Read Space for Free Online Page A

blur.
    I knew that Dan felt a need to teach her a lesson. I’d had whippings, too. Not bad ones, just enough to get my attention. Some folks, I knew, didn’t believe in corporal punishment. In the South, at least in my slice of the
South, it was tolerated as a means to justify the end. And it had never hurt me, Priss or Lexie. To me, it said my folks cared enough to confront.
    Today, I heard Dan’s and Faith’s voices begin to rise from the upstairs and then Faith began to scream and wail. I didn’t know exactly what transpired, but I knew Dan loved his daughter and wanted only what was best for her.
    One thing I did know: a battle of like-spirits raged.
    Faith’s passion, in the face of what she considered unjust acts, was legendary.
    Faith hated pain.
    I put my hands over my ears until the ruckus stopped and Dan came downstairs, pale and shaken. He walked past me and out the door. I heard the car leave and went upstairs to check on Faith.
    She lay face down on her yellow bedspread in her yellow butterfly wall-papered room, head cupped in arms, silent.
    â€œFaith?”
    She turned over and looked at me with red-swollen eyes that immediately filled with tears again. “He hurt me, Mama,” she whimpered disbelievingly, her grief spilling over that this man who’d been her stalwart protector had “hurt” her.
    I took her in my arms. “I’m sorry, honey,” I whispered, torn between the complex variables of the father-daughter conflict.
    Later, Dan told me Faith began to fight and grab the belt. It became a battle of wills — the first real one between those two. Definitely not the last. Dan’s temper flared, and the licks were harsher than he’d intended. He wept about it later.

    â€œGod, I hate to hurt her,” he told me, tears in his big, generous eyes. “I don’t want to ever do that again.” And he did not.
    The next day, at school, while Faith changed clothes for dance class, a friend saw red welts on her back and legs. “What happened?”
    â€œMy Dad gave me a whipping,” Faith replied, by now, she told me years later, resigned that all kids got whippings when they truly deserved them.
    The friend went to the school counselor. The counselor called the Department of Social Services.
    The next day, at work, Dan received a visit from a DSS officer. Dan was chastised and humiliated. I don’t think he was ever the same after that day. He felt betrayed that Faith had told on him, knowing she had willfully disobeyed a direct order, knowing the consequences.
    I tried to smooth it over. Truthfully, I told Dan, “She didn’t intentionally get you in trouble. Someone saw the welts, Dan, and reported them. Not Faith.” And indeed, Faith denied she’d known her friend had reported the incident until the DSS guy showed up at school to question her.
    How did I feel about it all? I hated that Dan had lost his cool during the discipline. He shouldn’t have struck her so harshly and I told him so. He apologized and vowed he would never again allow himself to be trapped in that same situation.
    Of course, I grasped that DSS intervention could cause Faith to revoke her forgiveness toward Dan. With such authoritative weight behind her father’s chastening, at the very least challenging his administering of the “rod,” regardless of the critical nature of Faith’s transgression, she would automatically feel abused.

    I explained to Dan that Faith had not been aware of all the repercussions of the disclosure.
    Still, Dan felt a rip in that close, snuggly relationship. From both the disobedience and then what he perceived as betrayal. He’d always adored — no, worshipped — his little girl. Now, when he’d said “no,” to protect her from danger, she’d changed from our quiet, almost docile daughter to one who would go to awful lengths to get her way.
    At least, that’s the