Clients are always asking me to dress up and play a part for them. They never come to me and ask me to just be myself. I spend most of my time pretending to be someone I’m not, and I’ve almost forgotten who I really am. Everyday I lie, cheat and steal and I’m aware of the fact I’m a fake. But that doesn’t mean I don’t know who I am because I do. I know exactly who I am and I know the things that shape me. My Name is Katie. I’m 20 years old. I live alone. I’m a mother. I’m an addict. I’m a prostitute. I’m a murderer.
That's who I was, a year ago when my mother arrived at my door. It was on that day that I decided to make a change. It was that day I prayed to a god I never believed in before, and I asked for my redemption. That day I made some choices and I chose to change; I chose to be something more, and I chose to burn my past and make myself a future. That fateful day when my mother arrived at my door.
It wasn’t her sudden and unexpected arrival that brought me hope or made me want to change, it was what she had to say, the news she had to bring. In eight years I’d not seen or spoken to my mother. The last time we were in the same room was in hospital and the last thing she spat at me was, “Now you know how I feel, now you can spend your life alone like I have to.” Seeing her was like seeing a stranger, something I was used to and there was no love between us, which again, I’m used to. I’d stood there, my long brown knotted hair thrown over my shoulder and in my doorway stood this stranger, this large, quite ugly, wrinkled stranger. I hated my mother because she took my baby from me. She hated me because she blamed me for my father going to prison.
I was twelve when I discovered I was pregnant. My father had been in custody for little over a month and his court date was looming. I had always been a shy angelic girl and my only friend had been my nana, so there was no question who the father was. It was never an ideal situation - how could it be? I was only twelve and I really needed my parents to be there for me. But my dad was stuck behind bars and my mother; well I don’t think she could have been any less supportive. Her only answer, her only support was to pressurise me into having an abortion. She was so cold with me, and things she said really hurt: “you’re going to have an abortion, that way you wont have regrets, not like I do.” Thankfully it was too late for an abortion but I didn’t have any regrets. She’d always been an unsupportive mother and we we’re never close, I’d always been a daddy’s girl. But from the second they took my father away she became even colder and cruel. We may have lived in the same house but we may as well have lived in different worlds.
My father was the one who made my mind up for me. “That baby will be you’re saving grace,” he’d told me, and when I discovered I was having a baby girl I knew then that Grace would be her name and she’d be my little saviour, she’d wake me up from my nightmare. My mother had other ideas, though, and she insisted that she would be the one to bring up my baby Grace and if I dared disobey her then she would report me to social services and have Grace taken away. I knew she was wrong when she told me that I’d make “an awful mother to my bastard child,” but I was too young and too scared to do anything about it. The day Grace was born was the happiest and saddest day of my life. I loved my little girl instantly but I had only a glimpse of her before she was taken away from me and my hope left with her that day.
For so many years, even before Grace was born, I’ve lived in this dark world and sometimes I feel like it’s the only thing I know. So many people judge me because of who I am and what I do yet none of them try to understand me. When I was seven years old my nana died. She was a wonderful woman, a woman who saved the icing off cakes for me and always kept the strawberry Roses from the chocolate tin, to one side for when I visited. I was with her the night she died and I remember it all as clear as day. Now I’m older I realise I had nothing to do with her death but I was so young then and I blamed myself. Jimmy made it worse by blaming me, telling me it was my fault she died. He’d asked me so many questions. Had I called an ambulance? Had I performed CPR? But I hadn’t called an ambulance because I panicked and called home instead and I didn’t even know what CPR meant. So he asked me how I’d like it if he let my mum die and I didn’t know what to say, my stupid mistakes had cost my nana her life. He told me he’d forgive me but my dad might not, but he’d keep my secret for me, if I learned to keep all his secrets for him. That day was the beginning of it all: the beginning of his control and manipulation over me. He was always overpowering me with compliments, which made others smile at his adoring affection but made my spine shiver in distaste. A part of me knew it couldn’t have been right but I was afraid, I loved my nana, I didn’t want people, especially my father, to know it was my fault she died.
Each and every night I endure horrific nightmares; they’re always the same yet never any less frightening. They don’t feel as real anymore not like when I was younger when I had to squeeze my eyes tight shut to try and keep the nightmare away. I’d lie there and long for the bed to swallow me whole. The walls would always whisper things to me but I never heard what they said because the breathing was so loud. Jimmy was there in every nightmare, every night, with that same look in his eyes. The nightmares became some sort of reality where I learned what I should and shouldn’t do. I learned not to struggle or scream because somehow the nightmare became more frightening and more painful and I learned to hold back my tears with my eyelids as he stole away my innocence. I lay still, flat on my back expecting my nightmare every night and every night it came without fail.
It was the day my nightmare arrived in the sun light that I realized everything I thought was the right thing to do was wrong. All the stuff I’d learned to do, to lay still, to be quiet, not to struggle it was all wrong. The only way I could ever stop the nightmares was to learn something new. To fight back, to struggle. So for the first time I didn’t just lay still. Any sense or thoughts in my mind just disappeared. It was as though Jimmy knew my parents would be out, he knew he had complete power. He thought there was nothing I could do about it. I didn’t understand what had really happened until my parents came home and I stood above him holding a kitchen knife covered in his blood. He laid there beneath me his pants around his ankles, and I stood there in my torn dress. The tears on my face had turned cold and sticky and my body shook all over. I looked into my father’s eyes and my heart sank as he realised what had happened. His grey hair and eyebrows always used to make me giggle but the terror in his eyes that day made me feel hopeless. I felt like I’d never laugh again. He told mother to call the police and he came and took the knife from me and said, “Everything is going to be ok now, I promise.” I watched him as he carefully washed the handle of the knife then took a firm grip on it himself. “Stand with your mother,” he told me “Everything is going to be ok Kitty cat, I promise.” I could see the tears filling his eyes, the police were going to take him away when they should be taking me but I felt compelled to do what I was told.
Uncle Jimmy was everybody’s friend; he was the down to earth joker who wouldn’t hurt a fly. To all of them he was just a loving uncle who adored his only niece, but none of them had seen that fiery look in his eyes or felt the harsh grip of his hands on their bodies. No one condemned my father, they all learned the truth about what Jimmy had done to me, and they understood as parents themselves, that my father was only protecting me. I don’t regret what happened, it was my only way out physically but emotionally and mentally he still haunts me. When I shut my eyes I can still hear his heavy breathing and I can still feel him pulling off my pajama pants.
The day my mother arrived at my door was the day my hope returned to me, the day that the light at the end of that long, deep, dark tunnel I’d spent my life in, became clear to me. My distant mother didn’t stay long, and she didn’t offer love or affection. Her message was short and sweet.
“She’s been asking for her mother,” she told me “Her real mother.”
I was in shock, but delighted all the same, my baby girl, my saving Grace wants to know me, to meet me. I know I have a long way to go but I will find my redemption, I will get out of this nightmare. My baby girl needs me and I have to be a mother to her so that I can protect her from harm.
I may be someone that you never meet; I may be that person you walk into on the street. I’m probably as low down as the stuff you step in and my way of life probably disgusts you. You might be wary of knowing me or knowing people who are like me. You may just want to spit in my face. But ask yourself how many times you’ve asked for a second chance, or prayed for forgiveness. This is the first and last time I ask for a second chance, I believe in myself and I believe I deserve this chance. Because aren’t we all just striving for a good life without the nightmares? I know I have done bad things in my past and I know some people might condemn me but how can anyone judge me unless they have been to that dark place themselves? We each have our own nightmares and for some there are friends and family to get them through but for those of us without them we have our own will power. There is such a thing as hell on earth but there is also a heaven on earth. I think in the dark times we all need to remember that.
Grace is just as beautiful as the day she was born and when I look into her eyes I smile because she’s the one thing that makes my nightmares disappear. Luckily I don’t see any part of Jimmy in her, not in her eyes or her face, not even in her personality. In all honesty she looks just like me when I was her age. The long straight brown hair, the green eyes and the best thing is that she still has the innocence that I’d lost at her age. One day I will tell her the truth and I hope that she will understand but for now I’m going to be a good mother who is always there for her daughter and I will always protect her. I’m not frightened anymore and I know that now more than ever I have something to live for. Grace needs me to be her mother and I need her too, she is my ultimate savior, she is my angel. It’s been almost a year since my mother came to visit me, I’m off drugs now and I work in an office, and last week I gained full custody of my daughter Grace. My father is applying for parole on the 5th and his lawyers tell us it’s likely he will get it. Things are changing and its for the better, I’m beginning to believe that maybe there is a God out there and he sent Grace to save me and guided my father to help me.
I have gained my redemption and I’ve left my past behind: and I finally have hope for the future. No longer does my past have to shape who I am because now I have the power to do it with the decisions I make. My name is Katie. I am 21 years old. I’m a mother. I live with my daughter. I am redeemed.
Fiction
