We'd been bugging my mom all day to please please ppuuuuhhhhhllllleeeeeaaaazzzzzeeeeee take us to the pool. It's death-valley hot outside, none of our friends are outside playing and it's FREAKIN hot as hell and the metal on our bikes burns when we touch it. We don't have any grass in our yard, just dirt & rocks, so we can't have a slip n' slide, we can't play in the sprinklers and we can't have a small plastic pool; I guess all the rocks will tear up everything.
I think we wore her down because she finally says we can play in the water, in the bathtub. We ran to our room and put on our bathing suits (well I put on a bathing suit and my brother took his shoes and socks off, kept his shorts on). She filled up the tub about half full and gave us some squirt guns and other toys. I don't really remember playing with toys. I remember us sliding up and down the back of the tub. I remember the water making waves and us laughing as we slid through them.
One of us had the brilliant idea to add soap to the mix, what an awesome idea that was. Soap up the back of the tub, make it super slippery and then slide down into the crashing waves. SOOOOO much fun, laughing and splashing, cooling off. Then the bathroom door opened. The look on her face was not the happy laughing faces we had. She was pissed. In the midst of our splashing, we'd gotten water all over the floor. She grabbed my brother by the arm, jerked him out of the tub, wrapped a towel around him and set him on top of the washing machine. He was crying now.
I stood up, trying not to cry, not to be afraid of her. She yelled at me to clean the soap off the tub and WHAT IN THE HELL WERE YOU TWO THINKING???? LOOK AT ALL THE WATER ALL OVER THE FLOOR!!! I remember flinching, but she hadn't hit me, yet. She is yelling about having to clean up the water and having to wash the towels and WHAT IN THE HELL IS WRONG WITH US? WHY CAN'T WE JUST PLAY QUIETLY? WHY DID WE HAVE TO MAKE SUCH A HUGE MESS??
I'm almost 8, my brother is 6. My dad left a few days ago to go work in Saudi Arabia. My mom has been crying since he left. She is a stay-at-home-mom. She is fat and doesn't like to go anywhere. We stay at the house unless we need groceries.
She tells me to go to my room and sit on the bed and wait for her. I hear her rinsing the soap off of my brother. Then he comes into our bedroom and sits on his bed. He is crying and I go over to his bed and hug him, telling him it will be ok, don't cry. She yells at me from the bathroom to get back on my bed!!! I remember thinking how did she know? She yells at us to sit there and be quiet!! I hear her walking down the hall, away from us, towards her bedroom. I can't decide if I should be scared of the spanking thats coming or if I should be relieved that she went away.
I hear her rummaging in their bedroom, looking for the belt. My heart sinks and I get scared. My dad isn't here to stop her. My dad isn't here to step in. I can hear her coming back down the hall. She steps into our bedroom and tells me to get up. She tells me to turn around, and bend over. I'm already crying, telling her that we're sorry, that we'll clean up all the water, that we'll be good, that I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please don't. She grabs my shoulder, hard, turns me around and tells me to bend over NOW or its going to be worse.
I hear the belt smack me before I feel it. Its loud as it smacks against my butt and legs. I can hear the whooshing sound it makes through the air as she pulls it back and swings again. I can feel the sting on my legs, my bare legs. Its worse on my butt because I've still got my wet bathing suit on. I'm trying to cover my butt with my hands and she tells me to move them, I'm crying, telling her I'm sorry, trying to cover my legs and the belt hits my hands, my fingertips. I pull my hands to my chest and she keeps swinging. I don't know how many times the belt hit me.
I remember hearing her telling my brother to get off his bed and turn around. I crawl into the space between the foot of my bed and the closet. I put my face against my knees, trying to catch my breath, trying to make my fingers stop burning. It hurts sitting there, but I don't want to see my brother getting spanked or to see the crazy face she makes. The face that scares me, the face that makes me feel like she hates us. I remember sitting there thinking I hate her, I HATE her, she isn't my mom, she is Mollie and I HATE her.
I woke up and it was dark, so I got into bed. My brother was asleep in his bed sucking his thumb. I lay there wondering if we can run away, if she'd find us and spank us again. I miss my dad.
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