Trapped

Trapped

By Mary M. Hall-Rayford

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 Mary M. Hall-Rayford

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

ISBN 9781301881598

Smashwords

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events , or locales is entirely coincidental.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

No individual accomplishment, however small or big, is possible without those who helped it come to fruition. Thanks Honey (Tyrone), for listening and making time for me to complete this story. For my Munchkin (Delario)—who puts up with Nana’s obsessions with words—it gets better as you get older. For those who listened tirelessly and encouraged and inspired the continued vision—Joyce, Karen, Charlene, Darolyn—thank you! Words of thanks are never really enough, but I appreciate the gifts you give of yourselves in promoting the dreams within—to help make a difference in everything we do.

In the aftermath, I thank Teresa Robinson and the Ladies of Greater St. Stephens Missionary Baptist Church and Shawnte Mosby for pulling together an outstanding performance of Chapter 11—The Session! Awesome ladies!

Part 1 of The Session can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T54-iGf3WCs

For everyone who has read the book, I am truly humbled by your comments and praise. I pray that everyone who reads this is brought to a place of introspection and see their own paths change.

In The Beginning

No one gets a chance to choose their family. The family—chooses people—at least the parents choose to have babies, whether they want the individual person or not. Sometimes, it works out wonderfully, but sometimes, individuals find themselves in situations that have no resemblance of a family—those who envelope and embrace its members with love, but are in fact, more like a tapestry woven with threads of malice, deceit, hate, and jealousy. The more one tries to break the strands that holds it altogether, the tighter the strand becomes, more elastic than rigid, constantly rubber-banding one back to the abyss where light is so fused with darkness that one may never understand— or know what is true light.

Fears, insecurities, delusions keep a person trapped inside themselves or in circumstances that lead to total destruction or humiliation or degradation for all who are involved. Where there is no love—fear reigns—where fear reigns—destruction is inevitable. Where there is doubt, fear creeps in and causes calamity after calamity, leading people to believe there is no way out and therefore leaving them bound.

Sometimes, the very nature of birth into certain families would appear to provide us with some solace, comfort, attention, or fame. The reality is, life doesn’t really work that way. Whether people are born into families where there is only one parent or two, loving family members or none, destiny takes its toll on people; especially when they are deeply ensconced in their own insecurities and doubts. Whether we have siblings or not, no matter what our nationality is or our ethnic background, families tend to mold and shape us simply by the cultural environment in which we grow. We learn to love, to abhor, to hate, to tolerate, accept or respect that which we are shown and how. Sometimes, we are so firmly entrenched in those cultures that we do not ever have the will to leave them behind.

How does one break away from the ties that bind, so tightly that breathing becomes so difficult that an inhaler is needed to ease the tightness and give room for pure air, not yet contaminated by the environment that one has not chosen, but yet must survive in order to find their rightful place—a place left untainted by the views and choices of others made for them, but will sustain them if found before the elasticated ties strangle and defeat for all eternity? We acquiesce and conform until we are no longer bound by the strictures that keep us in the environment forced upon us. We wait for opportunity to escape and find the means to cut through the elasticity—sometimes knowing that once the break is made there is no turning back—to those things that would keep us in a holding pattern, never able to land and complete our appointed destiny on the path—another path, chosen not by our families, or even us, but by our Creator, the Only One who truly is capable of loving us and keeping us from being defeated by—our beginnings in which, we had no choice.

Herein lies the tales of nine women from various walks of life, who could be someone we know or have known, or could even be us—if we were honest with ourselves and willing to look deep into the heart and soul of self—to see what must be seen—if any change will ever take place. Through the lives of these women—we take a journey—a soul-searching-mind-boggling journey that appears to devastate some and yet we find hope in the one chance meeting that creates an adhesive stronger than super-glue in cementing and changing all of their lives forever.

Chapter One--Brett

I can remember when my mother was weighed down with the life within her—the dark, wet sensation that surrounded me. I can remember hearing the voices outside—loud, angry, frustrated and sometimes they uttered such foul language that it hurt my ears. I could hear them talking about me—saying things I didn’t understand—then, but now I get it. I was not wanted by everyone on the outside. It was difficult for me to understand who was who—other than my mother—she cried—often, and sometimes for long periods of time. Every time she cried, I shuddered; trembling as she shook with emotional turmoil that was sometimes so turbulent I thought I was in the midst of a storm. I was. I just didn’t know what type of storm. And suddenly, one day, I felt a tugging and swirling that I had never experienced before now. I felt my mother clutch her stomach and say, It’s time!

And I remember thinking, Time for what?

There was such a scurrying about that I remember shaking from side to side and with the occasional bump against the wall which ensconced me, I think even then, I knew.

No! I wanted to scream, but could not. My lungs had not developed enough nor my brain enough to function at that level, but I do remember thinking it. I did not know then that we unborn do not know how things function, we just know what we know. And right now, I knew I didn’t want to leave the inside—even though it was cramped and damp—it still provided me with a haven—the only haven I had known until now.

I remember hearing something about a hospital and doctors, but I was being thrown about too much to fully understand what was happening, and then I heard someone say, push and I felt myself spiraling downward.

I do not want to go! I remember thinking. I pushed my feet against the wall and used my hands to stiffen myself against the tide that was unrelenting. I grunted with the effort to maintain my position, but the more I tried to resist, the more my mother screamed, until finally, I relented and allowed myself to enter into the light that diffused the darkness.

She’s a beauty!

Oh, she’s so tiny!

Let’s get her checked out!

Wait! I heard a familiar voice. Is there something wrong, I didn’t hear her cry?

Oh, it’s crying you want, huh? I wailed like a banshee with its feet trapped in iron teeth.

Thank goodness, she’s all right. I was afraid there was something wrong.

No, she’s fine! Let’s get her cleaned up!"

At this point, I was whisked to other hands and turned over and had things put up my nose, in my eyes, and a piece of plastic was wrapped around my leg and arm and then I was wrapped in a blanket so tight I could barely breathe.

Good grief, I thought. Why can’t they just let a body sleep? I didn’t want to be here anyway. What is this place? It smells funny! Hello, could you just leave me alone, please?

They ignored me. Then they handed me to a sweaty, funny-looking person who was apparently my mother. She smiled as I twisted trying to get out of the blanket. A little help here, please. I can’t breathe. Instead of helping out of the blanket, she appeared to pull it tighter as she hugged me so close I just knew I was going to suffocate. Suddenly, I felt a little better—I recognized her voice and her smell. Thinking that I could crawl back into the haven I knew, I craved the hug and the smell and then I felt something I had never felt before. A pang or pain, I knew not which, in the pit of my stomach. Not knowing what else to do, I cried. After a moment or two something was stuck in my mouth and she was pinching my throat, trying to make me do something—oh—I was learning how to suck! Wow! Whenever I sucked gooey stuff flowed into my belly and made me feel better. I thought, I could get used to this.