I Prayed For It - Bonnie Smetts

Sometimes my life just leaves me in a heap at the bottom of some invisible stairs. That’s where I’m at right now. I feel like I can’t move, like somebody’d poured maple syrup over me and my life. But I’m Rawling Summer and there’s no getting around that which means I gotta climb those stairs.

I’m feeling like when I got hit in the head when Randy’s brother accidentally threw me against the wall of the shed when he was trying to save me from what Pauley was doing to me. My head hurt for a long time after that, like I was carrying around a glass of water on my head and I couldn’t bend over, least I spill it. The pain made me sick if I bent over. But nobody’s hit me in the head. It’s just this:

Roy’d come around and tried to get me to bed again. That wasn’t the hit part, it’s seeing him becoming what he’s becoming, crazy in the head with something going on. And then going out to momma’s trailer one last time and finding it all ripped up, some crazy person looking for something, the Sheriff said. Something, like my momma or one of her boyfriends was up to no good right to the last day of her life.

So I’m at the end of all of this, these people. And like I’d prayed for it since I’d met the Baptists and they’d taken me in, almost like one of their own. I prayed that jesus would wash away all that had come before. Unfortunately that hadn’t worked out exactly as I’d though it might. But I’d prayed for something sweet and nice, and now that I’ve found that I got a grandma who’s sweet and nice, I’m gonna figure out a way to let me know that it’s me, her granddaughter Rawling.

After seeing her expression when I showed up, seeing that she’d been keeping a secret for most of her life, I didn’t want to upset her. But now, she’s the stairs I’m gonna climb. Don’t know how to do that and I certainly got no one to ask. Randy’s losing her head, carrying on with that man even when she promised me she’d never, ever see him again. And, as I’ve already said, Roy’s lost to some evil inside. Momma’s gone to rest in some tiny bit of peace, I can only hope.

So it’s just me, here at the bottom of the tallest building in the world. That’s what I got here in front of me and here I go, somehow.