Mama’s Scapegoat

By Stephanie Rose

The phone rang late one evening. My mother was dead, killed by a drug addict she treated better than she treated her own children and grandchildren. Emotionally, I was numb. After a lifetime of her abuse, I felt no emotion. Not love, not hate, nothing. I did my duty by driving over seven-hundred miles and helping my siblings clean a bloody room, empty the house, and make funeral arrangements. I went through the motions and no one knew how I really felt. It's terrible to feel nothing, but I guess that was my way of protecting myself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: LifeRich Publishing
• Release date: Dec 2, 2019
• ISBN: 9781489726544

Stephanie Rose

Stephanie Rose is a decorator and artist who specializes in faux paint technique for over 12 years.  She is a divorced, single mother of three beautiful children and resides on Long Island, NY

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Copyright © 2019 Stephanie Rose.

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ISBN: 978-1-4897-2653-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4897-2654-4 (e)

LifeRich Publishing rev. date: 11/27/2019

CONTENTS

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

An Interlude of Uncertain Chronology

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Final Interlude: A Letter Written While in Shock

Epilogue

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PROLOGUE

T he phone rang late one evening. My mother was dead, killed by a drug addict she treated better than she treated her children and grandchildren. Emotionally I was numb. After a lifetime of her abuse, I felt no emotion. Not love, not hate, nothing. I did my duty by driving over seven hundred miles and helping my siblings clean a bloody room, empty the house, and make funeral arrangements. I went through the motions and no one knew how I really felt. It’s terrible to feel nothing, but I guess that was my way of protecting myself.

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CHAPTER ONE

G randpa came from Italy to America in 1905 and became a citizen in 1910, marrying his Italian immigrant bride in 1915 in New York. For over twenty years, they ran a tobacco and candy store before they moved their family to California, leaving behind their less adventurous relatives.

That’s where my mother met my father – she was a waitress and he was a patron – and Aunty met Clarence. My parents married quickly and I was their first child, just another baby born to an immigrant family in the City of Angels. Aunty and Clarence became engaged a few years later, but ultimately cancelled the wedding: Neither ever married after. It’s nice to imagine a heart wrenching, Shakespearian devotion to each other, even apart, but the real reasons may forever be a mystery. The proof of their once love – an elegant cedar chest – has stayed with me for generations.

For his part, my dad was born in Louisiana, and raised on Cajun cooking. His mother died young from Tuberculosis, leaving him and his younger sister behind. Overwhelmed by the prospect of raising two children on his own, my grandfather sent my aunt away to be raised by relatives. My father stayed behind, growing up on the family homestead and stealing watermelons from patches to keep himself entertained. Eventually, my father joined the Navy and was stationed in California, then remained there where he met my mother.

We lived in a tiny duplex until I was four. In those days, the city didn’t struggle to house hundreds of millions and there was still room for farmland in Los Angeles. An orange orchard flourished behind us and the soothing, citric scent of orange blossoms clung in the air. Drawn to this same image of mid-1900s suburban bliss after my parents’ marriage, Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunty rented the duplex next to ours. Unable to go back to work after his first stroke and unable to acclimate to a sedentary lifestyle, Grandpa became my primary caretaker when my parents worked, filling my early years with peace, laughter, and a grandfather’s doting love.

Grandpa always said that children running and making noise didn’t bother him. Wouldn’t you rather your child be noisy and healthy, not sick and unable to run and play? he would say.

In the late 1940s, Los Angeles was a great place to live. Movie studios liked having beaches, mountains, deserts, hills, and the ocean short distances away for their filming. The weather was ideal. Factory smokestacks were a sign of rebuilding after the war, the smear of smoke across the sky like a beacon of hope against the LA skyline. Now it just contributes to the pollution. The city I grew up in now renowned for its smog.

Our next home was a single-family dwelling. My grandparents and Aunty stayed behind.

Not a day went by that my mother didn’t curse at me, swear at me, and degrade me. She hit, slapped, kicked, and pulled my hair. I was the target of her rage. And, with my father at work and my nearest relatives blocks and blocks away, there were no witnesses and no rescuers.

I sometimes wonder what influenced her anger. Aunty told me, later, that my mother ran around with a lot of other realtors in Los Angeles in those days and ended up having an abortion, but a child has no way of understanding exterior causes of a parent’s wrath: I internalized it all, blaming myself, always aiming to please, forever falling short.

Regardless of the initial cause, the cruelty never ended. Not until she did.

My mother preached retribution to me: If I sharpen My flashing sword, And My hand takes hold on justice, I will render vengeance on My adversaries. This was another ploy to make me feel guilty about everything. While she was preaching retribution, she was horribly abusing her children mentally, physically, and emotionally; cheating on my dad; lying; being cruel to her mother; and breaking the Commandments. All the while she sent us children to Catholic school and Church. She didn’t go to Church, though she and my father had been married in the faith. Instead, I went alone, from the time I was six or seven onwards, to walk to the bus stop to wait. I was the only child