Daddy's Girl - Marie B (read with me TXT) 📗

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Mom didn’t allow dogs inside the house, but daddy would open the screen door and let all Rusty’s friends come in out of the snow where they lay on blankets that he put down for them. Mom would frown, but we often wondered who placed the bowel of water and left over food there for them during the night.

“Look in all the cabinets.” Mom would say. “Get all the knives and hide them.” My heart would race faster than my feet could go. I knew that we were in for a hell of a night when she said that. Even when we prayed that daddy would come home and go straight to sleep, he very seldom did. Mom would take all the knives from us and hide them behind the counter. I would slide into bed under the covers with only my eyes peeping out. Anticipating, I would hear the screen door slam with a loud bang. Rusty, our dog, barking----daddy’s voice yelling, “Get the hell outta the way.” I’d pull the covers up higher over my head----higher until I felt like a worm safe in its cocoon.

I wondered why mom didn’t just take us kids and leave? Maybe it was too many of us for her to carry, I thought or maybe she just didn‘t know where to go. If I could have lifted my siblings through the small window in my bedroom, I would have climbed out, placing each one onto the ground before running off with them----forever. One night when the snow was coming down by the bushels, and daddy was still out drinking, mom gathered us kids out to the back porch. The white snow glistened covering the ground. She told us to form a circle and hold hands. We would pray that daddy would get home safely that night. I remember a feeling, just a tinge of disappointment. I had this idea of mom leaving a note telling daddy that we would not be back until the drinking stopped. In the midst of praying, we heard the door slam and Rusty’s yelp. Daddy was home safe.

The large waiting area was empty at three a.m. in the morning. It was so empty that if I would scream, there may have been an echo heard throughout the whole hospital. We sat on one side of the room on cushioned benches against the wall, Mom clutching her purse close to her. Margie, John and I sat mummified. After the doctor had explained to us that daddy was stabilized, mom called uncle Albert. He was the youngest of three children on my daddy’s side, uncle Ralph, aunt Dot and my daddy, John. Daddy was stabilized the doctor had said. That meant that there was a chance of recovery. I sat back on the bench letting the tears stay put inside where they were. Completely sober now, I prayed, oh God, please don’t let my daddy die, I want a chance to tell him that I do love him.

Uncle Albert walked into the room and stood in front of us, irrepressible fear radiating from his eyes. For some reason he didn’t seem as tall as he use to be. His hair was more gray than black, and the wrinkles in his forehead were a road map of years. He searched one face, and then another, looking for some kind of sign. I looked down.

“Is he ok?” He looked back to mom.

“He’s stabilized.” She said. There that word was again. I took a deep breath and let it permeate slowly into the air. John and Margie were still sitting with there hands tightly clasped on their laps. Margie uncrossed her legs and re-crossed them.

We had spent summer vacations at uncle Albert’s when he was married to Aunt June. Their two girls were the same age as Margie and me and they had a son name Jeffrey who was going to be a doctor. Willa Mae, and Cadarice were our favorite cousins. Visiting uncle Albert’s home in Clarksburg West Virginia had been the highlight of most of our summers. He took us places that we had never been before, the movie theaters, swimming pools and shopping stores, and when he would come to visit us, it was with gifts and smiles.

Daddy had been pacing the house like somebody in a cage when Uncle Albert decided to pay us one of his unexpected visits.

“Look like uncle Albet’s car.” My little sister Katharine exclaimed in glee. John and I ran to the window and peered out. It was him all right. I couldn’t take my eyes off his hands that were full of glad tidings and John Jr. couldn’t take his gaze away from the big shinny Cadillac that he drove.

“Hey guys.” I brought you some chocolate covered pretzels from my work place. He loaded box after box of candy onto the dinning room table. We gathered around him.

“How long you staying?” Mom asked.

“Just over night.” He sighed. Daddy pulled out the dinning room chair and placed it before him as if he were king for a day. Daddy’s forehead seemed to loose some of it’s wrinkle and his eyes seemed to twinkle, however it could have been from the light of the living room lamp.

“Sis,” daddy called me, “fix Uncle Al and me a cup of coffee.” I started towards the kitchen.

“Just bout this much sugar in mine.” Uncle Albert held thumb and finger up for me to measure.

I sat the kettle on the top burner. When it whistled I poured the steaming water into two cups of black coffee. Daddy let his cool while Uncle Albert put his cup to his thick lips.

“Mmm, just right.” He smiled and winked at me.

We kids often pretended to be busy doing other things while listening to adult conversation. I sat in the next room cutting a dress pattern that had already been cut. The material I had chosen for my new shift dress was cotton with black and white flowers. It was the fashion that originated from London where the singing group, the Beetles, were from. Everybody was singing the Beetles songs, and wearing bowl cut hair styles. Mom and I would always have a fight when it came to fashion. I’d put a hem in my dresses and take up the sides on the sewing machine. Mom would pull the thread out and I would put it back. “Yo hips are to big for tight short dresses.“ She would say. It was a fight for the fashion. Daddy would just tied that rag around his head and went out back. My ears perked up when I heard uncle Albert say that Aunt June and the kids were gone.

“She took them in the middle of the night.” I heard silence and then mom suggested they pray. When she was done praying uncle Albert said. “I have a song I want you to hear, you’ll like it.” The mole on his nose danced up and down when he smiled.

“John Jr. get the record player out.” daddy said. The music blared loudly, “Lean on me when you need a friend.” Uncle Albert played it over and over again until daddy finally got up and tied his rag around his head and walked to the back of the house, off the porch, and down to the garden where he sat and looked at the sky.

We were the only ones in the hospital room now except for a young woman with a small boy who might have been her seven or eight year old son. He sat with dark wide eyes and his arms wrapped around the woman’s waist. I wondered what kind of misfortune had beset these folk, a sick relative, a dying husband or something. Seems like hours went by before a doctor came out again to talk to mom. We all sat, starring out into space, not sharing in thoughts or feelings, just patiently waiting.

“You can see your husband now, but no one else can go back there.” The doctor said. Mom in her cotton smock, black strapped shoes and cinnamon colored stockings, marched confidently behind the doctor, and disappeared into the operating room. When she came out a few minutes later, we listened to what she had to say.

“There is a chance that yo daddy might make it.” Mom said.

“What happened to daddy?” I asked.
“A bleeding ulcer. They think they got it though. Yo daddy would never go to the doctor like I told him to,” Mom almost showed expression now. “That’s why he here today. He said he‘ll never smoke another cigarette or drink another drink, if God’ll just give him one more chance.” she said and then she sat down.


The house we grew up in had belonged to my grandpa and grandma Maize. Grandpa had come to West Virginia in a horse and carriage from Buckingham Virginia, along with his wife, Ella Mae and five kids. My mom, Elmira, was the youngest. I was told they came here to raise four boys in the country were they could be safe; it was getting too dangerous for them in the city. Mom said that four hard headed boys could only stay in trouble in the big city. First thing they did when they got here was to buy some land and build a house on a hillside in West Dunbar. When Grandpa and grandma Maize had both past away, they left the house to mom and daddy. After the third baby was born, the rooms seemed to shrink, so daddy started making some changes to the house.

A side walk and four cinder-block steps led up to the front porch and door of our house. On the right was a wooden swing and on the left, a green ivy vine that covered the banisters for shade. Inside the house was a large living room with a somewhat slanting floor and a fire place. To the right of the fireplace was the bed room that my parents slept in. On the left side was a set of French doors that led to a sizeable room were company often visited. Sometimes dead bodies in caskets were kept there also, until one day daddy tied a rag around his head and began breaking down the doors with a large hammer. He changed it into what became the master bedroom. There were two more bedrooms in the house and an attic. Before grandpa died, he built an indoors bathroom with a tub. Toward the back of the house was a large dinning room that led off from a small kitchen to a porch. That’s where mom did all her canning each year.

The back yard extended so many acres from the house, and the grounds took in rows of yellow and white kernel corn. There were small poles that were heavy laden with red tomatoes hanging from them and tall ones with green beans.