Page 39 of My Vows Are Sealed

Another swat landed on my back, and with the intense pain in my abdomen where I’d hit the doorknob, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I tried to stumble away, but before I could even take five steps, my father grabbed my arm, yanking me backward.

I heard a loud pop, and I let out a wail of complete, absolute agony as searing pain radiated from my shoulder all the way down my arm and up to my neck. The bile that had been churning in my stomach rose again, and this time there was no stopping it from making an appearance. I threw up right there on the welcome mat, not even six inches in front of me. Another swat with the belt landed on my back as I fell to my knees, and I cried out again. I honestly didn’t know how I was still conscious right now, because the pain was actually making me dizzy and lightheaded, and I felt like I was going to pass out.

What had gotten into him tonight? He’d always been strict, and he’d always…um, taken the Bible’s directives on how parents should punish their children more literally than he should have, but he’d never been cruel like this before.

“Dad, stop! I can’t move my arm!” I sobbed.

“Oh, you can’t move your arm?” he taunted. “Well, I guess you should have thought of that before you got into a fucking car with a boy! Maybe you’ll fucking remember whose you are next time!”

“Mom!” I cried. “Mom! Help me!”

In all the times my father had used physical punishment to discipline me, I’d never called to my mother for help. I’d always just accepted the consequences of my disobedience and known that my father wasn’t going to give me a punishment that wasn’t fair.

But this? This was just like Marie had talked about at church last month. It wasn’t discipline anymore. This was abuse. I was hurt. Really hurt. And I was terrified. I had no idea what was wrong with my arm, but I knew it was bad.

“Mom!” I called again, yelling at the top of my lungs. “Please!”

“Your mother can’t save you,” he scoffed.

Another swat landed on my back, and I cried out again from the pain, using my good arm to steady myself against the door so I didn’t fall on the floor into my own puke.

“Abraham! What are you doing?!” my mom yelled.

“This fucking deceitful harlot wasn’t at that dance tonight! She was with aboy, fornicating!” he bellowed.

“No, I wasn’t,” I sobbed. “I wasn’t. I was sick. He just brought me home.”

“Abraham, stop it before I call the police!” my mom screamed. “I don’t care if she was drawing a pentagram on the ground and using black magic to summon Beelzebub! Look at your daughter! Look what you’re doing!”

“I’m saving her immortal soul!”

“While damaging her mortal body! How are you going to explain this at church tomorrow, Abraham? I can see from here that you’ve done serious damage to her shoulder, so other people are going to notice too. What are you going to tell them when they ask about it?”

Something that sounded like a tiger’s growl ripped from my dad’s mouth, and then, with a harsh glare at my mother, he turned and stomped off toward the bedroom like a petulant child who’d just been told he couldn’t play with his favorite toy anymore.

Oh, thank God. He was walking away.

Thank you, Jesus,I prayed.Thank you. It’s over.

“We’ll deal with this later,” he snarled before he slammed the door.

The dread returned tenfold. Hadn’t we already dealt with it? What else was there to say? What else was there todo?

I wanted to call the police, but I knew it wouldn’t do any good. All my dad would have to say was that I was a pathological liar and made stories up for attention, and they wouldn’t believe anything I told them. It had worked for him with countless teachers and friends in the past. Why wouldn’t it work with the authorities too?

And if I called an ambulance, they would just ask questions I couldn’t answer. Even if I did answer, my dad would make sure that anyone who asked him anything about this knew that it wasn’t their place to question how he raised his daughter. And then I’d be punished more for talking.

But at the same time, I could tell that whatever was wrong with my arm wasn’t just going to go away on its own. I was caught between a rock and a hard place, left with nowhere to turn.

“Darla,” my mom murmured as she rushed to my side. “What did you do? Why did you set him off like that?”

What? My dad had just rendered one of my arms useless, hit me with his belt, and thrown me into the doorknob, and the first words out of her mouth were to ask me whatIhad done?

The reality was,nothingI could possibly have done warrantedthis.

“I got sick at the dance,” I sobbed. “Brendan was there and he offered to take me home, so I let him. I swear, Mom, that’s all. I didn’t think it would be a problem.”

I’d only told that lie a couple of times, but I was already starting to believe it myself. What did that say about me? How awful was it that I was actually starting to believe the stories I was telling my parents as a form of self-preservation?

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