“Yes,” she sighed, “it’s my real name.” Mary Meaux dejectedly signed her name to the ticket that the server offered before setting it back down on the table amidst the remains of their Mexican dinner. Her husband, Beau – “Yes, that’s really his name, too,” she all too often had to say – was working late, and so she had the entire brood to herself. Shuttling five children to and from the nursery/daycare, then getting them all fed, then back home to begin the ordeal of getting them showered, homework done (in theory, at least), and then finally to bed… it wasn’t exactly easy. Doing this with a husband who claimed to be working late far too often and bringing home far too little money for doing so made life a living hell.
“…in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.” Mary sighed as she put her ornately worked rosary back into its velvet bag. Each of its beads were beautifully polished to a shine – as much from their constant use as from their original quality craftsmanship. Truthfully, it was her most prized possession, the only thing of any kind of quality that she owned in her small, entirely overcrowded house. Her faith, really, was the only thing that kept her going. It was a product of her troubled first pregnancy – Marcus, her eldest at twelve, had been born a month premature and had very nearly not made it. Ever since she had moved from her native southern Louisiana fifteen years ago, her childhood Roman Catholicism had fallen by the wayside. That trademark Catholic guilt came back with a vengeance after Marcus’ near death, and she became one of the most common sights at the nearby St. Jude parish church. Daily mass at 7:00 am before dropping the children off to school, Saturday confession, of course at least once every Sunday, on holy days of obligation… Father O’Shannon knew her beaten and dirty tan minivan well.
It would seem that Mary’s life had become like a white trash stereotype, the irony of which she might have understood had she completed high school and learned about stereotypes (or, for that matter, irony). She had met Beau as a sophomore in high school; he was a senior. Their puppy love – the cute and bubbly blonde party girl and the tall, athletic, rugged farmboy – quickly transformed three months after they first became an “item” (in the high school parlance), when Mary found herself to be in the family way. The tale here is, unfortunately, all too common in the life of a pregnant fifteen year-old, especially one from the proverbial wrong side of the tracks: she dropped out of school around the fifth month and moved into Beau’s parent’s house after her strict Catholic parents had thrown her out. After the baby was born – Marcus – and was finally home safe, Beau surprised her by proposing, offering up his dead grandmother’s simple engagement ring. Though the final few months of her pregnancy and Marcus’ illness had been difficult on their relationship, Mary found herself able to forgive and forget at the sight of the little gold band with its small diamond. They were married four months later, when Mary was two months pregnant with their second child, Matthew. Mark followed the next year, then Mary Magdalene three years later and Moses another four after that. In all, seven people lived in the small three bedroom rent house that was the Meaux home.
As she slid into bed, a few minutes past midnight, she felt the sense of calm that always came to her from praying the rosary. The mechanic’s shop that Beau worked at – and would eventually, he had confided to her once, own – had become backed up with engine overhauls and repairs following the devastation of Hurricane Ike, and he had been putting in long nights for the past couple of weeks. Never, however, had he been later than nine or ten o’clock. When the front door finally opened at half past one, then, the sense of calm that had come to Mary had quickly been replaced by dread. Surely, she thought, he hasn’t been at the shop this entire time. If not there… then where? She got her answer when the door to their bedroom swung open and her husband teetered in, the smell of cheap whiskey quickly reaching her across the small room.
“Beau, where you been? It’s past one!” “Shut it, woman. Get back to bed.” “Beau, you been drinkin’?” Her husband, steadying himself against the door frame, twisted his lips into a wicked grin. “Ain’t you a smart one. Now, bitch, I told you to get back to sleep.” Mary slid out from under the covers, her thin blue cotton nightgown stretching over her short, stout frame. As she walked over to her husband, she got a glint of light from the streetlamps outside which illuminated her man. More importantly, it lit the collar of his dingy work coveralls and the smudge of lipstick near his neck. At the sight, she stopped, less than five feet from him.
“Beau, what’s that on your collar?” His eyes narrowed as he reached up to wipe the incriminating evidence away. “S’nothing. Now get back to bed before I have to tell you again.” The threat took on further menace as he took a step towards her, his right hand balling into a fist. “You been with a woman? Beau Reggie Meaux, you been with a woman?”
His hand cracked out at her like a rifle shot and caught her across the face, knocking her back into the bed. “Woman, I told you to shut up and get back to bed. Why don’t you listen?” He stepped towards her again, rearing back and cracking her across the face again. Already, her face was splotched with crimson, tears streaming down her face as she curled into a fetal position and sobbed. “Bitch, get back up, I’m not done with you!” His inebriated drawl resonated throughout the small house as he grabbed her by the forearm and wrenched her back to her feet.
“Why would you do this, Beau?” Mary managed to say between sobs. “Why would you do this to me?” Obviously sickened with himself, Beau paused, his hand raised to strike her again. His outstretched hand dropped as he turned, stumbled through the doorway, and left the house. The diesel rumble of his truck shattered the stillness of the night as Marcus, age twelve, stood in the doorway and watched his beaten mother wail.
Authors bio is coming up shortly. 