Chapter Four
Things I would tell my fifteen-year-old self now that I’m grown:
“Guard your health.” Trish
~Tempest~
“Mom, I can’t believe you won’t hear me out. This is the kind of injustice that project was projecting on us.” Arika waves her hands wildly with her dark hair in a messy bun on top of her head bobbing around. “All through history, unless you were an upper-class white man entitled to the world, you had to stifle your feelings, your talents, and do as told. Well, when does history remain history? When do we call to action and be the change?” Arika practically screeches at me.
I don’t know what to say. I don’t disagree with her points, but responsibility and all the right things to do mean I can’t let her get by with this act of disobedience. She was given a task and in life we will be given jobs we don’t agree with but we have to do. I thought getting her through her first period was hard, but no, her finding her way and becoming her own woman is going to put me in an early grave.
When I get a chance to, this is another one to add to her journal – hold onto your sass and fire, but know when to tame the flame. I have this journal for her. Lots of journals actually. I have been doing them since she was born. It’s a collection of notes that I would tell my teenage self if I could turn back time and know what I know now. I also have each woman who comes into Haven’s Harbor add to the journal even though they don’t know what I plan to use it for. I see it as a way to give her different perspectives. When she is eighteen and ready to face life on her own, I plan to give them to her.
If we both survive that long. Sometimes, parenting feels like a war zone that no one can prepare you for.
“Do you know why we have to learn history?” I ask her, trying to find a common ground rather than continuing to wade through this teenage battleground I’ve found myself in.
“Because some person went to college to get their piece of paper. Since they spent all that money for the degree we gotta let them ramble on and on about the inequalities and injustices of the past. They also use this as a power play.”
I raise my eyebrows at the tiny powerhouse of a young woman in front of me. “Power play?”
“Yes, power play. I swear, Mom it’s like all my teachers have some Napoleon complex. You know the saying when all else fails, teach.”
I raise my hand up silencing her. “Now, you wait one minute. I can understand not wanting to write a journal putting yourself in a mindset of a slave. I don’t agree with your actions, but I also understand that for your generation you don’t care to learn history.” I blow out a breath.
My frustration is winning and I’m fighting not to raise my voice as I continue, “You will not stand in this home and disrespect your teachers. I don’t know what your problem is but get over it. Those people sacrifice their time, talents, and yes, their education to teach you – you entitled teenagers – lessons that you will use in the future.” I have to catch my breath because I really want to cuss her up one side and down the other for the blatant disregard for her teachers she has. “Do you know why women’s liberation is so crucial? Do you know why some slaves fought in the civil war for the South?”
Arika shakes her head at me but doesn’t seem to be backing down at all.
“If we hadn’t had these women in history who were fearless we wouldn’t have the right to work, vote, and own anything. Our complete identities as women would be based on the social-economic class of the man we managed to marry. Do you know why some slaves fought for the South – fear of the unknown. See two different repressions, two different time periods, and two completely different reactions.”
“What’s it got to do with me?”
I throw my hands up in the air and pace the living room. “Arika Haven Adams, you are ridiculous right now. You, you, you! I raised you better than this. You know what – this is a project you need to do! Yes, you need to learn some empathy for others. You need to understand the past so we don’t repeat history in the future. You need to understand people come from all walks in life and will react to things differently.”
“I protested the project, Mom. You can’t make me do it now. How will that look to my friends? Plus, I turned in my project and I stand behind it. Break the chains! You can’t, you simply can’t make me do their version.”
“Oh, but I can and I will. I want your phone on the counter, you’re grounded until I see this project completed.” I look her in the eye. “As for your friends, any friend of value would see the lesson being taught in this project and tell you to put your big girl panties on and deal.”
Arika is the one to throw her hands up in frustration now. “I’ve already been given a zero. Mrs. Starling is not about to give me a grade, so why are you wasting my time doing this assignment. Break the chains, Mom! That’s what I’m trying to do here, break the chains of the past by moving on from it. Why are you gonna make me do a one-eighty?”
And then it happens. In a blink, I say the words I never thought I would ever say. “I’m your mother and I said so!”
That’s when the world shifts. Yes, the entire world tilts. Her eyes go cold in front of me. Her father’s eyes blend with her mother’s cheekbones and nose while she balls up her fists and presses them down at her sides.
“You’re not my mom! You’re just the lady I got left with!”
Two sentences and all is lost. I fight back the tears. I will not let her see she’s broken me. No, that’s a power I won’t give the teenage diva in front of me. For the first time, I question my decision to be so open with Arika in the first place. There has not been a time where I haven’t been up front with her about where she came from. I left out that her dad killed her mom, but she knows her mom. Every single great memory I had with Stephanie I have shared over and over with Arika. When she asks, I am honest and say she was killed. I don’t get into the details because she’s never asked for more.
Then again, she’s never thrown this up in my face before either. This is hell.
“Arika Haven Adams, you are my child in every way that counts. You will set your phone down on that counter, go to your room, and do your project. What you won’t do, is attack me with your words.”
She glares with venom in her stare as she stomps to the kitchen countertop to put up her phone. As she stomps past me to go to her room, she mutters the crushing blow, “The truth hurts.”
Only when I hear the slamming of her door do I slump into my chair and let the tears fall.
I told Stephanie I couldn’t do this. Here we are fifteen years later and I’ve failed my best friend. My phone rings from its place in my purse, I ignore it.
After a shit morning, a surprising afternoon with Deacon, this is how my day is going to end. No, there is no one on the other side of that phone that needs my attention more than I need to take care of myself right now.
When I started Haven’s Harbor fifteen years ago, I did so with my college fund. I called my mom two days after I went home with Arika and told her everything. She supported me one hundred percent knowing that her own sister lived in an abusive relationship. She gave me access to the money that was supposed to be for my education to start my safe house.
I remember we would visit my aunt and cousin, Tamalyn in South Carolina. Everything always had to be in secret. Knowing all the times my aunt called my mom late at night, I watched the pain she went through being helpless to save her sister.
I promised myself and my mom, when I got the place up and running, we would be a place for Tamalyn, her mom, and Stephanie. It was my mission to save them.
Except doing this all with a newborn baby took a lot more than I imagined. I didn’t save Tamalyn’s mom. I didn’t save Stephanie.
In fact, Shawn Callahan went on a mission two days after Stephanie gave birth. Since he was off sulking somewhere for beating her, he didn’t even know she had the baby. He left after she pretended to be knocked out. She then drove herself to the hospital. He never called to check on her. She was in the hospital recovering when he called, not to see how she was doing, but to tell her he was called on another mission and would be gone. When he returned eight weeks later, Stephanie called me and hid the phone in a couch cushion. I close my eyes and it comes back like it was just yesterday.
“Where’s the bastard baby, Steph?” Shawn yells at her. I hear the smack of him hitting her.
“I lost the baby.” Stephanie lies with her voice cracking.
“Do you know who I am? Do you know what I do? You lying cunt. I can tell you’re lying. Did you give it to the real dad?”
“Shawn, I’ve never had sex with anyone but you. Please calm down, these missions they are too much for you. We lost our baby. Stillborn.”
“Slut! Don’t you talk about my missions. Don’t you say a fucking word. I’m here to kill that baby. Yes, cunt I’m gonna kill your baby. Just tell me where the fucking brat is!”
I hear Stephanie sobbing.
“Please Shawn, let’s talk. You’ve been drinking. We have lost our baby, we need to comfort each other not tear each other apart.” I choke on my emotions listening to her try to soothe the maniac in her house.
The sounds change and it’s like they are kissing. “I love you, Stephanie. Take the pain away. A little boy shot me, baby. I was gonna kill him. You know what that does? I would’ve pulled the trigger. If he wasn’t already dead, I woulda killed that boy who shot me.” He pauses and fear runs through me listening to them. “I woulda killed the boy and not felt bad about it.”
“Tell me, talk to me Shawn.” Stephanie pleads.
“Let me get lost in you, Steph.”
Those were the last words I ever heard her say. Stephanie Marie Hargett died that night from asphyxiation. According to reports, Shawn and Stephanie were having sex in their bedroom when she begged him to choke her. He did and got so lost in the sensation because she didn’t use their safe word she died since she gave no indication she wanted him to stop.
He killed her.
I don’t believe it was their kinky lifestyle because they weren’t kinky, not like that anyway. I even gave a statement to what I heard and knew about them. Purposely, I left out the baby I had as my own was in fact their child.
He was a veteran with PTSD. No one wanted to tarnish his reputation any more by saying he had malicious intent to the grieving mother of his stillborn child.
It was all swept under the rug just like the missions. Turns out Shawn wasn’t leaving on missions like Stephanie thought. No, he only made it through the first mission where he took a bullet to the leg. After that he was going to different clinics dealing with Veterans Affairs to get out of his contract with the Navy.
Layers and layers of lies all stacked on top of each other. All I could do was hold onto Arika and the memories of my best friend.
The regrets burn deep. They always will, I imagine. I was young and didn’t think everything through. I should have called the police while I listened to them fighting. I should have done a welfare check.
I should have done more.
At some point I fall asleep still in my clothes from work in the chair. I wake up around two in the morning. As I pass by Arika’s room to go to bed, I open the door to give her a soft kiss on the head while she sleeps.
No matter how much she may hate me right now, I love her with everything I am. Moving in the dark, I find her bed and my heart drops when I find it empty and her bedroom window wide open.
She’s gone.
Everything I have ever done is for her and she’s gone in the night.
Once again, I’ve failed my friend and my daughter.