A Strange Case

Chapter 2

    Her mother was awaiting with a grim smile. Victoria stalked by her and dropped her black and purple backpack on the velvet couch. She hummed (very quietly) as she fixed herself a snack of yogurt. She went to get a spoon,but as she turned around,her mother waited with backpack in hand. Before Victoria could speak,the mother had swung the pack over her head and brought it down upon her daughter’s.Gasping for breath as black dots clouded her vision,Victoria sank to her knees.

As she came to her senses,her mother came for another blow with the textbook filled pack,this time to the stomach. Victoria vomited all over the floor,before her mother tipped the yogurt upside down onto her head,said, “What did I tell you about leaving the backpack on the couch?”and left the room.  

Crying silently,Victoria was left to clean up the vomit and pick up the dropped spoon.However,her clothes were another matter,and the yogurt was beginning to dry on her hair. She managed to crawl her way up the stairs to the shower,and turned the heat up all the way. As she stood under the hot water,the pain began to leave her body and she closed her eyes and imagined that she was in Hawaii with a cute boy when it had started to rain. Anyone else would have been sobbing and might have attempted to drown herself in the shower’s rain,but Victoria was used to such abuse. This was a minor scratch,compared to when her father held her hands down on a 200 degree oven when she was 10;or when she was whipped with a belt until she could no longer feel anything when she was 5 by her mother. She was actually humming slightly when she got out,and she put on a new outfit;the only difference was that her tank was now spaghetti strapped and deep purple. However,her father had come home by now,and replied with a “Oh you’re here” and went back to reviewing a patient's documents,  frowning slightly. Victoria’s instinct was to start her homework.But her parents usually actually approved of something that Victoria hated yet had to do,so she turned on the T.V. and started watching some reality show she liked in which the crew followed around a new married couple that almost always getting divorced. Her parents were in the bedroom changing out of their work clothes,so she had about 15 minutes to herself. Victoria took a chance and got some ice cream out of the fridge. She just finished it when she heard her father coming down the stairs,so she threw the bowl in the sink and switched to some heavy metal channel as quickly as she could. However,she changed the channel just as the husband found out his wife was cheating on him and swore...and as soon as her father came down. Outraged,he cried

“What kind of daughter have I raised? Get up off the couch this instant!”

Victoria was shaking on the inside,but she managed to keep her face free of emotion as she rose to face her father:and her nightmare.

“I can not tolerate this kind of behavior inside my house!” he yelled. “This is a civilized area and we can not have any type of obscenities and violence in this house! Where will this get you in life? I great job like me? Think again! Try a worker at  McDonalds! And..” he stopped for a moment to hear the screaming voices coming from the heavy metal screen, “for God’s sake this MUSIC! It must stop! It corrupts the brain!I am embarrassed to have YOU for a daughter!”

Victoria could think of plenty of problems in this speech,but she kept her mouth shut as he took a wild swing at her head with his fist and struck her in the nose. A loud crack filled the room , and a pain that she had felt only 3 times before filled her nose. Blood dripped on to the carpet.

“You are a disgrace!” her father concluded,and stormed off,probably to consult a patient with the kind voice he could use. Victoria lay whimpering on the carpet,while a band clad in black and studs entered the stage and began a hard rock single on the television. She kept waiting for the pain to fade,but it didn’t. Victoria’s nose kept dripping blood and the pain came in waves;just as it seemed to be over,another wave made contact. She didn’t know how long she just lay there,hoping that something would come to help her.

Finally,her mother yelled “Dinner,Honey!” to her father and Victoria struggled to get off the floor. As she plopped herself into the chair,her mother dumped a whole chicken leg and a large scoop of peas on her father’s plate,and a bit of gristle from the chicken with a spoonful of peas on Victoria’s.

As they all started eating,her mother said “What happened to your face?”

Her father replied, “Gave her a good smack.”

“For what?”

“She was watching a show with some vulgar words.”

“And you left her on the floor?!?!”

Victoria looked up,surprised. Was her mother defending her? Her father seemed just as bewildered.

“W-w-ell, I thought that she de-deserved some punishment,and..”

“She might of ruined the cashmere carpeting! Look at all that blood! It stains,you know.”That was more like the mother that she knew.

“I had an important call dear. I thought that she could manage to get up.”her father explained.

“And did you get up?”she rounded on her daughter. Victoria shook her head. With her broken nose,she could hardly talk, let alone eat. "Do you mean you just let yourself get blood all over that carpet?" She nodded. "That's it,Victoria! After dinner,you are cleaning up that carpet!Understood?" Victoria nodded to show that she was listening.

But after her parents had ignored her,Victoria hadn't eaten a bite. At one point she tried to eat some of the gristle,but even opening her mouth proved too much pain to bear. Her mother noticed. "Victoria,don't you like what I've made for you?" she asked in a voice of venomous honey. She nodded vigorously. "Then why aren't you eating your dinner?" She pointed to your nose. "Is that goddamn nose keeping you from eating? Well then I have the perfect solution!" Victoria watched as her mother got out a blender before dumping the chicken and the peas into it and mixing them into a gray mush. Victoria tried not to puke as her mother set a glass in front of her and poked a straw in.

"There you go!" One look from her mother told her exactly what she was to do.