September 11, 2007
The Floorboard
She didn't remember what the fight was about. She was too young to understand the words. Leaving. Abuse. Goodbye. All she knew was that her mommy had picked her up, put her into the blue car, and tried to drive off. Her daddy, probably drunk, had run out into the street in an attempt to stop the escape.
As her daddy held onto the mirror with his strong hands, her mommy had gently pushed the blonde haired baby into the floorboard of the blue car, safely out of reach of her crazed daddy. More angry words. Divorce. Custody. Mine.
While her daddy stood in the middle of the street, angry tears and balled fists, her mommy cooed soothing words to the blue-eyed little girl. Safe. Forever. Mine.
Years later, another angry man, her "new" daddy. Her mother, promising to leave and never come back, had put the little girl and her baby brother into the big white truck, and pulled out onto the busy road. Her new daddy, determined to keep what was his, had gotten into the little gray car, and chased them for miles.
At her mothers direction, the little girl had crawled into the safety of the floorboard. As she curled into a small ball, she tried to understand why her new daddy wanted to make them have a wreck. She glanced up into the face of her mother, who was alternately looking at the road ahead, and into the rear-view mirror. Not until they reached her grandmothers driveway and the truck was turned off did the little girl dare move from the warmth and security of that floorboard.
The girl had so many memories that involved the shelter that was offered in the darkness of the floorboard.
Her mother drove upon the aftermath of a terrible crash. Glass and metal was strewn across the four-lane road. A woman was screaming "Get me out!", and a man laid his bloody head up against the edge of his car door, where the window had been just moments before.
Traffic snarled on either side of the road. people anxious to get home drove onto the green grass on the sides of the pavement, and as the situation became more and more dangerous, her mother ordered the little girl and her little brother into the floorboards of the car. "Do not get up unless I tell you to!" she had commanded.
Eventually the girl came to believe that the only safe place in a car was in the floorboard. Years later when she had her own family she wondered if she would ever send her own children to the sanctuary in the floorboard.
While driving to work one day, an argument with her own husband escalated from shouting to punching in a matter of minutes. He pulled their little white car off to the side of the busy freeway, got out of the car, and came to the passenger side of the car, demanding that she get out and take it like a man.
When he realized she was not going to get out of the car, he got back into the car and sped off down the road punctuating his tirade with slaps to the back of her bowed head. When they got to the parking lot of her job, she was certain that the fight was over, but before she could get out of the car, he grabbed her by her hair and pulled her towards his face.
She probably should not have said a word, but restraint was not something she had learned yet, that would come later. One word too many, and his lip curled into a snarl, and he curled his fists in rage. She bowed her head as the punches rained down, and she protectively wrapped her hands around her pregnant stomach. The floorboard was so close, but the awkward shape her pregnant body had taken on made it almost impossible to fit.
It was the only time in her life that the floorboard had not protected her. She felt strangely betrayed, as if she had been locked out of some holy place that she had gone to so many times before.
Years passed before the woman again contemplated the significance of the floorboard. She sat in her car on that cold winter night with the engine running and tears streaming down her face. She looked into the floorboard and let all the memories come rushing in, and let the emotions flood her.
She hadn't spoken to her mother in years, but the woman could hear her voice just as clearly as if she was sitting there in the car with her. As the engine of her car sputtered to a stop, the woman sighed deeply and wiped tears of regret from her cheeks. She thought about just sleeping there in the drivers seat, but the call of the floorboard was strong, and she climbed over the console and pushed herself down into that quiet and dark space. She wrapped her coat around her shoulders, and let her head rest against her knees.
It was a week later, after the blizzard had passed, that the searchers found her car on that small deserted road. They had no idea how she had gotten there, but nobody was surprised that she had not found her way out. The first person to reach the car used his gloved hand try and scrape a bit of ice away from her window, and when he first glanced in he shouted to everyone "It's empty!"
"Are you sure?" a voice called back. "Looks empty to me." the man said. Two, then three more searchers made their way to the car, and glanced inside to see the car empty. They began moving snow away from the door until it could be opened, and when the area was clear the biggest man in the little group stepped forward to take on the task.
It took several minutes before the door could be pried open, and it was only then that they saw the woman huddled in the passenger side floorboard. The group grew silent as they contemplated what they saw. They all wondered why she was there, and none of them had any idea that she had chosen the safest place she had ever known.
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jktty at 10:30 a.m.