating because it was so humiliating, shocking, and insulting. And because I didn’t feel I deserved it.
It happened if I “talked back” to her, which meant I’d dared to disagree with her or question her. It happened often when she was drunk. It was her way of asserting her power and control. Perhaps she sensed my growing confidence, my growing strength, and she needed to knock me down a peg or two.
But unlike her switchings, her face slaps didn’t serve the purpose of humbling me and making me regret my actions. More and more, the slaps served to stoke the flames of my growing hatred and rage toward her.
One night, we came to blows. I don’t remember what started it. I probably talked back to her and she slapped me in the face, as she had so many times before. But this time something snapped inside of me. In an instant, without thinking, I slapped her back.
At first she looked shocked but that look immediately turned to absolute hatred. She slapped me back, and once again I slapped her. Then it turned into an out-and-out brawl. We hit each other anywhere we could make contact. We pushed each other around the living room, up against walls, and finally fell onto the couch. From there, we tumbled onto the floor.
I was livid with rage and my rage gave me strength. But in spite of this, in spite of the fact that I outweighed my mother by at least twenty pounds and I was forty years younger than her, my mother managed to pin me down on the floor. I was spitting mad as I struggled to get up, but to no avail. My mother had kicked my butt. If she’d intended to knock me down a peg or two, she had succeeded. I was utterly humiliated.
chapter 34
I was having a great day. It seemed that positive things just kept happening all day long and everything was going my way. It was near the end of the school year and my English teacher, Mrs. Lester, asked me if I could stay after class so she could talk to me.
“Beverly, I read your last essay and I want to tell you that it really impressed me,” she said. “You are an exceptionally good writer. You are clear and succinct and you really know how to get your point across. I want to encourage you to continue writing.”
I was dumbstruck. I’d always gotten A’s on my essays and I knew writing came easy for me, but I’d never had a teacher make a point of encouraging me like this.
“Thank you, Mrs. Lester,” I said politely, but I wanted to say more. I wanted to tell her how grateful I was to her for acknowledging me, for encouraging me.
“You’re also exceptionally good at interpreting literature and poetry,” she said. “Have you ever thought of becoming an English teacher such as myself?”
“No, I haven’t,” I admitted. “I do want to go to college, but I was thinking of becoming a nurse.”
“Well, that’s an admirable profession if you are good at math and science as well as English.”
“Well, I’m really not,” I said, glancing down.
“Then, by all means, think about becoming an
