Abuse

By Bernice Berger Miller

Abuse is rampant in our world, our country, our neighborhood.
Physical abuse is immediately apparent in bloody wounds that leave scars. Sexual abuse may be buried and not apparent until years later. Verbal abuse cuts deeply into the psyche and may not ever show itself. But if it does, it has left a festering aching yet hidden wound that can never be excised. It is as damaging to an afflicted person as a broken wing is to a bird.
Helens world, gentle and loving, is crammed into a tiny home filled with many children and everyday common ailments. Everyday illnesses and very little money. Each member of the family tends to one another. Her adoring father sees the deterioration that poverty brings. He comes up with a scheme. And it involves Helen.
We follow Helen as she navigates through her stormy world as her family and friends are subjected to the worlds abuses, in one form or another. And then, it finds her. And she is prepared.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jan 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9781546222484

Bernice Berger Miller

Bernice Berger Miller, author of ITS ALL ABOUT A NAME, has written works in several genres. She has written childrens stories, poetry, short stories, and selections for private purposes. As a building contractor, she has built 3 and 4 bedroom condominium apartments. She has traveled extensively visiting many countries worldwide, and she is a partner in the antique and collectible business. And when she is relaxing, she writes, reads, and goes to football games. And when the game is an Away Game, she watches it on TV. Shes been a season ticket holder for 35 years. Her time with her children, grandchildren, and great grandchild (Jackson) is the best of everything she enjoys. She earned her B.S. degree from Columbia University and her Ph.D from the University of Florida. Her grandchildren run most of their school reports through her, and they pay her by walking her through the internet and computer carefully and gingerly because they know shes a kindergartner in those areas. Its a perfect give and take relationship. She loves it best when shes the giver.

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2018 BERNICE BERGER MILLER. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 01/29/2018

ISBN: 978-1-5462-2244-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-2243-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-2248-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017919417

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Books By Bernice Berger Miller

THE AUTHOR

Acknowledgements

I f one has been injured, difficult as it was, one must look beyond the experience and treasure every moment and every person who has tendered the gift of friendship and kindness. And there have been so many. Children, friends, even strangers. Each and every one of them has guided so many through a forest that could have been dark. But because of them, abused persons have only sunshine in their lives.

Dedication

F or all of the people, young and old, female and male, who have been injured by others, wittingly or unwittingly. The scars are the same.

If you or anyone you know is experiencing domestic violence or abuse, you can contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at:

www. HOTLINE.org

or call: 1-800-799-7233

for 24/7 assistance

Source: The National Domestic Violence Hotline

Chapter 1

I t had been so many years since Helen had thought about Frank’s brutishness that it wasn’t even a memory. She never liked him and she never didn’t like him. In either case she’d have to have had some feeling for him, love hate respect contempt even pity maybe, but the pity came later when she was old enough to formulate pity and so it came way after she’d have thought about liking him. There was once when if she could have reasoned coherently that she would have hated him. But the trauma was so great and the reasoning was so late in coming, if at all, that the hating got buried in indifference. And the pity got buried too. And Frank so self-centered was struck without knowing he was struck with the ultimate insult.

Frank worked at the mill with Papa, and he was so old anyway and out of her world that she never even would have known of him if Papa hadn’t come up with the scheme. It’s funny. Papa wasn’t a scheming man. He thought straight thoughts and felt gentle feelings and loved his huge brood fiercely. He was a simple man who made robust babies. He walked to the mill, worked his honest day, and came home with his pay to feed them all. But the accident tore up his simple path and transformed it into a broken, twisted journey. And so the scheme. For Helen to marry Frank. A wise innocent of fifteen to marry an old curmudgeon of forty-two. The scheme made strange sense in the surrealist world of nightmares. And as nightmares go, sometimes they happen now and sometimes later.

Helen was the third oldest of George and Lilly’s eight children and food was scarce. Mattie, the oldest, had to take care of the cramped two room cottage, scrape meals together, and look after Mama, sickly and weak. Dinny tended to the children, Dale and Dell and Dougie and the twins. So that’s why Helen had to be the one to marry.

Dinny was fine with the bigger ones but the baby twins gave her a fit. Although Helen was only fifteen, she was better at taking care of the little ones than her two older sisters. And she knew it. A bump on the head or a stubbed toe came to her first for rubbing and a kiss and a hug. Hugs abounded in the family but Helen’s came with a gentle rocking, rhythmically soothing, with a whisper of a hum.

One time when Dinny was fixing a mustard plaster for Dell who, poor thing, coughed and coughed until her little chest prayed to give up, Helen tended to the infant twins. But it wasn’t hard because each hand seemed to have its own brain and mother-energy. Both babies were hungry at exactly the same moment, both found relief at exactly the same moment, and both fussed to sleep at exactly the same moment. But Helen’s two independent motherhands patted and pressed and cradled while her body rocked and nourished as if the milk that came out of the bottles were her own. But Dinny was really as good as they come with the little ones, as long as no one compared her to Helen. So Helen was the only one that could be spared.

Papa had been a fair machinist working on looms that were down until the day his coat got caught in the gears and dragged the coat and his arm into the grinding mesh. They rushed to stop the loom a moment too late for the arm was gone. Now, they let him empty trash and do odd errands. He could do more if he didn’t feel so sorry for himself but he’d rather gather strays and bits of material left on the floor under the looms or the remnants they gave him from corners of the cutting room and take them home to Lilly who made dresses or curtains or coverings when she wasn’t feeling poorly. But more often than not, George didn’t show up at work. It was either too icy or too sweltering or Mattie didn’t prod hard enough to get him out. His world was unravelling and that’s why Helen had to marry. There would be two less to feed since she would take little Dougie with her and there would always be the hope that some small amount of money could be diverted to Mama.

Frank worked in the 100 foot warping room at the mill. Compared to the rest of the building, it was quiet but that’s not saying much. Hundreds of silky filaments stretched from one end of the room to the other and, like invisible spider excretions, their strength lay in their mystery. Frank’s bulk and plodding slippered feet seemed to come from one body while his nimble