Dear daughter, p.1
Dear Daughter, page 1
Dear Daughter
Kassandra Garrison
Copyright © 2023 Kassandra Garrison.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
ISBN: 979-8-9861247-2-8 (E-Book)
ISBN: 979-8-9861247-3-5 (Paperback)
Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Names, characters, and places are products of the author’s imagination.
Front cover photo taken by Kelli Williams Photography.
Dear Nora,
My sweet, sassy, smart daughter,
Never forget the amazing love God has for you. Lean on Him and search for Him in both the hills and valleys of life.
You will forever be my greatest accomplishment. Even when I am gone, my love will forever exist in you and in the words on these pages.
I love you, Nora Elaine.
My life, this book… it all started with you.
Chapter One
Olivia blinked heavy eyes against flickers of darkness. Above her, the hospital lights of Bailey Memorial Hospital’s labor and delivery unit flashed brightly as chills rolled up her spine, her consciousness fading with each passing second. The warm presence of her newborn daughter on her chest was a stark contrast to her cold body.
In her struggle to stay awake, Olivia could see the tiny body lying on her chest. Ten little fingers raised in the air as if in protest of their unfamiliar environment. Tiny murmurs and sudden outbursts came from her wiggling daughter.
Her husband, Greyson, stood next to the bed glancing back and forth between the doctor and his wife, worry clouding his normally warm eyes. Wavy strands of dark hair tumbled onto his forehead over his furrowed eyebrows.
The voice of the doctor sounded distant as he began giving orders to the nurses surrounding the bed, “She’s losing too much blood. We need to get her to surgery right away to find the cause. Nurse, take the baby from her chest…”
In the last remaining seconds of awareness, Olivia witnessed her daughter being taken from her and heard the sound of her tiny cries as the nurse carried her across the room to the infant warmer. Though Olivia tried to object, there was no energy left in her body.
Her husband was running his hands through his chocolate brown hair in panic as his attention darted between his wife and daughter. As she looked into his desperate caramel brown eyes, Olivia could hear him calling out to her, “Liv! Olivia! Stay awake, baby. Liv, please. No, no, no.”
His words echoed in her ears as her head fell back onto the pillow. Even in the dark recesses of her mind, she could still see his eyes, still hear their daughter crying as he yelled her name.
Suddenly, there was nothing. No sounds. No vision. Only darkness and her thoughts.
Is this what dying feels like? I expected heaven to be brighter than this and maybe paved in gold. This is just darkness. Uh oh… unless I ended up in hell. Oh, no. God, can you hear me?!? I’m not ready to die. I want to hold my daughter in my arms and point out all the ways she’s like her daddy. I want Greyson. His warmth, his laugh, his scent. Please let me go back.
Olivia listened for a reply to no avail, her voice swallowed in the darkness.
If our daughter was left with one parent, Grey would be her best option. And he’d have his parents to help him. Before I went into labor, we talked about if something went wrong. I just wish…
Her thoughts were interrupted with a distant soft glow. As it pulsated, the warmth of its light enveloped Olivia, the lack of nothingness a comfort to her. Shapes and colors began to appear around her. The room she occupied and its contents became clearer with each passing moment.
“Olivia, wake up and get ready for school! You don’t want to make your father late for work.”
Mom?
Olivia studied her surroundings, realizing she was no longer in the hospital. Instead, she found herself an hour away in her hometown of Joliet, Indiana.
She was in her childhood room, the white dresser with hand-painted flowers across the drawers and the purple comforter on her bed a familiar sight. Swiftly, the blankets were thrown from her legs and she began digging through her closet and dresser for clothes to wear.
Wait. What am I doing? Why can’t I control my body? I don’t need to get dressed for school. I need to go back to my family.
Her little hands stayed busy, pulling a purple shirt featuring butterflies over her head and adjusting her favorite pair of pants. When she straightened in front of the dresser mirror, the face staring back at her wasn’t the Olivia who had aged twenty-four years and had just given birth.
It was eight-year-old Olivia with a small round face and large hazel eyes still filled with so much hope and naivety. Her dark brown hair fell just around her shoulders in waves still rumpled from her pillow.
God, what’s going on? I can’t control my actions and I’m a kid living with my mom. Please, I can’t live under the same roof as her again.
Hurriedly, Olivia slipped into a pair of shoes from beside her bed and rushed through her bedroom door. The sound of small feet pattering down the hall followed her into the kitchen where her mother stood by the stove.
In one hand, she held a wooden spoon while the other sat against her hip. The smell of scrambled eggs filled the air as she turned with the steaming pan in her hand, shoveling a mound of eggs onto three plates on the kitchen table.
Olivia’s mother was a beautiful woman. Her almond-shaped brown eyes were bordered by high cheekbones and wavy, dark auburn hair, its soft tendrils falling around her face and neck. She was slim with delicate curves running from her shoulders to her hips.
Yet, it wasn’t the outside of her mother which Olivia suffered to endure but what was found on the inside: her bitter attitude toward the world, her incessant nagging when things weren’t done exactly as she preferred, and her resentful behavior toward her husband and young daughter.
Her mother’s eyes locked on Olivia as she walked into the kitchen, scrutinizing her appearance down to every minor detail. From countless mornings when her mother found a flaw, Olivia knew she would have to change something about herself. As her mother’s mouth opened, Olivia climbed into her chair at the breakfast table, flinching inwardly at the approaching criticism.
“Olivia Larson, would it kill you to run a brush through your hair? My goodness, it looks like a bird nested in those tangles. And put on different shoes. I don’t know what you were thinking by putting brown shoes with those black pants. Really, Olivia, I would think you’d know better by now. Every morning, I have to go through this with you…”
Her mother’s voice faded as Olivia sulked back to her bedroom, grabbing the brush on her dresser and running it through her hair. Every criticism her mother spit at her day after day had already started taking a toll on her juvenile mind.
No wonder I have low self-esteem. That woman never gave me a break. Nothing was ever good enough. I was never good enough.
Olivia watched as her eight-year-old self put the brush back in its place on her dresser and looked in the reflection. Tears began to form in the corners of her eyes, her reflection holding no comfort for her, only flaws.
Back at the breakfast table with a different pair of shoes on her feet, she ate her eggs at the pace her mother demanded. If she was too slow, she would be late. If she was too fast, her mother would warn her about gaining weight.
The back door clattered as the sound of her father’s boots hit the floor. Olivia looked up excitedly only to receive a scowl from her mother, warning her not to leave her breakfast.
“Daddy!”
Wow. I forgot how excited I used to get when my dad was around.
“Hey, baby girl. How did you sleep?” Her father’s hazel eyes, identical to her own, twinkled with warmth and love as he patted her shoulder and kissed the top of her head.
Olivia’s small feet kicked eagerly under her chair as she conversed with her father, “Good. I had that dream about the dinosaurs again.”
“Again? Isn’t that the third time this week?”
He chuckled as he buttered his toast. Her mother abruptly stood up from the table holding her half-eaten plate. She rolled her eyes in irritation, most likely making a mental note to remind her husband about his cholesterol later.
“Yeah. But this time, they weren’t cooking in the kitchen, they were wearing clothes and walking down the street past our house.”
Olivia and her father laughed together over their breakfast as her mother began scrubbing a skillet in the sink, scouring unnecessarily hard for the task at hand.
She never was happy, was she? There’s always something to be done when nothing is good enough.
Eight-year-old Olivia placed her plate in the sink after rinsing it, setting the fork on top of the dish as her mother required. She grabbed the sack lunch prepared for her from the counter and ran out the back door after her father, his truck keys jingling in hand.
She climbed into the passenger seat and buckled up, her father glancing over to make sure she was settled before pulling out of the driveway. He was a handsome man with dark features, a slim build, and a relaxed personality. Perhaps too relaxed at times.
“Dad?”
“Yes, Olivia?”
“Why is Mommy so mean all the time?”
Olivia watched as her father repositioned himself in his seat, unsure how to answer his daughter’s question. His dark brows were furrowed and his lips pursed.
“Why do you say that, baby?”
“Because she’s always saying mean things about how I look or what I do. And she gives me mean looks all the time. Why doesn’t she like me, Daddy?”
By the time Olivia finished explaining her question, her father pulled into the parking lot of her grade school. The town of Joliet was quite small with only one elementary school located just down the road from their house. He unbuckled and turned toward his daughter, running his rough worker hand over hers.
“Mommy loves you. She just wants what’s best for you. She’s not trying to be mean. She’s trying to help you.”
Yeah, if incessant nagging, degrading, and yelling were helping.
Olivia nodded her head slowly, unpersuaded of his statement, and waited for her father to open her truck door from outside. She grabbed his hand as she jumped down onto the pavement, his calluses and scars contrasting her soft skin. He worked in the garage most nights after dinner, likely trying to avoid her mother as much as possible.
“Have fun at school, sweetheart. I’ll pick you up at three. I love you.”
“Love you, Daddy.”
As if her body ran away without her soul, Olivia watched as her younger self departed for school, leaving her alone with her father in the parking lot. She witnessed her father’s smile turn into a frown, his hand running over his face in frustration when his eight-year-old daughter could no longer see him. He pulled his phone from his pocket, dialed a number, and waited for an answer.
“Yeah, we need to talk about your attitude.”
There was a brief pause as an irritated female voice replied from the other end.
“I’ve witnessed your behavior get worse and worse. Our daughter just asked why her mother is so mean. She’s eight years old, Renee! No, I won’t apologize. I’m sick of this. I don’t know what will make you happy…”
The memory faded slowly to darkness again with the silhouette of her dad disappearing last. Olivia was once again alone with her thoughts.
I didn’t know Dad called Mom that day. That explains why she gave everyone the silent treatment after school, a glass of wine her only company. There was no winning with her. She was right and if you tried to prove otherwise, she played the victim. It’s no wonder my dad stopped trying.
As a soft, warm light began returning to Olivia’s vision, she braced herself for yet another memory from a past she had attempted to forget.
Chapter Two
“Now, once we get these green beans snapped, we’ll go inside and cook them for lunch. Does that sound good?”
Grandma?
At the sound of her grandmother’s voice, Olivia’s heart skipped a beat. It had been nearly a decade since she had seen her grandmother. Too long.
“Yes, ma’am.” Olivia’s slightly matured voice sounded foreign to her now, the eight-year-old version of herself left in the previous memory. Her vision cleared as the scene continued to unfold.
Grandma Vi sat next to Olivia on her grandmother’s shady porch overlooking the back yard. To their left was a large garden with vegetables and fruits planted in neat, straight rows. On the opposite side of the yard was a large Rose of Sharon bush in full bloom. Its large purple flowers danced in the warm summer breeze.
Vi’s dark hair with strands of silver was pulled back in a simple bun. She had a petite frame and sharp eyes which could read anyone like a book.
“That’s my girl. How’s your mama and daddy doing?”
Olivia’s happy demeanor vanished at the mention of her home life. Her grandmother, Vi, having the gift of discernment, furrowed her dark brow at her now somber grandchild.
“They still fighting a lot, sugar?”
With a nod of the head, Olivia confirmed her grandmother’s suspicions, tightening the lips of the elder into a firm line of disappointment.
“You want to talk about it? Remember, you can tell Grandma anything.”
I really could. I miss that.
Vi continued to snap off the ends of green beans they had just harvested from her garden, placing the ends in a plastic bag next to her feet and the beans in a bowl between the two of them.
Olivia kept her head down and opened her mouth to speak but no words came out. Hot tears stung her eyes before tumbling down her cheeks. Her grandmother dropped the green beans in her hands and wrapped her arms around the small, vulnerable adolescent.
“Shh, honey. It’s okay. I got you.”
Her grandmother rocked as she hummed an old hymn under her breath. After several tears were shed, Olivia needed to relieve the heaviness in her chest caused by her unstable home life.
Her voice was raspy from crying as she poured her heart out to her grandmother, “They fight all the time. It’s all night and in the morning, too. Mom will start fights when I’m in the room but Dad will stay quiet until I’m gone.”
“What are they fighting about?”
“Everything. Mom isn’t happy and Dad doesn’t know what to do about it. She gets angry about everything. He goes out to the garage a lot.”
“Yes, my son was never one for bickering. He gets his distaste for drama from me.”
Her throaty chuckle vibrated against Olivia’s arm as she continued to alleviate some of the pain which had built up.
“The night of my birthday a month ago, I heard my mom say she never wanted me. She said she had wasted the last twelve years of her life.”
Olivia’s grandmother stiffened at her granddaughter’s confession, immediately dropping her arms and standing up. She knelt on the step in front of Olivia and pulled the young girl’s chin up gently with her hand.
“Now, you listen to me, child. You are not unwanted. God created you with a special purpose in mind. You will do great things in this life. I love you. Your daddy loves you. But, most importantly, and listen to me good now: God loves you. His love is the only love you will ever need. Do you hear me?”
Her grandmother’s eyes were glossy yet stern as she continued to look into Olivia’s eyes. With an unpersuaded nod from Olivia, her grandmother stood up and brushed the dust from her knees. Vi grabbed the bowl of green beans from its place on the porch and started for the back door.
“Come on, sweetheart. Let’s make lunch. I’m starving.”
And just like that, Olivia put aside her raw emotions and shared the afternoon with her grandma as she had done so many times before.
Although Olivia’s mother did not allow her to attend church with Vi, she was permitted to spend every Sunday afternoon with her. They would cook lunch, tend the garden, sing hymns, and walk down the street to the park.
Olivia’s grandmother was the only person in whom she could confide about her home life. Her friends at school were unaware of the turmoil present in her life, assuming, as anyone would, that she had parents who loved one another and didn’t spend the lion’s share of their time fighting.
Standing beside her grandmother at the stove in her kitchen, Olivia watched as she dropped green beans by the handful into a simmering pot of water. The smell of pork chops and mashed potatoes filled the air as they prepared the last dish.
“Olivia, have I ever told you the entire story about your parents?”
“No, ma’am. They told me they met in grade school.”
Olivia continued to watch as her grandmother drained the water from the pot into the nearby sink. She returned the pot to the stove, adding a dab of butter and stirring until it coated the green beans.
“Yes, that’s right. They were best friends since about your age. Her parents and I were good friends before they moved down to Florida. We spent a lot of time together. Your parents were practically raised together. Well, once they got into high school, they must have realized it was much more than a friendship they shared.
I warned Ellis, your father, about getting too involved with romance in high school. They were both good kids, went to church every Sunday with me, got good grades in school… but then, before I knew it, she was pregnant. It was near the end of their senior year of high school.”
