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“Nail polish? Where in the hell did you get money to buy nail polish?” Nett was furious, her tone accusatory.

“Aunt ’Nita gave me the money,” Rhonda said meekly.

“Oh, really? And just how much money did she give you?” Rhonda didn’t answer. “Fifty cents? Two dollars? Twenty dollars? Enough to pay the gas bill? The phone bill? How much, Ronnie?” Nett stood with her arms crossed, daring Rhonda to tell a lie.

“Forty dollars.” Rhonda’s voice was barely audible.

“I know I didn’t hear you correctly. How much did you say?” Nett stepped closer to where Rhonda now stood trembling.

“Forty dollars,” she repeated.

“Where’s the rest of the money? I know you didn’t bring forty dollars into this raggedy-ass house and spend it all on yourself.” Nett looked into Rhonda’s guilty face and already knew the answer. “You mean after all I’ve done for you, all the sacrifices I’ve made for you and your brother, all the hours I’ve worked just to put a lousy piece of salt pork in a pot of beans and keep a roof over your selfish, ungrateful head; you mean after all I’ve done to provide for you when your own whore of a father wasn’t giving me a dime, you went out and bought forty dollars’ worth of what? What could you possibly have needed so badly that you became a liar and a thief? Just like a rat leaving a sinking ship. Everyone for themselves. Is that the way I brought you up? Haven’t I always told you that you take care of the people who take care of you? You’re hopeless, you know that, Ronnie? You’re pathetic. You don’t appreciate anything I’ve done for you. All you think about is your own sorry self. I work my ass off, and this is the thanks I get? Well, you know what, Ronnie? Let me tell you something—” Nett hesitated for a split second, but not long enough to stop the words. “You and your Daddy are just alike. Neither one of you is s——t, and you never will be s——t!”

An avalanche of hurt and despair and deep sadness rolled across the room, filling every corner, sucking the very air from Rhonda’s lungs, blocking the light from her vision, killing her wounded spirit.

Nett had turned and stormed out of the room and was halfway to the kitchen when she realized what she’d done. Somehow, Grandma’s venomous words had come from her own mouth. She had used them as weapons to vent her anger and frustration. Nett slumped down heavily onto a kitchen chair. The meanness of her spirit and the viciousness of her words shocked and frightened her. What had she become that she could purposely inflict such pain on someone she loved so dearly? She had to apologize. Immediately. She had to hold Rhonda in her arms and tell her how sorry she was and that she hadn’t meant to say those terrible words. She had to explain that she was just upset about not being able to provide for her family, and that she was angry, not with Rhonda, but with Rhonda’s father. She had to tell Rhonda how much she loved her, how she would never stop loving her.

It was too late. Rhonda had gone into the bathroom and taken all the pills she could find, including Ray’s asthma medication. Then she had walked quietly past the kitchen into the living room and laid down on the sofa. She did not expect to wake up in the morning.

CHAPTER EIGHT

What’s the Lesson When You Don’t Reconcile Your Past Before Moving Ahead?

Trials are but lessons that you failed to learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you can now make a better one, and thus escape all pain that what you chose before has brought to you. In every difficulty, all distress, and each perplexity, Christ calls to you and gently says, “My brother, choose again.”

A Course in Miracles

IT WAS TIME FOR ME to get out of the bathtub. The water shooting through the jets no longer felt soothing. It was beginning to hurt. Maybe it was because I was remembering so much, so fast, and this had made me sensitive. When you start to remember who you were, you become sensitive about who you are. You may begin to doubt your ability to go any further. You may even doubt whether you