TENNTRADE PUBLISHING

But Listen

Gina Ann Day

12/12/2012

No child is beyond the reach of a hungry predator. A nerve singing account of abuse arouses the reader to battle against real life monsters.

Gina Ann Day

But Listen

by

Gina Ann Day

Chapter 1 Foundation of Qualms

Inhaling the heavy scent of honeysuckle drifting through the screen window, I slipped my pale body down into the steaming tub. I sank past billowing clouds of bubbles intended for a shield of security. My heart raced wildly as prickly senses forced my attention toward the jiggling doorknob.

Blast him! He had figured out how to jimmy the lock.

A fierce scream ached to be released from the depths of my persecuted soul. I leaped in the blink of an eye in wrenching horror, silencing the inner fear as I cleared the warmth of the water into the cool air. I had barely enough time to grab the handle of the bottom drawer to the vanity and jerk it into the path of the door as it inched open, thus refusing passage to this egotistical intruder. Whew, me oh my!

Settling just as fastback into the caressing warmth of the bathwater, a hostile glance towards the ceiling vent was forced. It was necessary to confirm the washcloth was still stuffed into the crevices which were wearisomely placed there earlier before. I nervously undressed.

Oh, no! The cloth was falling fast, brushing past my cheek as I dodged it, landing lightly onto my bare shoulder now covered in phenomenal goosebumps. Cringing, I dunked under the water.

The nerve of these two family members enraged and terrified me as one was not aware of the other stalking his victim at the same moment as he. For an adolescent child, my life of torment began around the age of five before adoption into this allegedly better home and safer environment. Our loving then-single teenage mother was often scoffed at for living in poverty.

Whom were they kidding? This lifestyle had actually become a struggle for the survival of my sanity. Whom am I kidding? At times, the battle was a fight for life itself. It was clear to only me as to why I became such a rebel, only because nobody paid attention. Memories are not always treasures.

From the wrap around porch on a breathtakingly scenic hillside in Tennessee, Lydia, the heroine settled into her porch swing to tell the inside-out upside-down story concerning her abusive life. I was ready to write her story.

Prepared to do battle with an intriguing contentedness about her, she amusingly rearranges the piles of quilted pillows under and around her. I was sitting on pins and needles, anxious to get going.

After several moments, with misty eyes and a radiant smile, Lydia continues her powerful story. After gazing far into the distance past the fussy birds arguing at the nearby feeder, down through the whispering woods toward the audible bubbling creek several hundred feet below us, and beyond to a long-ago time when all was not as it seemed to be when one child’s pain and anguish went unheard.

In a unique storyteller fashion, she begins as I capture the pictures drawn into my receptive imagination by her words, knowing ahead of time she may not have all the answers, but she knows the roads well. It was her hopes our journey together would reveal all answers.

I can remember few snatches of my earliest childhood memories. They are etched deep into the folds of my mind as vividly as if they had occurred most recently. Did you ever bump your toe one day and the next still feel the throbbing? Yeah, that is the way it is with everything concerning my life. My mind shares the weight of these haunting recollections with my heart as they pop up persistently with a will all their own.

The scenes are my only links to a childhood without photographs, a beginning to the very fragile life I walked. Mind you, they appear within a fog or cloud, jolted at random without a known cue, never changing specifics through all my years. The one thing that stood out above all else was my beautiful Mother full of love.

After reminiscing, Lydia states that her story is as she perceives the sequences to be accurate and that the very first recollection places her in the Deep South. It took years for its awesome meaning to sink in, but you will have to wait until the end of the journey to come to the same conclusions as she. As if inspired, she continued.

This is my road, my life in bits and pieces, with thought-provoking messages woven in for the doubting Thomases. My story might save your child’s life. I believe you will become educated pretty quickly.

Now full of passion for her mission, Lydia opens her heart wide with an optimistic childlike, not childish, approach and lets the story unravel at a mesmerizing pace. Do not miss a beat as we journey into the past to provide for the future.

Once upon a time, not too long ago, there was an innocent little girl………………………………………………

Enormous plush trees, dressed in their lacy green finery, lined the one end of the ocean sized cotton field. Cotton, cotton everywhere cotton! Plump, soft balls dotted the rows of branches where the cheerful three-year-old girl skipped between them excitedly holding dear to the large hand that led her along.

The hand bore multiple distended veins creating dark paths across his sunbathed flesh. The owner of the hand remained faceless, unknown, always leaving the imagination to sculpt and re-sculpt. The image of a strong male, she obviously adorned with trust, always materialized. It led her down the field towards a gathering of folks, colored and white. No disrespect intended, but that was how we were taught to relate to each other.

NOT ACTUAL BOOK, BUT AN ARTIST"S RENDITION

I lost the copies I had left in a moving issue and they became water logged.

I will be wrapping up the 2nd edition soon.