A Shattered Heart

AuthorHouse™ LLC

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: 1-800-839-8640

© 2004, 2013 W. A. Saunders. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/12/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4918-2732-1 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

About The Author

Acknowledgements

I want to give thanks to the Almighty God above for blessing me with the inspiration and wisdom to begin writing this book, and the dedication and motivation to finish it. Although each of the characters is a composite of the many personalities and characters I have encountered throughout my life, A Shattered Heart is a work of fiction and none of the events are true. Any similarity to actual events is purely coincidental.

I dedicate this book to the loving and lasting memories of Mrs. Grace Knox Saunders and Mrs. Grace Bradford Muldrow, my paternal and maternal grandmothers, respectfully. I love you both very dearly, and your spirits are always with me in all that I do. Thank you for the part you played in making me the person I am today!

Have faith in the LORD your God and you will be upheld!

2 Chronicles 20:20

Chapter 1

It was a very bad year, 1997. Baxter heard an old Frank Sinatra song, It was a Very Good Year, playing loudly on the radio of a passing car. But for him, the year was far from good. Things started out okay but they quickly made a downward tum. On Thursday, October 9th, 12:30 p.m., Baxter was glad school had let out early. There was a meeting for teachers and school administrators for the remainder of the afternoon and all day Friday. Baxter was elated whenever he didn’t have to go to school or if school let out early.

Jermaine Alexander Baxter was an 18-year old senior who was finally graduating from high school. Because of his indifference toward school, he had to repeat the lOth grade and was a year behind. It wasn’t as if he hated school, but there were just more pressing issues on his mind. Baxter was a paper sack-colored Black male who lived with his mom and dad in Catonsville, Maryland. Catonsville is a small suburban university town just South of Baltimore. The University of Maryland Baltimore County, UMBC for short, is located there. Most of the people headed for Catonsville who didn’t live there were either in route to UMBC or they were probably lost.

Baxter was feeling fairly good on this mild Thursday afternoon. In spite of the difficulties he faced, it was one of his better days. The sun was shining, a gentle breeze was blowing softly against his face, and he was singing I Believe I Can Fly, while kicking a tin can down Frederick Road. As he looked around, he saw Mother Nature at work as the leaves on the trees were losing their green chlorophyllous luster like they did around the same time every year. He was wearing his favorite baseball cap with ‘BAXTER’ written across the front in large capital letters. He got the name Baxter from his teammates on the varsity football team. Everyone was known by his last name. He thought the name Baxter was pretty cool and he used it all the time, though most of his teammates used their first names away from school. Even his parents called him Baxter, although he usually didn’t think very highly of them. If you asked him, Baxter would describe his family as a circus. He was one of the few among his peers with both parents at home, but having both parents at home was something that he didn’t think was anything to brag about. His parents were one of the reasons why he thought it was a very bad year and why he found it hard to concentrate on school.

His mom, Priscilla Baxter, was 34 years old. She was your typical old fashioned back-in-the-day barefoot house wife that did all the cleaning and the cooking and the laundry, and the only reason she wasn’t pregnant is because of an injury she sustained during an accident as a child. Baxter was adopted at the age of three. His father, David Baxter, a 39-year-old building manager who worked nights, was an addict. He was addicted to crack, addicted to alcohol, and addicted to physically and mentally battering and berating his wife and son. Some people say that if David would sober up, things would be different. But Baxter knew better. David mistreated them long before he became a substance abuser. He liked the control he could exercise on others. And it wasn’t just the physical abuse that was ugly. The verbal abuse was far more degrading. If Priscilla made baked chicken for dinner, David would tell her he wanted it fried and proceeded to sweep his arm across the stove knocking everything onto the floor, screaming at the top of his lungs. Or if she prepared pork chops, he would throw the pan of food across the room up against the wall waving his arms fiercely in front of Priscilla’s face as if he planned to hit her.

Even when Priscilla would ask David what he wanted to eat, ensuring that she prepared it just as he had requested it, David would still find something wrong with it. It made her confused and frustrated. She would often drop to the floor and cry. She would rather have a physical beating then the psychological pain he put her through. As a result, Baxter hated going home, especially if his Dad hadn’t left for work. Priscilla lacked the strength or conviction to do anything. Baxter thought she would protest when David made her move out of their bedroom and start sleeping in the guest room. But she didn’t complain or resist. She complied without hesitation.

Priscilla learned to comply with any of David’s requests no matter how unusual or bizarre. With each passing day, she grew deeper into a state of depression and lost the will to confront him. On some days, she appeared catatonic-like, sitting motionless for hours. At times, her only movement was the blink of her eyes. The psychotropic meds she was taking made her that way, and the fact that she took more than the prescribed dosage made her condition worse. She felt justified taking a larger dose because it was the only way she could tolerate living with David and putting up with his abuse. She realized that when she took more than prescribed, it made her less aware of the misery in which she lived.

Baxter had learned from his mom to always try to be strong and stand up for himself, and it bothered him immensely that she failed to hold herself to the same standard. Even though his respect for his mother had faded, he still loved her very much. At times he viewed her as a victim, much in the same way as he viewed himself. Baxter knew that if David weren’t beating him he’d be attacking her. As much as he hated it, he would rather take the beatings than see his mother in pain.

There were plenty of days that Baxter was victim to David’s beatings while Priscilla turned and left the room. Baxter received his worse beating just before summer vacation a year earlier. Baxter was having a difficult time in his Physics class. From the very beginning, his grades were at or below the D level. But Baxter was determined to improve his grade in spite of his struggles. He wasn’t like some of his classmates. Many of the other kids say they don’t like school but usually have a fairly nice time when their friends are there. Baxter was distressed by school whether his friends were there or not. Nonetheless, he was determined to pass his class. So he put in a tremendous effort. He was already a year behind and didn’t want to get behind any further. Baxter worked hard, completed extra assignments, and managed to get a B on his Physics exam. He was so ecstatic. He rushed home full of joy and excitement, hoping to share it with his parents. But when he got home, he got an unexpected surprise. David gave him a horrible beating.

David gave Baxter a stem look saying, That’s not good enough. You got a B, then that means you could have earned an A.

Baxter, quickly becoming frustrated with his father, cried, But I worked hard, I really think I did well.

Nobody asked you what you think. If you didn’t spend so much time with that football in your hands, maybe you’d find more time to grab a book.

David grabbed Baxter, punching him and kicking him and throwing him all around the room. He’d even pick up a chair from time to time and throw it on top of Baxter while he was down on the floor. Priscilla left and went into the next room when the beating began and she stayed there until it was over like she always did. Priscilla felt if she didn’t see it, then it didn’t happen. She also knew that if she intervened, she would risk a beating herself so she just let Baxter suffer. She was also too ashamed to look Baxter in the face. Priscilla believed at some deep level that a mother should protect her child at all costs. In her mind, she had let her son down and carried an enormous amount of guilt.

That beating was by far the worse. He needed six stitches on his face alone, not to mention all the scars, bruises and cuts on other parts of his body. As always, the worse scars and bruises Baxter received were invisible to the naked eye. The pain he endured emotionally had far surpassed all of the physical pain he ever did receive.

So