Pieces to Peace

The snow was stacked, the afternoon after the blizzard. The fresh powder’s depth; waist deep on my five-foot two height. A smile touches my lips at the beauty of the white out world the farm transformed into. The high Colorado sun makes winter warm enough to love here—recasting 30 degrees to 65.

I didn’t mind being the one to tread through the snow to check on the horses. I take a deep icy breath, blowing out the steam and watch it rise. My mind drifts, peace.

In my insulated wine bibby’s; what us farm folk call our winter overalls; I tread through the soft fresh powder to the barn. An amused heart warms me further—happiness new to me. But I’d finally found.

Yes, I found it. Among the nineteen horses, five dogs, tree barn cats and three houses that call Bracket J Bar home. Or as we call our peace of heaven, ‘the island of misfits and broken toys.’ Through a shattered heart and bruised body, shoveling horse shit, hauling hay, and leading quarter horses to pins; I found it.

No longer the person I used to be but also not the person I knew I could be. I was working on it. I was getting there. Every day, I become more.

Not the lost girl trying to find a place to call home. No love, no family to call her own. Not the girl who tried to fill and empty space with something to feel, to be felt. Not the girl who was broken and beat down, cause what else do I deserve. No, she’s gone.

How did I get here? Let me tell you.

***

            Where did I know him from? The man who changed my life forever, Craigslist. I was nineteen. He was twenty-eight and the only man who didn’t message me questions about my body, and what he wanted to with it.

            Sure, he seemed decent, but once I met him in person, I knew he was bad news. Still I stayed. Why? I think there was something inside me that wanted to be free of everything. And he was my escape.

            An unemployed, pierced, tatted, with a beat your ass for looking at me wrong attituded, rebel who just didn’t give a fuck—that was Carter. I still can’t pinpoint the hold he had on me. Why I stayed for over two years?

            Maybe It was that his thick hands remined me of my father. Or that he was obsessed with me and would kill for me. Or maybe it was because he was a trashy hustler, and I knew I was too.

            The duration of those two years can be a blur. But if I try really hard, I remember all the chaos it was. Drugs, alcohol, sex and the hustle for a meal.

            “C’mon. I really want to try it, but I want you to, too,” he said with that boyish gleam he sometimes wore when he got excited.

            I darted my eyes to one of our Mexican neighbors who’d come over to party, then back to Carter. I didn’t want to, but I was drunk.

            With a one eye squint I said, “I-I don’t know.”

            He raised a pierced eyebrow and I saw annoyance behind his hazel eyes.

            “I mean. Ok,” I slurred. Slowly blinking my rational thinking away, I nodded, “Jus, a lil.”

            Carter’s face lit up making me laugh.

            That was the first time and only time I tried Meth, or was it Crack. To this day I’m still not sure. Honestly, I don’t know why I did it. I could blame it on the alcohol. I could blame it on him. But I said yes. Pushover? Yeah, maybe.

            I took the hits out the glass bulb pipe. Didn’t inhale, held it and blew it out. The next morning, I felt like shit. But I remember Carter saying, he was proud of me. He was happy I tried something new. And he wouldn’t make me do it again.

            This was the gate way, I think. To see how far he could push me. Because after, everything got worse.

***

            “It’s time to throw yourself out there,” Ann said. A sixty-year-old, blonde blue-eyed cowgirl in every sense of the word. She leaned back into her worn leather recliner. The kind of lazy boy dad’s dream of.

            It was four months since I left him, Carter.

            I curl up in an identical leather cloud beside her.

            John, her husband of twenty years, her second marriage, sat in another a few feet away, pretending not to listen.

            I reach for a blanket, the only one not occupied by a dog. Also known as Ann’s children. And shrug, “I… don’t know.”

            Ann jerks her head toward me with a disapproving frown. “What’s not to know?”

            I look down at the southwest blanket and laugh through a breath.

            Ann was also my boss. I lived in her basement—ranch hand room and board. A gracious arrangement I appreciated.

            “You’re young,” she continues, “That guy was a dumbass.”

            A grunt of agreement from a ‘not listening’ John brought his body to heave.

            “I knew when y’all came down her to paint. Didn’t I, John?”

            Silence from him.

            “I said, ‘that guy’s a creep.’ I fucking knew it.”

            My eyes stay on the southwest print. The red and yellow threads. My fingers suddenly finding interest in the fringe. I keep a soft smile on my lips, to show I didn’t take offense. She was right.

            “You can do better Belle. A hell of a lot better.”

            I find the courage to look up at her beautifully weathered face. Hard work and the toughness that came with the life she lived heavy in her creases. The confidence and conviction that reflected back at me in a shade of sky blue made me thing of a gaze only a mother could give. Although truth be mine never looked at me this way. Maybe that’s why I can recognize it.

            My voice came out like whisper, “yeah?”

            “We’re gonna get you a nice farm boy.” She shifted in her seat under her favorite child—a blue heeler named Cash. “You’ll see.”

            “Bingo night’s com’n up,” John said, not looking away from his laptop.

            Ann perks, and points to him grinning, “That’s right!” She turns back to me, “We’ll get you a nice dress and show you off.”

            I smile.

            Did I want to go? No.

            The ache and pain were still fresh. And the nightmares of what Carter did to me still happened every night. When I was alone, I still cried, a lot.

***

            The exact day, it started I can’t remember. The fighting, long nights of circular arguments—he’s right I’m wrong, wearing me down with lack of sleep. But it happened.

            There was the shoving. The name calling. It progressively got worse turning to slaps across the face, hair pulling and spitting. There was the choking and kicking while I was down. And some things… some things I’m just not willing to say.

            I tried to leave, but like other survivors would probably tell you; I don’t know why I kept going back. His words would come, the sweet little lies that meant everything. “Baby, please,” “I need you,” “I’ll never do it again,” and the sharpest of them all, “I love you.” The promises of a better life came too. And I stayed.

            The better life never came.

            We were homeless twice, lived in motels, hustled odd jobs, and dug in dumpsters for meals. The whole time I prided myself in being a ‘ride or die’. Meanwhile, he was cheating on me and thinking of ways to keep me locked away—his untouchable treasure.

            Lies he told me: I was the reason he cheated. I was the reason he yelled. And I was the reason he had to hurt me.

***

            Through the green horse pen, I admire the new arrivals. Purebreds. The wildest horses I’ve ever seen. Tall slender bodies bred for running races, prancing around the open run in a game of chase.

            “They won’t be here long.”

            I slide my gaze to the throaty voice of Billy. The owner of a rival ranch and good friend of Ann. And from what I’ve heard a hell of a cattle roper.

            “That’s good.” I step away from the pen, “don’t know how well I’ll handle their savagery.”

            He chuckles with a handsome smile, I imagine cowboy novels are written about. “Savagery?”

            I shrug, “Not what I’m use to is all.” I brush some hair from my face, “I like the quarter horse way.”

            “What way is that?”

            “Sweet, leisurely,” I start walking back to the barn, “hardworking.”

            “Me too,” he nods, following my slow pace. “I heard ‘bout Bingo.”

            My eyes close at the mention, then peer up at him, “well, shit.”

            He laughs again, “Ann had high hopes.”

            “Sorry to disappoint.”

            Bingo didn’t go well. Although young cowboys came to meet the newbie in the town of 1,127. The ranch hand that ‘was a girl’. I was learning to say no. A word I discovered as an option to not do things you don’t want to do. Like take advances from men, when your heart was unwilling.

            Push over, maybe I was, once. Not anymore.

            “Nah,” he shook his head. “They expect too much from ya, too soon.”

            I give him a long look, trying to decode what he knew about me being there. Ann did like to talk.

            That cowboy grin reappears, “All she said was your heart got broke. And you needed somewhere to heal.”

            “That’s about right.” I look over the farm. Pens, dirt, and the three old houses. “I think… I still got a ways to go.” I sigh and glance back to his brown eyes watching me.

            “Take your time, Belle.”

            He started back to Ann’s house, the one to the west. “You let me know when you get there, huh,” he flashes me a wink.

            Men wanting me wasn’t new to me, men worth a damn was.

***

            My whole life was spent in the dirt. My father migrated here from Mexico at sixteen. Then married my traumatized mother, who later was diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar, borderline personality disorder. Together they created a life. It was rocky, barely getting by and filled with more trauma in the ghetto of California.

            I remember him hurting her. Breaking things, and lots of screaming. His thick heavy hands would hurt me too. I knew nothing else.

            All I wanted was to be loved. To be loved better than my mother was. I wanted to be a mother. The kind I didn’t have.

            Although the violence got worse with Carter. I knew he’d kill for me. He once beat a man to a pulp for thinking he had the right to come talk to me at a party. At the time I thought, ‘damn he loves me so much’. ‘No one could ever hurt me.’

            But he did.

            He hurt me.

***

            John taught me how to shoot. After I let it slip that I was having nightmares. Carter would come in my room and hurt me. I didn’t tell him that he’d hold me down and rape me, like he’d done before. I didn’t tell the cops that either, I was ashamed. No, I told John, I was scared.

            I kept a .22 revolver gifted by John in my basement room. And he took me shooting by the farm dump pile.

            John, the father I wish I had.

            The steel in my hands makes me feel invincible, and I let it fire.

            “Thada girl!” John shouts after spitting chew to the ground. “Jus like mounted shoot’n, only now you hit ’em right between the eyes!”

            I laugh, “I like it.”

            “Bell’s got er’ self a new man now,” he chuckles, “call’em steel 22!”

            I grin and face him, “how’s my aim?”

            “Needs work.”

***

            I was sixteen when my mother told me she wanted to kill us both. We were in her burgundy ford. I was learning to drive. In the middle of traffic, she made the confession and smiled yanking the steering wheel towards our death. I still see her, laughing while I panicked to take control of the vehicle.

            We lived, but the fear remained.

            Carter had been trying to teach me to drive his truck for weeks. He yelled about the grinding gears, the stalling in the road, and my fear induced muscle spasms when behind the wheel. Death came to mind every time I sat at the helm.

            House sitting for a Hawaiian millionaire—long story, Carter surprised me while I was doing laundry. Not with flowers, chocolates or jewelry—not that I need those things. But with a sharp shove into the appliance, bringing my head to collide with the cold white metal.

            “What the fuck!” I shrieked and whipped around to find Carter’s angry stare.

            I shoved him back but weighing only a hundred and fifteen pounds and malnourished; his stone body didn’t move, under my feather weight.

            A palm slammed into my face, jerking it back. The hold he held over my nose and mouth stopped breath from coming. My neck strained against the effort of trying to keep my head upright.

            My hands slapped, waving in front of me trying to push back. An arm shoved them away and a hand gripped my throat.

            He grunted, “You wanna fight?” then released my face.

            The blood came. My body rose from the ground, my back banged against the edge of the washer. A shock spiraled up my spine, I tried to scream—couldn’t.

            His eyes bulged with hate, and disgust. My own welled with tears, I refused to let fall.

            “I’m so tired of your shit!” His grip tightened, “You’re a fuck’n child!”

            He lowered me and his forehead pressed against mine. His voice was low, tight with anger, “You better learn to drive real quick, you hear me.”

            My eyes squeezed shut and the tears finally left. I nodded.

            His breath was hot over my face, “look at me.”

            I opened my eyes and nodded again.

            The angry eyes shifted to my trembling lips, then he kissed them. Scanning my face, he said, “You know you’ll never be anything but shit, right? Just a piece of shit.”

            I blinked and managed a whisper, “Yeah, I know.”

***

            Windows down, hand easy on the steering wheel, I drove down the dirt road at high speed. A smirk behind my menthol cigarette, a Rockstar energy drink in the cup holder and ‘Dirt Road Anthem,’ blaring out the speakers.

            The blue Vibe I borrowed from Tara, who lived in the east house, released a satisfying crunch against the road. Yes, I was driving. My heart flutters as the fast-moving air encourages strands of hair to be freed from my braid.

            Everyone on our little island took a turn teaching me to drive. And I am driving.

            I pull into the long drive catching sight of Fiona. She lives in the center house, sandwiched between Ann and Tara. She was digging in the dirt. Her everyday flowing satin, soft pink robe wrapped tight, giving the world a glimpse of her disheveled state.

            Shutting the door and putting out my smoke I greet her.

            Her eyes were red, and her movie star face was soaked with a matter she’d been crying about before I arrived. Sitting on her heels she wiped spring heat off her forehead and grinned her famous bright smile.

            “Belle!” she waved me over.

            Fiona moved in a couple month after I did. A freshly divorced RN, who tried hiding her drinking and pill popping problem behind a joyous smile. Her reddish-brown bob bounced with her overly excited wave.

            I tried to hide my worry, “What you up to?”

            “Garden!” she beamed, spreading palms over the dirt in front of her. “Told John to let me have some of that horse shit.”

            Her hands were covered in soil along with her robe, and bare feet. She looked up at me and the veil of joy left.

            “He thinks I’m nuts, drunk maybe.” Her hands laid over her knees, palms up, “I jus…just thought I’d give life to something. Ya know.” A chest heave with a heavy breath, “Just a little purpose for today.”

            I search her grey eyes, “I think that’s beautiful Fiona.” I kneel beside her, placing a hand on the side of her shoulder.

            “Will-will you help me?”

            I smile, sit, pull off my boots and socks, toss them behind me, “Let’s do it. I’m always up for purpose.”

            Her eyes coated, and her joy returned.

            Fiona and I worked and tilled her new garden, barefoot and driven, until the sun went down.

            She confessed that she drank too much, and it was why her husband left her. There was that and the miscarriages. Four.

            She cried. Confessed—she pulled a knife on her husband, three wine bottles in after he came home from seeing another woman. One who didn’t drink, one who was pregnant.

            I told her my fear of never being loved. I told her about my mother, wrapped up in her own trauma unable to care for herself, let alone me. My father, who I have dim memories of my bed being a scary place. I told her about Carter and how I thought he was my escape. And how he turned out to be everything I was trying to forget.

            We dug ourselves into the dirt, rolled in the earth, desperate to ground the evils. No judgment, no fear, just truth. We took all the hell we’ve held inside. We buried that shit to fertilize the plants we placed in the ground.

I left it there. In the earth and so did she, hoping it would turn into something beautiful. Something new.

***

            There it was—the light. I saw it as clear as the knife he stuck into the coffee table in front of me. After he spoke the words, “I could slit your throat, and no one would give a fuck.”

            If I stayed, I would die there. And I wasn’t ready to die.

            So, I told him what he wanted to hear. Lies.

            “Yes, you’re right,” I said.

            “Yes, I’m nothing,” I said.

            “Yes, I’ll do it,” I said.

            “I love you,” I said. I lied, but I lived.

            The next morning, I woke up alone. Sore bones, head foggy from two hours of sleep, or was it three? I remember the golden rays streaming down on me while I laid on the bed.

            The move on my mind. The escape that could be the end.

            Could I trust her? Afterall, she was his sister. I didn’t know her well. I did know the story of her pervious marriage. Her husband broke her orbital bone, the reason for her wandering eye. She got away. Escaped to a new life, found a new husband, a peace of mind on farmland. That could be me, right?

            If anyone understood, it’d be her. Right?

            Doubt came, changing my mind.

            I won’t tell.

            I’ll just get in her car and do what Carter and I agreed to. Go to her house and learn to drive.

            I could learn to drive, and things could get better.

            I just had to learn to drive.

            I love him. Don’t I?

***

            Tara saved my life. Although she’d tell you I saved my life. That I was brave enough to say it, to leave and not look back.

            She chose me over Carter, her brother. Tara said it was easy for her, called him fuck face after finding out what he’d done. Never called him Carter since we left that house.

            She was my safe place for a long time. I slept in her daughter’s room for three days after I left Carter. That part’s like a dream, there are foggy memories of her coming in to check on me, of her golden retriever coming in to lay with me. I was so tired then.

            I look up from my laptop and see her talking with Ann about horses. Her dark hair in a tight ponytail, a Marlboro cigarette in her fingers. A loud laugh leaves her at something Ann said. We sit outside Ann’s side door as the sun sets. A nightly ritual we’ve done since the day I woke from Tara’s safe haven almost a year ago.

            Tara turns to me, “How’s that profile going?”

            I shake my head, “I don’t know about this.”

            Ann shifts in her chair, “It’s been a year Belle. There are good men out there.”

            My gaze slides over them both, “I know, but what if I fuck up again and pick one of the bad ones.”

            Tara grins, “Oh you’ll know the bad ones now. Focus on ones with purpose, not just down to fuck, huh.”

            I laugh, “well, there is this one guy.” I offer her the computer.

            Sliding her cigarette between her lips on hold, she takes it, looking the profile over. Her eyes peer at me, then back to the screen.

            “What?” Ann says, squinting toward the screen. “I’m dying of suspense. Spill it.”

            “An architect,” Tara says, taking her smoke from her lips and looking at Ann with raised brows, “Blond.”

            “ok,” Ann nods.

            Tara continues, “blue eyed, business owner.”

            “Book him!” Ann commanded.

            Tara and I laugh.

            I shake my head, “that’s not how it works. I can message him, but.”

            “But?” Tara raised a no-nonsense brow.

            “Am I…” Good enough? 

            Ann answers, “Yes.”

            Tara nods and hands me the laptop, “yes honey, you absolutely are.”

***

            Cops are there to protect us. I know. But the day I made the report against Carter they weren’t very compassionate. They made me feel stupid, like I had control over what happened to me. I know, I stayed. They questioned me about that. Maybe I could’ve fought harder. But the truth is, Carter was wrong. And I know I was not at fault for what he did to me.

            He was a broken man, breaking people and I happened to be the person he broke the most.

            It was not my fault.

            I filed the order, and I never looked back.

***

            Tara went with me to meet Bradley. The architect I met on the dating site OkCupid. When he walked into the diner, the room lit up. His bright blue eyes screamed excitement and curiosity. I felt my insides shine just being around him. I felt taller, important and his smile brought my heart back to life.

            I never met such a bright man in my life.

His hands weren’t rough or thick like my fathers. When he shook my hand, I felt their tenderness. They could never hurt me.

He wasn’t dark and broody. His beautiful light shone with authority and conviction. This was a man. And Tara was right, I clearly saw who Bradley was. A good man. A man with purpose.

            That night after our date, he drove me home. He asked nothing of me. Bradley kissed me and said goodnight.

            I waited for him to pull out of the drive before I ran to Tara’s. I went over the night in detail with her.  I told her I was a bit scared. It all felt so real, so… normal.

            Tara laughed, grew serious and said, “He’s a real man Belle, and he’s probably looking for a wife.” She searched my face, “Are you gonna be that wife? Are you ready for this?”

***

            Early mornings in autumn are my favorite. The twilight shifts to that orange red hue and the breeze is the perfect campion to a cup of freshly brewed coffee. French pressed, please. A bit of honey and a giant splash of milk.

            I snug my hold on my mug, one of my favorites. The one with the black cat in a witch’s hat. And look out my open garage door. That sweet cool breeze hits, but I’m safe under my wool, red plaid blanket. I take a deep inhale, and I find it. Peace.

            I married that architect. That amazing attentive man with the patience of a saint. I love him. Another inhale and find it. Peace.

            The sounds coming from the kitchen. Two boys, my boys, six and nine—finishing their French toast. Their giggles, a beautiful song of joy, and there it is, peace. 

            I lean back, in my chair, secure in the home we’ve built together. A three bedroom, three and a half bath, blue house in the suburbs. No longer the girl I use to be, still not the person I know I can be.

            I can always be better, more. Everyday I become more.

            I found my home. It’s here. I know love. Love I only dreamed of rooted in understanding and patience. I’m a mother, aware and considerate. There is no other placed I’d rather be.

            Who was that girl?

A smirk rises through a sip of my medium roast.

She’s gone. I honor her memory.

How did I get here? That’s a whole other story.