She pulled a glass from the cupboard and turned on the faucet. As she drank the tepid water, the stench of her own fear swept over her and sickened her. How she hated that smell!
Needing a shower, the Venetian blinds drawn so no one could see into her home, she pulled the light, flowery cotton gown over her head. Dropping it into the washbasin, Lia turned on the shower, anxious to get beneath the spray to wash away the smell of terror.
She picked up a pink cloth and dampened it beneath the slight warm spray, allowing the water to sluice across her shoulders and breasts. She tried to avoid looking at her naked body, now glistening beneath the bathroom’s overhead light. Seeing the scars brought back all the horror of that night.
She took the Plumeria scented soap, a favorite fragrance of hers sent by her mom every month, and lathered her body with it. Gradually, its scent overrode the odor of fear. She sighed and turned to the Pikake shampoo, also sent by her mother, to wash her hair. The fragrance was different from Plumeria, but Lia loved the tropical scents. She felt cleansed and refreshed by them, and inhaled them deeply into her lungs. No more stench of death.
Each time she wiped the cloth across those long, deep scars, she remembered exactly when the cut had happened. Her Army psychiatrist, a blonde woman of deep compassion, had told her it would happen, but assured her that over time, the association would stop.
When? It was now five years later, and Lia had gotten so she hated her body. Her cells, her bones, her organs, remembered the assault upon them. Why couldn’t she block it out?
Every day for five days a week, she worked from dawn to dusk at the school. She was tireless in her activity with those twenty-five Costa Rican children. She loved each and every one of them just as much as the two women teachers that taught them.
Working as an assistant to Maria and Sophia, Lia was the chief cook and bottle washer. She was responsible for the children’s snacks, their main meal at lunch, and another snack before the yellow school bus, owned by Delos Charity, took them home each afternoon.
But now she had to sleep. Tomorrow was a busy day like all the rest, but she was grateful for the activity. The children of this country were a priority, and getting them educated was a national concern. In some remote areas, charities such as Delos had put schools on the ground, backed by the government.
Shuffling out of the kitchen, she wandered down the hall and back to her large bed. Lia saw that she’d torn the sheet from where it had been tucked in, and leaned over to tuck it back. As she straightened, she felt a deep fatigue in her bones. Lying down on the bed, she shut her eyes, waiting for the fan in the room to move the sluggish, humid air. She draped her arm across her eyes and released a tremulous sigh. So much pain, the memories swirled around in her brain, she wanted to forget all of it. And yet, that one moment had defined her life from age twenty to today, five years later.
Now, as the breeze from the fan cooled her, she buried her head in her pillow. Her greatest loss had been her hopes for a loving relationship. Since the assault, no man had wanted her. Lia, a natural team player, missed having a relationship, but after she’d been cut and scarred, her traumatized boyfriend, a soldier named Jerry, had walked away. It had been too much for him, and she’d seen it in his eyes when he’d visited her in the hospital, trying to be supportive. Once he’d seen the extent of her injuries and the stitches, his mouth had tightened. She sensed that he just wanted to get the hell out of the room. She had loved him and she thought Jerry had loved her, but that event had shown her differently.
Would this ever end? Lia was tired of wasting “poor me” tears on herself. Fortunately, her parents were wonderful. Her mom and dad, talked to her weekly. She really looked forward to sharing that link with them. Often, they asked her to come home to live with them, but Lia didn’t want to do that. It would be admitting that she’d given up on ever having a normal relationship, including marriage and children.
Unconsciously, she reached up with her fingertips, moving lightly down the two-inch jagged scar on her left cheek. The blade had gone through it, scoring her gums and ripping it open. The surgery on that one scar had been the worst and the most devastating to Lia. Plastic surgeons paid by her parents to repair the damage only took out the puckers and scars that had been created as it healed.
The knife had sliced through thin, delicate muscles that helped her smile, helped her face be normal to someone looking at her. Unfortunately, it hadn’t quite worked out that way. Now she felt like the monster from Notre Dame in Paris, France. She was, as she saw herself, an unnatural-looking woman, a hunchback of sorts, without the hunchback. Her face implied there was a terrible story behind the scar, and she felt everyone’s eyes upon it, when meeting her for the first time. Although she could cover up the other wounds beneath her clothing, her face was there for everyone to see.