The Truth Lies at the Bottom of Her Bottle

Published by Heather Louise on June 6, 2020June 6, 2020

Drunk again. She promised me that if I moved in with her, she would only drink on the weekends. It was Wednesday night. I walked through the door after church to the site of Stormie, my biological mother, holding a pile of her beautiful red hair on top of her head. She looked straight at me and told me to cut it off. She screamed at me to cut it off.

I had never lived with Stormie before, or at least I have no memory of living with her. My Dad, Greg, would let me visit her here and there, but the visits usually had a bad ending. He said he would never keep me from her, but that he would let me find out for myself what type of person she was. I found out that Wednesday night.

I want to say I was 14 or 15 (my timeline is pretty blurry). I was not going to cut her hair. The more she screamed at, the angrier I became, realizing just how intoxicated she really was. She got up, took a knife off the counter, and pointed it at me. My fight or flight response kicked in and I ran to my room. She chased after me, knife in hand. She plowed through the door open and pushed me on the bed. I kicked her in the lower stomach, hard. I thought I was going to die at the hand of my mother. While she was doubled over, I ran to the kitchen, but she caught me and pinned me to the floor.

This is where it happened. These are the words she screamed in my face. YOUR FATHER IS NOT EVEN YOUR REAL FATHER.

I think after the words left her mouth, she regretted them. Still hovering over me, she spoke the name of my supposed REAL father. I swore I would never forget that name. The name reminded me of a clown. But she was drunk. So that makes it not real. And she said he was DEAD. I buried that name, never able to recall it.

My Grandma Cruz came and got me that night. I told her what Stormie said. Grammy said for me not to listen to her, she was drunk, and that I am my father’s daughter. But the seed was planted.

After I fell asleep, I had a nightmare about Stormie. She was standing in the corner with her arms crossed, directing two very giant, muscular men to inject me with some sort of drug. I was screaming for them to stop, asking them why, begging for them to stop. The men kept saying they were sorry, but they had to listen to her. I felt the sting of the needle in my arm and immediately became groggy. I tried with everything I had to walk to the couch, but I felt like my feet were in sludge.

I woke up in the middle of my Grammy’s hallway. I will never forget that nightmare. Stormie had total control over these men. As I write this, I wonder, did these two men represent my Dad, Greg, and my REAL father?