Fight Me

Navy shut her eyes tight hoping that if she squeezed them tight enough, the present moment would disappear.

She pictured that day on the back porch, after the boy on the playground pushed her down into the dirt. She pictured the uneven rhythm of her feet hitting the sidewalk as she ran towards a blurry vision of home, squinting through the sting of the sand rubbing against the insides of her eyelids.

Her mother was already visible in the threshold of the door, arms crossed, face expressionless.

As she pleaded her case, huffing out words too quickly to be understood, Navy’s eyes began to swell with tears. She didn’t want to cry, but the tears were soothing her eyes and her throat was too dry to say any more words. Navy just wanted to fly into the embrace of her mother and bawl her eyes out. She wanted her to be filled with righteous anger, and to go address this bully and make him be nice. Instead, Navy’s mother narrowed her already narrow eyes in a hint of disgust.

“What are you crying for?” her mother asked, as if Navy hadn’t recounted the entire ordeal just moments before.

“Jason pushed me down and told me I can’t play at his park.” Navy whispered.

“And?” her mother asked.

“And?” Navy thought. She met her mother’s eyes and tried to read the answer.

Navy’s mother studied her. She crossed her arms for a moment before she pointed her finger at the small girl and then silently beckoned her inside. Navy climbed the few steps and followed her mother. She didn’t know what she had done, but her mother’s demeanor said she was in trouble.

“Who can hurt you worse? Jason? Or Me?” Navy’s mother asked sharply as soon as Navy had shut the door behind her.

“Huh?” Navy was confused.

“Either you go and fight Jason, or you have to come inside and fight me.”

“But Mommy!” Navy began to cry. “Jason is in first grade! He’s bigger than me and he beats people up!”

“I don’t care. If someone is bigger than you, then you get a weapon.” Her mother held out a doll. “Take this doll and use it to go fight him. If I see you run away, then you’re gonna come in the house and fight me.”

Navy opened her eyes. She was still there. It was still happening.

Her grandmother stood guard in front of her, holding a broomstick. She and Navy watched as her mother’s boyfriend hit her in the face, over and over.

“Mama, help me!” Navy’s mother yelled to her grandmother, who yelled in response,

“Tell him you love him, Gina! Tell him you love him so he’ll stop!”

Navy’s mother tried to follow the advice, but she couldn’t complete a sentence before being interrupted by a blow to the head, face, or stomach.

“I love--!” she spat, interrupted by a hollow knock to her face, spraying blood on the carpet and the wall.

After her boyfriend stormed out of the house, Gina crumbled into a heap, sobbing into the floor. Navy, almost maternally, laid down beside her and wrapped her tiny arms around her mother’s head as she cried

Navy wished she had her doll, so that her mother would have had a weapon to fight him back.