"22 Friar Street"
                                                               by
                                                Nan DeVincent-Hayes
                                                             Flower Valley Press, 2000
                                               ***
             Days later, my mother and I were still fighting about Stephie. She kept retorting 
  that Stephie turned out the way she did because I hadn't been home to take care of her, 
  and that I had been a bad role model to her when I was. My mother knew how to make 
  people feel guilty. She didn't talk to me for the rest of the time I was home.
             It must have been the day before I was to fly home that I decided to stay up and 
  wait for Stephie to come in; maybe I could get her into some kind of home--like a
  Catholic orphanage, or a foster home, although even I knew I was at best fantasizing. 
  My brothers--including George's sons--had gone out with a group of guys whose I.Q.
  didn't add up to 100, and who had criminal records as long as a church aisle; Steph had
  gone into town, George's daughters were at his ex's, and my mother was at the pipe
  plant. Where George stashed out, I didn't care to know. I holed up in the bedroom 
  awhile, packing my suitcase, and then, alone, with only the portable black and white TV
  talking, I took down the Christmas tree decorations. I can't say I ever felt lonelier or
  sadder in my life.
            At eleven, I went into the kitchen to make a cup of hot chocolate. I carried the
  portable black and white with me so I could catch Patti and Bill Burns on the eleven-
  o'clock news. Sometimes Pittsburgh's late news was more entertaining than any sitcom,
  and sometimes Bill and Patti Burns were more entertaining than the news.
             The milk in the pot had just come to a boil when the porch door opened; George 
  came into the kitchen. I could tell by his walk that he must have been drinking, although 
  he wasn't drunk.
              "Still here, huh?" he said.
              I ignored him. He went into the garage. I could here him on the other side of the
  wall slamming down the car hood, cursing, throwing things, muttering.
            He reentered the kitchen, looked into the fridge, pulled out a Michelob, then 
  pointed to the pot on the stove. "What's that?" 
            "Hot chocolate."
            "Making poison, are you? Hemlock maybe? Sneak it inta my coffee someday 
  when I ain't lookin', huh?" He swigged the gold can.
            "Just milk," I said. I heard him walking, could feel him coming up behind me,
  smelled liquor on his breath. The hair at the back of my neck tingled; I dreaded his body
  being anywhere near me. I didn't trust him; I turned back around to face him. 
            "Milk, huh? Let's check and see how much you got there," and he put his greasy
  hands on my breasts, soiling my pink and white nightshirt. 
            At first I cringed, and then I tried pulling away from him, but he had grabbed my
  wrists and held them together behind my back with his one hand, while his other hand
  slid up under my nightshirt. The harder I fought, the harder he held me. He stuck his
  hairy face next to my cheek, then put his mouth over mine, ramming his tongue inside,
  swisshing it around my throat; I shook my head back and forth to get his face off mine, 
  but he kept moving his tongue inside my cheek while thrusting his hand inside my 
  panties, searching.
             Squirming, trying to kick him, gagging on his tongue, tears filled my eyes, and 
  then I felt them on my cheeks, down my neck. The last thing I wanted was for him to see
  me crying.
             He had my nightshirt up to my chin, my panties all the way down. I tried biting his
  tongue, kneeing him in the groin. He pulled his hand out from between my legs and
  unzipped his pants, dropped his drawers. He was groaning and I started screaming,
  fought to move away from him. I tugged to get my hands free, raise my panties, and 
  then turned to run but he grabbed my arm, swung me back around, slugged me in the 
  stomach; then, with another blow, hit my jaw, cheekbone, and the corner of my eye. I
  went backwards, hit the stove. 
             What happened next, I'm not sure. I must have smacked into the pot with the 
  boiling milk when he punched me, because I heard the clanging of metal against metal,
  and then I felt the intense burning.
                                                                          ***
             The bedroom clock registered three a.m. when I had awakened for the umpteenth 
  time. My body sweated and shivered simultaneously. My pajamas were soaked through, 
  and so were my bedsheets. I got up, gingerly climbed down the bunk ladder, and walked
  over to the bedroom window, like I had done countless times before over the span of
  four hours. Only this time, I couldn't go back to sleep--didn't want to close my eyes and
  see the beast behind my eyelids, the same beast in the bedroom next to mine, sleeping
  like an innocent, with my mother. 
             Outside, a full moon shone, letting me see the faces of my sister and George's 
  daughter in the bedroom. I touched my head, my hand shaking. It had to be a-hundred-
  and-six; no, that couldn't be right. People died of such temperatures. Oh, Missus, I wish
  you were here. I wanted to run to her and have her hold me while I cried my heart out,
  but I knew how childish I was being. Yet, the child within me was scared, needed
  comforting. My mother must have been oblivious to what had happened because she
  never came to my bedroom after she got home from work; never asked me if I was okay.
  What struck me harder than she not knowing, was the possibility that she did know but
  didn't come to me because she either didn't care or blamed me for the incident.