by Shirley B.
You never know where life is going to take you next. After all the knock down , drag out fights, that Mr. and Mrs. A. kept having, including this last one where she intended to kill him, they decided to try and work things out in their marriage. We were all going to get back in church again, since we had long since stopped going, and Mr. A. was going to sell out his construction and building business to his partner and we were all moving to Colorado when it was all said and done. Hotchkiss, Colorado, here we come!!
Before we left for Colorado that year, one Sunday morning my sister took me by the hand and we marched ourselves down to the front of the church when the altar call came. There we accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour. We didn't know all the details for sure of what it all meant, only that He promised to save us and help us. That sounded awful nice to the two of us at that time. Things moved quickly and soon we were on our way to Colorado to become fruit ranchers. Mr. A. had bought two ranches with hundreds of acres of apples of all different kinds on them. There were peach trees and pear trees and ten acres of cherries. To these two little girls, it was like going back to the farm again. Just that thought alone made us happy. We were not city kids for sure. It wasn't long before we had a huge garden planted waiting for the harvest. For a very short while, everyone seemed to be at peace in our house and Mr. and Mrs. A. tried harder, it seemed, to be kinder to my sister and I. My sister was 12 and I was 10 right about this time.
Things were that way for close to a year I guess before everything started to slide back to the old ways again. Mrs. A. was a hairdresser by trade and often fixed the hair of neighboring ladies of the area that she came to know. As the relationship between Mr. and Mrs. A. began to erode again, my sister and I were the most convenient recipients of their rage again . I can only suppose that these beauty appointments Mrs. A. had , often became gossip sessions, because it wasn't long before the life history of my sister and I was common knowledge around town.
Hotchkiss was a small town of about 600 people at that time, so it didn't take much to get the word out. So my sister and I began to fight more and more in school as the kids teased and picked and made fun of us about the things they learned about us. We were odd to them anyway. We talked funny. "They're from Texas you know, and they have a funny accent". "'What accent?! is what we wanted to know". Anyway, the cruelty and beatings soon started all over again. Mr. and Mrs. A. were fighting constantly.
The summer I was 12, I was determined that I would have new clothes to start school this next year. So that summer I spent getting up before daylight and going out to the orchard to do whatever needed doing. Sometimes, it was mowing between the trees with a big brush hog mower pulled behind a tractor , or with a blade mower to mow under the trees when they were loaded down with fruit. I often went up the mountain to the water maze that the farmers and ranchers used to direct the flow of water from melted snow coming down off of the mountain to flow to their farms. From there you had to walk every foot of the ditches to the ranch with a shovel to clear out rocks and debris that would block the flow of the water. I loved it. It was a peaceful time to be able to do these things by myself. When the sun went down, I went to the house for supper, or to cook supper if it was my turn and then do my chores there before going to bed and get up the next day and start again. Mr. A. taught and used me to drive a tractor, pick fruit, thin fruit, irrigate the orchard and garden, and plant fruit trees. All these different things and more, but I didn't mind. I liked being out of the house as much as possible and by myself. Besides, I had a goal I was going for.
At the end of that summer, I had about $25 that Mr. A. had paid me. It really wasn't much for all that I did that summer, but it would buy me a couple of new dresses and shoes and socks for school. Mrs. A. still didn't like spending money on us . So I safely tucked my money into my barbie wallet and put it under my mattress each day. Finally, the day came to go shop for my clothes and I went to retrieve my money and lo and behold, it was nowhere to be found. I was in a panic but it didn't take my sister and I long before we realized who was to blame. By the look on Mrs. A's face when she said, " You must have left it someplace or lost it". We knew and Mr. A knew too, because I never took the wallet out from under the mattress . He calmly told Mrs. A. that he was the one that was going to take us shopping for school clothes this time and off we went. He bought each of us, my sister and I, a couple of new dresses and shoes, and brand new bobbie socks. We hadn't had new bobbie socks in so long and we were overjoyed!
Things were reaching a fever pitch in the family and tension was always so thick in the air. A few days later , when we got up in the morning to prepare for the first day of school, the new bobbie socks were nowhere to be found. Believe me, my sister and I weren't letting this one go unnoticed. We were both boiling mad. When Mr. A. came into the house to see what all the fuss was about, we gave him an earfull and soon he was just as mad as we were. Mrs. A. denied knowing where the socks were. So we went to school in our new dresses, but with old socks that were so loose that they slid down into our shoes when we walked . That afternoon, when we got home from our first day at school and walked into our bedroom, Mrs. A. calmly walked in and without a word, threw our new packages of bobbie socks onto the bed, all the time smiling at us and then walked out. Why? For the life of me I don't believe I have ever understood it. It wasn't long after that , when she also walked into my room and tossed my barbie wallet on the bed. It was empty of course. But she never said a word. She knew that we knew but also that there was nothing we could do about it either.
Living in Colorado, the winters were often cold, and we heated the house with a coal furnace that was kept in the basement. The coal bin had to be shoveled full every morning so that the house would stay warm during the day. This was the job of my sister and I. We took turns. It was hard work to shovel that much coal every morning before school but we were in trouble if we didn't, because Mrs. A. was there during the day and didn't want to be cold. Also, when the hot air from the burning coal came through the vents up into the house, it would leave soot at the vent opening. There was no way to avoid it.
One day Mr. and Mrs. A. decided to go out on the town. I was suppose to clean the kitchen and floors and cook supper, which I did. But when Mrs. A. came into the kitchen, she saw soot had collected beneath the vent where the warm air came up from the furnace. When she asked if I had cleaned the floor of the soot, I said yes. She flew into a rage, accusing me of lying, showing me the soot, which was very hard to see since it had recently been washed up. The next thing I remembered, I was on the floor and she was kicking me in my back and ribs, when my sister ran into the room. My sister was fourteen by now, and growing fast. She'd had enough as she stepped between me and Mrs. A. and got me up off the floor. I could hardly breath. Mrs. A. ordered us both to the bedroom as she retrieved her huge leather belt and buckle. I was to strip down and wait for her there. When she came to the room, my sister stood between her and me and didn't move , despite all the threats from Mrs. A. of what she was going to do to her. When Mrs. A. began to swing that belt, my sister reached up and stripped it from her hands. I don't know who was more shocked, my sister and I, or Mrs. A. , but as Mrs. A. turned and left the room, the threat was heavy in the air, and she didn't have to tell us that it wasn't over yet. When Mr. A. came home later , thinking that all was well and they were going to eat supper and then go out on the town,
the air was heavy with tension. As we sat at the table across from Mrs. A. , and believe me she was throwing daggers at us with her looks , my sister was steaming mad, and me, well, I was having trouble just taking a breath through the pain in my rib. Mr. A. suddenly started cussing and demanding an explanation of what was going on. That was the cue for my sister and she let the words fly. Then Mr. A. grabbed me and lifted the back of my shirt where he could see the huge black and blue bruises on my back and side and hauled off and slapped the living daylights out of Mrs. A. Sis and I ran from the room to our own rooms.
Things calmed down quickly for some reason. We never knew why, but they made up enough to go ahead and have their evening on the town. I don't know what Mrs. A. told Mr. A. that night. But that night set off a terrible sequence of events. That night.. Mr. A. went into my sisters' room and raped her. He left her with the threat that if we told Mrs. A. , she wouldn't believe us anyway , and would take it out on us, and if we did tell, the same thing would happen to me, her little sister. What could we do? The only thing we knew to do was to circle the wagons , so to speak, and try to never let Mr. A. catch us alone without the other . He had finally stepped over the line from always snooping and spying on us, to acting out his perversion. I was twelve, and my sister was fourteen. We weren't going to stand still for this much longer. We had to do something, but what? So we began to plan for the time we could work and save our money and run away from there. But things took a strange turn shortly after this incident. Mr. and Mrs. A. were getting a divorce and of all things, the courts were going to let Mr. A. have custody of my sister and I!
It was strange, because there were so many emotions mixed in our relationship with Mr. and Mrs. A. Both love and hate, if you can imagine that. But we had been with them longer than anyone else in our lives and I suppose that hope lives eternally in the heart of a child that their parents love them and care for them, or that someone does somewhere in this world. It's a very confusing feeling for sure. One thing that was happening to me , was that I wasn't afraid as much as I was before. For me, I could see a time when I wouldn't be at their mercy anymore. Not Mr. A. or Mrs. A. I knew it would be a while for sure, but the time was coming. Until then, somehow, my sister and I were going to survive this and eventually be done with it.
Understand, these are my words describing my feelings as I look back to that time. As a child of twelve to thirteen years old , it was more or less summed up in one word. Hope. Again, looking back, I believe it was the Lord that gave that to me and to my sister. In Isaiah 43 verse 2, The Lord says : "When you go through the sea, I am with you. When you go through rivers, they will not sweep you away. When you walk through fire, you will not be burned, and the flames will not harm you." My sister and I didn't know about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, but I know now that Jesus Christ never , never, forgot that we were His kids. We belonged to Him. Isaiah 49: 25 tells me that He will contend with those that contend with me.... There is a day of reckoning coming, for Christ always keeps his promises. And amazingly enough, I am not looking forward to the day that judgement falls .
God has given me the grace and strength to forgive both Mr. and Mrs. A. The day that He led me to witness to Mr. A. , which I did after arguing with the Lord about it for a while, was the day I knew that I had really forgiven him all things he had done against my sister and myself.
That day, Jesus set me free .
However, the divorce became final , and my sister and I were left alone with Mr. A. How would he react? Could we protect ourselves from him if we needed to? .........
To be continued........................
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