Sunday Scribblings #221 : lifeswap

Adelyn always heard that the kitchen was “the heart of the home”. She didn’t know about that, but it sure was where everything happened in her home.  He was passed out now, head on his arms on the kitchen table.  He muttered drunkenly and she whipped her head around, making sure he was still asleep.

He never made a move as she fished the key to the gun cabinet out of his pocket.  She had her bag packed with necessities, not that she needed much.  Now she was raiding the gun cabinet.  He could just consider it payment for the knot that was swelling over her left eye.

She stayed after mama died.  Didn’t have much choice.  There wasn’t much you could do when you were fourteen.  That was three years ago and things were different now.  He had gotten worse, for one thing.  The more he drank the angrier he got.  This was the second time he had ever hit her.  It would be the last.

She grabbed several handguns and boxes of ammunition.  He knew what mama was when they married.  She didn’t know until years later, that he tried to get mama to quit.  He never understood that it wasn’t something she had a choice about.  He blamed her and when Adelyn started seeing shadows, he blamed mama for that too.  Said it was bad blood.  That was the first time he hit her.

Mama walked in just after the first swing of the strap.  The second swing caught mama on the back as she reached for Adelyn and pulled her out of his reach.  She stared at him without saying a word until he lowered his head. He walked out of the house and stayed gone for a week.

That was all in the past.  It was her turn to leave.  Mama was from Michigan.  Adelyn had a name and a town.  She turned the key and the truck engine caught.  She pulled up to the mailbox at the end of the drive and slid an envelope inside.  She would be a thousand miles away before he woke up and found the note. There was a time she would have swapped lives with anyone for normal.  Not anymore.