What Children Remember by Tasha Hunter

Author:Tasha Hunter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tasha Hunter
Published: 2020-03-23T16:38:50+00:00

Chapter 23

Things Parents Teach

“Parents still have a big influence on their kids - just ask any therapist. No, really, I think the parent is the most important influence on children: It's how they learn to love and treat other people.”

~Judy Blume

I counted down the years, and months, and number of days until the end of my sentence living with Katrina. Each birthday signified less time left to serve. My relationship with her felt a lot like the movie Groundhog Day: the same fear and the same insanity, over and over again. Still, when I was fourteen, she began teaching me how to drive. She’d tell me, unexpectedly, “It’s your turn. Let’s switch.”

While I settled into the driver’s seat, she’d say, “Seatbelt on?”

Check.

“Check your mirrors, and change them if you need to. Make sure you can see out of all of them.”

Check.

“Is your seat comfortable?”

Check.

“Now put your foot on the brake. You remember which one, don’t you?” When I had both hands on the steering wheel, she said, “It’s more dangerous if you drive with both hands. Try with only one.”

When our drive would steer off course, or when I would struggle to get a hold of the wheel or control my rate of speed, Katrina would yell and call me stupid. When I accidentally swerved into the opposite lane, without a verbal warning I received a physical rebuke. BAM! She hit me on my face and head several times, punching and slapping any part of my face where her hands landed. It’s a miracle I didn’t get into an accident. She didn’t allow for any mistakes and punished me harshly for mine.

In another punishing memory that I will never forget, one afternoon while I was at her beauty shop, she asked me a question about Darryl. I responded but called him by his government name (Darryl) instead of the nickname I’d been taught to use (Buster).

Looking up from her appointment book, she said, “What did you say?”

I repeated my reply. She made an aggressive lunge towards me, then retraced her steps and went to the supply closet, picked up a 2x4 board, and hit me over my back with it. She screamed, “Who do you think you are? You ain’t grown! You don’t get to call him by his first name.”

I had never called him by his first name prior to that instance but wanted to know what it felt like—this small act of defiance. No one called him “Darryl,” not even his family. Since the day I was introduced to him and instructed to call him Buster, something in me didn’t want to address him with his nickname. Nicknames were a term of endearment, and I never felt close to him in that way. When we got home, she continued yelling and soon her accusations were in full force. “Are you fucking him? You ain’t nothing but a goddamn whore.”

I cried and thought about how stupid I’d been and how disrespectful it was to call him by another name when I had no right to do so.

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