Prologue
It all started when I got the letter. I had never got a letter before. I can’t say that I wish I hadn’t gotten this letter. But it changed my life.
I don’t have the letter here with me now. Frank took it from me, he probably threw it away or burned it. I didn’t even understand all the words in it. I just know they were the nicest words anyone has ever said about me.
Funny how a letter sticks with you. People may say something to you and you might not remember what exactly they said to you later if you try to recall. But a letter, even if you only read it once, you remember those words. It’s like the words are stuck in your head, whether you want them to be or not.
The letter is why I’m here. The letter is why Frank locked me up here in the attic. I don’t know how long I’ve been here, I don’t know why he locked me up here either. He’s so angry with me over the letter. He comes storming up here sometimes to hit me and have his way with me, but he won’t let me out. Sometimes he shouts at me, other times he says nothing.
I reckon this is my punishment for getting the letter. But if he locked me up here to make me forget about it, I suppose my punishment isn’t working. All I can think of is the letter. The words are always floating around in my head, even the ones I don’t understand. I don’t even know why he would write me such a letter.
It seems to me as though a letter is really a selfish thing. A letter is written so a person can get all their feelings out. They don’t care how the person the letter is going to will feel. They only care that they got their feelings out. I suppose the letter could make you have all kinds of feelings after reading it. But in the end, I just think it’s a selfish thing. So much thought is put into it when you are writing it, but so little thought after it is out of your hands.
All I know is I can’t stop thinking of the letter…
Part One
I first met Frank when I was eleven. We were married by the time I was twelve. I lived on the farm with my daddy, I tried to take care of him. My ma had died when I was two, daddy said she died from a broken heart from losing all of her babies. I was the only child they had that ever survived, I guess I wasn’t enough for her. I don’t remember her.
The land wasn’t any good to farm on anymore. All the crops dried up and died. Daddy started drinking a lot. He’d get angry when he drank and hit me and lift my skirts. But I kept the place clean and kept food on the table and got drink for daddy. We were in debt with all the people in the town, but they still gave me the things I needed to keep food on the table for daddy and myself. No one had much of anything then. I think they all knew we’d never be able to pay all our tabs.
Frank sold potatoes out of the back of a McDaniel’s truck in the town. He use to talk to me all the time and give me a few potatoes for the dinner. He told me he had a farm that was good for nothing. He had to work on the McDaniel’s farm like most of the failed farmers did. It was something most of them were very bitter about. They hated that their crops had all dried up on them while the McDaniel’s farm was so big and doing so well. They hated that they had to leave their farms to work on someone else’s to pay their debts from their own farms.
Daddy never went to work on the McDaniel’s farm because he was too proud. He would get the drink in him and say that the McDaniel’s had poisoned the land. That’s why everyone else’s crops had dried up but theirs. I think a lot of the other farmers thought this too, but were too afraid to say so. They couldn’t afford to lose their jobs at McDaniel’s and have the bank take their dried up farms and houses.
Frank always seemed interested in me when he saw me. He would touch my bruises, wherever they were, my face, my arms or my legs. He’d examine me like you would a prize bull. I could see that look in his eyes when he’d touch the bruises on my legs. It was the same look daddy had on his face when he’d lift my skirts. Frank was a widow with no kids. He was twenty-seven years older than me. His wife had died years ago from giving birth, along with the child.
One day, Frank came to our house in the McDaniel’s truck. He had never been to our house before, I didn’t even know he knew where we lived. I came out to meet him because daddy was sleeping in his chair. He told me to wait outside and he went into the house. He was in the house for about forty five minutes. I thought about going in, I was curious to know what was going on. Frank came out of the house with a suitcase, he walked right past me and told me to get in the truck. I asked him, ‘What about daddy.’ He just told me matter of factly, ‘You’re daddy is dead, you’re coming with me.’ I didn’t ask anymore questions, daddy always told me to never ask questions and never back talk.
Frank drove me straight to the doctor then he drove us to the church after. The doctor lifted my skirts but didn’t do what daddy usually did when he lifted my skirts. The priest in the church married us. That was the first and last time I’d ever seen a doctor or a priest.
We drove at least an hour out of town to get to Frank’s house after going to the church. I remember there were a lot of things going through my head then, but I didn’t dare say any of them. I wondered how daddy had died, was he dead when I thought he was just sleeping? Who was going to bury him and have the funeral for him, we didn’t have any money. I wondered what that doctor had done to me and why he had done it. Most of all, I wondered why Frank had just married me. I kept looking at the suitcase on the floor of the truck in front of me and wondering what was in it.
Even though it was an hour drive to Frank’s house, it didn’t seem long enough. The dirt road seemed to never end, but I wish it wouldn’t have ended. The truck kicked the dust up all along the road as we drove. I had looked out the window and tried to count the trees as we passed them but there were too many and we were going too fast. Neither one of us spoke a word.
When we got to Frank’s house he told me to grab the suitcase and go into the house. He showed me to our bedroom and told me to go into the bathroom and get washed up and leave my clothes off for when I came back out.
I had never been naked in front of anyone before, I had never even seen myself naked before. I remember a time later when I had just got out of the bath and looked at my naked body in the full length mirror in the bedroom for the first time. I was a skinny person, I had something in the way of breasts, but nothing too big. My red hair came all the way down my back. I had some freckles too. I didn’t seem very tall, I wasn’t short either, but I was at least a head shorter than Frank. I remember running my hands down my belly and wondering why I’d never been with child. Frank walked into the room and saw me looking at myself and beat me stupid before having his way with me. He accused me of running around on him and liking the look of myself too much. He took the mirror down after that.
