The
Tornado
Sue
Cross
Iced
Tea
The room I lived in for
the first fifteen years of my life had no windows.
My
only glimpse into the outside world was through the books that lined the walls,
the only concession to freedom that I was allowed. For this I am grateful.
My mother’s name is
Miranda Jackson. She is a small woman with brown hair that she wears in a thick
plait, which hangs half way down her back. It was my father, Jonathan Steadman,
who kidnapped her on her way home from school in Los Angeles when she was
fifteen. I was born a year later.
Apart
from the books, the only comforts in that incarceration were a bed, a toilet
and a washbasin. The only sounds were of crying and occasionally shouts and
desperate screams. The smells, apart from cooking, were unpleasant and sour.
It’s only now that I can compare such things.
My mother named me
Annie, after her favourite doll, because she told me that I was like a little
doll when I was born. I arrived on the kitchen floor with only my father to
assist her. Apart from what I read in books, it was my mother who taught me
about love. I did not understand about hope and freedom.
But
I understood that my father was a wretch and I hated him. I hated the terror he
brought when he visited me alone. I hated the smell of sweat and lust that he
left behind, and which lingered on my body hours after his visits and which
washing never seemed to remove, no matter how hard I scrubbed my skin. Somehow
feeling that it was my fault, I never told my mother about what happened.
Mother was locked into
my room each day when my father went to work. It was here that she taught me to
read and write. She told me that, with the passing of time, her hopes of being
found faded, even though the house in which she was brought up was only five
blocks away. Her eyes became dull when she talked of lost hopes and dreams and
it was then that I tried to distract her.
‘Let’s
read a book, Mother,’ I coaxed.
‘Yes,
what shall we read today?’ And she smiled; her eyes back in the present – back
with me again. We would drink our iced tea and find a modicum of escape.
When the tornado hit,
my life changed with the wind. One minute I was reading and the next, one half
of the house was blown down. The rest is a blur. I remember Mother rushing into
my room, grabbing me and then running onto the street. The light pierced my
eyes like knives and my mother’s hand gripped me so hard that it hurt.
‘Help
us. Someone help us!’ Mother yelled.
We
were taken to hospital and then the police arrived to question us. They told us
that my father had been killed in the tornado, crushed by falling debris, and I
was pleased. Justice was borne on the wind that day. When we left the hospital
a line of beautiful people with cameras was waiting for us. The nurses too were
beautiful and so were the police.
This new world I live
in is too big for me. I am gradually growing into it, but it is not easy. The
psychologists have explained that I may always struggle with normal life. But I
don’t know what normal is. My body is free but my mind is forever trapped
within the walls of my fear. Fear of crowds, fear of noise, fear of traffic,
fear of what people think of us. And still I fear the nightmares that remind me
of my old prison.
Those
beautiful people, the first people that I saw upon leaving the hospital, are
journalists. I don’t think of them as beautiful friends anymore. They are a
threatening intrusion and a menace.
I still live with my
mother, escaping the press by hiding away in a remote part of Virginia. We own
a small farmhouse, which overlooks fields and huge, endless skies. Even in
winter, I open my bedroom window each day and taste the pure, sweet air. In
summer I listen to birdsong and watch the wild flowers nod in the breeze. We
keep chickens, grow vegetables and rarely leave the farm.
My
only refuge is my writing. And my books, of course. They are not windows now,
but comforts and friends.
About the Author
Sue Cross has published two novels, Tea at Sam’s and Making
Scents. She likes to draw on her travel experiences when writing. You can
visit her on her website http://www.suecross.com
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