This is my "Why"

I feel a sudden jolt, then a searing hot pain to my head. For a moment, I am frozen but I hear myself crying. My mother screams at me to get up. I stumbled across the kitchen floor. I felt a warm drip running down the left side of my face. Drip. Drip. Drip. I see my blood on the floor. My mother is by side at the kitchen sink but I don’t remember how she got there. I stare at the blood on the floor as she runs water at the sink, grabs towels, fussing to get everything cleaned up, she’s just fussing. She presses something to my head, telling me to hold still. Her voice is angry.

I lay in my mother’s lap. We sit on the floor of my room, the cold wood underneath me and her hands, her “medicine hands”, stroke my back. Stroke my hair. Her hands are worn with work, pulling things apart, putting things together, all day long, she sews other people’s fancy furnishings and her hands know the tales. At home, they do the work of both mother and father. As her hands comfort me, she says, “it’s a good thing you started bleeding or I would have beat you to death.” She continues to stroke my hair as I drift to sleep. I was 7 years old.

I’m waiting with my class outside.  The bell is about to ring and our teacher will come out to get us. I’m nervous. I have a Band-Aid over my left eyebrow. The marks are so everyone will know what a bad girl I am. My mom told me so. I can’t let anyone see it. I am at the back of the line. My head is down. My long hair folds down into my face. My heart races and my stomach swirls as I see our teacher open the door. She steps aside to let us in.  I follow my class as we walk past her. She sees me. My heart stops. She asks me, “What happened to your eye?” I say, “I ran into a door.” She lets me past her. I feel no relief.