House of Secrets

HoUse

Of

Secrets

Regina Harris

ISBN 978-1-63525-337-5 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63525-338-2 (Digital)

Copyright © 2016 by Regina Harris

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

296 Chestnut Street

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Epilogue

Addendum

About the Author

God: I want you to write the book.

Me: No way! I don’t want to write the book.

God: Write the book.

Me: God I can’t, I simply can’t. It’s too hard.

God: Write the book.

Me: Please, I don’t want to relive all those hard times. I have spent my life just trying to forget them.

God: Write the book. It’s not for you. It’s for others who need to hear it.

Me: You don’t understand God – I can’t!

God: Write the book.

Me: I can’t, uh, I don’t have the time. Remember I have a full time job so I have no time to write a book. I don’t want to go through the memories. They are too painful. I’ve spent my entire life trying to forget them.

God: Write the book.

The next morning, I went to work only to be told my services were no longer needed. I had never been without a job in my life. Guess what I did with my time. Yep – I wrote a book.

Me: Okay. I will write the book.

"I used to wish that I could rewrite history

I used to dream that each mistake could be erased

Then I could just pretend

I never knew the me back then."

Part I

Chapter 1

We all recall our earliest memories. For me, it is walking on a green fence that outlines our postcard-size yard of a three-story apartment building in Detroit. My sisters are on each side of me, holding my hands as I walk along the top of the fence, one careful foot in front of the other until someone’s attention is diverted, and within the blink of an eye, I am sprawled out on the ground, my legs scrapped, and the fear of getting in trouble running through my head. What frightens me the most was the thought of being caught doing something I know I should not be doing and upsetting the grown-ups.

I don’t recall my sisters other than this event except that Brenda was eleven and more of an authoritative person than Sharon, who is seven, and I am three. Sharon liked to pinch me a lot because I was the youngest. My mother worked in a mill and was gone most of the time. My grandparents lived in the same apartment building, and our apartment was right across the hallway. I only remember them in very vague terms. When it came to authority, Brenda was the source.

There are a lot of shadows in my life, things that seem out of place or moving at the wrong speed, just something I cannot quite put my finger on. The images are gray, colorless. There were things that I must hide from—things that I am afraid of. There are times when I felt I could be safe, but only if I am very, very quiet. My sisters shove me into a cabinet high on the wall, which in retrospect, I suppose, is a storage bin or pantry. I just know, without ever being told, that I must be very quiet. Perhaps it was the boogeyman who lurked just outside those closed cabinet doors. It is very dark inside but darker yet if I am caught.

Every day is the same—drab, colorless. My sisters leave for school, and I am left to my own devices. I am allowed in my grandparents’ apartment but only to sit on the floor, not the good furniture, which is covered in plastic, as I might somehow mess it up. It doesn’t matter to me. My grandfather Oscar isn’t allowed to sit on the good furniture either. In fact, most mornings when I come over, I see him asleep on a small rug in the kitchen floor. I don’t think my grandmother likes me or my grandfather very much. As I have never really seen anyone sitting on the good furniture, it crosses my mind that perhaps my grandmother doesn’t like anyone. Perhaps there are no people to be liked.

Chapter 2

Even at the tender age of three, I know that I am a mistake. I am not supposed to be. My time was not supposed to be here and now. I am in the wrong life. I am taking up space never meant to be taken.

All this was confirmed as the film of my life is clicked on to the next slide. I am sitting on my mother’s lap, and we are on a very large cave-like structure with wheels. It is dark, always dark. There are other people on this moving object, but they too are without any color, all shades of various grays and blacks. We ride for a very long time. I ask my mother why I must sit in her lap, and she says it’s because we cannot afford another seat.

The next thing I remember is arriving, which to me was getting off the rolling Greyhound and getting into the car with two strange people. Everything is awkward. No one knows what to say or what to do. I am asked by the strange lady about toys and have no idea what she is talking about. My mother says something about a doll being in the suitcase. The strange man opens the suitcase, and there on top is a raggedy, dirty doll with all her hair cut off. Her head is flat from the ride in the small cramped suitcase. I think I was supposed to be upset and cry; however, I only can think that this is Brenda’s doll and that she is going to be very angry with me once she finds it gone. I have no idea how it got into the case. It is a horrible-looking thing, but I know I am supposed to show some emotion toward it to make the grown-ups feel as though they have done something for me. I take the doll and pretend I am so happy to once again be reunited with the filthy thing, and this seems to break the ice. I decide at that very moment that grown-ups are very strange people. And this lesson has ground itself into me—keep the grownups happy no matter what.

My mother left the next day pretty much the same way she came—on the long cave-like bus in a cloud of dust. There are no tears, no emotions, not even a good-bye. It simply does not matter. There are no bonds being broken as none were ever made. The two grown-ups and I just stare after the bus as it disappears into the horizon as I hold the raggedy doll by one arm. The leaving holds no import to me.

Chapter 3

The grown-ups’ names, I learn, are Carrell and Fredna Rose. I am supposed to call them Daddy and Mama, however. It seems strange to me, but I know it is better to keep grown-ups happy than to make them angry, so I do as I am told. I am introduced to other people as the days unfold. There is now a granny and papa, who live next door to us, and a lady named Hazel. Hazel doesn’t like me very much, but she is not a happy person and doesn’t seem to like anyone. She lives in a room inside Granny and Papa’s house, and the only time I see her is when she comes out to leave for work or comes in from work. The house has two stoves, two refrigerators, and two tables. One of each of these belongs to Hazel, and I am never ever, under any circumstances, to touch any of these items. It seems to me rules are pretty much the same wherever you go. Don’t touch the furniture and don’t get in the way. Stay as invisible as possible and keep the grown-ups happy—survival at its most primitive state. We are all born with this, or at the very least, we learn it at a very young age. If it were not so, I would not be here to tell the story.

We live very far out in the country. The noise of honking horns and tires squealing has been replaced by critters making noises, especially at night. There is no inside bathroom or running water in our house, but I am the only one who thinks this strange. One of my greatest fears is having to go outside at night to use the bathroom. What if the boogeyman has followed me to this new place? What if he is waiting on me here? Maybe I can just hold it ‘til it’s daylight again.

My new papa showed me a well that had a huge bucket that you lower down into a hole that had no bottom, at least not in my young mind. The string on the bucket just goes on forever, and at some point, Papa will bring it up again full of water. The water is really cold and tastes very good. He shares the water dipper with me, and when he looks at me, I see something . . . different in his face. There is a light, a color that comes from Papa’s eyes. I later would come to equate this color with love. He was a very kind man, and I think my thoughts of grown-ups began to change a little bit when I was with Papa. He never really said much; it seems that words were only to be used for very important thoughts or stories. Papa would often pat me on the head and smile, and we would go for walks through Papa’s woods. Sometimes he would find tiny plastic toys left abandoned in the yard, and he would tack them onto tree limbs. Many of our walks would be to trees that had toy soldiers or cars or trucks spreading across the limbs. Papa would always act surprised at this great find.

Papa and I had a common thread in life. Granny didn’t seem to like him, and she yelled at him a lot. That was something I definitely understood. I did find it strange that although he was a grown-up, he didn’t seem to fit in any better than I did. Every now and then, Papa would tell me stories, although he always took great care that I understood they were not stories, as in lies, but rather stories about life. That fact seemed of great import to Papa, so I agreed always that his stories were the truth no matter what. Even though Papa was a lot like me, he was still a grown-up, and grown-ups had to be kept happy.

Chapter 4

Hazel had two children: Dianne, who was much older than me, and Rick, who was a only a few years older. Dianne didn’t have time for me since I was just a little kid and she was more interested in snagging a future husband, but I think I became Rick’s one passion in life—to see just how much he could torment me. I thought he was the meanest boy I had ever known. He would say mean and horrible things to me. He would say I was adopted, and I came to believe this was a very, very bad thing to be. He refused to play with me or to let any of his friends play with me.