Hush, Little Baby

She didn’t know all the words. It didn’t really matter. It was the soft, soothing voice she emitted every night as she paced the floor. What words she didn’t remember, she made up.

Kathleen was only eighteen, and her son was only two months old. Yet, Kathleen knew and understood her role as wife and mother. While she loved the mother part, she despised and yet accepted the wife part of her life.

She’d been a wild young teenager. Well, at least that’s what her father called her. By the time she’d turned thirteen years of age, she’d been sneaking out of the house as soon as her father went to sleep. Once she heard his deep, thunderous snore, she felt safe to leave. Why she kept going back is something she often wondered.

Annaleigh, Kathleen’s mom, died years ago. The hospital reports said she’d fallen down the stairs. The fall was enough to break her neck. Kathleen was only eight. She never questioned her father when he told her what happened.

Her father, Alan was an extremely strict man. He always believed in the adage: Spare the rod, spoil the child. Kathleen was not spoiled – not once, not ever.

She’d learned at an early age to wear clothes to hide the bruises. She marveled at the caution her father took not to bruise or scar her face. And yet, through it all, she would still sneak out at night – for a bit of fun, for a bit of time to forget what might be waiting once she got home.

She’d never written in a diary. If she ever thought of keeping one, the names her father would call her would be mortifying. She was also terrified that her father might find it and punish her more for writing down everything that happened.

The words and comments weren’t just hurtful, they were embarrassing. In school, one afternoon, rather than eat the lunch she’d brought with her, she went to the school’s library. Kathleen didn’t plan to study; she planned to use the dictionary and find out what some of those words meant that came so viciously from her father’s mouth.

Horrified was a mild emotion she felt. Good thing I didn’t eat my lunch. It would be all over the library floor!

On her sixteenth birthday, her father took her out of school. He told the principal they were relocating to another state while he told his friends and neighbors that his daughter ran off with some never-do-well boy – and good riddance to her!

They weren’t going to move. His idea was to keep her at home where he could watch her every move, and when he couldn’t she’d be locked in the cold, damp cellar.

He’d nailed the windows shut. He created a small room in the cellar for her so should someone come to the door, she’d not be seen. The only time she was allowed in the main house was to cook dinner for her father or when Alan decided the house needed to be cleaned. When Kathleen washed their dirty laundry, the only way to dry the clothes was to hang the pieces on a rope her father strung from one wall to another in the damp cellar.

That’ll teach ya to go prowling out at night. How often had she heard those words? Too often. It was as though they were burned in her brain.

On Kathleen’s seventeenth birthday, her father came home from work with a friend. He unlocked the cellar door and yelled, “Kathleen, get your miserable ass up here!”

He turned to his friend and said, “The only way I can keep her under control She’s a handful: spiteful, mean, unruly, and disobedient.”

As soon as Kathleen walked into the kitchen, her father said, “Cal, this is my pain. You want her? It’s gonna cost ya?”

Kathleen looked from her father to his friend. She wasn’t quite sure what was going on, but she was sure she wasn’t going to like it.

“What do ya want for her?” asked Cal.

“Well, let’s see, now. I really do want to leave this place but that takes money. She’s good at cookin’, cleanin’, doin’ the laundry, but that’s about it. How about $200?”

“Dad,” Kathleen almost screamed, “you can’t SELL me! I’m your daughter!”

He answered with, “That’s right. You ARE my daughter and since you’re not eighteen, I can dispose of you however I want!”

Alan held out his hand, palm up, and waited. Cal placed the two hundred dollars in his hand and grabbed Kathleen’s wrist. “Let’s go, Mrs. Monroe! That’s yer new name now. Kate Monroe – and don’t you forget it!”

Kathleen was seventeen and Cal Monroe was forty-eight. The only one the age difference bothered was Kathleen.

Within the next few months, Kathleen realized the beatings she’d gotten from her father were mild compared to her so-called husband. He wasn’t particular about when or where her bruises appeared. She’d learned the hard way, that unless she found a way out of this mess, this would be how she lived and died. Then something wonderful happened. Kathleen became pregnant.

It was the only time Cal didn’t abuse her. Once their son was born, Ca’s ritual began again. It seemed that no matter what “Kate” did, it just wasn’t good enough.

The clothes didn’t dry quickly enough in the cold, damp cellar. He wasn’t happy. When she tried to explain that the clothes would dry faster in the fresh air sunshine, she was punished for speaking her mind.

She spent most of her days in the cellar with her son. She’d tell him stories. She’d often sing. Until she heard the front door slam hard enough to rattle the house. Then, she’d freeze and hold her son a bit closer. She’d whisper in his ear, “Hush little baby, don’t you cry. Momma’s ...” She would almost always lose her voice at the next word.

She’d hear the click of the lock as it opened, then the pounding of feet on the stairs. And her nightmare would begin again.

She’d had enough! She was tired of being beaten, raped, and verbally abused. She’d find a way to escape. Somehow. Someday.

Her son, Simon, had just turned two months old when she saw her advantage. Cal had forgotten to lock the basement door when he left for work. She didn’t dare leave, yet, but she had a plan.

He came home from work several hours late, rip-roaring drunk. Kathleen smiled. As he staggered throughout the house, without him seeing what she’d done. While he was out drinking, she moved a few small pieces of furniture around forcing him to either be more careful or … trip! Which he did ever-so-quickly. Losing his balance, he fell with a hard thud - face first and hit his head on the corner of the table near the sofa.

Being the good wife, she tried to be to avoid more bruises. When she heard the loud thud, she rushed out of the cellar and found Cal on the floor, unconscious. He wasn’t breathing. Or at least, she didn’t think he was. She put the kettle on and made a cup of tea. She sat on the chair on the other side of the room and waited. Cal didn’t move.

The next morning, she forced open the box where her husband kept the only phone in the house. She dialed the Sheriff. “Please come quickly. My husband’s on the floor and I can’t wake him up.”

The sheriff declared that Cal died in a drunken accident. Upon an examination by the medical examiner, it was concluded that Cal had almost four times the legal alcohol limit in his blood – in addition to a few traces of uncontrolled substances. The ME said that the fall was so violent, that he sustained a deep fracture in his skull. Even if he’d have lived, he would have been reduced to a living shell.

Kathleen, with the help of some of Cal’s co-workers, buried him in the local cemetery with only a wooden cross to mark his grave.

Since there was never an official ceremony between her and Cal, she resumed using her legal name. With the small life insurance Cal had, she packed the few clothes she and Simon had, and bought a bus ticket. She was going east! East, where she might have a chance to find a job and support herself and her son.

As they waited for the bus, Simon began fussing a bit. He was hungry. She had the foresight to stop at a drugstore before arriving at the bus terminal. There, she purchased baby formula and two bottles for the baby.

Kathleen mixed the formula in the lady’s restroom, changed Simon’s diaper, then walked back to her seat in the waiting room.

She looked at her precious son and as he drank deeply from the bottle, she kissed his forehead, smiled, and began to sing softly, “Hush, little baby, don’t you cry. Momma’s gonna make you an apple pie.”