Читать книгу Tears of the Silenced - Misty Griffin - Страница 27
ОглавлениеThe last time Brian had seen his father, he had let slip the name of the town we were moving to. He made Grandpa promise not to tell anyone, but that summer the police showed up at the house with a letter from Aunty Laura. The letter told of how Brian’s father had died of colon cancer and how he had begged to see his son before he died. After so many years of not seeing or hearing from Brian, Grandpa had finally told Aunty Laura where we were living. But by the time she was able to locate the local police, Grandpa was gone.
Aunty Laura was angry in the letter. She told Brian he had abandoned his loving family. All these years, they had not even known if he was alive or dead. The letter went on to say that their mother had fallen ill in her nursing home in Tallahassee, Florida. Laura included the phone number of the home and underlined and highlighted where she wrote that Brian should call her. The letter ended with Aunty Laura stating that the bike shop and all of Grandpa’s possessions had been left to her since they could not be sure if Brian was coming back.
Although Grandpa had been eighty-eight, Samantha and I were sad to hear that such a kind man had died. Brian did not even shed a single tear; he was just angry he had been pushed out of Grandpa’s will.
“I will fix her wagon,” he ranted. “She thinks she will get everything. Well, Mom has more than Dad ever had, and I am going to collect.”
Samantha, Mamma, and I looked at him. “What the h*** are you talking about?” Mamma asked emphatically. “You can’t collect anything if she is still alive.”
“Well, she is old and just broke her hip, and it was always easy for me to get what I wanted from her.” Brian seemed to be calculating something in his head. “I am going to convince her to come live with us.”
Aunty Laura, of course, had no idea the axis of evil she had accidentally set into motion. Brian was out for revenge, no matter what the cost. Brian and Mamma went into town later that day and contacted Grandma via pay phone. She had just moved from the hospital to a senior retirement home. She had suffered a stroke after breaking her hip.
The next week, Brian flew to Florida to put his plans into action. He stayed there for a week and was actually in a good mood when he got back. Grandma, whom Samantha and I had only met once, had agreed to come live with us. She was old and frail and, at eighty-two, had no idea what was in store.
Although the doctor had stated that Grandma would be unable to make the long trip for at least three weeks, Brian was ecstatic. He rambled on about how his mom had recently sold her condominium and had $60,000 in the bank. She also got a $1,000 pension check every month from her late husband’s estate.
“Well, that is certainly good news.” Mamma’s eyes lit up. “But you know your nosy sister is going to be here all the time if your mother is here. All she has to do is ask the police where we live now.”
Brian nodded. “We have to tell her and invite her here. I want her to know Mom is living with me.” His face creased into an evil grin.
A few days before leaving for Florida again, Brian announced that when Grandma arrived, we would build an addition to the orchard shack we were living in. Samantha and I were excited about having Grandma around, plus Aunty Laura would most likely come to visit now. Maybe life would get better. I would lie awake at night, dreaming of Aunty Laura asking me live with her. I knew Brian and Mamma would never allow it… but a girl could dream.
In August, Mamma and Brian set out on the trip to Florida. They were to be gone a week. Grandma owned a twenty-foot travel trailer and she could live in it until we had better living arrangements. I was worried about an elderly woman with health problems coming to live with us. The icy winters we experienced often blocked all roads to the hospital, and it could be hours before any emergency medical treatment could be provided.
That week, Samantha and I were left with many tasks to complete, but it was an unusually relaxing week. We knew for a fact that we were not being watched, and there was no one forcing us to take baths in the spring water. Fanny drifted in and out of reality and began talking to us more.
We made up a schedule for the week that, if strictly followed, would give us every afternoon to read, and give Aunt Fanny a much-deserved rest while she sat next to us. Samantha and I scurried around every morning. Then we would make our lunch, which was a real treat, and curl up on our mattresses upstairs and bury our faces in the books left by our kind neighbor.
Years later, I often asked myself why I did not run away with Fanny and Samantha during this time. The only explanation I could come up with was that we were completely brainwashed. We were taught that the outside world was worldly and ungodly, and that if you became one of them, you were lost forever. The thought of going to the police never even occurred to us. Brian and Mamma told us if we talked to the police, they would just give us back because the foster system was crowded. I was so brainwashed at the time and Mamma and Brian knew that.
On a blistering day in August, a week after Mamma and Brian had left, we heard the truck driving up the private road to the house. Samantha and I had long ago learned to differentiate the sound of our truck from the sound of any other. As soon as I heard it, my heart jumped; the happy week was over. For a split second, I stood frozen to the ground, and then I raced over to Fanny to make sure she was properly dressed. I tied her head covering and shook out her dress and apron as Samantha ran over to open the gate.
The truck struggled more than usual as it crawled up the steep hill into the driveway, and my heart sank a little—as it always did—when the sun glinted off the hood and the truck rolled up to the gate. As they came to a stop, we peered in the windows, trying to determine what mood Mamma and Brian were in. Brian opened his door and motioned for us to come to the truck. An older woman’s voice floated over to us and I heard her say, “Are we home, honey?”
“Yeah, Mom, let’s get you out of here,” Brian said in a nicer voice than I had ever heard him use. He opened the truck’s back door and I helped him ease Grandma down.
Grandma looked at me and smiled. “Hi, sweetheart,” she said in a frail voice. “I sure am tired. We have been on the road for a long time.”
Mamma got out of the car. I heard the door slam, and the truck shook a little. Grandma shrugged and looked at me.
“She has been pissed at me the whole way.” Her thin white face puckered in a frown. “All I did was ask her where she got her dress. Oh, look, you are wearing the same thing.”
Not sure what to say, I smiled at her instead of answering, and she smiled back.
“That’s okay, honey,” she said as she struggled to walk toward the house. “Brian told me you guys are Amish now. I guess I just didn’t put it all together.”
I helped Grandma up the stairs into the house, and she sat down at the table. She asked for a glass of water and Samantha got it for her. Then Samantha, Fanny, and I stood, just looking at her. Her recently permed hair had a soft, silvery color. She wore a red polyester dress, pearl earrings and red lipstick. Samantha whispered in my ear, asking if I thought she would be allowed to dress like this every day. I shrugged and tried to listen to Mamma and Brian, who were arguing behind the door.
Samantha nudged me, and I realized Grandma was talking to me.
“So how old are you, honey?” she asked while she rolled her false teeth around in her mouth and pushed them back into place.
“I am fifteen.” I fidgeted with my apron and painfully realized how poor my communication skills were.
“You girls got any boyfriends?” Grandma asked with interest.
“Boy, this lady doesn’t have a clue where she is, does she?” Samantha said under her breath. I gave Samantha a warning look, and she rolled her eyes.
“No, not right now,” I answered with a shrug.
“Well,” Grandma fanned herself with a potholder she had found on the table. “It sure is hot here. What do you guys do for fun?”
We looked at her and smiled without saying anything. Grandma looked tired, and although she seemed very sweet, I could tell she did not really understand what was going on, and I knew that our living arrangements were nothing like she expected.
Grandma turned to Aunt Fanny and asked her name. To my surprise, Fanny answered and stepped forward to take Grandma’s hand. Suddenly I understood why Fanny was staring at Grandma and standing so close to her. Fanny had been raised by her own grandmother whom she had loved very much; it was her grandmother she was constantly trying to get back to when she tried to run away. Fanny seemed unable to comprehend the finality of death.
Grandma smiled and shook Fanny’s hand. “You must be Sue’s sister, huh?” Grandma said. “My Brian told me about you.”
“Yeah,” Fanny frowned. “That’s what they tell me, but I don’t know if she is really my sister.”
Grandma seemed confused. “You don’t know your own sister?”
Fanny just smiled, and I put my arm around her, thanking her for being nice to Grandma.
That night, I got Grandma ready for bed. It had been decided that I would stay in the trailer with her at night and take care of her since there was no room for her to stay in the small house. Brian was planning on getting Grandma to sign her savings and everything she owned over to him, so at least for the moment she was treated with respect and given what few comforts were available on the mountain.
After I dressed Grandma in her nightgown, Brian sat on the bed to talk to her. I could not believe it—he seemed so normal and charming. I had never seen him like this. Grandma laughed and called him her baby boy as she stroked his cheek. I could have been happy with this scene, had I not known it was all a charade to get Grandma to sign everything over to Brian.
That night, I got up several times to help Grandma go on the pot next to her bed. I was happy to do so and I pretended that I was working in a hospital—that I was the nurse and she was my patient. When you are in a hopeless situation, you have to find ways to mentally cope. I still had to get up at 5:00 a.m., and I jumped when the alarm went off. I looked at Grandma, who was sound asleep, and I pulled on my dark blue dress and black apron, then twisted my long brownish-red hair into a bun and slid on my white head covering. All of this took less than two minutes, and then I was off and running. I met Samantha in the house where she was standing in front of the wood-burning stove with Fanny.
“How was it?” Samantha whispered as I put an arm around Fanny’s shoulders.
“It was okay,” I mumbled as I tried to stifle a yawn. “I had to get up four times to help her on the pot, which is not easy when you are half-asleep and she is too.” I yawned again and rubbed my eyes, trying to wake up.
I did my chores outside and kept checking in on Grandma who was sleeping soundly. At eight o’clock, Brian called me into the trailer to dress her. I was not used to any clothes other than the things we wore, so when I opened the closet at the back of the trailer I looked with interest at the clothes Brian would call “worldly.” There were bright pant suits with elastic waists, colorful dresses, and pretty shoes. After rummaging about for a few minutes, I helped Grandma into a flowered T-shirt and pink pants that she had picked from what I held up. Dressing her was difficult because her left side was stiff from the stroke and the broken hip. After she was dressed, Grandma had me help her with her makeup. I could not remember ever seeing someone put makeup on before, and I watched her frail, shaking hands as she applied her lipstick.
“Do you want to borrow anything, dear?” she asked me.
I shook my head.
She smiled at me. “You should put some mascara on those lashes; it would make your bright, green eyes really stand out.”
Brian could be listening at the window, so I just smiled and closed the makeup kit. When I opened the door to call for Samantha’s help, I was not surprised to see him sitting in a folding chair under the window with a Bible in hand. He looked at me with steely eyes from under his black Amish hat, and I stared back at him with raised eyebrows.
A few days after Grandma’s arrival, construction started on the new addition to our house. To my horror, Mamma announced that she and Brian were going to try to get foster children when construction was done. Samantha and I were dumbfounded at the news, and prayed that would never happen.
Brian then created a new rule that the inside girl would care for Grandma and the outside girl would care for Fanny.
During this time, Brian and Mamma were constantly taking Grandma to lawyers and to the bank so she could sign over her late husband’s post office check, her bank account and the trailer. Brian was so sweet to her it made me sick. He’d had a lifetime of practice manipulating people. He even convinced his mother to give him power of attorney and told her he would manage things for her. She agreed with little protest, only too happy to have her baby boy doting over her. Grandma was bored much of the time, and spent a lot of time sleeping in her wheelchair. The stroke had left her the ability to speak, but she frequently struggled for words and became tired easily.
When the house was done, it was nice. The living room and two downstairs bedrooms had been painted and sheet rocked. The kitchen and upstairs were just walls with insulation stapled in them, but the fact that there was insulation at all was a comforting thought. The October wind was already howling and the temperature was dipping below thirty degrees; Grandma was constantly cold. Brian had installed a large barrel heater in the corner of the living room, and this is where we parked Grandma’s wheelchair every morning.
During this time, Samantha and I noticed that Grandma was starting to sleep all the time instead of taking frequent naps and she only woke up when we shook her. Every day we checked her blood pressure, and it was always higher than it was supposed to be.
It was an exciting day when Aunty Laura arrived. It seemed like we had not seen her in a lifetime, but she looked the same. Although she was now in her late fifties, she still had soft, curly blonde hair, porcelain skin and kind, sparkling, blue eyes that seemed brighter when paired with her usual red lipstick. She was always dressed sharply, even for an excursion to our farm which was in the middle of nowhere.
Her black pencil skirt and button-up pink blouse seemed out of place to us, but that was Aunty Laura. Her husband, although quiet, always smiled from ear to ear. Although Uncle Bill lived in the city, he fancied himself an outdoorsman and had dressed in camouflage pants and a bright orange hunting sweater.
“They look funny together,” I laughed.
Samantha just shook her head and rolled her eyes in amusement.
As Aunty Laura got out of the car, she removed her sunglasses and walked toward us with a smile, but there was a bit of disapproval in her eyes.
“Hey, Brian,” she said, giving her little brother a hug. “How in the h*** did you get Mom to agree to live up here in the middle of nowhere?”
Brian was taken aback and said defensively that Grandma had asked to live with us. Aunty Laura did not seem to buy his story, but she looked over at me and Samantha and smiled.
“Wow, you girls are all grown up,” she said, hugging us. She looked at me and asked my age.
“I will be sixteen next month,” I said with little enthusiasm.
She raised her eyebrows and looked at me in my long, dark dress, cape, apron and covering.
“So, did you finish school already?” she asked with raised eyebrows.
Mamma popped over and put an arm around my shoulders. “Our Misty is really smart,” she said. “She just finished the tenth grade but has decided to stop now.”
“Well, she still has those giant, green eyes. I am sure some boys are going to come knocking your door down any day. Better have your shotgun ready, Brian.” She laughed and winked at her younger brother.
I smiled as I was supposed to, thinking how much I wished it were true.
Aunty Laura hugged Samantha exclaiming how she, who had always been short and chubby as a little girl, was now several inches taller than I was. When she asked Samantha what grade she was in, Mamma answered that she was in the eighth grade. It was obvious that Mamma and Aunty Laura still had no intentions to like each other even a little bit.
In stark contrast to Aunty Laura’s trim figure and confident manner, Mamma, who was nearing two hundred and seventy-five pounds, had a defensive-looking face and a brow that was constantly furrowed and angry. Her green eyes were penetrating and miserable, and her blackish-brown hair was always combed severely back away from her face. I had always wondered what Brian saw in her, besides himself, of course.
“Well, where is Mom?” Aunty Laura asked, trying to lighten the mood that had suddenly become ignited with hostility.
We went into the house, and Aunty Laura looked around with interest as she went over to Grandma. Grandma was sleeping again with her head slouching into her lap.
“Hi, Mom,” Aunty Laura and Uncle Bill each lightly jiggled one of grandma’s shoulder. Grandma woke up and looked around blankly.
“Oh, Laura, honey.” She smiled and extended one of her pale, thin hands.
Uncle Bill took her hand in his giant one and patted it gently.
“How are you, Mom?” Aunty Laura asked from the wood chair in which she was sitting.
“I am fine,” Grandma responded in a shaky voice.
“Hmm…” Aunty Laura was not convinced. “How often has she been to the doctor since she has been here?”
“Don’t worry about that, Laura,” Mamma said in an it’s-none-of-your-business tone.
“Yeah, I know just how you handle things, Sue,” Aunty Laura snapped back. “However it suits you.”
“Now, listen here, Laura,” Brian piped up. “We got this handled. She is going to the doctor next week.” He frowned. “She is my mom too, you know.”
“Unfortunately,” Aunty Laura snapped. She looked very worried.
“Besides,” Brian said, standing a little taller and pasting a smug look on his face, “I have power of attorney over her, so legally you have absolutely no say.”
“Oh yeah, Brian? You really want to go down this road with me?” Aunty Laura got out of her chair.
“I don’t know what you mean.” Brian feigned ignorance.
As Mamma made sandwiches, Samantha and I showed Aunty Laura the farm. Some may wonder why we did not ask her for help, but as victims of severe abuse we were too scared. We had no idea if Aunty Laura would believe us. We did not know if she would take us with her immediately. We did not know if she would confront Brian but then be scared off by him. Brian had once said he could chop our heads off, bury us under a tree, and no one would know. It was too risky.
After the tour, we went back to the house for Mamma’s sandwiches. Everyone played nice as we ate, and all too soon, Aunty Laura and Uncle Bill were saying goodbye and preparing for the five-hour drive home.
Aunty Laura gave us a long hug goodbye and told us to write her. Grandma fell back to sleep as Aunty Laura and Uncle Bill disappeared around the bend in the road. I felt a tear roll down my cheek as I watched them go. An abuse victim learns to deal with the everyday torturous life because it is always the same, but when a breath of hope comes and goes, it feels worse than ever.
Later, people would ask why Samantha and I did not run when Mamma and Brian were in town. We were six miles out of town on a dirt road. The hills along the road were covered in sagebrush. If we took the road, we could be easily caught. Walking six miles into town through the sagebrush hills would have taken longer and we still risked being caught.
Mamma and Brian had conditioned us to think they were always watching. Sometimes, when we thought they were in town, they would suddenly be in the yard. They would park the truck around the bend in the road and sneak up the back of the hill to surprise us. This happened once or twice a year and each time we would get in trouble because we were talking or were both inside the house. We could not run; we never knew if they were watching.
That week, the weather became intensely cold, and I knew snow would soon follow. The cows and goats began huddling closer together, and in the mornings when I went to feed them, there was a thick layer of ice in their watering troughs.
We had been ordered by the doctor to give Grandma baths several times a week to help prevent the urinary tract infections to which she was predisposed. This proved to be challenging, since the house was cold despite the large barrel heater in the living room. The tub in the bathroom had no running water, so Samantha and I had to heat water on the stove to warm the bath for Grandma.
Still, Grandma cried and tried to cling to her sweater as we took her clothes off and lowered her into the tub. I felt sad for her but the doctor was adamant about reducing the risk of UTIs. He had put Grandma on antibiotics for ten days, but he warned that the more she took, the less they would work. Brian got on me about not letting her get an infection. While Grandma cried from the cold, Mamma’s voice would come from the living room, telling her to shut up and quit being a baby.
And Grandma’s Alzheimer’s was getting worse. Mamma and Brian knew Aunty Laura would not be coming back until the spring thaw. So Brian took Grandma’s trailer and sold it with all of her things in it; I was instructed to make dresses, aprons and head coverings for her. When Grandma first came to live with us, she had been on a strict eye drop schedule for glaucoma and was partially blind in one eye. Samantha and I had dutifully followed the instructions on the eyedrops bottles, but after Aunty Laura’s visit, Samantha and I were told to stop giving the eye drops.
“The sooner she goes blind the better,” Mamma said. “And the more she sleeps in her room, the happier I will be. I don’t want some Chatty Cathy sitting around here all day.”
At night, Grandma’s bedroom door was locked and no one was allowed to stay in the room with her. Each morning, when I opened the door to her room, I had a knot in my stomach. Most times, she was still in bed but, sometimes, we would find her on the floor. Mamma and Brian had no respect for anyone.
That winter, I turned sixteen. It was just another birthday. Another lonely wasted year in my life. That fall, when Samantha and I had gone to the eye doctor to get our prescriptions renewed, I looked around at other girls my age. They were so different from me, and as I stood off to the side and watched them with their families or friends, I could not understand why my life had to be so vastly different.
In December, when Mamma and Brian returned from Wenatchee, they were both yelling and upset. They called me into the house and showed me a letter from the government. I did not know what to expect. It stated that because I was now sixteen, Mamma could no longer collect a check for me unless I came into the office to discuss a work program. I was horrified to learn that Mamma had told them that I had run off to Canada with a boyfriend. They would not expect to hear about me again. I felt sick to my stomach and more forgotten by the world than ever.
Another letter had been sent for Fanny. The state was ordering Mamma to take Fanny in for a psychological evaluation. Mamma had orders from the government to comply by the end of January, and I could not help but hope that Fanny would be taken away from Mamma at that interview.
On Christmas Eve, a chilling and blinding blizzard had blown in, and on Christmas Day there were deep snow drifts everywhere. Samantha, Fanny and I spent Christmas Day shoveling snow away from the gates, the barn, and the house. As I shoveled, I sang a few Christmas carols under my breath. I loved the holidays, and whenever I was in town around that time of year, my eyes would look hungrily at all the beautiful decorations. I especially loved Christmas lights and would sometimes stand frozen in place, gazing at their beautiful colors.
The day of Fanny’s psychologist appointment I got up early to bathe and dress her in a new green dress I had made for the occasion. Brian had lectured me the day before: psychologists were all idiots who thought they were smart because they had a degree. They would try to play with our minds like all government employees.
We drove the entire three hours to get to Wenatchee in silence and, when we arrived at the doctor’s office, we had to sit in the waiting room. Fanny seemed agitated, and when I tried to keep her seated so she wouldn’t dance around, Mamma said to just let her be, because the less orientated she was, the less likely she would be able be to answer the psychologist’s questions coherently. When the psychologist came out for Fanny, he told us he would like to see Fanny alone.
This did not sit well with Mamma who stammered with a fake German accent, “Um… We don’t allow our women to be in a room with a man by themselves.”
The psychologist frowned as he motioned Fanny to follow him, but she did not. “Well,” he said, a little surprised at Fanny’s behavior, “I suppose you can come in if you are quiet and don’t say anything.”
Inside his office, the psychologist began questioning Fanny about her age, her name and so on. Fanny did not respond but kept twitching her fingers and talking to someone over the psychologist’s shoulder. The doctor pulled out some blocks and began asking her to do things with the blocks. Fanny haphazardly arranged them as she continued to twitch her fingers.
“So how do you like where you are living, Fanny?” he asked in a soothing voice.
“I don’t like it much,” Fanny said as she went back to twitching her fingers.
“What don’t you like about it, Fanny?” he asked, trying to draw her attention.
“I don’t know,” Fanny answered distractedly.
“She doesn’t like anyone or anything,” Mamma said abruptly with a worried look on her face.
The psychologist put a finger to his lips and shook his head at Mamma. He was trying to connect with Fanny, but it was futile. After about twenty minutes of getting nowhere, he took off his glasses and turned to Mamma. With a solemn look, he said matter-of-factly, “She is not taking her meds, is she?”
Mamma looked at Fanny and raised her hands in a helpless gesture. “We have tried, but she knocks them out of our hands and runs from us. It is impossible, but I guess we can try again if you think it is that serious.”
The psychologist nodded thoughtfully. “If she is to have any quality of life, she must be on her meds.” He put his glasses back on and looked at some papers.
“So, you have had Fanny about eight months?”
Mamma nodded.
“And how is that working out for your family?”
Mamma shrugged. “She is adjusting to our customs and our ways of dressing, but most of the time she is so absent-minded she doesn’t even seem to care.”
“Uh huh, I see.” The psychologist studied Mamma’s face. “And how often do you engage Fanny in conversation and activities?”
Mamma shrugged again. She was obviously nervous now. “We live on a farm, so there are countless chores and lots of animals … that is just about all the stimulus one could hope for.”
“And does Fanny have a lot of chores?” he asked with interest.
Mamma’s face turned red, and she nodded vigorously. I envisioned the many bruises up and down Fanny’s body, as well as my own. If only the good doctor could see them, I thought. But here was no reason for him to suspect anything, and no way for him to see the numerous bruises on Fanny’s breasts and arms and legs.
The doctor paused and then matter-of-factly stated, “I am just not sure that your home is the best environment for Fanny.”
My heart skipped a beat.
Mamma seemed to panic for a moment, but then she leaned forward with a deceptively shocked face. “Why would you say that?” she asked, as if she really cared. “I don’t understand; this is my sister and I love her. It would make my whole family sad if she left us.”
The psychologist looked at Mamma curiously, and I wondered if we were the first Plain people he had ever seen. “Well,” he looked back at the papers in front of him. “She is off her meds, and the progress notes from her last visit in Arizona clearly show that she has relapsed and any kind of progress she was making there has been lost.”
“Yes, that may be true,” Mamma leaned forward again. “But they were also ready to ship her off to an asylum where they could keep her locked up since she has the tendency to run off whenever she gets the chance.”
“And how do you prevent these episodes?” the psychologist asked with raised eyebrows.
“One of my daughters, or I, is with her at all times,” Mamma said defensively. “And besides,” she added, “you have to admit the fresh open air and good farm food are way better for her than the stale, closed-in environment at one of those homes.”
Although I could see the psychologist did not like Mamma, her words seemed to convince him, and he nodded slowly.
“All right,” he said after a moment of thought. “I will write you a prescription, and we will see how it goes from here.”
He stood up from his desk and walked us to the door. He smiled at me, and I smiled back. For a split second, I toyed with the idea of grabbing his arm and begging for help, but then I remembered he was a worldly outsider who was going to hell. It was a catch-22 situation, so I walked past him letting yet another opportunity for freedom slip through my fingers.
Mamma seemed relieved and wanted to celebrate, so she stopped at Burger King and got us all hamburgers. It made me sick that Mamma was in a good mood. She was trying to be nice to us now when she was usually so mean. I shuddered as she put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it while she gloated about her ability to fool the government.
