only the righteous man may pass

I've been going this way to school since I was five.  Ever since I can remember, I went up to the top of the street, run from the dog on the corner (just a dachshund, but what a bark!) picked up a switch and ran it over the whitewashed fence on my way, and then down down down to the bottom of the hill.  After that, There was a short climb up a little hill and a much longer walk down another hill to the little school beside the park at the bottom.  I didn't know much about the rest of the town, but I did know how to get to school.  And back.

I loved going to school. I hated coming back home.  Going to school meant playing with my friends, seeing teachers that knew me and gave me sad little smiles, and immersing myself in study.  I was always surprised when the 3:00 bell rang.  When I was young, I would beg to stay.  I always hoped somehow that if I stayed, one of the smiling teachers would take me home with them.  But they never let me.  I had to go back up the hill, back up the other hill, up again past the whitewashed fence and the yappy dog, and down to the next-to-last house on the street.  My house.  The curtains were always closed.  The door was always locked.  I had to knock, and wait, and hope that they would let me in.

Sometimes my mother would be there alone, and she would let me in with a tired little smile, and I would be safe.  Sometimes my mother and father would be there together, and she would let me in.  I knew then to run to my room and stay there.  If I was lucky, it would be okay.  But sometimes my father would be there alone.  When that happened, I would try to be a quiet mouse.  Sometimes it worked.  Usually, though, it didn't.  And when it didn't, it usually ended badly for me.

I had a brother, once, but he ran away as soon as he turned 16.  He was much older than me--he was my mother's son but he had a different daddy.  He told me once that his daddy had died, and he missed him every single day.  I used to wish my daddy would die. It never happened, though, and I finally stopped wishing, just like I stopped hoping that things would change, that my mom would be home every night, or that he wouldn't hurt me.

My daddy liked hurting people.  He hurt my mommy every single day.  She was really good at putting on makeup, so nobody knew about it.  He used to hurt Thad, too, and that was why he ran away.  But he was best at hurting me.  He knew how to do it so that nothing would show, but that didn't mean that it didn't hurt.  Sometimes he would make me put on my Sunday School clothes and then he'd make me sit in a chair and hold a Bible up in the air over my head.  He would make me hold it there till I couldn't hold it any more, and when I dropped it or put my arms down, he'd use that as an excuse to hit me and call me names.  He would tell me that the Bible could never help me, that it wasn't him hurting me, it was that blanking Bible.  Other times he made me stay in my room with all the lights off--he did that until he figured out that I wasn't scared of the dark.  Honestly, that was my favorite punishment.

I am not afraid of the dark because when I'm by myself and it's dark, the angels come.  They are white and shiny and only I can see them.  They tell me that they know how much it hurts, but my real father knows, too, and he promises that this won't last forever.  One of them is always there.  Sometimes I can see him and sometimes I can't.  But I can always feel him.  He tells me to be patient.  But it's hard, because sometimes I think that my daddy will kill me.  And other times it's even harder, because I find myself being more afraid that he won't.  I have dreams where my mommy dies or goes away, and my daddy and I are the only ones that are left.

One day I think that my dream has come true.  I woke up in the night to loud screaming.  My mommy taught me never to leave my room, but he comes in.  "Come in here and clean up this mess!" my daddy tells me.  He takes me by the hand and drags me to his room--their room.  My mother is lying in the middle of the floor, half of her under the bed.  Her eyes are closed and she doesn't look like she's breathing.  There's blood everywhere.  I thought at first that she was dead, but then I saw her eyes open for a minute and look at me.  There were tears in them.  My daddy brought me a bucket and a rag, and I washed my mother and the floor.  I was changing the sheets on the bed when I saw the little bundle.  I figured it out then.  My mommy had been pregnant and I hadn't known.  She lost the baby and instead of going to the hospital, my daddy was keeping her home while I mopped up.

I finished and went back into my room.  The angels were there.  "Please, please, help my mommy! Don't let her die!"  Without a word, the biggest one walked through my door. I ran after him.

When he left my room, he changed.  He wasn't white or shiny, and he looked like a normal man.  But he didn't act like a normal man.  He walked through my mommy's room, picked her up, breathed on her,  She didn't change all of a sudden, but it seemed to me that she felt a little better.

The angel-man held her in his arms like she was a little doll.  He took me by the hand and started out the door.  My daddy went after him, but he couldn't get through his own door!  "Hey, you! What's going on? Where you taking my family?"

He looked at my father with eyes of clearest blue, and he said, "Only the righteous man may pass."  No yelling, no loud voices, but he was the boss, not my daddy.  My daddy pretended to be very big and grown up, but I knew that he was only pretending.  I saw how scared he really was in his eyes.  "Don't you know anything?  Indiana Jones is my favorite movie hero.  The line is "Only the penitent man may pass!"

The angel just stood there, looking at him.  Just then the other angels went past, out into the street with the other angel, my mommy and me.  My mommy was saying something, but all I could hear was my daddy's heart pounding.  He ran away from all of them, into his room, and shut the door.  The angel said it again, "Only the righteous man may pass," and then we went outside.

The angel put Mommy into the car and then he drove and drove.  We went away from the house, my daddy, my school, our city, and then we drove even more.  He didn't stop driving for a week, just for food and for gas.  One day, though, Mommy came out of it.  She looked at me, took the wheel like she'd been doing it all the time, and drove down the highway until she got to a little town.  She pulled up beside a really pretty brick house.  It looked like a place I'd dreamed about--but it was real.  Mommy took me by the hand and led me up the walk to the door.  She knocked on the door, and Thad opened it! Right behind him was a lady that reminded me of Mommy, just bunches older.  She grabbed me in a big hug, and then she reached up past me and stroked my mommy's cheek.  When I looked at Mommy, tears were streaming down her face.  Mine, too.  We cried a lot those first few days.  We cried for the baby, for our house, for everything we'd left behind--we even cried for Daddy.  It still rang in my ears--only the righteous man may pass."  Mommy never said anything about those days, not until much later.

I went to bed with Mommy that night, and we stayed with Grandma--that was who she was, my Grandma, Mommy's mommy--for a long time after that.  I never saw the angels again after that, either.  I never told Mommy about them either.  But one day, much later, I did ask her if she remembered how we got out.  "It's so strange, LizAnne.  I'd tried to leave so many times.  Every time he'd hide the car keys or hurt me or threaten you.  But this time, it was different.  I don't even really remember how we got away.  I remember seeing you having to clean up the mess, and then I passed out.  I don't remember anything for days.  In fact, I don't even remember driving the car until right before we got to Grandma's.  I don't even remember deciding to go there!  My mom and I had argued, and I'd run away with my first husband.  Things hadn't been healed between us.  I guess it just shows what you're capable of doing when you have to protect the ones you love.  Not one word about the angels.  But then, I didn't really think there would be.

Daddy never came after us, never came looking.  Many years later, I heard that he stayed in that little house in that same city until he died.  He never got married again, never hurt anyone else again, ever.  He sort of just shriveled up.  He died not too many years after that.  I never saw the angels again, either,  though I never really thought that I would.  They were with me when I needed them, and I know that things would have been much worse for Mommy and me if they weren't around.  But I'm always going to remember them,and I will never forget the way that they protected me.  I have a new Bible, now, and I read it almost every day.  I love reading about my friends, especially Michael.  I wonder if that was him?  I guess I'll find out--one day.  For now, I'm happy to be a normal little girl in a normal school with a mommy, a brother, and a Grandma that loves me.  I like my life!