What Do We Do Now?

Katrina Marin is crying. I slowly open my eyes feeling the after effects of that last argument. She is going to cry louder in a second but I have to wait a few minutes before I can bring myself to move past the pain and get up. I push off the floor as gently as possible.  My body hurts really bad but I take a deep breath and get up for Marin. I can’t even tell where the pain is coming from since the blows from last time hadn’t even come close to healing yet and now there are new ones.  The first time this happened it was just a slap across the face and he was as shocked as I was. Now it would be a shock if it were only just a slap. I get to my daughter. I hoist her up wincing and almost falling from an excruciating pain in my side. There it is. It’s probably a cracked rib. I coo to my baby, she quiets down and as she starts to doze off it’s my turn to tear up.  I wonder how long before she cries for me and I can no longer open my eyes and go to her. Sandra Denise barged into my office with 2 coffees and a chocolate croissant from the bakery across our building. “Knock knock, come in, oh hi, Denise!” I role play a conversation while giving her a look. Most days I have to play both roles with regards to proper decorum when it comes to Denise. She gives me the same look and dramatically turns towards the door knowing full well I would stop her if not because she’s my best friend but because of the mouthwatering pastry she brought in with her. My stomach rumbles, she laughs out loud and hands me breakfast. “You know you’d die of hunger without me.” She says as she flops down on the couch by my desk. “A little exaggerated but not untrue. Thank you, you wonderful human. And thank you, French people.” I quip right before I bit into the flaky goodness of my croissant. I met Denise in school while finishing my degree. We were total opposites because of our upbringing but we became inseparable as the years passed.  Denise was an only child to wealthy parents and was in school only for formality whereas I had to make sure I kept my scholarship since I knew getting through school and getting a good job would be the only way I could change the course of my awfully tragic life.  I grew up in a shoebox apartment in the city with my mother and baby sister. It was a pleasant childhood until a series of unfortunate events starting with my dad leaving us and my mom struggling to care for me while making enough to keep a roof over our heads.  She never spoke of what she did and I never asked until one day when I was about 10, she came home looking sick. That was when she found out that she was pregnant with my sister.  That was also when she stopped laughing and just stayed angry and miserable all the time. By the time Katrina was born, my mom had already been kicked around by life too much to have anything but resentment towards her children. She started growing cold, ignoring me, and blaming Katrina, a mere baby, for bringing even more bad luck into her life.  I, on the other hand, loved my little sister with all my heart. I felt guilty that I was lucky enough to have had a sliver of happiness when I was young and so I strived to make sure she too would have some happy memories of her childhood.  Katrina was a full 11 years younger than I was and when she was 3 I had already learned how to sew. I made her dresses and toys from scraps I would find to and from school. They were horribly made but she loved them all nonetheless.  We would often pretend that we were princesses and that we had been captured by a witch and that one day we would be able to go home to our castle and have our happy ever afters. Our situation got ultimately worse when our mom started bringing boyfriends home. I hated leaving Katrina behind when I went to school because I would often find bruises on her small body when I came back.  But I was smart enough to know that I had to sit tight at least until I finished high school and saved up enough before I could take her away from that life.  Katrina would be 6 years old by then and I would send her to school while I worked. I would then pick her up from school and we would have her favorite mac and cheese for dinner and we would live without being afraid of getting randomly beat up by strangers.  That thought kept me going despite our mother’s growing lack of not just affection but concern for our well-being. The only thing she ever did for us that I was thankful for was give us each other and keep the apartment. By the time I became a senior, I had a plan. Right after graduation I was going to take Katrina to have some ice cream to celebrate and then we would run away to the city.  Our mom wouldn’t bother looking for us anyway. She’d probably be happier without the baggage.  I was giddy thinking of the plan and got too excited when graduation loomed in that I had already packed us a bag a few weeks early. This was where everything went south.  My mom found my bag filled with our clothes, my measly savings, and Katrina’s most favorite toys and realized that I was going to run away with her income. Apparently, Katrina’s father was a wealthy man with a wife and children and she’d been blackmailing him to keep giving her money so she’d keep her a secret.  If I took Katrina away she would lose her bargaining chip.  She kicked me out right then and there. I vowed to come back for Katrina when I finally got my feet on the ground. I couch surfed between a few friends until graduation then continued my plan to move and start working.  I learned early on that life doesn’t really go the way you want it to no matter how hard you try and it took me a while to find a job. When I finally did get one it was as a dish washer at a diner, far from how I imagined my first job would be but I really couldn’t afford to be picky.  I lived in a shared apartment with several other girls and it was well over a year in, when I finally worked my way to being a waitress and started earning tips.  As soon as I was able to feed, clothe, and shelter myself plus have some money left over, I went to get my sister.  Katrina was already 12 by then, she had grown up and she was beautiful, but I was too late and she hated me. The 6 years I spent preparing myself to take her and give her a better life, she spent fighting off advances from smelly old guys our mom brought home.  Katrina spent the last 6 years hearing about how I left as soon as I could to save myself and didn’t bother to take her. Our mother had brainwashed her and she didn’t want anything to do with me.  And so I left again. The money I had saved up for Katrina, I used to take time off and try to get into college. I was lucky enough to get in on a scholarship and I worked really hard to keep my grades high enough to keep my grant while waitressing again to feed myself and resave some money in case going to school didn’t work out.  When I finally graduated, I got my own place, a good job, and I got Denise. I went back a couple of times to see Katrina but she was still mad at me. She had gone off on the wrong path. She had fallen in with a bad crowd, was doing drugs, and was exposed to everything I tried to keep her away from.  I blame the shitty town we lived in, I blame my mom, but I blame myself as well.  The last time I tried to go see her, she wasn’t there anymore. Mom said she went with some guy named Ben and hadn’t been home in weeks. Katrina was 16 by then and the money from her father stopped coming so she couldn’t care less where her daughter was.  I tried looking for her but I didn’t even know where to start.