Vena, please...... - by Big Dee

The kitchen light was that cheap, buzzing yellow that made everything look grubby. Vena had my mother’s bone-china cup in her hands, the one with the hairline crack, and she was swirling the dregs like she was reading tea leaves. “The pastor,” she said, not looking up. “Dragged you to the front of the congregation. Screamed you were possessed. You were what? Six? Seven?” I picked at the peeling laminate on the table. Didn’t answer. “Because you tried to speak for yourself,” Vena carried on. “Because you were a child who just wanted to explain herself, and she couldn’t handle the shame of it. So she made you the devil instead.” “If wishes were horses,” I muttered, “adults would sort their own mess out.” Vena gave a dry, sharp laugh. “There it is. Your little excuses.” She set the cup down. The clack echoed. “Straight off the fire,” she said. “The spatula. Branded your backside because you couldn’t scrub those massive clothes clean. The clothes they gave you, miles too wide for a seven-year-old’s hands. Did they teach you how to wring them out? Did they hell. They just watched you struggle, then walloped you for failing.” My fingers went cold. I stared at the grain of the table. “And the road outside,” she said, softer now, which was worse. “Barefoot. Sent out to look for coins you never stole. Wandering that estate, knowing no one. Just a kid in tattered clothes, carrying a bowl on her head like a circus act, because the adults were fighting and someone had to pay for it. Someone had to be the punchbag.” “They were angry,” I said, my voice thin. “And you were a child,” she snapped. “You didn’t start their row. You didn’t owe them a single thing. And yet you were the one carrying the can, weren’t you?” I swallowed. The kitchen felt like it had shrunk to the size of a cupboard. “School,” she said. “They didn’t give you a fair crack, did they? No proper lessons. No space to think about the future. Because when you’re just trying to survive the day, you don’t get to dream. You just get through.” I said nothing. Because what was there to say? “And the neighbours.” "Vena?" Vena leaned forward, her breath bitter. “The ones who cornered you. Whispered their vile little demands. Told you if you didn’t comply, they’d run straight to your people and brand you disrespectful.” She paused. “They knew that word would bring you to your knees.” My throat tightened. “And they followed through, didn’t they? Ran straight there. And instead of asking questions, instead of shielding you, they handed you right back to the wolves.” My throat closed up. “How do you forgive that?” she whispered. “How do you swallow a betrayal that complete?” I tried to say my line. If wishes were horses. But it got stuck halfway. Came out cracked. “If wishes were horses... everyone would have a safe place to call their own. But some of us were born on the battlefield.” “Stop it,” Vena said, her voice dropping to something venomous. “Stop hiding behind that battered old proverb.” She stood up. Stepped into my space. Her face was my face, but sharper, meaner. “They told you to your face that you were a mistake,” she hissed. “They made damn sure you believed you were the only failure while everyone else got to breathe.” I looked at her. “And you’re still explaining them,” she continued. “You’re still saying they were angry, as if that makes the bruise go away.” “They deserve to burn,” I said. The words came out flat. Honest. “I know,” she said. “And you want to watch.” I did. God help me, I did. I could see it: the match, the flame, the relief of seeing something else hurt for a change. Not because I was cruel. Because I wanted their pain to prove mine was real. Just once. Just once. “It would be so easy,” Vena breathed. “Hand me the match. Let me torch the whole rotten lot. No more tattered clothes. No more asphalt. No more pastors screaming nonsense.” My hand twitched towards the kettle, towards the gas hob. I could do it. I could let her win. But then I looked at my hands. The same hands that had scrubbed those impossible clothes. The same hands that had balanced that bowl. The same hands that had wiped my own eyes in the dark because no one else was coming. I let out a long, shaky breath. “If wishes were horses,” I said, and this time it wasn’t a deflection. It was a surrender. “I’d have had a mother who loved me without a ledger. A family that didn’t treat my survival like a debt to be repaid. I’d have had someone, anyone, who stood in front of me instead of handing me over." I looked at Vena. “But wishes don’t feed the ghosts in this room.” My voice was barely there. “And I’m too knackered to burn my own house down just to keep warm on the ashes.” Silence. Vena stared at me. For once, the venom drained out of her. She didn’t look defeated. She looked like she was waiting. Because she knew, and I knew, this wasn’t over. There was no apology coming. No perfect moment of reckoning. There was just this... aching want for justice. The bone-tired knowledge of what I’d become if I gave in. I picked up her cup, the cracked bone-china one, and tipped the cold dregs down the sink. My hand was shaking. Just a little. Not enough for her to see. But enough for me to feel. “Let them wear their crowns of judgement.” I switched off the light. Vena stayed in the dark. She always did.

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