Upon further inspection, I discovered that it was a box.
A box I hadn’t put there.
Sliding the box out from under the bed I sat up and propped it on my lap. It was a worn shoe box. Faded pink with white lettering. There was a thick envelope, the kind you’d send large documents in, taped to the lid with my name scribbled in my mother’s hasty handwriting across the top.
The first page on top of the thick stack I pulled from the envelope was a reader. As I read it to myself, it was her voice I heard.
Sawyer, My beautiful girl. There is so much I wish I’d told you. Despite everything, you somehow still became a kind, smart, and capable young woman. You have so much to offer this world. More than you know.
I have learned in my life that there are two kinds of people. The weak and the strong. Those who are truly strong try and lift others to make them feel just as strong. Those who are weak do their best to make others feel as helpless as they do. Surround yourself with the strong.
Fall in love with the strong.
Share your life with someone who is going to make you face your storms, not hide from them.
I will never be able to forgive myself for not being able to give you the life you deserved but know that I loved you with all my heart and in the end, it was YOU and only you on my mind. You are the greatest gift I’d ever received. Only accept those in your life who feel exactly that same way.
I’m hoping the contents of this box might help you get to know me better, and maybe along the way, you might learn more about yourself. Take my secrets and make them your own.
I love you, my sweet girl, and I’ll keep loving you from now until forever.
You made every single unbearable day on this earth worth every single second and more.
I’m so sorry.
-Mother
ANYONE ELSE WOULD PROBABLY BE in tears after reading a letter from their recently deceased mother, but I was too confused.
Too angry.
How dare she tell me to be brave. How dare she write me a letter instead of sticking around long enough to tell me those things in person!
I set the letter to the side.
The shoebox itself was covered with miscellaneous stickers and doodles complete with heart dotted I’s and smiley faced O’s.
“What were you up to, Mom?” I wondered out loud. That wonder grew when I came across a Polaroid of an old rusted truck towing a tiny camper. As far as I knew, Mom didn’t even have her driver’s license. I’d never even seen her behind the wheel before.
Rusty and Blue 1995 was the caption written in her handwriting underneath in faded black ink.
Inside the box was a keychain with several keys of various colors and sizes and another note from Mom.
You will find Rusty and Blue in Storage Queen Unit #23. Be good to them.
Also in the box was a dainty gold necklace with a sunflower pendant hanging from it. Jewelry that wasn’t of a religious nature was strictly forbidden. How long had mother had the necklace and how on earth did she keep it, as well as a storage unit full of vehicles, a secret from my father?
From ME?
I set the box down and slid the letter off the top of the stack, revealing the document behind it and yet another well-kept secret.
It was a deed, granting me, the trustee of Bobcat Holdings, a piece of land in a town called Outskirts.
Outskirts?
Mother had never mentioned it. I would have remembered. She also never went anywhere by herself and only traveled when it was with my father for the tent service tours during the summer.
As many questions as I had, there wasn’t time to ponder them all because headlights lit up my bedroom window as a car pulled into the driveway. I shoved the contents of the envelope back inside and slid the box back under the bed.
I raced downstairs just in time to be met with the daily disapproving look of hatred from my father who was walking through the door connecting the garage and the laundry room.
I silently hustled past him into the kitchen, with my eyes to the floor. His heavy footsteps following close behind.
I busied myself making his dinner while Father opened the refrigerator to reach for a beer, but decided against it, slamming the door shut and grabbing a bottle of Wild Turkey from the cabinet instead.
Whiskey nights were never good nights.
I smelled the liquor before he’d even opened the bottle because as usual, he’d already been drinking.
When has he NOT been drinking? My mother’s whispered words from a few weeks earlier ran through my head.
I must have laughed out loud.
“What’s exactly is so funny?” Father barked, filling more than half a glass with the amber liquid.
“Nothing, sir,” I answered, with a lifetime of false practiced politeness. I pulled out a chicken from the freezer and a few potatoes from the refrigerator. “I was just finishing my prayers.”
“Prayers are meant to be said on your knees before God, not in the kitchen,” he scolded, setting a thick bank envelope on top of the counter before walking to the living room adjacent to the kitchen. “I need you to take the deposit to the bank first thing in the morning.”
“Yes, sir.” An idea that had been forming in my mind was starting to make more and more sense. An idea that had started to take shape first at my mother’s funeral and then when I discovered the box upstairs. Now, staring at the envelope on the counter it had slithered its way into the center of my brain and taken hold. It was no longer just an idea.
It was a plan.
Father slammed his glass down on the table and my spine jumped. I tried to go about making dinner and ignoring the anger I felt billowing around him like a dust bowl as he pushed off the chair and stomped his way back into the kitchen, but it was impossible to ignore him once he’d gotten that look in his eyes. There was no getting out of what was to come.
It didn’t matter what I’d said. It didn’t matter what I did or didn’t do. It was always the same.
“I didn’t forget your outburst from earlier. You are to be quiet in public unless spoken to. Just because your mother isn’t here anymore doesn’t change the rules. Not my rules and not God’s rules.” Father stood behind me and I heard the sound I hated most in the world. His belt buckle clanking as he slipped it from the loops. He cracked the leather together in the air, a warning of what was to come. I braced myself with my forearms against the counter like I had a thousand times before.
“The Lord doesn’t tolerate that kind of insubordination, and neither do I,” he ground out, bringing the belt down onto my lower back, the slap felt like a sting at first before turning into a slow burn, growing hotter and hotter as he took out the anger he felt toward the world on me. Blow after blow.
Thankfully, I wasn’t there.
After that first strike, I felt no pain. My mind wandered to the letter from my mom. The keys. The deed to land I never knew she owned and left for me.
I found myself smiling through the pain.
Father struck me for the last time, pushed on my shoulders and sent me falling to the floor. I landed on my hands and knees on the kitchen tile facing the cabinets.
“Get dinner on the table in twenty minutes,” he demanded like a king commanding one of his servants. He threw his belt to the floor. “Pick that up.”
He stomped back to the living room, taking with him whatever sick satisfaction he got from disciplining me. No matter how many times I heard how the Lord required the frequent discipline of women throughout my life I’d never believed it.
I never believed any of it.
I placed my hands on the countertop and used the leverage to pull myself to my feet. I picked up the thick bank envelope and suddenly became very overwhelmed with a feeling I wasn’t familiar with that must have come with my newly formed defiance.
Power.
My shoulders shook and I turned my back to the living room, covering my mouth to prevent any sound from escaping, but again, it was t
oo late.
“Quit your sobbing. She’s gone. There is nothing we can do about it now but pray,” My father called out from the living room.
He didn’t know that I wasn’t actually sobbing. Especially, since I was too busy laughing.
THREE
SAWYER
It was my birthday. While most young women turning twenty-one (outside of the church of course) would’ve been out celebrating the milestone with friends and family, my plans didn’t involve presents or parties.
Mine involved something much, much different.
Escape.
Rusty and Blue had been exactly where Mother had said they would be in the storage unit. It took a lot of sneaking around to get to them, and was mostly done while father was attending the men’s service and thought I was in the women’s center helping prepare the after- service meal.
Rusty and Blue were both...old. However, when I turned the key for the first time and Rusty roared to life I squealed with joy. After a week of teaching myself how to drive a manual in the parking lot, I still wasn’t great, but I could manage.
I didn’t have time for great.
The front door slammed shut, my spine jolted with unwelcome awareness.
He was home early.
“Get down here, Sawyer!” Father’s deep voice called up the stairs. “The deposit from last week was never made.” I heard him opening and slamming drawers in the kitchen, rustling through the contents.
Instinctually, I froze as if my lack of movement might make him think I wasn’t really there. My heart was beating so hard and so loud that I was afraid he was going to hear it through the closed door of my room. I held my breath for a few beats. Blood rushed to my ears, burning them as if the walls of my room were on fire.
If I’m going to do this, I have to do it now.
I pushed the building panic down deep inside, and resumed hastily shoving whatever clothing was within reach into a backpack.
“I know you’re up there! Answer me, girl!” Father yelled out. This time there was a discernable slur in his words. His heavy footsteps hit the stairs. The smell of liquor wafted under my door just as he thundered onto the landing. “Once you remember where you placed the church’s money you’re going to face the harshest disci- pline of your life.”
He thinks I misplaced it.
I snapped thick rubber bands around the ancient pink shoebox in both directions and shoved it into my backpack.
The door handle jiggled, and my fingers fumbled as I tried to zip my bag without crushing the box. When it finally gave way and I was able to zip it all the way shut, I slung the backpack over my shoulders.
What sounded like a balled fist connected with the door. Twice. The third bang came with the sound of wood splintering. “Sawyer, you open this fucking door right fucking now!”
Jogging over to my window I slid the slow moving thick pane of glass open with a grunt. I was sitting on the ledge with my legs dangling over the side when the door flew off the hinges and fell with a thud into the room.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Father barked. There was a slight sway to his step and I knew he was more than his usual weekday-drunk when he stumbled sideways into my dresser, sending picture frames crashing to the floor.
I lowered my feet onto the roof below. It was angled so in order not to fall off the narrow space I turned side- ways and shuffled toward the back of the house.
When I reached the edge, I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the ladder I’d stowed under the corner of the overhang was still there.
I lifted it up and lowered it down to the grass, the muscles in my arms trembling under the heaviness of the metal ladder.
There was a commotion behind me followed by the sound of Father’s boots shuffling over the rough asphalt of the shingles.
There was no time to check the sturdiness of the ladder. It shook each time I placed my foot on another rung. Father stumbled toward me, reaching the edge of the roof while I was still only in the middle of the ladder.
He looked down and with his dark eyes glinting in the moonlight he kicked over the top of the ladder, sending me sailing back into the grass and the heavy metal to land on top of me.
When I connected with the ground, the air was force- fully pushed from my lungs. Thankfully, my backpack had protected me from suffering any major injuries. Other than the wind being knocked out of me, I was bruised and battered, but in one piece.
“You’re leaving everything you’ve ever known. You won’t survive out there and I won’t come looking for you. You’ll be dead to me, Sawyer. Dead!” Father swayed slightly and then he lost his footing completely. His hands waving in the air as he attempted to regain his balance, but it was no use. He began to fall.
I was shaking with adrenaline as I pushed myself to my feet. I stood just in time for him to land right where I had.
I could barely register the sound of snapping bone over my heart hammering in my ears.
Father groaned in pain and grabbed at his leg which was jutting out from his body at an unnatural angle.
Help, obey, and serve your father.
Not anymore.
I turned around and without the worry of him chasing me I strolled casually toward the back fence.
“Fuck, you!” he roared after me. “Don’t you dare come back here. You will rot in the depths of hell for this!”
“Don’t worry, I won’t ever be coming back,” I called in a calm tone that surprised even myself. I risked a glance back and watched as he tried to get up, only to fall again when his leg didn’t cooperate.
Father might’ve actually meant what he said, although it wasn’t true. He might have thought he had no intention of coming for me, but again, I knew better. I patted my pocket, the one that held the deed.
Too bad he was never going to find me.
I lifted my long skirt and started to climb over the tall fence. At the top, I paused.
When Father spotted me looking back at him writhing around on the grass, he went silent. For a moment, we were locked in a war of unspoken words. There had been a time for words. There had been a time when I’d have felt sympathy for him. A time when I would’ve rushed to his side without question.
Those times were long gone. “Help me,” Father begged. I tore my eyes from his and dropped down to the other side of the fence. “Saaaawyer!” his screams echoed through the alley over and over again. The anger he had momentarily shoved aside to beg for my help was back in full force.
It always was.
The door to Rusty squealed when I opened it and leapt inside, tossing my bag to the passenger seat. Getting him and Blue into the alley was nothing short of a miracle. Now there I was, starting the engine. The loud noise thankfully drowning out my father’s cries.
I wasn’t stupid. I knew I would still hear him. No engine would ever be loud enough to mask him completely. No amount of distance between us would ever truly silence him.
But I was going to try anyway.
I blew out a long-held breath. Twenty-one years long- held, and shifted the truck into drive. I took off into the night. Before I turned down the road that led to the highway I glanced in the rearview mirror and whispered the last words I’d ever speak to the man who had become a monster.
“Goodbye, Father.”
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T.M. FRAZIER resides in sunny southwest Florida with her husband and daughter. She loves music, reading, traveling, and annoying Mr. Frazier.
To keep up to date with everything T.M. Frazier-related, visit her website at www.tmfrazierbooks.com
Lili St. Germain, Gun Shy
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