©2007 - Authors retain all copyrights.
When I first met the girl, she was five or six years old, a nameless black and white picture in a photo journal. She stood barefoot against the railing of a dilapidated porch somewhere in Appalachia. Wearing a sullen expression, her eyes provided a gateway to a damaged soul. Her tattered dress hung off her frame like moss on a weathered tree, hair matted against her scalp. I fell in love with the photo of this child and adopted the haunting image as my own. Taking her by the hand and removing her from the page, I will lead her through life often kicking, always screaming. This is my muse and the story she had to tell me – the story of her life, a story that ultimately changed my direction as a writer for life. This is Esther.
The rolling hills and gentle peaks of the Appalachian mountain range stretch from Alabama to southeastern Canada. Born nearly 300 million years ago, its serene beauty is matched by little else on the Eastern Seaboard. Within the majestic sprawl of emerald hills, fall brings an explosion of colors as the trees turn their leaves; winter a soft blanket of white. Spring rains awaken wildflowers in the Appalachians and give way to summer’s bouquet. Among the delicate wildflowers that cover fields, meadows, and hillsides of this region is the Shasta daisy. Esther will find comfort in the beauty of this daisy, and the daisy will ultimately save her life.
A rural town somewhere in the foothills of the Carolinas provides no opportunity for the youth. A gaunt woman with one child in her arms and several others tugging at the seams of a dirty day dress walks past the storefront of a lonely Mom and Pop.
She is on a mission to nowhere; she is dead. Her tired face a reflection of a thousand years older than her true age. A nipple on the end of a Coca Cola bottle provides sickening nourishment to her babe in arms. Her breasts are barren;, she produces no milk. The husband of the dead woman follows behind her down the dusty sidewalk ducking away at the first opportunity into a smoky pub. There he will stay for the rest of the evening. The dead woman takes no notice and knows what to expect when he stumbles home in a drunken stupor. He will fuck the dead woman, perhaps planting the seed of another wretched child. A dead woman does not protest. Unsatisfied, he opens the door to Esther’s room.
A scream pierces the still summer night. Crickets stop their song. Indifferent, a crawdad snags a minnow for dinner in a nearby stream. A raccoon fishes the crawdad from the stream for a late-night snack. A whitetail comes to attention, pauses and continues on. Dew settles on the Shasta daisy. “It’s the way he was brought up,” the family whispers. Esther knows better. She knows much better.
Simple country folk – I guess that’s what you could call the people who inhabit the Appalachian mountain range. But what is so simple about country living? Early mornings turn into long days trying to scratch a living from the land. Hour after hour in a deep, dark pit of a coal mine, unrelenting dangers surrounding one’s very being. For most, education past grade school is unheard of. Deplorable living conditions, poverty, and hunger run rampant throughout the mountains. Yet society opens a blind eye and pretends it doesn’t exist. Better to sweep these people under the carpet, chastise them, ridicule and poke fun at them on the silver screen. A deaf ear fails to listen to the horrors of inbreeding and hunger. It’s a pill too vile to swallow. Society candy coats the pill and makes it easier to swallow.
Summer breezes bend the stems of the Shasta daisies, creating a white wave rolling across an Appalachian meadow. A young Esther runs carefree through the ocean of white. Grabbing handful after handful of flowers, she tosses them into the air and falls back onto a soft bed of earth, laughing as the daisies fall around her. I will allow her that moment, a flicker of laughter to interrupt a lifetime of screams. Looking skyward, she closes her eyes and says her first prayer. I listen in and honor it for her.
Black lungs kill the beast that was her father, setting Esther free from one demon. She walks out the door of a rundown house and never looks back. I watch Esther grow, find love, and raise a family of her own. Her eldest one, a daughter, I let live, but I kill her two sons to make sure Esther’s ghosts remain nearby. I unfold the tragedy of her life and cause her to deny her Lord. I take her to the brink of sanity and back. It’s Esther’s mind I want to know and I will do with it as I please. The cold barrel of the gun against Esther’s temple is but her savior. This is a woman trapped in a dark and lonely room with no hope of escape. “Pull the trigger, and the pain is gone,” she mutters softly to her ghosts. A calm hand reaches out from within the darkness. It is the steady hand of her daughter. “Mother” is the only word spoken, but a word strong enough to remove the gun from Esther’s grip.
Cool autumn air carries the scent of burning logs. “Is it oak, or is it ash?” Esther wonders. The meadows and hills, colored white during the summer months by the Shasta daisies, are now replaced by vibrant colors of fall foliage. Mother Nature is putting everything to sleep in preparation for a cold winter slumber, but Esther is just waking up. In a lonely, sterile room of an infirmary, Esther’s daughter places a sweater over her mother’s shoulder and whispers in her ear, “I’m here for you. Together, we can heal.” The daughter is as pretty as the Shasta daisy and as wild as one too. But she is the woman who will be the survivor, the first of several generations of family that will stop the pain and heal the wounds. And I will allow her to save Esther from the hell. Esther pardons her ghosts, forgives her demons and takes the hand of her daughter to begin a new life.
Soon, the snows will melt, the frosts will fade, and the hills of the Appalachian mountain range will be covered in Shasta daisies once again, as they always have been, as they always will be. I pray Esther can forgive me.