Heart Stomp

By Elsa Prado

Heart Stomp is about Ana, a nave
sheltered woman who has to cope with
an abusive alcoholic father, betrayal, an
unfulfilling marriage that is rocky because
of her husbands orientation and the
torment of the past. Ana struggles to rise
above the obstacles in her path.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 7, 2010
• ISBN: 9781462831791

Elsa Prado

Elsa Prado, CMI, CCI is the author of Dear Donor and Heart Stomp, sold in both English and Spanish, as well as a book of poetry translated for Andrea Saldana-Rivera. She also hosts the radio program, Alas de Amor, that focuses on child safety and other helpful topics for families (found on Radio Dimension Latina FM, Tu Radio Por Internet). Elsa resides in Oak Lawn, Illinois.

Book preview

Copyright © 2010 by Elsa Prado.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

69085

Contents

Dim Light

Sad Child

The Wallflower

Pulling Out

Moving On

On the Ground

Getting Up

To all the women in my family.

And

special thanks to my daughter, Monica,

for her collaboration on my cover.

Dim Light

My name is Anita. Well, that’s what everyone calls me. And when I was in my twenties, I was looking for answers, wanting to know why my life felt as if I carried a dark cloud over me. It just seemed that no matter what I did, I could not remove myself from this dark cloud that followed me year after year. Even though there were those glimpses of sun every now and then, it seemed as if I could not walk away from the dysfunction I had grown up in. I even got married to remove myself from the cloud, and now I found myself in a new set of problems that have seemed like nothing more than a chain of what I had already experienced. I live in suburbia, in a beautiful home that is too big for my husband and me.

I have thought to myself that it couldn’t be possible that there wasn’t a different way to life. It seemed as if I knew families that lived in peace and content with one another. They genuinely took care of one another and looked out for one another. I felt so trapped, and yet the only thing I wanted out of this life was to be loved. I even felt that wanting to be loved was too much to ask.

I am very spiritual, so I knew that for every time I prayed, even as a little girl, God answered my prayers. I myself would be astounded at the times I had my prayers answered.

So one day, feeling as if I was at the end of my rope, I decided to tell my friend that my husband and I were having so many problems that I just felt like my relationship with him was hopeless; and that no matter what I do or say, I always end up criticized and belittled. I told her, I am now my mother. This is my friend, Sophie. She suggested we go see a psychic who had a really good reputation for getting to the point with problems. I was really scared to go there, but my friend Sophie said she would come with me. We decided on a day and made the drive out to the barn house where this psychic worked. She was out south in the cornfields. There was a big sign out in front that read Readings by Beth. The driveway was a gravel driveway. When we got there, I insisted she go first. I said, Sophie, go ahead, I will go after you. She came out in a minute, telling me that she did not need the psychic. I was flabbergasted. How could she know? I then got my turn. She told me to sit down, and I was as nervous as hell. The room was tiny with all kinds of religious statues and figurines. The psychic took one look at me and said, You need help. I was shocked. Then she went on to tell me that she was waiting for me, that she knew I had seen about her in the paper, and that I wanted help but was afraid to ask for it. She looked at me and said, You’re feeling helpless in your marriage, and you are looking for solutions. And I was then speechless. She was looking at my hand, doing the reading, and telling me about my childhood – how grey it was and how affected I was because of my father’s alcoholism and abuse. She even told me that I questioned God a lot, which I did at that time. So much was so accurate that I just about felt naked and exposed in front of this petite, gray-haired woman. I personally thought she resembled Queen Sofia of Spain. The resemblance was remarkable. She said to me with a nod, You were born with a dim light. On the day you were born, the stars were barely shining. I burst into tears. I was feeling bad enough as it was. She said to me, Your husband married you because of the family that you came from. However, coming from an affluent and a political family was not the life I had lived. My father had decided to make it on his own and not live in his father’s shadow. He left his country to make a name for himself. He hated the fact that he was a junior to begin with. He was a proud man to say the least.

As for my marriage, she said, You have two choices, stay or move on. I blurted out, I’m now a carbon copy of my mother. I’m verbally abused all the time with no emotional support whatsoever. I added, I feel that the way he treats me is because he doesn’t love me. All I wanted was for my husband to love me. I wanted him to treat me as if I mattered to him. I did not want to repeat the cycle and find myself living a lie. I wanted things to be real. I saw it in other marriages. My question was, why can’t I accomplish this? How was I to get there? I walked out of the psychic’s house more down than ever. I truthfully did not even want to go home. I wanted to stay on the road and just keep going. The only question was, where would I go? Sophie and I shared the ride home. When I got home, I sulked all day thinking about the things the psychic had told me. Her accuracy was astonishing, and I had never even seen her before.

Sad Child

I was home, revisiting my childhood. Here I was, thinking of the endless years of feeling inadequate. I had heard from the time I was toddler that I was stupid, useless, and a dumbass. Just like your mother, my father would say in his drunken stupor. He would beat the daylights out of me for spilling my milk, smack me for not paying attention, and grab whatever object was at hand to beat me for making noise. There were times I thought if it was even worth breathing. What might I cause then? I still remember how scary it was to know his shift was going to end at work because then he would find a reason to hit me. I knew there would be something I wasn’t going to get right to cause him to get angry or frustrated, and I would have it coming. These types of reactions only made me push myself harder at school. I would put all my effort into getting my awards so that he could be proud of me. I thought to myself that the more blue ribbons I earned, the better my chances of