Read Online Sister of Silence by Daleen Berry - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Daleen Berry
Ads: Link
dance or piano lessons.
One bright cloudless day during takeoff, adrenaline rushed through me as the little plane gathered speed on the tarmac. But I found fear joined the adrenaline’s coursing, too, so I prayed silently. We aren’t going to crash. Dad’s a great pilot and he’s always careful while flying. We aren’t going to crash.
It worked—just like it did every time, allowing me to forget my fear while I learned to believe the mantra inside my mind.
“Dad, when are you going to teach me to fly?” I asked him, excited. Maybe this time he’d have an answer for me.
“When you’re older,” he said, smiling at me before returning his attention to the instrument panel.
“But that’s what you said last year,” I whined.
“How about when you’re fourteen? That’s not too much longer.”
I groaned. Fourteen was more than a year away. “Please, Dad, I want to learn to fly.”
“I’ll teach you when you’re older. The FAA won’t even issue you a pilot’s license until you’re sixteen,” Dad said.
It was a major promise, another of the many my father could never keep, leading me to bottle up my feelings tightly inside, so no one would know how their words or failings hurt me.
By the time the Martinsburg chapter of my life closed, I had succeeded in that effort—I was beginning to believe men couldn’t be trusted. And that they didn’t keep their word. While my trust was tainted, though, somewhere within me kept hoping for better—for more from them. It seemed I was destined to be an eternal optimist, someone who, despite seeing the flaws in others, refuses to give up on them. Maybe that’s because my mother never completely gave up on my father. Ever.
But I did.
I gave up on him forever, the first time I was raped. That’s because when I turned thirteen and all hell broke loose in my life, my father—the one person who could have protected me—was gone.
One month after his promise to teach me to fly when I was fourteen, Dad didn’t come home from work. I wasn’t sure what happened, and Mom didn’t tell us. When she arrived late that night to pick us up from the friend’s house where we’d gone after school, nothing was said about why we went somewhere other than home on a school night.
Then, w hen I got off the bus the next day and got home, Mom was packing our things.
“Why do we have to move? I like it here.” I slammed my textbooks onto the table.
“Because I said so, that’s why.” Mom sighed.
“Whenever Dad says that, you tell him that’s not a real reason.” I glared at her.
“Well it’s going to have to be reason enough this time.”
“But I have a candy route now, and someone else will take it if I’m gone,” I moaned.
By then I was a seventh grader at Musselman High School, and had begun making and selling old-fashioned stained glass candy the previous fall. It began as a fluke, after a family friend who knew how much I loved to bake gave me a book full of candy recipes.
I made a batch of cinnamon candy and shared it with my classmates, and it was an immediate success. They began asking for more and before long, I had my own business venture. Suddenly, upper classmen I didn’t even know would stop me in the hallway, asking if I was “the blond chick who makes that hot candy.” I took their orders and spent every weekend making large quantities of peppermint and cinnamon candy. Sometimes, I would carry twenty bags or more to school. Students began to recognize me, and I had never been so popular.
I hated to leave since the candy business helped me feel less shy than I usually did.
“Please Mom, I don’t want to go back to Independence. I have new friends here now,” I told her.
“I’m sorry Daleen, we just can’t stay here anymore. You’ll get used to being home again with your friends there. Besides, you can take up your Grit route, too. I’m sure your customers will love having you back.”
I ran into my bedroom and plopped down on my
One bright cloudless day during takeoff, adrenaline rushed through me as the little plane gathered speed on the tarmac. But I found fear joined the adrenaline’s coursing, too, so I prayed silently. We aren’t going to crash. Dad’s a great pilot and he’s always careful while flying. We aren’t going to crash.
It worked—just like it did every time, allowing me to forget my fear while I learned to believe the mantra inside my mind.
“Dad, when are you going to teach me to fly?” I asked him, excited. Maybe this time he’d have an answer for me.
“When you’re older,” he said, smiling at me before returning his attention to the instrument panel.
“But that’s what you said last year,” I whined.
“How about when you’re fourteen? That’s not too much longer.”
I groaned. Fourteen was more than a year away. “Please, Dad, I want to learn to fly.”
“I’ll teach you when you’re older. The FAA won’t even issue you a pilot’s license until you’re sixteen,” Dad said.
It was a major promise, another of the many my father could never keep, leading me to bottle up my feelings tightly inside, so no one would know how their words or failings hurt me.
By the time the Martinsburg chapter of my life closed, I had succeeded in that effort—I was beginning to believe men couldn’t be trusted. And that they didn’t keep their word. While my trust was tainted, though, somewhere within me kept hoping for better—for more from them. It seemed I was destined to be an eternal optimist, someone who, despite seeing the flaws in others, refuses to give up on them. Maybe that’s because my mother never completely gave up on my father. Ever.
But I did.
I gave up on him forever, the first time I was raped. That’s because when I turned thirteen and all hell broke loose in my life, my father—the one person who could have protected me—was gone.
One month after his promise to teach me to fly when I was fourteen, Dad didn’t come home from work. I wasn’t sure what happened, and Mom didn’t tell us. When she arrived late that night to pick us up from the friend’s house where we’d gone after school, nothing was said about why we went somewhere other than home on a school night.
Then, w hen I got off the bus the next day and got home, Mom was packing our things.
“Why do we have to move? I like it here.” I slammed my textbooks onto the table.
“Because I said so, that’s why.” Mom sighed.
“Whenever Dad says that, you tell him that’s not a real reason.” I glared at her.
“Well it’s going to have to be reason enough this time.”
“But I have a candy route now, and someone else will take it if I’m gone,” I moaned.
By then I was a seventh grader at Musselman High School, and had begun making and selling old-fashioned stained glass candy the previous fall. It began as a fluke, after a family friend who knew how much I loved to bake gave me a book full of candy recipes.
I made a batch of cinnamon candy and shared it with my classmates, and it was an immediate success. They began asking for more and before long, I had my own business venture. Suddenly, upper classmen I didn’t even know would stop me in the hallway, asking if I was “the blond chick who makes that hot candy.” I took their orders and spent every weekend making large quantities of peppermint and cinnamon candy. Sometimes, I would carry twenty bags or more to school. Students began to recognize me, and I had never been so popular.
I hated to leave since the candy business helped me feel less shy than I usually did.
“Please Mom, I don’t want to go back to Independence. I have new friends here now,” I told her.
“I’m sorry Daleen, we just can’t stay here anymore. You’ll get used to being home again with your friends there. Besides, you can take up your Grit route, too. I’m sure your customers will love having you back.”
I ran into my bedroom and plopped down on my
Similar Books
