Chapter 3: Tainted Memories

Mia Pirelli attended St. Christopher's Catholic school. The school year began a few weeks ago. Mia had always been a good student, usually getting straight A's. She was just beginning eighth grade and it didn't escape her notice that she was in the same grade her mother had been in when she had become pregnant with Mia.

Mia was generally well liked at school and had a lot of friends with the same interests. Her best friend was Carly Flemming. They had been inseparable since the first grade. Carly lived two blocks away from Mia and when Mia wasn't at her house, she was usually at Carly's house. They had other friends, but their loyalty was always to each other first and foremost. That's why Carly felt a strong obligation to let Mia know about all the rumors she had been hearing.

"Now don't get upset Mia," Carly felt the need to preface her news.

"What is it Carly?" Mia asked. She hated when Carly was dramatic and kept her waiting like this.

"I don't want you to be upset," Carly said slowly.

"For God's sake spit it out," Mia said impatiently.

Carly suddenly wondered if she was doing the right thing, but she reasoned that it was better for Mia to hear about this from her than someone else. "I heard from Brandon, who heard from his mother's friend April, that well, your mother might be back in town."

Mia's jaw dropped open. Of all the things Mia had been expecting Carly to say, this wasn't one of them. She thought perhaps Carly was going to tell her something trivial such as a boy liked her, or that she had failed her last test, but not that her mother had come back. Mia wasn't quite sure how to react. Carly had been one of the few people Mia had talked with about her mother over the years because the subject was off limits at home.

Carly went on to explain what else she had heard, "I guess she got really drunk the other night at Red's Barn, and well, caused a stir there."

As the story unfolded from Carly's lips, Mia thought she was going to be sick. She stared straight ahead as Carly continued talking about how her mother had danced around naked at the bar. That wasn't the truth, but it happened to be the story that was currently circulating.

Carly wished in her heart of hearts she hadn't been the one to break the news to Mia because Mia had been silent ever since she began talking.

"Hey I'm sure it's just a rumor," Carly said as they reached the point at where they each went home their separate ways.

Mia knew her friend was just trying to make her feel better, "No big deal," Mia shrugged, and she tried to laugh it off. "I'm sure it's just a rumor, plus if my mother was back in town who would care. She's never meant anything to me," Mia said.

Mia bid Carly goodbye and continued on her way home. She paused as she walked through the back door because there hanging on a nail near the back door was the old black leather belt. It had hung there Mia's entire life, and although it seemed like something she would have gotten used to over the years, she never had. She always deliberately took her friends in and out of the front door, even though her grandma would sometimes scold her for doing so. But she didn't want her friends to see the black leather belt hanging near the back door of the house.

Mia's grandfather had only used the belt twice to punish her. Once when she was about eight years old and made up an elaborate lie to cover up the fact she had stolen some perfume from the drug store. She had been forced to return the perfume to the store, and if that wasn't humiliating enough, her grandfather decided to use the belt to make sure the lesson sunk in.

The second time her grandpa used the belt to punish her had been less than two years ago. She had been twelve years old then and she and her friends had vandalized a nearby house that was being renovated. The owners were out of town. It had all been done in fun, and none of them had meant to cause any damage, but they had gotten carried away and broken a couple of windows and spilled paint and plaster. All of them had been fingered as culprits when Mary Brenner decided to make a full confession to Father Lionel during her weekly confessional.

When her grandfather had used the belt to punish her, he had doubled it over and made her bend over and place her hands behind her knees. He then told her to lift her skirt so he could strap her over the top of her panties. He had given her one lick per year of age. The first time he had hit her eight times, which she thought was bad enough, but the second time he had given her twelve, and it had been nearly unbearable.

She had heard stories about her grandpa's belt as she grew up, it was legendary. Uncle Frank had once let it slip that her mother had been a frequent recipient of the belt and so when Mia had to be punished with the belt, she had decided if her mother could take it, she could too. But the truth was, Mia had never forgotten the sting of the belt and it was an experience she worked very hard to avoid. It wasn't difficult because Mia had always been a very good girl at heart.

Mia had also been thankful St. Christopher's had done away with corporal punishment by the time she came along. She was not a trouble maker by any means, but there was a certain comfort in knowing that being paddled at school wasn't even a remote possibility.

Mia had learned the tradition of corporal punishment had been in full effect when her mother had attended St. Christopher's because Sister Agatha, who had apparently been there since the dawn of time, had recalled with fondness a few stories about Mia's mother. Apparently her mother had been a bit outspoken and mischievous and had made several trips to Father Tom's office to receive swats with his big wooden paddle. Apparently Father Tom had been quite strict, according to Sister Agatha.

Even though her grandpa had used the belt to punish her twice, Mia still loved him with all her heart. She knew the belt was his way of trying to teach her obedience.

She had always called her grandpa "Popoff," which was odd she supposed, but as a baby she couldn't ever say grandpa, so as she grew up the name Popoff somehow stuck. He wasn't her father, he was her grandfather, and his own kids called him Pop, so Popoff seemed like a good substitute.

Mia hadn't dared to suggest to her grandpa that he should take the belt down and not hang it out for all to see, but the older she got the more it bothered her. She didn't know anyone else's parents who hung a belt up in their house as a reminder to behave. For that matter, she didn't know any other parents who used a belt to punish their children. Most of Mia's friends cracked jokes about the belt when they saw it, and she knew they didn't think much about it because her grandpa was from the old school, but it still bothered her.

"Hey Grams," Mia said as she walked past the belt into the kitchen. Her grandmother Claudia was leaning over the kitchen sink peeling potatoes.

Claudia smiled warmly up at her granddaughter, "How was school?"

Mia had long ago learned not to be transparent when it came to her feelings, especially about her mother, so she pretended all was well, "Oh the usual," Mia said quickly, "But I have a ton of homework, so I'm going up to my room to get started on it," She grabbed an apple out of the bowl on the table and headed up the stairs.

"Good idea to get your homework done early," Claudia called after her granddaughter.

But when Mia was alone in her bedroom with the door closed she didn't study. Instead she placed her books on the floor and lay face down on her bed. The tears began to sting her eyes. She cried silently as she stared at the faded pink flowers on the wallpaper lining her room. She had adored that wallpaper as a little girl, but now that she was a teenager, she hated it.

Mia couldn't understand why her grandpa hated her mother so much. None of it made any sense to her. Uncle Frank often tried to help Mia understand her grandpa's reasons, but he was always afraid of saying too much, so his information never seemed to help any.

Mia's heart ached. If what Carly told her was true, it meant her mother was nothing more than a cheap harlot. But there was a part of Mia that didn't care. She just wanted to see her mother. She longed to know what her mother looked like. Mia had only seen one picture of her mother and it had been a long time ago. Her Uncle Frank had shown her a picture that he had nabbed before all the pictures of Angel had been destroyed. But her mother hadn't been very old in that picture, so there was no way of knowing what she looked like now.

Mia couldn't stop her tears. She loved her grandparents, but the way her grandfather was when it came to her mother was way too confusing.

Angel dried her tears. She was finally over her recent encounter with Jordan Parker. It was time to go back to Frank's apartment. She nervously lit a cigarette and pulled her car back onto the road with the intention of going back to Frank's apartment. She couldn't believe the old Ford Mustang still ran. She reasoned that someone must have given the car some love because it had carried her a very long ways.

Angel's intention was to drive straight home to Frank's apartment, but instead her car veered along the streets until she reached Elgin Avenue on the other side of town. Almost without thinking she made the sharp right turn onto Elgin Avenue and drove down the street. She slowed down when she saw the old house, looming as big as life on the right hand side of the street. It was where she had grown up.

The house hadn't changed much, except the trees and shrubs had grown up more. Other than that, the little white house looked exactly as she remembered it, at least from the outside. She drove past it at first and then flipped her car around and parked across the street, looking out at the house.