The flow of memories brought me back to my childhood. We lived in a small town near the state’s capital, and our community was like all other small ones in our country: embrace tradition, go to church, and avoid sin.

My mother, Susan, was a beautiful, fair-skinned blond woman. She was suspicious about me being “different” from other kids. I wasn’t very fond of playing with them, and I used to throw violent tantrums when frustrated. Also, from an early age, I knew how to shower her with love, reminding her I was the little princess she had always dreamed of having to get what I wanted.

In the summer of 1984, kids and teenagers cramped the streets, enjoying their break. I was almost 7 then, sitting in my backyard, playing with my dolls and toy kitchen set. As I had dismembered most of them, the tea party seemed a Halloween one. Boredom corroded my bones until I heard chirping.

I followed the noise quietly until I got to the lush dogwood tree that stretched its arms toward the back of the house. Lying on the base of the tree was a baby sparrow, its mom chirping as her offspring seemed hurt and unable to go up to its nest on its own.

“I’ll have birdy join my tea party.” But the mother sparrow sensed the incoming danger and swooped over me twice, pecking my arm and making it bleed. First, fear took over me. Then, anger burned in my chest like the sun.

“NOT FAIR! I WANT IT!” I screamed.

Mother Sparrow tried desperately to save her baby, but the more she chirped, the more I wished to make her suffer for preventing me from getting what I wanted. If I couldn’t have the bird, she wouldn’t, either.

Minutes later, my mother found me still plucking feathers from the beheaded body. The cry of the mother bird mixed with her own as she approached me.

“Theresa? W-what are you doing, honey bee? Y-your dress… is that blood?!”

“It fell on my lap Mommy, I guess momma bird hurt him.” I answered, putting the feathers away.

She gasped again and kneeled before me, her blue gaze locked deep into mine as if she were looking for something. Today I understand she was showing me she knew I was lying. Mama opened my hands and took the small animal in hers. Her eyes were teary, and I noticed a light shade of purple under her eye, disguised with makeup.

She smeared my bloody hands on the grass, put them together, and did the same to her own.

“We’re going to say a prayer, honey bee. We’ll pray for the poor birdy to go to heaven, and then we’ll make it a grave so that it can rest in peace. Ok?”

“What’s happening here?” The deep voice questioning the situation followed the appearance of my father, Jeremiah. His tall, lush, mane was always combed, and his fake calm only convinced those who didn’t live under the same roof as him.

My mother’s face changed. Her eyes became wide open when she heard his voice and his stomping approached us. He saw the dead animal in her hands, and the blood on my clothes, and gasped. Dad asked no questions, just grabbed me by the wrist and started dragging me back inside the house.

“D-darling, please, don’t!” she begged, walking behind us.

He slammed the door and locked it from the inside. “This is your fault, woman, and it’s my responsibility to fix it!”

And that was the first time he spanked me.

Even though she took my father’s words to heart about my behavior and started teaching me new chores, like cooking, so I could “get better,” things didn’t work as she expected them to.

My little vice became even stronger, and I started killing wild animals around my neighborhood. The act itself left bloodstains on my clothes. Mama kept washing them vigorously, so my father wouldn’t notice, but she failed often. That always led to another round of violent beatings.

As years went by, my hatred for him grew stronger. Especially after I knew my mother’s bruises were made the same way as mine.

When I turned twelve, after Dad broke my arm in one of his “correction sessions,” my mother donated my white and pastel-colored clothes to charity, took me downtown, and we went shopping. She told me to pick whatever I wanted, in darker shades. She chose a dress and handed it to me with tears in her eyes.

“Now you listen, honey bee. Black, dark blue, and gray will look good on you. This way, Dad won’t notice your… condition. Isn’t that good? Some peace for a change. Just try this one and trust me, mama knows best.”

That sparked something inside me. She was crying, and yet she held a smile. I felt loved and protected and realized that was the most beautiful thing in the world. What did those feelings of anger and possession growing inside me mean, if not the most perfect ingredients to a precious connection, the most sublime between a mother and her child?

From that day on, being a mother became my lifelong dream.

It turned out she was right, and my dad stopped pestering me, although my mother didn’t have the same luck. To show my appreciation, I started doing some things Mama demanded of me afterward.

She thought making me go to church more often was a good idea. Besides attending Sunday service, I participated in the children’s choir and attended Sunday School. “The Lord will ease your soul,” she used to say.

In no time, my reputation as an example of a Christian girl grew with me in our community. Those who complimented my mother after hearing me sing or recite the bible would never imagine there was a pile of animal corpses rotting below the beautiful leafy tree in our yard, in a hole she dug herself, with an excuse that she wanted a flower bed on that exact spot.

Years went by, and I could never have guessed this happiness was about to end. I was 16, and a girl from my youth group, named Kathy, threw a party. She had a beautiful shepherd puppy that played with me all day long. I snatched it and took the dog home with me, but she found out what I did soon after, and appeared on our porch to reclaim it.

Kathy had no right to want it back, since I was a much better tutor than her. As her mother tried to rationalize with mine, claiming it was “a minor, childish misunderstanding,” the girl glared at me, called me a thief, and grabbed the pup from my hands.

Two days after that, I took a shortcut and waited outside her house. An hour later, my mother found me at the ice cream parlor having a cone, the blood from Kathy’s nose tainting my hand, and chunks of her hair stuck between my fingers.

She didn’t wait for me to finish eating and ordered me to go home with her. I obeyed; she looked tense and distressed; her left eye was more swollen and bruised than ever. As she parked the car, I couldn’t help but notice the large suitcase in the backseat.

“Mama loves you and will always be by your side, alright, honey bee? Do as I tell you, go straight to your room, grab some things, and we are going out on a trip,” she whispered.

I nodded and followed, and we quietly went inside the house. It was dark and silent, like a cemetery at night. As we had a couple more steps in, something slammed the door behind us.

My vision was still adjusting when a huge hand grabbed my mother.

“Did you think you could flee from it, Susan?”

My father’s icy gray eyes shone with anger from the entrance corner, emerging from the shadows as a ghoul. He was sweaty, covered in dirt, with a trash bag in his other hand.

“Jerry, please, darling…” she whined.

He threw the bag beside me, and bones, skin, and fur scattered on the floor like a jigsaw puzzle. Mama was now sobbing as he jolted her back and forth.

“How could you let this be? This is the work of the devil, and you were serving under his command!”

He hit her in the face, and violently kicked her in the stomach when she fell to the floor. I froze in place, as he was seething with anger.

“Jerry, p-please. S-she is still our baby!” she cried.

“You… spawn of evil!” he hissed, eyes on me. “How dare you defile my home with all those corpses? And you!” he said, looking at my mother, “How could you go to church and hide this vicious beast under my roof? But this… this will be over now.”

He stepped forward to slap me, but Mama held his ankle in a vain attempt to stop him. He had deformed her feeble figure. Her eye was swollen from the beating and crying, yet she used all the strength she had to prevent him from harming me.

“Honey b-bee, leave… I beg you.” She moaned.

“You’re lost, woman!” he grunted. “I’ll deal with this beast after I have dealt with you. Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.”

As he turned to her, I rushed to the kitchen. The sound of bone crushing was deafening, and that’s why he ignored the fact that I left the room for a minute. I retrieved what I needed and ran back, stomping the wooden floor, until I reached the titanic figure.

My mother’s teachings on how to be a good housewife came in handy. I squatted and slit through his Achilles tendon with precision, using my favorite chef’s knife, just like I would do to a nice rump roast.

He screamed and tried to grab me, so I stabbed him in the same place we should slice to split the wing from the chicken. His arm swung, as I cut through another tendon, and I reached for the neck next.

I was so filled with rage and craze that I stabbed him over 30 times, enough times to let the adrenalin flow all over my body and ease my desires. Mama knew I wanted to kill him for a long time, so my old man had given me the chance I longed for.

As his blood flooded the floor, I slowly left my trance, and I heard Mama faintly breathing. I glanced at her and held her hand, caressed it, and watched the life in her eyes fade away. I got up, took some flowers from our garden, and put them around her. Now, there was nothing left for me in that place.

I ran upstairs and grabbed my father’s wallet, and anything valuable I could find. Then I packed some of my belongings, got my mother’s purse and car keys, got her suitcase, and left.

“Kathy better pray a lot tonight, since I found something much bigger than her to kill.”

As I walked toward the bus station, police cars wailed rushing past me. I bought a ticket for a big city nearby, used the restroom to clean myself, bought a snack, and wolfed it down. The bus arrived ten minutes later, and I was the first to get in.

The bus driver asked for my ticket, and I handed it to him. He eyed me from head to toe and smiled.

“Where is such a young miss going?”

“To a new future, mister.” I grinned.

As we left, I took a deep breath. The vehicle’s smoke filled my nostrils with a very particular smell. The one of a brand-new life, where I could truly be myself.

Editor: Michelle Naragon