He stole her laundry cart

I’ve been thinking a great deal about my mom lately. As I struggle daily from sinking into a deep, dark hole, I can’t help but compare myself to her when she was my age. 29. We sat on my futon a couple of weeks ago when she dropped by for an impromptu visit. I don’t see my mother much nowadays, ever since she moved back in with my younger sister. I haven’t spoken to my sister in almost two years. I don’t know how I feel about that anymore. My mom talked about the man who battered her during a horrific turning point in her life. I tried not to bombard her with tactless questions because I know I can be blunt and forceful- a frightening interrogator whenever I’m seeking answers to the numerous questions bouncing around in my head; or whenever I’m just being plain ol’ nosy, eager to hear all about the unorthodox upbringing of our family. She met Alfredo from Nayarit at a plastic factory where they both worked during the mid-1980s. He was a tall, lanky, beautiful man with dark curls and a quiet smile. His teeth were perfectly even and white, which was a startling feature for me as a child to contemplate. I could tell she felt uncomfortable discussing the particulars with me. In fact, she couldn’t even bring herself to say she had been abused. I guess maybe in her eyes the level of violence was minor given the fact she never ended up in a hospital. But he did bust down our kitchen door with a couple of swift kicks while we fled through the front door, not bothering to grab our jackets in the process. I know she never openly discussed being hit by Alfredo with anybody. She showed up to work with bruises on her face and shame weighing heavily on her shoulders. Coworkers openly stared, appalled at seeing the brutality and senselessness that would drive a man to desecrate the face of a woman: a mother. Her friends told her she needed to move out and offered their homes. My uncles vowed to kill him, but when the time came to demonstrate their might and physical prowess, they all backed down. I confess to having mysteriously blocked the event from my shadowy memories. There were many “incidents” from those years I somehow managed to erase from the recesses of my fragile child’s mind. It wasn’t until David refreshed my memory the night after we bailed him out of jail that I dimly recalled the fear and violence my mother endured at the hands of this man. When I look at her, I see a tired but strong woman; a woman with an immense reserve of compassion and determination but also capable of uncontrollable wrath in an instant if provoked. One time when I was 14, she slapped me so hard against the mouth I tasted blood and seethed inwardly because she embarrassed me in front of strangers while folding socks and underwear at our neighborhood laundromat. I should’ve kept it shut when we started arguing about the amount of time I was spending with my best friend, a girl with a questionable reputation. Another time, she waged an all out war with me and a broom. She scared the hell out of me when she picked it up and came charging towards me while I was in a lotus position. I quickly reacted by unfolding my limbs and attempting to stop the impending attack. Both of us held on tightly to the damn broom that hot, summer afternoon, neither of us willing to relinquish the rights to an object of domestic duty and now domestic violence, until my brother stepped in. He looked at his mother and sister half collapsed on the living room floor, the rug in a ball underneath our knees, disheveled hair flying in all directions and calmly removed the broom from our sweaty hands. We laughed about it years later and sometimes I miss that woman the most: the one who fought and loved at the same time with such fierce savagery. She could stop me dead in my tracks with one chilling look and I hated the day long silent treatments she would subject me to when I overstepped the boundary between acceptable and unacceptable daughter behavior. Yet, she has always been my number one defender against my overbearing father and she never once made me feel like a failure when I showed up at her doorstep with my child after the collapse of my marriage. It’s difficult to reconcile the woman I picture in my head, warding off the heavy blows that landed with vicious pressure on her face, with the woman I still see sitting stiffly next to me, an aura of resignation enveloping her softly, as her voice fades away in silent remembrance of the time her life came to a screeching standstill.