Dakota's Diary, Chapter *New Edits 5/11/10*

A note to my readers: I know it's long, but I think you'll enjoy it! Keep in my that in my original the diary entries are in a different font. Actually, a lot of things are enhanced on the Microsoft Word version to make things easier to read and understand. Unfortunately for you I don't have those capabilities here.

Enjoy!....

Chapter 1

My wedding was a very short seven days away, and there I was, sitting on the closet floor. My shoulder length dark brown hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail, and my bangs were pinned back to keep them out of my eyes as I worked. It felt especially hot for mid-September and my skin was clammy with sweat, the baby-doll pink tank top I wore was sticking to me uncomfortably. All three windows in my one bedroom apartment were wide open, but the draft couldn’t be felt in the overstuffed walk in closet. Miraculously, through the chaos of classes, work, and wedding plans, I’d found time to make space in my apartment for my soon to be husband and all the belongings he came with. Under the mayhem of old matchless shoes and boxes of forgotten photo albums I’d stumbled on a treasure, a hard back journal. The face of a baby angel looking to the sky was surrounded by a pink and red floral pattern on the cover.

I opened it and flipped though its pages. They were lined, and a rose was imprinted on the corner of every sheet. The young handwriting sprawled on the pages was my own, but the words I read seemed from a different life time.

I had been looking forward to my new life of love and happiness. The past ten years had been hard, but I had done nothing but persevere. I’d found a way to begin my college education, landed a rewarding position with a commendable company, and, most importantly, found my soul mate. Through persistent hard work, and the grace of God, I was able to earn and keep everything I owned. I considered my small apartment and used Ford a luxury and at nearly twenty-three I was almost a completely different person than the thirteen year old who had poured her heart onto those pages. I had developed quite confidence, a strong sense of responsibility, and was in cool control of my emotions. There were some parts of me I refused to let change, while some people considered my giant soft heart a naive weakness, I relentlessly declined to let the cruel world give me sharp edges.

Remembering was painful. It stung my eyes and seared my heart, but once I had reopened those tender chapters of my life I couldn’t put them away easily. I thought back to my thirteen year old self, I’d been intelligent, but also dramatic and depressed. I’d kept this diary as a personal outlet, a coping mechanism. I had looked at it as if it were my autobiography and several times imagined it being found in a thousand years to be treasured as an artifact. I gulped, and dove into my past as I read the first entry.

“12/28/98

I am but the remaining pulp of a beaten, abused, abandoned, starving girl. This diary is my safe haven and within it you will find the stories of my turmoil.

This house is dark and it smells like dust and dogs. The amber, square-inch tiles are cold on my legs. I’m sitting on the floor, near a hardwood staircase with a rickety old banister that leads up to my bedroom. My happy purple bedroom. Mom and I painted it. We swirled clouds onto its ceiling, and used sponges to add dark pink angels around the top of its walls, like a border. I helped Mom paint a purple and pink dresser and vanity to match.

‘I don’t deserve any of those nice things,’ the voices in the back of my head are screaming at me, ‘I’m such a bad little girl.’ So I sit on the cold foyer floor while the draft coming from underneath the front door gives me goose bumps.

The Christmas tree is still up, and all the ornaments are still hanging on it. The presents are opened, but no one is playing with all the new toys. Where is my younger brother? The thought flickers through my numb mind. He’s probably somewhere mourning quietly by himself. Our father is in the living room sitting on our old sectional corner sofa. In the dark. He’s staring at the TV, even though its screen is blank. A tear is trickling gently down his face and our old, friendly dachshund is resting her head on his lap.

There’s a ripping pain through my chest. The pain has long fingers that reach for my heart and it leaves me winded so that I can’t even cry. I can’t get the image of her walking away with her suitcases out of my head.”

I didn’t want it to, but after reading the beginning of the diary entry my mind threw a bitter memory into perspective.

‘Mom, please stay here with us. You don’t have to leave to have a New Year’s party; we can have a party for you here! I promise to be good, please mom. Please!’

‘Dakota! Quit poutin’, you’ll upset your brother.’ Her voice wavers, ‘It’s only a week an’ I deserve a week away with friends for the New Year.’ The lie is in her eyes, and I can tell by their fights this week that she’s not really coming back.

‘Look at him, Mom! He’s already upset, and it’s not me. I’m not upsetting Dominic, you are. We don’t want you to leave.’ I’m pleading, but she doesn’t look at him before she turns her back and walks away from us.

Eventually the shock of the memory faded and I turned back to the diary so that I could continue reading about my forgotten turmoil.

“I bury my face in the goldenrod sleeping bag that’s wrapped in my arms. It smells like basements, and without thinking I release a violent, bright red scream. It’s the only noise in this house, and the echo it leaves behind sounds lonely. My matted white poodle, Buster, sprints to my lap. He pushes and burrows into the sleeping bag looking for my hands. While I’m reaching for him, I hear my brother’s footsteps in the stairwell. Finally, the tears begin to flow, burning my brown eyes and warming my cheeks. As the tears fall, my body shudders with my sobbing, and my hands grope for the comfort of the white puppy in my lap. Dominic is turning the door knob so that he can join me in the foyer while my dad stands up, leaving his seat on the couch to sit next to me on the floor. Dad picks me up and pulls me into his lap, embracing me with his arms and with his comfort.

‘Come here, Dominic,’ He whispers. He reaches an arm out for my brother, inviting him to join us. ‘It’s going to be okay.’

Dominic’s small warm body joins me between our dad’s knees. His eyes are red like mine, and his cheeks are stained with tears. The blond hair on his head is untamed, and the clothes he wears are too small and are wrinkled. We curl together and cry for our abandonment and neglect as our family of four becomes a broken family of three.”

For a decade those times had been so far away from me that they hadn’t seemed real anymore, but, after I’d finished reading, the emotions were fresh again. I continued reading through eleven more emotion-riddled pages. Reviewing the evidence of my mother’s rejection, and all the damage it caused me, was making me resent her all over again. I passed over sketches of crying eyes, pages engulfed with illegible irate scribbling, and mediocre poetry that made metaphors of pain that I couldn’t have understood at that young age.

“Undated

When I cry I shed two drops of blood for every tear,

and when I'm scared I show more anger than I do fear.

But by your side I show more love,

than anything I've listed above.

When I bleed I bleed for me,

and everything my life has seen.

But, the tears I shed, They are for you,

and everything you watch me bleed through.”

Beyond those pages of emotional pandemonium was the second full entry. My heart sank with the memory. This was something I’d sought to intentionally repress, but once the memory resurrected I wanted to wallow in the remembrance. I wanted to remember where I’d come from.

“8/1/99

It’s been seven months since mom left, and it feels like she crumbled my family’s foundation, destroyed my home’s illusion of safety, and shattered the bond between us.

Work doesn’t leave much time for my dad to be a single parent, but on this overcast Friday evening Dad is taking us to our first concert. After working hard to earn the tickets we’re going to watch a new popular group perform in Cincinnati. The anticipation has been building all day as we do our chores. The tasks don’t do much to remove the dirty feeling this tainted house leaves on my skin. The excitement is contagious and we’re smiling more than normal. The smiles are filled with healing, and with each burst of laughter a scar disappears.

A car door slams outside. I run to a tall window in the dining room and watch Dad as he walks away from his red Jeep and opens our front gate. The first few drops of rain sprinkle to the sidewalk and leave stains in the dust where they land. I can smell the rain on the Ohio River.

‘Let it rain.’ I think to myself, ‘Nothing can dampen my spirits today.’

Dad prepares himself with a beard trim, a clean shirt, and a quick meal. Eager to leave, and in need of attention, we follow his every step. In moments we load into the Jeep to begin our journey.

I sit in the back, spreading myself out on the smoke stained gray interior. There are loose ashes from the tip of my dad’s cigarettes on the floor boards and several small black burns on the ceiling. As we approach the dead end at the top of our hill and prepare to make a left turn I see my friend Cole. He’s carrying a football helmet and approaching our Jeep from the right. ‘They probably canceled practice because of the weather’, I think to myself as the boy waves. Dad rolls down the window and offers him a ride. Why not? His house is on the way, and we don’t want him walking in the rain on our exciting day.

‘They canceled practice because David upset all the kids. He was telling them that the girl that lives across the street from him killed herself.’ Cole explains to me while my dad makes the left turn he’s been waiting for.

His statement surprises me and I pause while my brain scrambles to make sense of the information. ‘Well, that can’t be. The only house across the street from David’s is Danielle’s. I just stayed the night with her last night and she was fine. Did he say who it was?’ David has been known to make sick jokes, but cancelling football practice over one seems extreme.

‘He said he saw a body bag and everything. And there’s cops everywhere!’ Cole continues to explain, but we’ve reached his stop, and there’s no more time for sick jokes on my big day. Besides, we’ll pass Danielle’s house on the way and seeing her front law free of police officers will settle my mind so that I can enjoy our family festivities.”

I quit reading for a few minutes and allowed myself to relive that last fun night with Danielle. I remembered the smell of her guardian’s cigar tobacco and how it lingered in all the furniture. I could see her eyes watering as I pressed a needle through the flesh of her bellybutton, piercing it behind her guardian’s back. I held my breath as I recalled the dull throbbing pain in my own flesh when she’d forced a needle through my own navel. My throat went dry as I recalled singing along to the radio, and dancing around her bedroom. About two years before that we’d discovered that we had the same birthday and had been best friends from there on. At thirteen, two years had seemed like a life time friendship.

Unwilling to recollect any more of our youth together I turned my eyes back to the journal in my hands.

“Moments later we cruise down High Way Avenue and I pay careful attention to the house on the right at the top of the hill. It’s a two-story with a wraparound front porch, two front doors, and a large maple tree to its left. Several black and white Crown Victorian police cruisers are parked along the curb at the bottom of the hill. The red and blue lights reflect on the wet surfaces.

“Stop! Daddy, stop, stop! Please, stop!” My screaming crescendos. He slows to the curb and I leap to the sidewalk before the stop is complete. Ignoring the outstretched arms of a police officer and ducking under the yellow tape I bound up the steps leading me to the brick house on top of the hill and rush through the front door.

I can smell death, the same way I can smell it under the disinfectant at the hospital. My head spins and I realize I’m not alone. Sitting there on Danielle’s couch is a tall, skinny man. He’s in his late thirties and is wearing a black suit. The man stands as I take a couple of steps toward him. “What’s going on? Why are you here? Where’s Danielle?” He doesn’t answer me.

“Are you a friend of Danielle’s?” I nod to his question and he asks me join him outside. We step onto the cracked, uneven concrete on the front porch and he begins to explain. I notice Danielle’s guardian, her great Uncle. He’s sitting in the corner of the porch, crying as he stares up at the sky. The man is telling me that he’s a detective, but my mind refuses to give him my full attention. My eyes graze over the faces around us. Dad’s mouth hangs open in shock, his black hair moves slightly with the breeze. My brother has his eyes on the ground, he fidgets with discomfort, and a handful of scattered police officers stare at the detective and I. His words all blend together. “Investigating the death of…”, “Found in the basement…”

I feel dizzy. Turning from the detective I take a couple of steps toward my dad and fall to my knees. I drag myself across the wet walkway towards the small windows along the base of the house. The sidewalk has a rough texture and it peels the skin away from my knees, but I don’t care. I hear myself screaming her name. I hope to see her smiling and waving on the other side of the glass, but while I’m still several feet away an officer’s hands find my waist and carry me back to the front yard.

I fall, screaming, to my father’s feet as the world goes black.”

“What are you doing in the closet?”

I looked up, startled, into the familiar eyes of my fiancé, Michael.

“Oh! How long have you been here? I was just getting things organized and clearing some space. I guess I got preoccupied.” I closed the book and set it down on a shoe shelf.

“I just walked in,” he replied, holding up his new key to the front door and then sliding them into his front pocket. He offered me a hand as I started to get up, “Are you ready?”

“Ready?” I was a mildly surprised.

“Our last marital counseling session with the pastor is tonight. In fifteen minutes.” He grinned and wrapped his arms around my slim waist. He was wearing a soft blue polo with worn in faded blue jeans, complimented nicely by a baseball cap. His broad shoulder filled the doorway, and I fit neatly against his chest. I was safely at home in his embrace, and the pains of my past losses were back where they belong. In the past.

“Oh! Oh, yeah, I’m ready. Let’s go.” And with that I reentered the surreal happiness of my future. “I’m a stinky, hot, mess. Look at this funky hair.”I pulled away from him and pointed at the pinned up pony tail while I slipped on my favorite pink flip flops.

“It’s okay, I like it.” He flashed a perfectly cocky grin and followed me out the door.