What she deserved

Momma died on a snowy and bitter Tuesday in January. An awfully normal day to die, Tuesday. When I found her body in the yard, I suppose I should have been sad but I thought good riddance instead. She looked like a statue, skin as cold as marble and snow coloring her eyelashes and dark hair white. That would have made her mad. She spent almost an entire Saturday every month aggressively searching her hair for evidence of her age and when found, slathering it in a dark paste until it accepted defeat. Even gray hairs couldn’t stand up to Momma. Blood trickled out of her mouth, a splash of red in a colorless scene. Her eyes weren’t closed and it looked like she was staring off into the distance, which gave me the heebie jeebies, so I kicked snow over her face until I couldn’t see them anymore. I didn’t believe in respecting the dead, especially when the dead in question had beat the shit out of me most days of the week and twice on Sundays.

Her death put a dent in the morning chore schedule and I had to spend most of the day instead trying to break apart the frozen ground for her grave. I could have called the town coroner and made it his problem, but he would have had to drive here in his long, black vehicle and even if he made it over the snowy roads (which in the best of times were a path of gravel), it would take him hours. Meanwhile, I’d be going about my morning chores and walking around my dead Momma or else I’d have to move her and I didn’t want to touch her unless I needed to. Plus, I didn’t have the money to pay the coroner for what I could damn well do myself. Besides, me and Momma knew nobody in town. She would have wanted to be buried out here on our land, and she would have liked what a pain it was for me to do it. Once I dug out enough frozen clods of dirt, I dragged her over next to it and rolled her in.

“Bye, Momma.” It was the eulogy she deserved and the one she got, before I set out filling in the grave over her. I took note of the spot in the yard where she was buried so I could put in some kind of marker when the ground got warmer, and then I went about my chores. I moved slowly, still hurting and aching from the beating Momma had given me the day before. The cow mooed at me angrily for not milking her sooner and I said, “shut up,” but I couldn’t blame her.

The screeching started that night. I was worn out from doing my chores long past when I normally would be done (cursing Momma every minute I went over) so it took no time at all to fall into a dreamless sleep. The screeching must have being going on for a while, because it was at full pitch when it woke me up. I knew it was a barn owl from living on a farm, but I had never heard one keep up its call like it was, constantly screeching. The sound pierced the silent night and made it impossible to sleep. I lay in the dark, sending silent pleas that it would shut the hell up. Every time it stopped to draw breath, I prayed it would be quiet for the rest of the night. My prayers were answered only when the morning light shone through my bedroom window, when I couldn’t sleep anyway. I sighed and got up to do my chores, albeit slowly and with dark-rimmed eyes, cursing the owl instead of Momma while I did them.

When I laid down that night, starving because I had been too exhausted to make dinner, the barn owl began screeching again.

“Shit,” I said and hauled myself up to sit on the side of the bed, swaying from exhaustion. I got up and grabbed a lantern from the kitchen, pulling on my boots to trudge through the fresh snow to the barn. I snuck a glance at Momma’s grave along the way, snow piling on the mound. I opened the creaking barn door, lantern shedding a dim light into the dark room. The wind whistled through cracks and holes in the weathered wood of the building, making the barn almost as chilly as outside. The screeching continued and I guessed it to be coming from the corner of the loft. I climbed the ladder with one hand and held the lantern out with the other, murderous thoughts running through my mind while the screeches pierced my eardrums and made my head throb.

I crawled along the loft slowly, placing my lantern a few paces ahead and then shuffling forward on my hands and knees. I knocked something with my left hand and heard it clatter, but when I looked for it with the lantern, I couldn’t find it. Finally, the dim light reached the moon-white face of the barn owl, eyes glowing a nocturnal green. Its brown feathers mottled with brown spots gleamed in the soft light. It was beautiful, but it was annoying the hell out of me. I searched around for something to kill it with, but stopped when I saw a chick still partially covered in soft gray-and-white down cowering behind the screeching mother. The chick looked so innocent and young and I didn’t know why, but I started crying. I roughly wiped my face and turned around, climbing down from the loft and trudging back to the house. The screeching continued, but I stuffed soft tissues in my ears to drown out the noise. It didn’t work too well, but I managed to drift in and out of sleep. When I was awake, I stared at the ceiling and thought about the noisy owl and her terrified chick.

After another day of chores, slower and more sluggish than the day before, and a quick dinner, I laid in bed again. I had already stuffed my ears with tissues but still, the screeches pierced my ears and made my brain throb. With so little sleep, the world felt hazy as I once again got up to make the trek to the barn. Chick or no chick, beautiful or not, the owl had to die. I followed the path in the snow I had made the day before and this time, avoided looking at Momma’s grave. Once in the barn, I searched for a weapon and found a knife I used for cutting twine on hay bales below the loft. I wondered why it was on the ground, but remembered I had knocked something away while I was in the loft the night before. The knife was covered in a red-brown substance, which fell off in flakes when I scratched at it with my fingernail.

I stuffed the knife in the waistband of my nightdress and climbed up the loft once more. To my surprise (and I’ll admit, relief) the chick was gone and it was just the mother barn owl there, screeching as always. I crawled forward, hay sticking to my hands and in the knees of my dress, making my skin itch. Though the owl watched me approach, it kept screaming and didn’t move an inch.

“I’ll make this quick,” I promised softly, but hesitated. I thought again of the chick and imagined it coming back to find its mother dead, as I had found my own the day before yesterday. I began to cry again, but I stamped it down. I lived on a farm. I had plenty of experience putting down animals when needed and based on the haze around everything, I needed to kill this barn owl to stay sane. I grabbed the owl and the knife at the same time and though it kept screeching, it wasn’t any different than what it had been doing the past two nights. I swiftly brought the knife into its belly and the screeching petered out as the owl went limp in my hand.

As crimson blood seeped over my hand and I stared into the owl’s eyes, I gasped, remembering Momma’s body and her distant eyes. Then I remembered her blood seeping over my hand after I had stabbed her with the same knife. Remembered her struggling to breathe, while I walked away to put the knife in the barn loft and considered whether I would call the coroner. Remembered tending to my bruises, then going to bed. Remembered the sweet silence of the night before the barn owl screeches began to haunt me. I had blocked it out, but I remembered it all again.

I wiped the owl’s blood on my dress, but I could feel its blood join Momma’s underneath my fingernails. I knew no matter how I washed my hands, I would never be able to get the feeling of it out. I closed the barn door behind me, the silence of the night seeming like a curse now. I stomped to Momma’s grave as fresh snow began to fall and forced myself to remember more.

How I had screamed the first time Momma broke one of my bones. How my skin would turn a rainbow of colors after she hit me. How she used to weep and apologize and then how she would hit me again not a few hours later. How she would force me to eat until I threw up or starve me for days. How I had to sleep in the snow one night and how long it took for me to feel warm again. How disdain shone in her eyes whenever she looked at me. How she spit on me, warm saliva dripping down my face, during the last time she beat me. How I knew I wouldn’t survive her. How I knew I had to do something and how I did it.

I remembered it all, and knelt to the ground. I brought my hand to the freezing dirt.

“Sorry, Momma.” It was the apology she deserved and the one she got.