Hidden Memories (27 page)

Sage smiled. “So that’s why Ava came to live with me.”

“Ava admires you a great deal. Every time she comes back from Atlanta, she talks nonstop about you. She tells me everything in detail. I was disappointed when she moved to Atlanta, but I always knew she would one day. She wanted to be with her big sister.”

“I’m glad she came down. I love having her around.”

“Your Ramion is such a nice young man. He’s quite handsome and smart.”

“Yes, he is. He’s a brilliant attorney. He’s going to run for the Georgia legislature.”

“I see,” Audra said, searching for something to say. “You really like politics.”

“Um-hum. I always have.”

“Yes, I remember.”

There was an uncomfortable silence. The moment of truth had arrived, the moment to unfurl the silence of the past.

Audra folded her arms nervously across her chest and stared at the floor. As the silence grew heavy between them, she began rubbing her arms as if preparing for the gust of cold air that was certain to come.

“Sage, I want you to know how sorry I am for Aaron, for what he did to you.” She spoke quietly, and every word was filled with remorse.

Sage stared into her mother’s eyes. Bitter eyes met guilt-ridden ones. “He
raped
me,” Sage said, challenging her mother to say the ugly word, to acknowledge out loud the assault on her body, the devastation to her mind.

Audra bowed her head and tightly closed her eyes. “Yes, he…he…he hurt you.”

“No, Mama.” Sage’s voice rose mightily and angrily, “He
raped
me!”

Audra was quiet for several minutes. She raised her eyes from the floor and met her daughter’s unwavering gaze. “I’m sorry…I’m sorry that he raped you,” Audra said haltingly, stumbling over her words. She released a deep sigh. “I’m very sorry that I didn’t stop him.”

“You knew, Mama. You knew about Aaron’s lecherous desires. You saw the way he watched me.” When Audra turned away, Sage leaped up from the vanity bench and stepped over to the bed. She stood beside her mother, both hands on her hips, poised for battle. Audra raised her head and stared into green daggers of bitterness and betrayal. “I did nothing wrong, Mama, but you blamed me. You acted like
I
enticed
him
,” Sage uttered angrily. “I was a virgin, Mama. A
virgin
!”

Audra rubbed her forehead and ran her hands through her hair, tugging at a grey-streaked chunk. “I know you were innocent. But I didn’t want to believe he would touch you without provocation. He was an elder in the congregation. I thought that would help him control his desires. But it didn’t.” She heaved a weary sigh. “Believe me, deep in my heart I never forgave him, and he knew it. Before he died he asked me to forgive him.”

It never occurred to Sage that the rape had affected her mother’s relationship with Aaron. Somehow she’d always assumed that their lives had gone unmarred by Aaron’s uncontrollable lust.

With her head cocked to the side, Sage asked “Did you?” in a you-better-not-have tone of voice.

“Yes, I forgave him.” Seeing the flash of anger in Sage’s eyes, Audra raised her hands. “Don’t be angry, Sage,” she said in a defeated, weary tone. “The damage was done. What he did to you stood between us. Believe me, our relationship was never the same. I didn’t want him to die with the space between us.”

“That space wasn’t wide enough for you to get out, to leave him, was it? You should have, Mama.” Sage sat down on the bed next to Audra. “Most mothers would.”

“I couldn’t.”

“Why not, Mama? Why didn’t you protect me from him?”

“I don’t know. I suppose I was too weak to fight him. If I had confronted him, if I had said out loud ‘I know you desire my daughter’, it would have been the end. I was afraid he would leave me. Then how would I take care of you and the twins? When your father died, I didn’t know what I was going to do. I couldn’t go through that again.”

“So you sacrificed my virginity for food, clothing and shelter.” A cryptic, sarcastic laugh escaped Sage’s lips. “What a trade-off.”

Audra shook her head vigorously. “No, Sage, I didn’t see it that way. God help me, I loved him. Even with his faults and weaknesses, he wasn’t all bad.”

Those words were like a lit match hovering over a can of gasoline. Sage jumped from the bed, the anger for too many years suppressed rising to the surface. “Tell that to a seventeen-year-old girl who was thrown out of her house for something she didn’t do! I was the victim!” Pointing at herself, she said, “I wasn’t bad, Mama. I didn’t deserve what he did, what you did.” Sage brushed away the tears flooding her eyes. She hadn’t intended to cry, but she couldn’t contain the tears.

“I was wrong, Sage. I was wrong. Please forgive me.”

Sage didn’t respond. She sat down on the vanity bench across from her mother.

Heavy silence loomed between them.

Audra broke the silence before it became an unpenetrable force. “In my own twisted way, I was trying to keep my family together, to protect Ava and Aaron.”

“How could you be sure he wouldn’t have raped Ava?”

Audra gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. “Ava’s his daughter!” she cried indignantly. “He wouldn’t have touched her.”

“Oh God, Mama, are you really so naïve? Don’t you watch Oprah or Montel or Sally or the news? Don’t you hear how twisted the world has become?”

“He would never have hurt Ava,” Audra said stubbornly. “He’s her father.”

“It wasn’t immoral to rape me?” Sage asked indignantly.

“Aaron was wrong, Sage.” Audra pressed her fingers against her temple. “I was wrong too. I don’t know what else to say.”

“You know, Mama, I understand that I wasn’t related to him, so in his mind it wasn’t incestuous. But your reaction hurt me more than the physical pain he inflicted on me.” She was silent for a long time, struggling with her thoughts and feelings, trying desperately to submerge those memories. But those memories were crowding her heart, thumping inside, ready to escape.

“Sage?” Audra said, but received no reply.

Suddenly, she asked, “And you were my mother, so what about this, Mama?” She pushed aside her blouse to reveal the ugly triangular scar on her right shoulder.

Sage expected her mother to look ashamed or sad, but instead Audra’s expression was confused. “You burned me with the iron!” Sage screamed.

“Oh no, Sage,” Audra cried, as a stream of tears flowed down her cheeks. She jumped up and went over to her firstborn child. She slowly raised her hand and tenderly touched the burn mark on Sage’s right shoulder, a raised ugly scar in the middle of her shoulder, closer to the top of her arm. She looked into her daughter’s eyes and, for the first time, understood her bitterness. She understood why Sage had hated her all these years.

“I didn’t know,” Audra said. Her head hung low, she whispered, “I didn’t know.”

“Mama, how can that be?” Sage asked, wondering if her mother would lie to win her forgiveness. In an incredulous, suspicious tone she said, “You picked up the iron.”

“I don’t know. I suppose I blocked it out of my mind. I tried to forget that night ever happened.” She paused, as the long-hidden memory of seeing Aaron standing over her daughter forced its way into her consciousness. She closed her eyes and in a hushed tone said, “I remember. I remember picking up the iron. I was going to hit Aaron with the cord, and I didn’t realize it was still hot. Then everything happened so fast. You ran over to me, and the iron fell…”

“You pushed me away!” Sage cried.

“I never knew I’d burned you. You ran out of the room screaming, but I didn’t know the iron had fallen on you.” She sighed wearily. “I swear to you, I didn’t know.”

Sage met her mother’s gaze. She looked away, averting her eyes to the floor, realizing for the first time that it was possible her mother truly may not have known.
I buried the memory all these years so I could go on. Maybe Mama truly never knew,
she thought to herself.

The silence grew as time ticked away minute by minute. Each waited for the other’s next move, wondering whether the conversation was going to end with their feelings still tangled in the past.

“Sage, I can’t undo the past. I wish I could, because I would take back that night. I would change so much. You will never know how sorry I am for losing you.” A tear slipped over her lashes. “My firstborn child who I love with all my heart. I may not be the strongest woman in this world, but I do know that living in the shadow of yesterday is torture.”

Audra touched her daughter’s face, tracing the trail of tears. “I hope you will forgive me, because I don’t want to spend the rest of my days without you. Can you forgive me?”

Sage stared into her mother’s eyes, and there was something in the chocolate-brown circles that tugged at her. It wasn’t the swirling anguish and sorrow. What she saw shining in her mother’s eyes was the same longing she felt in her heart—the need to heal, a mutual need to heal from yesterday’s wounds.

“Will you forgive me?” her mother asked again.

How can I heal if I don’t forgive,
Sage thought.
How can I heal without releasing the past?
The tears were gone when Sage whispered into her mother’s ear, “I’ll try.”

* * * * *

The day after her stepfather’s funeral, Sage met Aunt Maddie for lunch before catching a plane back to Atlanta. After spending a restless night dreaming about the past, she was ready to return to the reality of the present.

“So, darling, tell me how you really are,” Aunt Maddie asked Sage after the waiter placed a plate of broiled salmon, new potatoes and broccoli in front of her.

“I’m confused,” Sage admitted. She picked up the miniature bottle of honey mustard dressing and began pouring it over her fried-chicken salad.

“Confused about what?”

“I thought I would hate my mother forever. But seeing her looking older, I realized one day she’ll die too.”

“And you don’t want her to die knowing that you hate her.”

“I don’t want to keep hating her. It’s an awful feeling. It suffocates you.” Sage stuck her fork into a piece of chicken and put it into her mouth.

“But,” prompted Aunt Maddie, raising her eyebrows as she spoke.

“She wants to be a part of my life. But I don’t know if I’m ready. She tried after I was hurt in the explosion, but Aaron blew it.” She leaned back in her chair and frowned. “Part of me feels like it’s too convenient. Now that Aaron’s gone, she can claim me again.”

“I understand what you mean. Maybe it’s just a little too soon. Give it some time. But, I think it will be good for you to renew your relationship with your mother.”

“I hated her all these years for being weak, for not standing up to Aaron, for not protecting me,” Sage said, sipping Zinfandel wine. “And now, I see that she couldn’t. Some women can stand their ground against a big overpowering brute, but some women just can’t.”

“I’ve always known that about your mother,” Aunt Maddie said in a matter-of-fact tone. “She’s the type of woman who falls apart easily. She went to pieces when Satchel died.” She tasted the salmon.

“I remember Mama crying all the time. I tried not to cry because it always made her cry,” Sage said, suddenly remembering how sad and empty she’d felt when her father died. She’d felt as if the sun had set in her world and would never rise again.

“That’s Audra. She can’t help herself.”

“And I’m supposed to forgive her like that,” Sage said flippantly, snapping her fingers. “Like nothing happened, like my feelings don’t count.”

“No, darling, you forgive her because you’re stronger than she is. It’s as simple as that.”

Those words struck a chord in Sage’s heart. “It doesn’t feel simple,” she said, wiping the dressing from her mouth with the linen napkin.

“You want to forgive her. It would be a big weight off your shoulders. You’ve carried that albatross for too long, haven’t you?” Aunt Maddie said gently.

Tears shone in Sage’s eyes. “Yes it feels heavy and burdensome. For some reason it suddenly feels heavier than it has in years.”

“That’s because it’s time you got rid of it,” she advised.

Sage reached for her glass. “I’m almost there. Almost,” she said, and sipped the blush-colored wine.

“Dry your eyes, darling. There’s something I want to tell you. Something you need to know.”

“I’m not crying,” Sage said defiantly, even as she wiped the spring of tears pooling in her eyes. She placed the wineglass back on the table. “What is it?” she asked, noticing that her salad bowl was still quite full.

“It’s about your father.”

“What about him?”

“I think you should have this.” Aunt Maddie pulled a velvet rectangular box from her large pocketbook and handed it to her niece.

Expecting jewelry, a cry of glee escaped Sage’s mouth when she found an official army medal instead. Sage touched the medal, dangling from the red, white and blue ribbon.

“I never knew Daddy won a medal for bravery,” Sage said, staring at the medal. In the twilight of night, when her thoughts and feelings were safely tucked away, she sometimes thought she could faintly hear his big, hearty laugh.