Brick By Brick

Brick one. My father thought I was a lie. Here was my mother impregnated and he had eyes for someone else. He was through with us. He was tired of looking at my mother's bruised face and hopeful eyes. My brother was three at the time and I was a little egg fertilized by mistakes in a womb of disaster. If I was just a lie like he thought, I would have saved my mother and brother from years of misery. But there I was. Implanted in a whirlpool of love and hate, expected late august in a belly that brought everyone back together only to be haunted and buried in fear for the rest of our lives.

Brick eight. I remember the days we did chores and got a few bucks at the end of the week. I think I emptied the dishwasher and fed the cats, set the table, you know, the things little girls are trained to do to be prepared to be a pregnant and barefoot housewife cleaning her home with dinner on the table. Which means my brother did the boys stuff like mowing the lawn, taking out the trash, feeding the dogs. But at the end of the week we'd get those few dollars that made it all worth it. My brother would burn holes in his pockets while I saved every penny since the day I could count change. My eyes have always been clouded by hopes and dreams to buy my escape. It was my little secret, my way out in that glass piggy bank on my dresser. Sometimes my piggy bank would get so full and I'd feel so proud and hopeful and then my father would empty it out, every penny and promising to pay it back one day. He'd return later that night, stumbling in drunk and belligerent looking for my mother. I'd lock myself in my room, in my closet or under my bed and try to make sense of what was going on outside of my room. I knew. He had used my money, which were my hopes, to poison his mind with whiskey and place his hurt into my mother's face. He emptied my hopes into his wallet for several years after that.

Brick 14.



Brick 27.



Brick 39.