Letter to My Daughter Read Free Page A

often. I knew his landlady lived on the same floor and I thought that if I could get her attention, she would help me. I inhaled as much air as I could take and tried to shout, but no sounds would come. The pain of trying to sit up was so extreme, that I tried only once.
    I knew where he put the razor blade. If I could get it, at least I could take my own life and he would be prevented from gloating that he killed me.
    I began to pray.
    I passed in and out of prayer, in and out of consciousness and then I heard shouting down the hall. I heard my mother’s voice.
    “Break it down. Break the son of a bitch down. My baby’s in there.” Wood groaned then splintered and the door gave way and my little mother walked through the opening. She saw me and fainted. Later she told me that was the only time in her life she had done so.
    The sight of my face swollen twice its size and my teeth stuck into my lips was more than she could stand. So she fell. Three huge men followed her into the room. Two picked her up and she came to in their arms groggily. They brought her to my bed.
    “Baby, baby, I’m so sorry.” Each time she touched me, I flinched. “Call for an ambulance. I’ll kill the bastard. I’m sorry.”
    She felt guilty like all mothers who blamed themselves when terrible events happen to their children.
    I could not speak or even touch her but I have never loved her more than at that moment in that suffocating stinking room.
    She patted my face and stroked my arm.
    “Baby, somebody’s prayers were answered. No one knew how to find Mark, even Boyd Pucinelli. But Mark went to a mom-and-pop store to buy juice and two kids robbed a tobacco vendor’s truck.” She continued telling her story.
    “When a police car turned the corner, the young boys threw the cartons of cigarettes in Mark’s car. When he tried to get into his car, the police arrested him. They didn’t believe his cries of innocence, so they took him to jail. He used his one phone call to telephone Boyd Pucinelli. Boyd answered the phone.”
    Mark said, “My name is Mark Jones, I live on Oak Street. I don’t have money with me now, but my landlady is holding a lot of my money. If you call her she will come down and bring whatever you charge.”
    Boyd asked, “What is your street name?” Mark said, “I’m called Two Finger Mark.” Boyd hung up and called my mother, giving her Mark’s address. He asked if she would call the police. She said, “No I’m going to my pool hall and get some roughnecks then I’m going to get my daughter.”
    She said when she arrived at Mark’s house his landlady said she didn’t know any Mark and anyway he hadn’t been home for days.
    Mother said maybe not, but she was looking for her daughter and she was in that house in Mark’s room. Mother asked for Mark’s room. The landlady said he keeps his door locked. My mother said, “It will open today.” The landlady threatened to call the police, my mother said, “You can call for the cook, call for the baker, you may as well call for the undertaker.”
    When the woman pointed out Mark’s room, my mother said to her helpers, “Break it down, break the son of a bitch down.”
    In the hospital room I thought about the two young criminals, who threw stolen cigarette cartons into a stranger’s car. When he was arrested he called Boyd Pucinelli, who called my mother, who gathered three of the most daring men from her pool hall.
    They broke down the door of the room where I was being held. My life was saved. Was that event incident, coincident, accident, or answered prayer?
    I believe my prayers were answered.

To Tell the Truth
    My mother, Vivian Baxter, warned me often not to believe that people really want the truth when they ask, “How are you?” She said that question was asked around the world in thousands of languages and most people knew that it is simply a conversation starter. No one really expects to be answered, or even wants to know “Well my knees feel