Other times he would murmur, “Remember this is our secret. If you tell your mother she’ll put me in jail and I’ll have to leave. You don’t want me to go away, do you honey?”
At six years old, I didn’t know what jail was but it sounded bad to me, and I knew I didn’t want to be responsible for him leaving. I would do anything I could to make sure that didn’t happen. My father’s weekly or monthly visits—I can’t recall how often—went on for several years. It became our secret, and it ruled my life. I got used to being awaken in the middle of the night. Keeping my eyes tightly shut, I couldn’t wait for it to end; yet other times I even enjoyed how he made me feel.
Whether my young mother was at work, or dead tired from the sleeping pills she ingested, she never woke up, nor did anyone else during his nighttime visits. Throughout the years while this was happening, my sister seemed to be nowhere in sight, even though we both shared the same bed, and the ironic thing was, I never wondered where she was.
As I got older and realized what Dad was doing to me was wrong, I began to feel guilty and ashamed. Sometimes I tried to protest in the darkness of my room. Then he began to threaten me. “If you don’t do this with me I will do this to your sister.” I was determined to protect my sister at any cost, I did not want her to go through the horror I was experiencing.
My father spoke things to me and masterfully manipulated me into thinking it was all my fault. The words he used were meticulously chosen and I believed him and blamed myself for the terror in the night.
2
I Was Chosen
“You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.” Psalm 139: 15-16
Throughout my childhood, my daddy wasn’t home much. He spent long hours at work and even longer hours gambling at the casinos in Las Vegas. Being a full-time homemaker meant Mom was home alone with us in the hot, desert town of Henderson, Nevada, where I was born in 1955. She kept busy with her then four children. Looking forward to Daddy coming home to eat dinner with the family was the highlight of my young mothers’ day. Mom would spend hours preparing delicious, homemade meals, then she’d dress us in our finest clothes and seat us at the dining room table. Hence, the waiting would begin.
“I’m so hungry. Can we eat?” I asked, as I licked my tongue against my lips, salivating over the fried chicken at the table.
“No, let’s wait just a little longer for Daddy to come home.”
“But we’re so hungry,” whined my siblings.
“Just a little longer,” Mom walked back and forth glancing out the front window, holding the baby in her arms.
Suddenly a car drove up. Flinging open the front door, my mother watched sadly as it turned around in our driveway and kept going down the street.
“Please, Mommy can’t we eat. I don’t want to wait for Daddy anymore,” cried my older brother, Mike.
Reluctantly, she would dish out our servings. Sitting at the table, watching us eat, Mom was determined to share supper with her husband, no matter what time he showed up. Usually it was hours later, after all us kids had fallen asleep. Rarely did he return home while we were still awake. The loneliness my mother felt during her marriage must have begun at this time.
When I was almost four our family moved to Fontana, California where my dad got a job with Kaiser Steel and within months our mother was pregnant with her fifth child. A year later her sixth, and final, child would follow.
Shortly after arriving in California, my youthful parents drove us kids to the mountains to see snow for the first time. We pulled over on the way to Big Bear and stopped at a nearby gas station. Bundled up in my warm, furry coat, I reached out my little hands and watched, fascinated, as the cold, white flakes cascaded onto my tiny fingers. Mesmerized with the snow, I put it to my lips and felt its chill on my warm tongue. “It’s freezing Daddy,” I shivered.
Smiling at my father whom I adored, I listened as he patiently explained to me all about the snow.
We called our new home “the spider house,” they seemed to be everywhere. I loved hanging out at the house next door after my brother went to school. My mother said I missed him terribly and cried every day after he left. The little boy that lived next door, Greg, was my age and had lots of freckles. We played while our mothers drank coffee, gossiped, and watched the younger children.
One morning while I was at Greg’s house, Mom called from across the street. “Debra come here, I want you to help our neighbors, they locked themselves out of their house.” Pointing to a small garage window she said, “I need you to crawl in and run through the garage, then go in the house and unlock the front door.”
I wanted desperately to please my mother. Hoisting me up, she pushed my body through the small, daunting window. Suddenly, I froze and started screaming, “No, I don’t want to go in Mommy. I’m afraid; it’s so dark in here. I can’t see anything. Take me out!”
While I was halfway in and halfway out, my mother tried to coax me into moving forward but I continued screaming. Finally, she pulled me out and I noticed her face--she stared at me with that disappointed look!
“Debra was scared of the dark, but you’re not afraid to go through this window are you Greg?”
Jumping up and down, eager to get started he bragged, “I can do it. I’m not a scaredy-cat.”
Greg ran through the dark garage and into the house. Proudly, he opened the front door, the adults applauded him. That should have been me.
After that experience my father, took advantage of my unwarranted fears, and sometimes at night he and Mom would load us kids into the family station wagon. Shutting off the headlights, he purposely drove down the lane with walnut trees that lined both sides. It was the darkest and scariest street in the whole town.
“Open your eyes, there’s nothing to be afraid of,” he’d taunt me.
“Stop it, turn the lights back on. Please let’s go home,” I’d wail, as my siblings and parents laughed.
It was probably just a harmless family game. Maybe it was his way of teaching me not to be afraid of the dark, but I felt like such a coward. Why was I so afraid of the dark? Why couldn’t I be brave?
Even though I was temporarily angry with my dad it was all forgotten in the morning when I would hear my father singing nonsensical songs while preparing our breakfast. “Cream of Wheat is so good to eat and it makes you feel so fine.” Each of us kids would roar with laughter as we tried to keep in tune with him. When Dad was around, which wasn’t often, he liked to cook, and he’d make a big deal out of preparing a meal. Adding a little bit of beer to the spaghetti sauce, he’d raise the bottle up to his lips and drink the rest. All us kids were his audience and we loved standing around the kitchen hearing our father’s laughter. Often times he would set out small bowls and spoons on the kitchen table at night. The next morning all we had to do was pour our cereal and milk before we set out for school. He was thoughtful that way.
My father had other ways of amusing the family. Early one Saturday morning, Mom motioned to our dad. “Bob, go to the swap meet and get a washing machine. The dirty clothes are piling up.”
Hours later Dad returned home in a friend’s borrowed truck. He walked around to the back, opened the latch and led out a darling, brown and white spotted calf.
My mother was livid. “Where’s my washing machine?”
“Oh, Inez I couldn’t resist. Look at those big brown eyes. Isn’t he cute?”
My siblings and I roared with laughter but Mom was furious. “Bob, that cow has to go.”
“Okay, I will return him tomorrow.”
We spent the whole day paying attention to our new pet. Early the next morning we couldn’t wait to visit him. Opening up the garage door, the smell of a sewer rushed
out at us. Yuck! That adorable, little calf made a nasty mess all over the garage floor during the night. Dad promptly loaded him on the truck and took him back to the swap meet and returned home with Mom’s new washing machine.
3
Neighbors, Friends and Fights
“He who brings trouble on his family will inherit only wind, and the fool will be a servant to the wise.” Proverbs 11:29
I was just about to start kindergarten when we moved from the spider house to our first house on Ceres Drive, in a low-income neighborhood in Fontana. One day, while I was standing out back looking through the chain link fence that separated us from the people next-door, I noticed a short, brown-haired girl playing in her backyard. “Hey, what’s your name?”
“My name is Theresa. What’s yours?”
“I’m Debbie. I’m five, how old are you?”
“I’m five, the same as you.”
Then I met Theresa’s older sister, who was named Debbie, she was ten.
When Debbie got a little older she became our regular babysitter when Mom started working on Saturdays. Our father’s absence was a regular occurrence; no one seemed bothered by that because we knew Debbie would come over and watch us. Saturday mornings were the highlight of the week for my siblings and me. Whoever woke up first was careful not to awaken the others because the first kid to the TV set was king of the television and was able to pick their favorite cartoon. I’d forgo breakfast to have the TV all to myself even if for only a few minutes. Tom and Jerry, Roadrunner, Felix the Cat, and Bugs Bunny were some of my favorites. On evenings when my parents went out we could always count on Debbie to babysit us. She’d fix dinner and give us our baths, and put us to bed.
Sometimes, after tucking us in for the night I’d feel a light tap on my shoulder, “Deb, you’re old enough to stay up late. Want to get back up and watch a movie with me?”
“Yea!” I’d start to yell excitedly.
“Shhh… you’ll wake up your sister. Come on let’s go.”
I felt so special because Debbie picked me to stay up with her.
Years later my older brother, Mike and I shared stories. “Debbie always woke me up and let me watch TV with her while everybody else slept,” I bragged.
“Silly girl, Debbie would get me up on the nights you were still in bed. Ha! Ha! And you thought you were the only one.”
Debbie and our mom had a close relationship. They were more like mother and daughter. Mom taught Debbie how to cook and the two of them frequently sat at the dining room table having heart-to-heart talks. As the years went by they’d sip coffee and Debbie would divulge her boy troubles and family problems to my mom.
Most of the adolescent kids in the neighborhood enjoyed spending time with our mother. The teenage girls often confided in her, and the boys called her Sofia. Mom resembled the actress, Sofia Loren with long, thick, dark hair, big brown eyes, wavy lashes, and olive skin. (Although Sofia Loren was Italian, while Mom was Spanish.) Our mother looked young for her age and acted youthful. She enjoyed kidding around with all our friends, especially the teenage boys in the neighborhood. Mom made everyone laugh but often at home she was moody, bossy, unkind and opinionated.
The sixties were a time when the neighborhood ladies went from house to house with their cups of coffee in hand to visit each other. We’d follow Mom and play with their kids. Every Thursday night the housewives would get together and watch their favorite singer, Tom Jones. We could hear them swooning over his songs and watch them blowing kisses at the television set.
One of my mom’s neighborhood friends, Amelia, had two children. I would often tag along with my mom when she hung out with her. On one of these visits, I overheard Mom say to Amelia, “I just know I’m going to die before I turn thirty-five.”
For years after I had overheard her, I lived in constant fear afraid her prediction would come true. Whenever Mom was sad, depressed or angry, which seemed fairly often, I did whatever I could to comfort her. Whether it meant taking care of my siblings, cleaning the house, making dinner, keeping the kids quiet, or bringing Mom her prescription drugs, I was consumed with ways to make her happy so she would want to live. Every year, I was relieved when her birthday would come and she was still alive.
My mother and father fought incessantly and as time went on the fights between them escalated. Even though we kids were supposed to be sleeping, the house was so small and the walls were so thin, we would hear bits and pieces of their conversations as they yelled at each other. Sometimes we would hear the words pills, affairs, or booze, but at the time they made no sense to us. We just tried to drown out the screams, holding our pillows over our ears.
“Steve is not even my kid,” Dad would scream.
“Why do you keep throwing it in my face. I made one mistake.” Mom yelled back.
Of course, we didn’t understand what they were talking about, but we later found out our mother and Uncle Sam, my dad’s baby brother, had had an affair and my youngest brother was the result.
Some days we’d come home from school and catch Dad, his eyes red from crying, reading the large family Bible. Grumbling and blaming my mother for everything, he’d try to get us kids to sympathize with him. I had never seen a grown man cry like a baby, and I despised my dad for it. Even at my young age, I knew he was not taking responsibility for his wrong actions, but was trying to make my mother look like the bad one. His performance only reinforced my feelings about my dad, he was a coward and a crybaby. And I was terrified of turning out just like him.
4
Siblings
“Love each other as brothers and sisters. Be tenderhearted and keep a humble attitude.” 1 Peter 3:8b
As I got use to those incidents with my dad, life went on as normal. Somehow, I kept the nighttime activities separated from the daytime. The September I turned seven, our mother planned one big birthday party for my older brother Mike, my sister Monica and me. We were all born in the same month and were only a year apart. Most of the neighborhood kids showed up as we celebrated in the back yard. Mom hung balloons on the clothesline and taped pink and blue crepe paper around an old-fashioned wringer washing machine that stood outside. Then she set out bowls of potato chips and warm chocolate chip cookies on top of our red and black-checkered ironing board. The smell of grilled hot dogs and hamburgers filled the air. After lunch was eaten, Mom put candles in our cake and sang happy birthday to each of us. Later on, she served us a piece of birthday cake with our favorite, strawberry, chocolate and vanilla Neapolitan ice cream. I remember that day because it was the first and last time we celebrated our birthdays together.
A couple years later my mother taught me how to bake from scratch. It wasn’t long before I was the one making the birthday cakes for all five of my siblings, Mike (10), Monica (8), Dave (6), Rob (5), and Steve (4). They’d hang out in the kitchen with me while I prepared their favorite treats.
My little brothers watched me intently, “can I lick the bowl?”
“Of course, and you can each taste a spoonful of the mix.” I motioned to Mike and Monica; I didn’t want anyone left out.
Holidays came and went while we were young and my father was still a part of our lives. The highlight of our Christmas season was attending the annual Christmas party at Kaiser Steel. Before going to bed the night before, Monica and I sat cross-legged on the floor while Mom put soft, pink sponge rollers in our hair. We wanted to look extra special the next day.
In the morning, Mom dressed us in our best clothes. Excitedly, we looked forward to receiving our red, nylon net stockings, filled with penny candy and small trinkets that Santa Claus would hand out.
I had a bad habit my mother called rocking, which I did before falling asleep at night. Leaning on my knees and forearms with my head smashed in my pillow, I would rock back and forth until I fell asleep. One time, the night before the annual Christmas party, with my hair curled tightly a
round pink sponge rollers, I rocked the bed so hard which caused it to move in front of the bedroom door. Sadly, all the rollers fell out. The next morning when I noticed the curlers on my pillow, I ran to my mother sobbing. “Please, curl my hair again and let me sit in front of the swamp cooler, I don’t want to look ugly for the party.”
“No, that is just too bad, young lady. You’re the one who rocked all the rollers out of your hair. It’s your own fault. I’ve asked you time and time again to stop rocking. Maybe now you’ll listen.”
“I promise I will stop.” I hated it when my mother was angry with me and I hated myself for my bad habit. Along with rocking I also sucked my thumb. Over the years Mom tried putting hot sauce on my thumb, bandaging it, or screaming at me every time she saw it in my mouth. Nothing worked and it would take many years before I stopped.
At a young age our mother gave Monica and me the responsibility of pretending to be the tooth fairy and Easter bunny to our younger siblings. When my little brothers started losing their teeth we would quietly sneak in their rooms take their teeth and replace them with nickels and dimes. It was so much fun, we both loved pretending.
Although we rarely had extra money we didn’t realize how poor we were. Sometimes Mom took in ironing to make ends meet. Since Dad was a tightwad, he handled our lack of funds in a different way. Loading us into the family station wagon, he’d direct us to get into the car, “I don’t want any of you kids to wear shoes.”
We’d stop at Pic N Save, Kmart, Penny’s Department store even the grocery market, and our father would march all six of us into the store. “Try on a pair of Zorries (which later were referred to as flip flops.) Here put on these tennis shoes.”
Admiring our brand-new shoes, we’d walk out the door, right past the cash registers, without paying. Other times we would strut out with new outfits. One time, Dad proudly marched with his offspring into Sears and picked out a pair of expensive sunglasses. “Here Dave, see how these look on you.”
Something About Those Eyes Page 2