3 Paws Saloon Attic

     I must have been about 8 when it started. At the time we lived in a large two-story house, living quarters and my parents' room downstairs, with two large bedrooms upstairs.  My 3 brothers, ages 13, 12, and 4,  shared one room, my younger sister and I the other. The most interesting thing about the two upstairs rooms were they were connected by a long tunnel like structure that ran behind the walls. My mom called it a cubby-hole. Us kids alternately called it cool and scary. In our room the opening to this 'cubby hole' was a regular doorway sans door, but it opened via a square in the wall in the boys' room like a hidden passage.  It made for some interesting hide-and-seek games. However my brothers', being brothers also used it to sneak into our room and scare the beezubus out of us, and my kid sister at the age of 6 had an ear-piercing scream. So my parents delegated the cubby hole as storage and filled it with all kinds of things on our end. The most noteable of these was a double-size roll-away bed.  Quite literally it was a bed that folded in half to be stored, and there was a little latch on it to keep it from unfolding. I never liked it, because I was pretty certain my brothers were plotting to fold me up in it at some point. It sat right in the doorway.

    My mother always insisted we leave the hall light on, so that we could navigate the stairs if we need to come down and use the restroom during the night. So it was never really dark in our rooms, and I honestly don't recall there being doors on our rooms, but then it was a long time ago, and maybe they were just always left open. She was ill and had difficulty with stairs herself, so if something happened it was either an older brother or our Dad who would come tearing in to make sure we were ok. On the nights when my brothers would make scary sounds (that cubbyhole was a great conduit; they'd remove the square covering on their end then make ghostly "oooooooooooooo"s  or say, "I'm coming to get youuuuuuuuuuu" in a scary voice) until Mary would shriek in fright. It didn't matter that I would crawl into her bed and hold her telling her it was just the boys being jerks. She'd scream her head off. Then we'd hear dad's racing steps on the stairs. The boys weren't stupid, they'd jump into bed and pretend to be sleeping,or run to their doorway as if coming to check, and of course Dad always headed for the source of the screams first.  He always demanded to know what I had done to her to make her cry. "Did Betty hurt you?" He'd demand of Mary, who was too scared and crieing too hard to answer. He'd jerk me up by my arm and fling me onto my bed, and bark , "Roll over and go to sleep!" Behind my back, I could hear him soothing Mary, while I stuffed the corner of my pillow into my mouth so he wouldn't hear me crying. If he didn't think the reason for tears worthy he'd give me a reason for them, and I really didn't want that.  It didn't matter, if I opted to remain in my own bed when she screamed the same results followed, with added punishment for NOT consoling her.  After the first few futile attempts to explain it was scary noises that made her scream and not me, I gave up. For whatever reason he had, my father just didn't like me, and that was very clear to me.

   My life at that stage was not a very happy one.  After seeing a few bruises resulting from their nocturnal pranks, my brothers knocked it off. They never meant for me to get hurt, but they sure weren't going to tell our Dad he was wrong either.  I didn't blame them. Besides it seemed I was always getting hit for one thing or another and half the time I wasn't sure why. And if it did come to light that I had done nothing wrong, there was no apology, he'd just growl that then it was for something I thought he didn't know about. No matter how good I tried to be, I just wasn't good enough.

    School wasn't much better. I was taunted and bullied by other kids, because I was different. They made fun of my clothes (I only owned two dresses, and in those days, girls wore dresses to school) and of my speech impediment. Everything about me, made me a target it seemed. So I stayed quiet most of the time, trying to blend into the background.  Of course Mary had tons of pretty dresses to wear. I really didn't understand that and made the mistake of asking once.  My father told me that I was fat, stupid, and ugly and didn't deserve pretty things, like she did.  This was something I would hear every day, how inferior I was.

   I crept up to my room, when no one was looking and gave myself over to tears. I didn't understand why everyone seemed to hate me so much. I was only 8, what could I have done that was so bad and wicked to deserve such a lot? I laid on my stomache, face burrowed in my pillow to stifle the sounds of my sobs. If he found out I was crying, it would mean another beating, but I needed to cry. I felt so desperately alone and hated.  I felt a hand rubbing my back. As soft and gentle as I remembered my mother's being before she took ill.  I rolled over thinking perhaps she had heard what my father had said, and with difficulty had come to comfort me - only there was no one there. I wiped my face with my hands, as well as my nose, and blinked teary eyes. Now someone brushed my hair back from my face as well. I couldn't see anyone, but I wasn't afraid. I felt slight pressure on the bed as if someone was sitting next to me, and then it felt as if someone kissed my forhead, and I slipped off into sleep.

 My brother woke me for dinner.  My mom, felt my head to see if maybe I was runing a fever to have taken a nap before dinner. I fibbed and said I hadn't been feeling so great. Which really wasn't a lie.  I wanted to tell my mom what I had experianced, but I didn't dare, she'd tell my dad and he'd be mad again. Mad that I had told her what he had said. So I kept it to myself.

 I don't remember when I actually started seeing the woman. One night, as my dad was hitting me with his belt, she just appeared standing next to the roll-away in the cubbyhole. She had such a look of concern for me and anger at my father on her face. I saw her wince every time the belt made contact with my skin. I clenched my jaw and refused to cry out. But even through scrunched up eyes, I could see her soft and gentle features becoming hard. Her eyes narrowed, and as he raised his arm to swing the belt yet again, the rolling bed flew from its place and crashed into him. He cried out with surprise and sat down hard on the floor, releasing me from his grasp. The woman held out her arm and I ran to her.  My father stared at me , with eyes wide, and blurted,"What the hell?"  I could feel the woman's arm protectively over my shoulders, as I stood next to her. I didn't say anything, as he got up and staring about the room left.  She leaned down and kissed my forehead, brushing back my hair. In my head I heard the words, "I will always protect you, now."

   After that, every time my dad tried to hurt me something unexplainable would happen to him. A dish sailing at his head, an unexplained pain as if he had been struck or scratched. He would be pushed or shoved back as he tried to grab me. He wasn't allowed to transfer this type of abuse on the others as well. In a way it was as if he was haunted not me.  It took awhile, before he learned other ways to vent his anger or frustration before laying a hand on any of us. Of course he still yelled and swore at us, me in particular, but that was somewhat tolerable. I accepted the fact, that he would never love me as he did Mary, and where he was concerened I would always be inferior. But I had the love of my mother and my ghostmom, as I thought of the entity to make up for that.  Whenever I needed comforting she was there for me.  Sometimes she'd tell me the most wonderful stories, or sing me songs to help me sleep.

   Around that same time, they began having speech therapy at the public school, and I began getting help. Ghostmom would always make me practice. My instructor, a Miss Louis, asked my mom if it was ok to give me some clothes she had that she thought might fit me. In those days this was a touchy subject, and often veiwed by parents as you thought they couldn't provide, but my mom said yes. There was four dresses suitable for school, and some play clothes too, which she dropped off at the house, so the kids couldn't gossip. Soon the kids weren't picking on me so much.

   I wish I could say I lived happily ever after, but that would be a lie. However, even after I was all grown with children of my own, when times got hard, I could still feel my ghostmom's prescence. Even today, I can almost hear her saying, "I will always protect you now," and I know I'll make it through whatever the difficulty.