The Comfort of No one

Chapter Seven: Human Sheild

Chapter Seven: Human Shield
"No family is perfect; they all have their own problems." Dr. Salvador assured me.
"I know" I started to say. "I just wish I could go back in time and fix everything. There are so many things that I regret and I wish I could have stopped many situations from happening but instead of facing my problems, I ran away from them."
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ It was an early spring morning in the month of April. Hope didn't have school all that week because it was spring break in all of the town schools. I was overly stressed out and I barley ate or slept. I needed to get away from everyone and everything so I left for a few days. The previous weeks were tough on me and I guess at this point I was my only concern. Leaving Hope with Noah for a few days was a big mistake and I'll never forget it. Noah abused PCP while I was gone and abused Hope to no end.
"Daddy" Hope cried. "Please don't do this to me"
"Shut up Hope you are a bad girl and bad girls need to be disciplined" Noah said as he filed up the bath tub with scolding hot water.
"No I don't want to go into the bath tub, it will hurt me."
"You are going into this tub weather you want to or not!"
When Noah finished filling the bath tub with hot water Hope ran off. Noah ran at full speed and grabbed her by her long blonde hair and dragged her into the bathroom. He yelled at her to take off her clothes and go in the bath tub or he will do it for her. She listened to Noah's orders because at that time Hope was terrified. Hope striped her clothes off and started to cry and begged her farther to not make her go in the bath tub. Noah grabbed Hope, placed her in the bath tub, and held her down. The burning water made Hopes skin turn a pinkish color and her skin started to bubble. Hope screamed on the top of her lungs in agony. The hot water was so unbearable for the little girl that she could feel herself start to get dizzy and light headed.
Hope suffered in the bath tub full of hot water for fifteen minutes. Noah pulled her out and you could see her skin start to peel and the color of her skin was pink. You could see the terror in her eyes and her weak unfed body collapsed. Noah picked Hope up and brought her to her room and put pajamas on her. Hope listened to all of her father's orders after that traumatizing incident. That night Noah wouldn't allow Hope to sleep in her room. He made her sleep in a box with only two holes cut out for her to breath out of. Of course she got no sleep that night and I came home that morning to find her in a box.
I thought I was just going to enter my house and see my family but it felt like I just entered the gates of hell and I was terrified. The house was a disaster area with everything all over the place. I noticed some of my decorations were broken and the picture frames were smashed. Hope looked like she hadn't eaten for days and had third degree burns covering her body. Noah was at the kitchen table pouring himself a cup of coffee. He looked at me and said 'hello beautiful.' I smiled of course but I knew he wasn't the Noah I met years ago. When I looked at Hope, she looked away. At that moment I knew I failed as a mother because not only did I leave her with Noah, I also didn't say a word to what went on when I was gone. I knew Hope was expecting me to say something and to stick up for her like I always did. This time was different and I knew it was wrong for me to pretend nothing happened but I had given up on everything.
We kept her out of school for a few days so that teachers wouldn't ask questions. I don't know what Noah had told her he would do if she told anybody and I didn't care to find out. She did not speak a word of what happened when she returned to school. The teachers wondered but they never asked. It was too easy to get away with such a horrible crime. One of the worst crimes you can commit.
Kids stared; you can't really blame them though. Her face didn't take any of the impact but the rest of her body sure did. Her arms took it the worst; they were getting infected and were covered in puss. It didn't help that her bandages and clothes were only changed once a week. The bullying got worse and the burns caused her health to decline rapidly, soon she would have to see a doctor.
Since we had no health insurance, we couldn't just see a doctor, we went to the hospital. When they first called her in they scolded us for not taking her in sooner. We told the doctor that she had spilled a hot pot of water on herself when trying to cook soup. He didn't believe us but he had no proof to say otherwise.
She needed multiple surgeries and medication. The medication part intrigued Noah. I couldn't wait for Hope to come home because since she was gone, he channeled all his abuse towards me. In a way, she was like my human shield from him, but humans aren't indestructible. The times she was absent, I was left vulnerable to his wrath.

Chapter Eight: Unconditional love
"Did Hope ever see her grandmother?" Dr. Salvador asked.
"Noah's mother?" I asked.
"Yes" Dr. Salvador answered "Karen is Noah's mother, which makes her Hopes grandmother."
"Karen rarely saw Hope. She would show up on random occasions to visit Hope but of course she and Noah did not get along at all. When Hope was twelve years old Karen passed away due to failure of the liver. She was an alcoholic and one night, her liver gave up on her and she passed away. Noah, Hope, and I attended her wake and funeral and at that time I saw something about Noah that seemed out of the ordinary."
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ "My mother's services are from 4pm till 8pm so we have to get there an hour early before people show up." Noah said.
"Okay, I am going to help get Hope ready for the wake." I said.
Hope and I got ready together without a word said to each other. We barely talked anymore, but Hope barely talked to anyone. When we all got ready, we drove to Sampson Funeral Home in Brooklyn, New York. Noah hadn't been taken PCP since he found out his mother passed away which I found odd. I expected him to abuse angel dust after hearing the news, but it seemed as if an evil demon escaped his body for a little while. We were the first ones to arrive at the funeral home and Noah, Hope, and I went to pay our respects near Karen's casket. Karen wasn't very liked by many people and only some of Noah's family and family friends showed up to Karen's wake.
After everyone showed up, the priest said some words from the Bible and we had a moment of silence to remember Karen. The only thing that popped into my mind was how she treated her sons and how it really impacted their lives. Andrew was still in jail and even though he was allowed to go see her, he had no desire. After the priest was done talking, we all walked around, talked, and looked at old pictures even though there weren't many of them to look at. At eight o'clock, we said our last good byes to Karen before she got cremated. I saw Noah starring at his mother with sorrow in his eyes. I've never seen Noah look at his mother that way and I was curious on what he was thinking because the way he looked at his mother was not hate; it was love.
One thing I have learned from my many long hard years on this earth is that a child will love their parents unconditionally. Even parents that are abusive and don't deserve it are still loved. Just like Hopes love for me never faltered.
Hope was constantly making me gifts and doing very well in school so that she could get some positive attention from her guardians but we were not very supportive. I think Noah was jealous of her success in school. He didn't want her to succeed him, so he didn't let her. He shot her down at every chance that he got. He added on to her chores so homework was impossible, didn't feed her breakfast so she wasn't at her healthiest during school, and he broke her alarm clock, she was late every day.
I would love to tell you Hope's point of view while this all went on, but I kind of isolated myself during this time. As a mother, I should have known what was going on with her, her pain, her struggle. I didn't, I didn't know how she felt, but I can only imagine her little heart breaking to pieces.