Healed Enough

Healed Enough

by Liberty McAdams



Denial - Anger - Bargaining - Sadness - Acceptance

The five stages of grief.

Lizzie was about twenty feet deep in the anger stage.

She bent and used the kneeler which was positioned at an angle toward the casket. Lizzie looked at the flowers that surrounded her brother. She had looked at each card that came with each arrangement. The largest arrangement was the cascade on the casket itself. The smallest was tucked in between some of the others. Lizzie had hesitated before looking at the card, thinking it probably came from Donal, the son her brother had never fully acknowledged. She was shocked when she read the card, and saw that the smallest, most miserly arrangement had come from their father.

Lizzie wasn’t sure if she was being a hypocrite for using the kneeler or not. As a “recovering Catholic” she had not voluntarily set foot in a church in nearly two decades. Lizzie really didn’t care though, today it felt right, and she would talk to God, no matter if She thought Lizzie went beyond the spiritual boundaries Lizzie herself had set or not. “Screw it if God Herself can’t take a joke.” Lizzie thought.

Lizzie bent her head, as the tears flowed freely, racing to the front of her suit, some missing and hitting some part of the kneeler or the floor. She fumbled for a tissue and blew her nose. She heard her mother’s voice, dead these past twenty years, telling her to not blow her nose in public. It didn’t matter right now, no one else was in the room with her. Lizzie’s kids were sitting in the lobby, not ready to face their uncle’s body just yet.

“So, Jase, it came to this. The old man didn’t manage to kill any of us when we were kids. The death he dealt was slow acting, huh?” Lizzie rose, walked around the kneeler, and went back to stand by her brother’s corpse. She reached in and straightened his shirt. No collar, a simple sweater with a nice t-shirt under. Jase wouldn’t have worn a tie when he was alive, it seemed stupid to put him in one now. Their father had had an opinion about it, so Lizzie had heard, but she didn’t give one scurvy rat’s ass what he thought. She and some of the other brother’s had paid for the funeral . . . such as it was, and their father, affectionately known to his children as “Attila” had no say in this. In fact, he would not have the chance to even see his son before he was cremated and put to rest. This little visitation was invitation only, no public notice had been made for it. And only the ones who had helped pay, or would have if they’d had the money, had been invited. Tomorrow, his body would be cremated, the rented casket returned to wherever it came from, and a few days from now, everyone would gather at the Veteran’s Cemetery for the formal interment.

Lizzie stopped fussing with Jase’s clothing and the casket lining. “It really doesn’t matter, eh, Jase?” Lizzie wiped her eyes again, then her nose. “You know you weren’t supposed to go yet. You were supposed to get off the cocaine and recover. You were supposed to be around to finish raising your boys, and to set things right with Donal. You were supposed to come to Thanksgiving dinner at my house in November and tell me you’d think about Christmas after you knew your sons’ plans. You were supposed to stick around and be my big brother.”

Lizzie heard a noise behind her and turned to see Phil, the youngest brother and his wife enter the little sanctuary. Wiping her eyes again, Lizzie held her arms out and Phil came in for a hug.

“Liz, the kids are hanging out with yours out there.” Phil pointed back toward the lobby. “Oh Liz. It really wasn’t supposed to be this way.” Phil looked her in the eye. “I didn’t mean to over hear what you were saying, but I am not sorry I heard it. You are right, this isn’t how it was supposed to be.”

“He was never the strong one Phil. You know?” Lizzie’s face went into a ‘you know what I am talking about” look. “He was always so sensitive.”

“Attila used that against him. Like he used to beat me for stuttering.” Phil replied.

Lizzie just nodded. Old wounds. They’d discussed them before, and would likely do so again. But just now, hearing more about what “he” did would only make her angrier at Attila and more focused on him. If any day was Jase’s day, surely today was it. “I will just go make sure everything is arranged Phil, so you can have some time. I’ll be back though, if you want to talk.” Lizzie squeezed his hand and walked away. What is the deal with the hand squeeze at funerals? We all do it. Maybe it makes sense in a way, sort of like a hand hug.

As Lizzie went to look for the director of funeral services, she realized that everything about today could be traced back to Attila. All eight of the kids had survived their childhoods, some barely. But now, they were all dying young. And it could all be traced right back to the ways they had each found to cope with the pain, abuse and humiliation that was being Attila’s child. Will had coped by smoking everything, cigarettes and drugs, he could get his hands on, and died of lung cancer just four years ago. Les had worked himself nearly to death - Jennie, his wife, was trying to nurse him back to health. Jamie, was working hard to drink himself to death. His blood alcohol content shocked most health care professionals. The man should have been dead from alcohol poisoning long ago. David had eaten and drank himself into diabetes, and still could not pass up the sweets or the beer. Devan was a heavy drinker and a drug dealer. Jase was addicted to cocaine. Phil was working himself into an early grave. And Lizzie? Lizzie was a combo of over-eating and over-work. They would all die young, most of them watched by Attila.

Lizzie had wandered into another viewing room in her half-hearted search for the funeral services director. This one was bigger than the one they had rented for Jase. But it was empty. Lizzie sat in one of the pews.

She didn’t want to go down memory lane, but couldn’t help remembering the past. Remembering the night Attila has thrown Jase across the kitchen, and beat Phil about the head and shoulders til he fell to his knees. Jase wasn’t the only one Atilla threw at some point or another, but that was the one Lizzie had seen from the beginning to the end. Atilla wasn’t listening, but then he never listened. He was angry because their mother had left him and taken Jase, Lizzie and Phil with her. The night of the beatings and throwing was the night they returned. Atilla blamed them, never himself, never his own infidelities, never his own abusive nature, never the fact that he had been diddling Lizzie and other neighborhood girls. That was one night of beatings, there had been plenty of others.

Lizzie wiped her eyes before turning around when she heard someone shuffle into the room.

“I am sorry, I was just having a moment alone. I’ll . . .” and then she saw that it was Atilla himself who had walked into the room.

“Well. I figured I would find you some where all alone. You seem to prefer it.” Atilla said.

“Whatever you have to say, I don’t want to hear it.” Lizzie moved to leave the room, but in doing so, had to walk by Atilla. He grabbed her arm.

“Now listen girl. I am not here to cause you problems. I never caused you any problems. I just wanted to chip in my part for Jase’s funeral. Les said you were the only one who contributed and really couldn’t afford it.” Atilla sneered a bit here, happy that Lizzie had never made her fortune, glad that his prediction that she would never amount to anything if she divorced her husband had come true.

“You can let go of my arm and leave me be old man. I’ve no intention of taking anything from you ever again.” Lizzie looked at him with venom in her eyes, recalling the time when, as children, she and Phil got on their knees to pray Atilla worked overtime for the rest of their childhoods, so they didn’t have to see him or deal with him again. That prayer had turned into a prayer that he died instead. Lizzie never forgave him for making their lives so miserable that she actually prayed her father would die.

“I will not leave you be. I will not. You are my daughter and I have let you act like a bitch for too damn long. You will sit down and talk with me and you will take this money.” Atilla pulled a wad of money from his pocket and waved it at Lizzie while he tried to push her into one of the pews.

Lizzie felt herself rush back to a moment she would rather never remember. That moment after Jase had gone into the Army, when Lizzie was so depressed and scared she could barely eat and rarely left her bedroom. She had just finished cooking dinner for the family, her job since Mom had the stroke. She told Mom she wasn’t hungry and went to her bedroom, threw herself down lying across the bed. Atilla came in and asked her if she wasn’t going to eat. Atilla who had told her to stop eating, to drink water when she was hungry, because really she was just a little too fat, and girls didn’t need as much food as boys. Just the thing any father would say to his tall daughter who wore a size 12, right? Lizzie told him she wasn’t hungry and then tried to ignore him. But Atilla would not be ignored. He poked her, he tickled her. Lizzie just laid there, ignoring him. This was the wrong thing to do, but she didn’t know it then. Atilla usually visited her at night, not during the day. At night when she was asleep and could pretend that he wasn’t lying behind her wiggling, groaning and grabbing at her small breasts. But not that day. That day, when she tried to get off the bed, he pushed her back and laid on top of her. Lizzie screamed for her mother, and struggled and fought him until he hit her hard enough to make her stop. Then she just threw her arms over her eyes and pretended to be at the lake. The lake was safer. The lake was a place he never bothered her. When he was done, Lizzie had put her pants back on and gone to bed, pulling the covers over her head.

This day, the memories of the physical abuse and of that night, and the other times Atilla held her down and did what he wanted, came rushing back like a tidal wave. Lizzie was scared for her life, sure he was going to force his will upon her again. She pushed him with all her might, thinking she might kill him right here in the funeral parlor.

Atilla hit the pew lengthwise, and ended up sprawled along it. He might have a bruise along the length of his back, but that would be all the damage he suffered. Lizzie no longer wanted to kill him, that moment had passed, but oh did she have some things to say!

“Okay asshole. It’s like this. YOU are going to listen to ME this time.” Lizzie looked down and found the sweaty wad of bills in her hand. She didn’t know how it got there, but it wasn’t going to stay. She threw the bills at him. “I do not want your money. I never did.”

Atilla started to sit up. Lizzie moved into the pew behind the one he landed in and shoved him back down.

“Nope. You just stay where you are.” Lizzie unbuttoned her jacket, it was getting too warm to wear. “Do you know why Jase died?” Atilla shook his head ‘no’, not trying to talk, waiting to see if she was going to try to hurt him again. “Technically Jase died of a drug overdose. Literally he spent so much of his time from about fourteen years old on, trying to keep the horrible memories of the abuse you rained upon us, trying to get past the times you told him he wasn’t good enough, by using anything he could to forget. Jase died of an inability to forget the things YOU did.”

“I never hurt any of you.”

“You never physically killed any of us you bastard. You beat us, you killed our spirits, you raped our souls. You were the most selfish man, the most selfish father.” Lizzie scooted down the pew and stood. “Do you remember the deer Dad? Do you remember filming my reaction to the dead deer you brought home in the back of your pick up truck?”

Atilla smiled at the memory.

“Yeah I see you do remember. I remember too. I remember being a little girl who loved her father. What was I? Three? You promised me you were bringing Bambi home to me. I believed you, you son of a bitch. And when you got home and Mom let me run out to the truck to get my ‘friend deer’, I didn’t understand at first that she was dead. I had to fucking ask. You were laughing and I had to ask why the deer didn’t move. And, then, when one of the boys told me why, and I started crying, you filmed it. You FILMED IT so you could enjoy the torture again and again. Watch it again and again. And then you showed the film over and over to us through the years, and everyone teased me unmercifully for thinking you were bringing me home a live baby deer.”

“Life is hard. Kids need to be taught that at a young age.” Atilla replied.

“You are an abusive and ugly person. That is why you did it. Not because three year old children need to be lied to and needled about their emotions for the rest of their lives.” Lizzie took a breath. “You don’t deserve any of us. Jamie and Devan hang around you so they can inherit your property after you die. They don’t care about you anymore than anyone else. They want your stuff as compensation for the beatings, for the put-downs, for the abuse, not because they love you. Hell, Devan and his wife have been running their own little drug enterprise right next door to you for years.”

As if called by name, Devan appeared in the doorway. “Ah speak of the devil and he’ll appear” Lizzie said. She bent down and grabbed her purse from the floor near the first pew she had sat, pulled her jacket back on.

“What are you doing to Dad?” Devan asked.

“Bastard grabbed me, when I got him off of me, he fell.”

“Lizzie he just wants to help.”

“Helping would have been admitting to Jase that he was abusive and wrong and sorry thirty years ago.” Lizzie said. “Just take him back where he came from Devan. No one wants him here. Jase deserves to rest in peace now, so take him back and leave it alone.” Lizzie turned on her heel, and walked toward the door.

“Lizzie?” Atilla called.

Lizzie stopped but didn’t turn around.

“I love you.” Atilla said.

Lizzie straightened her back, thinking ‘Once again Atilla said something, but not the thing we all need to hear.’ She walked away from him and Devan, and back to the room where her family, and Jase, waited.