Lost Innocence Read online

white sweatshirt. The adrenalin was pumping through her veins now and she was quickly back on her feet.

  Blood streamed into her eye and caused her to see through a red haze. She once again used her shirt sleeve to clear the blood from her face. Just as she pulled the sleeve away, she caught a flash of movement at the end of the darkened hallway. “Becky, are you okay?” she called out.

  There was no answer but as she started down the hall Charlotte was sure that she had glimpsed her daughter returning to her bedroom. She must have been frightened by Charlotte’s fall and subsequent holler of pain.

  At eight o’clock in the evening the sun had just been setting and the hallway hadn’t seemed so dark. Now, at close to ten o’clock the hallway was nearly black.

  “Something isn’t right,” Charlotte thought. “Why isn’t Becky’s nightlight illuminating the hallway outside her door?”

  To avoid tripping over another box, Charlotte used the wall for support as she carefully felt her way towards Becky’s room. She could still hear the sobbing but it now sounded muffled. When she reached the door to Becky’s room she found it was closed, which explained why the sobbing was now muted. “But why was the door closed? She had left it open. Surely Becky would not have closed it.”

  Charlotte’s head was now starting to clear a little and she realized that Becky must have woken up scared and crying. The noise from Charlotte’s fall must have scared her even more, so she had returned to her room and closed the door behind her so that she’d feel safe.

  “Honey, it’s Mommy! Everything is okay, I’m sorry if I scared you,” Charlotte said as she slowly opened the door.

  To her amazement, her daughter was still tucked in bed with her doll and appeared to be fast asleep. The crying had stopped as soon as she had entered the room, so Charlotte concluded that her daughter must be faking sleep in order to hide the fact that she had been scared. Charlotte felt a chill as she entered the room and made a mental note to turn up the thermostat before going back to bed. She sat on the edge of her daughter’s bed and placed a hand on Becky’s covered shoulder, “Are you all right, Honey?” she asked.

  There was no response at first so Charlotte shook her gently and said, “Honey, what’s wrong? Did you have a bad dream?”

  Becky slowly rolled over, stretched her arms out from the confines of the covers, and when she saw the blood on her mother’s face and sweatshirt, she said, “Mommy, are you okay?! What happened?”

  Charlotte absentmindedly wiped her face again and then rolled the sleeve of the sweatshirt in an attempt to conceal the blood. “Don’t worry Honey, it’s okay. I just had a little fall and hit my head.”

  “Does it hurt?” Becky asked with real concern in her voice.

  “Not at all,” Charlotte said, telling a little white lie so as not to scare her daughter more.

  “Is it time to get up, Mommy?”

  “Oh no, Honey. It’s very late, you must have been woken by a bad dream.”

  “But I wasn’t dreaming, Mommy. You woke me up.”

  “But Honey, I heard you crying,” Charlotte said, sounding a little puzzled.

  “Oh! That was probably Samantha. She was crying earlier but I told her everything would be okay.”

  Assuming that her daughter was blaming the crying on her doll or an imaginary friend, Charlotte said, “Well, do you and Samantha want to come sleep with me?”

  “No, Mommy! I want to stay in MY room!” Becky whined.

  “But if you’re scared, wouldn’t it be better sleeping in my bed?”

  “I’m not scared, and Samantha doesn’t want to go either,” Becky said defiantly.

  The fact that Becky was crying a few moments earlier, and was now adamantly denying that she was scared, had Charlotte a little troubled. “Are you sure, Honey? I won’t be mad if you want to sleep in my bed. In fact I was kind of lonely without you there,” Charlotte said hoping to persuade her daughter to join her.

  “We really want to stay here. Please Mommy!”

  “Okay, if you insist,” Charlotte said. “But if you change your mind I’m right down the hall and I’d be glad to have your company. Oh, and let’s keep the door open from now on, okay?”

  “Sure Mommy, I told Samantha not to close the door, but she did anyway.”

  Charlotte tucked her daughter back in bed, kissed her on the cheek, and left knowing that her daughter would eventually get scared again and join her in bed.

  On the way back to her room, Charlotte stopped to pick up the box that she had tripped over and to check the thermostat. Charlotte found that not only was the thermostat set properly, but that it was actually quite warm in the hallway. She decided that there must be a draft coming through one of the windows in Becky’s room, but there was nothing she could do about it tonight. She would have to look at it in the morning.

  Before crawling back into bed, Charlotte went to the bathroom to clean herself up. The wound on her head had stopped bleeding but she decided to put a bandage on it to prevent her sheets from getting messed up. She then filled the sink with cold water and left her blood stained sweatshirt to soak.

  Charlotte slept intermittently for the rest of the night and each time she woke she was surprised that Becky had not joined her. When Becky was still not there in the morning, she figured that Becky must have fallen asleep shortly after the crying incident and not been awakened again by bad dreams.

  Day two of unpacking was hindered by Charlotte’s lack of sleep and she found herself becoming increasingly short-tempered. This became even more apparent when, while unpacking what seemed like an endless number of boxes, she heard a crash from upstairs. Assuming that Becky had gotten into mischief again, she stormed up the stairs, annoyed at having been interrupted at a time when all she wanted was to finish the chore of unpacking.

  Charlotte found Becky sprawled out on her bedroom floor engrossed in playing with her dolls. “What’s going on up here, Young Lady?” she asked her daughter.

  “I’m just playing, Mommy.”

  “And what was all the crashing that I heard up here?”

  “I told her not play with your perfumes but she wouldn't listen.”

  “What are you talking about?” Charlotte asked but headed towards her room without waiting for a reply.

  “It wasn't me, Mommy. It was Samantha.”

  Upon entering her room Charlotte was assaulted by the overpowering scent of sweet perfume. As she approached the dresser she felt the crunching of glass beneath her feet and noticed that the overturned box that had once held her favourite perfume bottles, now lay half hidden under the bed. The floor was littered with the broken bottles, and Charlotte's response turned from shock to outrage when she realized that Becky had chosen to hide the mess rather than attempt to clean it up.

  “Rebecca Anne Rowley!” Charlotte screamed, “get in here.”

  “Mommy, I'm sorry. I told her not to play with your things.”

  “Her who?” Charlotte demanded.

  “I've been trying to tell you. It was Samantha!” Becky started to cry as she heard the anger in her mother's voice.

  “Young Lady, of all things, do not try to blame this on some imaginary friend. If you’re old enough to have your own room I think you should be old enough to take responsibility for your actions.”

  “But it wasn't me,” Becky whined between sobs.

  “That's it! I've had enough! You can go to your room and stay there until you're willing to tell me what really happened here.”

  Becky ran from the room bawling, leaving Charlotte to wonder if she had over-reacted. While she cleaned up the mess, Charlotte realized that her exhaustion was largely responsible for her outrage. But it was high time that her daughter learned that she had to be more responsible for her actions and that Charlotte’s things were not toys.

  The rest of the afternoon was very quiet as Becky stayed in her room keeping out of her mother's way. Charlotte took advantage of this time by u
npacking boxes and getting a jump on organizing the house. Having almost completed this chore, she realized that a major burden had been eased, and her stress level was returning to normal. By supper time she was feeling remorseful for having berated Becky so harshly and she went upstairs to apologize.

  “Honey,” Charlotte said as she gently tapped on Becky’s door and then slowly pushed it open.

  “Hi Mommy!” Becky responded cheerfully.

  As she entered the room, Charlotte once again felt an unnerving chill race up her spine. It was still light out and although Autumn was bringing cooler weather, Charlotte thought that it shouldn’t be so cold in her daughter’s room. Once again she promised herself that she would inspect the window before it got too late.

  “Darling, I’m sorry I yelled at you earlier. I guess Mommy’s a little tired out from all the moving.”

  “That’s okay Mommy, I’m not mad.” Charlotte was just starting to think everything was going to be okay when her daughter added, “But Samantha is still sad. She says that her mommy used to yell at her all the time. And when she got really mad, she even hit Samantha.”

  “Now Honey, I’ve told you I’m not upset anymore. You mustn’t keep blaming your friend for what happened earlier.”

  “Samantha said you wouldn’t believe me. She said her mommy never believed her and blamed her for all sorts of things she didn’t do.”

  “Okay Honey, why don’t you tell me who this Samantha is?”

  “Samantha is the little blonde girl I met in my