Page 4 of Mia Amata

I closed the bedroom door behind me, took all my clothes off, including my bra and panties, putting them in a pile on the end of the bed. I opened the closet door, seeing that there were a lot of clothes in there. I stared at them for the longest time, it was like my mind froze. I had no idea what to wear, what size I was, what would even look good together. I opened a drawer in the closet to find a variety of underwear, bras, and socks. Another drawer yielded shorts and another pants. I was clueless. I backed away, sliding to the floor, crying. I couldn’t control the sobs. I heard a slight knock on the door.

Eva opened the door a crack, “Mattie, can I come in?” I nodded yes, and she walked in, closing the door behind her. She reached into the closet and pulled out a robe. “Here, let’s put this on for the moment.” She reached out and took my hand, helping me up. As I slipped into the robe, she saw all the bruises and scars all over my body. “Oh, Mattie, I’m so sorry he did that to you.”

She handed me some Kleenex, and I wiped my eyes and blew my nose. I motioned to the closet. saying, “I don’t know what to wear.”

Eva seemed to take that in stride and said, “Well, what size are you? We can start there.”

I looked at her with a blank stare.

“You don’t know what size you wear?” she asked.

I shook my head. She walked over to the clothes on the bed and looked through them for size tags. Finding nothing, she put them down and walked back over to me. “OK, I think you are about the same size as me, so let’s start with something else. What is your favorite color?”

I had to think about that for a little bit, as I hadn’t thought about my favorite anything for a long time. No one cared about what my favorite things were. “Any color?” I asked meekly.

Eva nodded, smiling gently at me. She watched me as I searched my mind for a color I liked.

“Blue,” I said, “like the sky.”

“Perfect!” Eva said. She went into the closet and pointed to a section. “These clothes here should be the ones that would probably fit you the best. Let’s see what we have here.” She went through the clothes and pulled out a blue dress, the color of the sky. “What do you think of this?”

I nodded, “It’s very pretty.”

“I think it will look great on you, matches your eyes. Now, let’s see if we can find some undergarments for you to wear.” She pointed to more drawers that held things that she thought would fit me and pulled out a bra and panties set that were pretty blue also. She set all the clothes on the bed and said “Try these on. I’ll go back out with Mom. Let me know if you need anything else.” She walked out and shut the door behind her.

I picked up the bra and panties and looked at them closely. They were nothing like what I was used to. They were pretty and soft, not the more revealing sort that I was required to wear for Allen. I stood up and dropped the robe onto the bed, trying them on. They were very comfortable, fitting me almost perfectly.

I then put the dress on. Looking in the mirror, I was surprised at the results. It was a soft summer dress with spaghetti straps. It changed what I felt like completely. I felt pretty, even though I knew with the bruising and cuts I was anything but pretty. I turned to leave the room, noticing that Eva had taken all the clothes I had been wearing, including the shoes, with her when she left the room earlier. I opened the door, shyly walking back out to the kitchen table where I sat down again.

“Oh, honey,” Lauren said, “you look lovely.”

“Thank you,” I said shyly to both of them.

“Of course! That dress looks so nice on you,” replied Lauren. “Now, we need to discuss a couple other things before we can let you get settled. I work a full-time job at a medical clinic where I am a nurse. I work for a fantastic female doctor. The first thing I would like to do is have her come to check you over.” She could see how nervous that made me. Lauren stated, “She will do this very privately, nothing will be put on a medical record—anywhere. We need to make sure you are OK.”

I could see the sense of this, yet I was still scared. I nodded my assent after seeing the common sense of it.

“Good. I will call her to ask her to come over tonight. She is here a lot, we are best friends, so no one will think anything of her coming over. Then, after we make sure you are OK, we will let things lay low for a couple of days, keeping an eye on the news while we work on a plan for your future. We will not rush that unless the news is showing us a reason to hurry you to a new location. You have a TV down here, so you can watch it during the day while I’m at work and Eva is at school.”

“Please just watch the volume and noise level. We don’t have neighbors very close, but there is the possibility that a mailman or occasional delivery driver dropping off a package might hear something. We will keep the door closed at the top of the stairs for your privacy, but that should also help with the noise level. We will not intrude on your privacy, always knocking when we need to see you. You can lock the door if it makes you feel safer. Please let us know if you need anything at all.”

With that, both Lauren and Eva got up, gave me quick hugs, then went up the stairs.

After the door closed, I just sat there and looked around at my new home, at least for the time being. Looking up at the door at the top of the basement stairs, I went up and quietly locked it, feeling silly but a little safer. I was lost, trying to decide what to do next. There was no LIST, no rules, no fists dictating what to do. I try to think of this as a good thing, but the problem is—I have no idea what to do.

I looked at the clock and saw that it was almost lunchtime, but I really was not that hungry. Even if I was hungry, I had no idea what to cook without THE LIST telling me. I was a good cook, I thought, being able to make a lot of things without having to follow a recipe, but not being told what to cook was overwhelming for me.

My stomach was still a bit upset, so I finally thought I would get myself something to drink, maybe see if there were any crackers. I found some saltines, poured a glass of milk, and walked over to the couch—even though this would never have been allowed with Allen, my husband. Food was only eaten at the table. This felt like my first act of defiance although truthfully that would have been when I didn’t get the groceries.

I sat down on the couch, looking at the TV. I was never allowed to watch TV unless he was home, even then I definitely had no say so in what we watched. Here I am in a nice little apartment, all by myself, not only is there a TV here in the living room, but there is a smaller one in the bedroom! What can I watch on two TVs? What is there to watch on one? I looked at the remote lying there, feeling overwhelmed again, and I decided to ignore it.

Looking around, I saw that there was a small bookcase over to the side of the room. This caught my attention, so I got up with the intention of looking at the books. There was a wide variety of books, I picked one that seemed interesting and took it back over to the couch. I sat down, opened the book, grabbed a cracker, and started reading.

Chapter 3

As I sat there reading, eating a couple crackers, upstairs Lauren and Eva were fixing themselves a small lunch, discussing their new house guest. “Mom,” Eva said quietly, “her body is so badly beaten and scarred, I would be surprised if she doesn’t have internal bleeding or broken ribs.”

Lauren looked at Eva, “Really?”

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