The Girl in the Treehouse

by Jennifer Asbenson

  “What about at night?” I asked him.

  “Everything we need to do will be done during daylight. That is all there is to it.”

  It was hard to comprehend that we would live there, for now, with no water and no electricity.

  IT WAS SUMMER, AND THIS mountain was our home. This might sound fun or adventurous to the avid nature enthusiast. But I had no bonds with anyone, not even in my own family. My dad was always focused on work and survival. My mom’s attention never left my brother. My little sister was just a toddler, and my older sister was a loner, never to be found. I was alone in my family.

  We slept in the car or on the mountain for about two weeks, until my dad had a double-wide trailer brought up from the compound. Our long, white, battered house on wheels had no water or electricity. I had believed the arrival of the trailer meant we would have water and electricity. I was wrong. It meant “shelter” and nothing else.

  This might sound horrible to you thus far, but as a child and with the passing of time, living in the middle of nowhere, without water and electricity and a roof over my head, was not awful. Have you ever imagined something in your mind and believed it so much that for those few seconds, you were filled with an amazing feeling? My imagination was my source of happiness, my source of comfort. You could even say my imagination was the key to my sanity.

  I taught myself to create things that were not there. I taught myself to change the circumstances inside my head. I began to daydream often. My thoughts made me happy, and I had something to focus on that intrigued me immensely during my waking hours. My imagination gave me hope.

  My dad moved quickly and started to build our house. We pretended to be normal. Our food came from boxes and cans, nothing ever hot. My mom would bring home a shopping bag full of surprise canned foods. None of them had labels, just prices written in a black marker. The fifty-cent ones were the best—they usually contained beans or corn. Gina and I would fight over them. No one ever wanted the ten-cent cans; they were banged up and usually contained something gross in them.

  Our water came from a spout on the back of the local convenience store. We hauled empty jugs and filled them up. My mom would pull right up behind the store, with no shame. If I ever saw a kid my age or older, I would hide. I was embarrassed, but once the jugs were full, I was happy to have water. When we returned home, I always hid a jug behind a rock on the mountain, for my personal use. I hated feeling dirty, so I cleaned myself with the water. No one ever knew.

  SOON AFTER OUR MOVE TO the mountain, we set up lookout points for spotting my brother. My brother would try to run away but wouldn’t get far because we always saw him. There was nowhere to hide. It was still my job to watch him. But I grew tired of chasing him. One day, I found a rope and tied it around his waist. He had so much energy and strength. If he ran, he would pull me, so I soon realized I had to tie him to unmovable objects like cars or trees. I sat near him while he tried to break free. I talked to him as if he could understand me. I tried to pretend to be a “normal” child, but I had forgotten what normal was.

  My brother and I developed a bond. He was someone I could talk to. But he was like a hyena disguised in a human body, only capable of moving fast and making strange noises. I spent most of the day with him and often prayed for God to fix him. I felt certain that if he was normal, everything else could be normal too.

  From the first day on the mountain, I imagined living where the grass was greener. We had no grass, only dirt, but there was a place that was normal, a place not in my imagination. Every day, I would mentally go to this place as I was physically dragged around the mountain by my brother on a rope.

  The mountain adjacent to ours boasted life: families, children, birds, trees, and grass. Civilization. This was the place I could not take my eyes off of. Imagine a vast, C-shaped mountain. We lived on the south side of the C, and they lived on the north side. Desert wildlife lived in the middle. There were also desert washes. But there were absolutely no homes. There was so much rugged desert in the middle you couldn’t even walk across to the other side. It divided us from civilization. We were separated from them; we were not a part of their community. We knew no one, and no one knew us. Division gives you a sense of difference, and different we were.

  We had binoculars in case my brother got away. I used them to stare at the other side for hours. Sometimes my eye sockets would hurt, or I would get a headache, but the pain never deterred me from my guilty watchful pleasure.

  In my mind, I helped people carry in their groceries and put them away. The neighborhood children played with me. I had my own tree-house. Barbecues and music were a regular part of my days. I had a room with a TV and lights that shut off at the same time every night. There was a beautiful bed for me, with someone to tuck me in and kiss me goodnight.

  When I traveled emotionally to the other side, I was normal. I had families and friends who did not know they had me. I lived to watch others live.

  While I write this, I smile. I let the nostalgia of my childhood “self-pity” bring comfort. I am now “where the grass is greener,” and the experience of looking back to a time when the grass seemed impossibly far away is, well, it’s just magical. Magical in a sense that I get to relive all the emotions, all of the depths of humanity I experienced, and still know that when the show is over, I can return home. As ironic as it seems to find comfort in revisiting a place and time where there was none, it is true. Turning back the clock always gives me a sense of joy.

  By the time the summer of 1981 was about to end, my dad had the entire frame of the house built. There was no roof yet, just beams, two-by-fours, and splintery wood flooring upstairs and on the stairs. The bones of the house were in place. The entire process of the house coming to life was surprising and thrilling.

  First, there was a huge round slab of concrete for flooring. We could play hopscotch, bounce balls, and pretend to ice skate under the stars at night. The frame was built on this slab, of course. There was wood everywhere, and a large scaffold that brought hours of entertainment.

  The experience of the transformation—from two huge boxes to a framed, two-story house—was more than magical; sometimes I did not know if it was reality or my imagination. I was not impressed with the fact that ours was a unique home because I did not yet know the difference between ordinary and extraordinary.

  I slept in an open-roofed house with a fantastic view of God’s starry sky. I had a small room upstairs. Gina claimed the large one.

  Because the house was round, the roof was curved, thus making the outer walls curved. Some of the bedroom walls were straight up and down, but because the roof was bent, the walls did not touch the ceiling. There was about a four-foot gap between the bedroom walls and the ceiling. A hammock made out of a sheet hung between two four-by-fours. Material from my grandma made beautiful walls.

  The less you have, the more creative you become. When you are always forced to think outside the box to create a sense of normality, it becomes a life skill. The process is complicated but satisfying, at the time. When you eventually have more to work with, the talent stays with you, and you naturally approach things differently than others. Solutions that seem reasonable to you seem unique and creative to others.

  My responsibilities ceased at night. My brother slept with my parents wherever they slept. Fantasies controlled my mind at dusk. No cares were present, and the vast night sky transformed into a magical movie screen. The feelings I could create in my soul were out of this world. Someday, I knew these feelings would become real, and I would be set free.

  I found solace in strange places: the expansive night sky, the mountain where the grass was greener, and inside the two-seater outhouse.

  My dad built a two-seater outhouse in case two people had to go to the bathroom at once. There was never anyone else in there when I used the outhouse, though. If the door was closed, I used a bush instead. The outhouse was nice … for an outdoor bathroom. A toilet paper roll and a magazine rack were on
each side. The outhouse brought comfort during the day. If I had to use it, I could relieve myself from responsibility and lock myself away from reality for five or ten minutes and look at magazines. The only thing I hated was that it smelled like crap.

  IN ORDER TO NAVIGATE THE house at night, I memorized every square foot of the rooms and hallways. This feat was accomplished through persistent practice sessions: I walked the path again and again with my eyes shut during the day. Like many lessons, I first learned the importance of the need for this skill the hard way. One night, I attempted to go downstairs to the outhouse and reached out to the railing to stabilize myself. There was no railing; I fell far. Night struggles like those led to some great innovation. I soon created a duct tape trail from my room, down the stairs, through the living room, and to the front door. I would walk along that trail like it was a tightrope, with arms out to make sure nothing was in the way. The success of the duct tape system was extremely gratifying.

  You can have a lot of fun inside an unfinished house. Missing drywall, open floors, exposed rafters: all of these served to make our half-finished house my circus. I could climb the walls and tie my brother to the exposed studs. Hide-and-seek at night was a blast. I mastered the feat of balancing myself on top of a sideways fifty-five-gallon drum and rolling my way across the yard. The place was a major hazard, of course, and after an imperfect jump one day, a warped beam landed on my toe. The result of my blunder was a blackened toenail that fell off shortly after.

  I began to see the possibilities of what the house could become, and what that could mean. Life started to look better to me.

  My mom began to read a favorite tabloid magazine to us for entertainment. It had all kinds of freaky and bizarre stories she said were true.

  “This woman had a two-headed baby.” She turned the magazine to show us.

  My eyes widened. “I guess she was cursed too.”

  My mom’s excitement lessened. “Poor woman.”

  When Mom was nice, I liked her so much. She seemed like she was a different person.

  She still yelled and screamed and hit me now and then—only me, never my siblings. I was the scapegoat. One time, she started to hit me inside the house, so I ran outside to look for my dad for protection. He had failed to protect me in the past, but he had never seen any of the violent assaults. If he were to watch while it happened, maybe he would believe me and help me. I had gone to him for help before, and he reminded me that if my bones were not broken, I was fine.

  “If kids behaved in the first place, they wouldn’t get hit,” he would say.

  Now that I was a bit older, I began to rebel and talk back to my mom. Her behavior was wrong, and I wanted it to stop. This time she was furious, and she stalked me inside the house and around the property, occasionally losing her breath because I was fast. She had no fly swatters or belts, but I still felt terror. She reached a point when she couldn’t chase me anymore and tried to lure me to her. She stood hunched with her hands on her knees, with a red, puffy face. She struggled to get her words out.

  “Come here,” she said.

  I walked slowly backwards. “No, you’re going to hit me.”

  She tried to stand, then bent back over. “I won’t. Come here.”

  “No,” I said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Don’t hit me.” I tried to sound apologetic so that she would change her mind.

  “Here.” She stood up. “Let me give you a hug.” Her arms reached out.

  My eyes squinted, and there was a whine in my voice. “No. You’re tricking me.”

  She huffed and tried to stay standing erect. She took a breath and spoke right through her next words. “I’m not, I promise it’s over. Let’s hug.”

  My mind raced as I tried to determine if I should risk an attack for my mother’s affection. My arms were crossed with each hand on the opposite shoulder. My chest and heart needed to be protected from her. Cautiously, I walked toward her as I trembled. Then I stopped.

  “Promise?” I asked.

  “Yes, come on,” she replied.

  When I reached her, I opened my shaky arms and reluctantly wrapped them around her thick waist. Just as I thought I was safe and imagined my mom loved me after all, I felt like I was being attacked by an animal. She snatched me by the hair and hit me anywhere she could. My face was not off-limits. When she was in a tizzy, she did not care, and she did not punish with love. What she exhibited was hate, pure hate.

  “You little bitch.” She kept her grasp tight so I couldn’t escape her grip. “You think you’re better than everyone else.”

  After breaking free from her clutches, I ran. “You’re a bitch,” I yelled as I skedaddled over the hill. “I hate you.”

  When I was far away from her, I sat down on the mountain and anxiously tended to my wounds. My dad was somewhere on the property and surely heard the commotion. If my mom hurt me harsh enough, he would care and help me, and she wouldn’t harm me anymore, I thought. No bones were broken, but he didn’t know that. His shovel aggressively plowed into the earth as I formulated retribution. A rock beside me grabbed my attention. My hand quivered as my fingers folded around it. I clenched it tight in my hand, took a deep breath, squinted my eyes, and smashed it into my face. Blood gushed everywhere. The pain was intense; I was undaunted. After I frantically buried the rock, I ran to the ditch my dad stood in and demanded his attention.

  “Dad! Look! Look what Mom did to me!” I said as he turned around. “I think she broke my nose.” Blood dripped from my nose onto my hands and shirt.

  He took a look at me and was not surprised. “I bet you did it to yourself.” He continued to dig.

  “No! Mom attacked me! Didn’t you hear her?”

  He never answered. Gravity assisted the drama as blood splattered onto my nasty bare feet. But it was too late; he had gone back to work as if the last five minutes never happened. Frozen in defeat, I stood there and wished I would bleed to death. Maybe then he would bury me in that precious ditch of his. It was my fault; it was all my fault, I thought, after I told myself I was a stupid idiot to think he would have swept me up in his arms and defended me. Disappointment was unearthed in the ditch that day.

  There was never any time to bask in my own despair. Self-hate killed me. Reluctant to indulge in my madness, I headed back toward the house. Simple flickers of normalcy would get me back on track, and it just so happened that this night was bath night. Because it only happened once a month, bath night was special.

  Baths went in order of seniority, according to my mom. My dad and Jay Jay went first, then her, then Gina, and finally me. The only good thing about the situation was that my mom loathed baths, so she never took them, and she wouldn’t give them to my little sister either.

  The bathtub was installed before the house was even complete, but the bathroom area was enclosed. Because our bathtub was humongous and our water came from the tank on the top pad, we had to share the same water. That meant by the time I got in, the water was cold and black.

  On the evening I smashed the rock into my face, I took my bath, but the dark water did not bother me. By now, we had 9V lights connected throughout the house, generated from the battery in the car. The light was dim, but it didn’t matter. As I soaked in the murky water, I found delight in reminiscing about the time our goat, Dolly, got upset, bombarded my mom, and broke her ugly, oversized eyeglasses with her horns. My mom had searched blindly as her hands scoured through the pellet-sized poop and damp hay, in an attempt to locate the popped-out lenses. Her face looked distraught, and her lens-less eyeglasses hung sideways from her pissed-off face. She called Dolly a bitch, over and over. Anytime I needed to feel satisfaction, I’d think of this. It was like Dolly got back at her for all the bad things my mom had done or would do, almost like divine intervention.

  When my mom wasn’t on a vicious rampage, she was a pleasant person to be around. I began to imagine in my mind that she was two people. My mom was the “mean lady” who hated me and wanted me dead, and Alice
was nice and, sometimes, appeared to have a heart. For some reason, this helped me to differentiate the two.

  WE BEGAN TO FIND OUR place on the south mountain. The north began to lose its appeal to me. Our bizarre, spaceship-style home had started to get the attention of the people on the other side, where the grass was greener. People now seemed interested in us and would recognize our cars at the local convenience store and ask my mom questions. My mom would tell them we were building a geodesic dome, and the looks on their faces made me feel that maybe our house was special. My mom was annoyed when people asked questions. She wished they would mind their own damn business, but I liked their inquiries because they seemed fascinated by my dad’s creation.

  When summer was near its end and school was about to start, my dad told us he had a surprise. His boss gave him two weeks of vacation, and we would head to Oregon on a trip. This was a shock to us because Gina, Jay Jay, and I were set to start school the next week. Gina and I were to attend the same elementary school together, and Jay Jay would attend a special school for children with disabilities. The announcement of this vacation brought both excitement and terror.

  The bond between two children begins when school starts. If you arrived late, your opportunity to find companionship was botched, especially if you were introverted like me. Whichever kid was left over, after all the other boys and girls paired up, was the one I planned to befriend. Aggressive kids had more friends, and it was not my nature to compete. Beggars could not be choosers, my mom always said. She usually spoke these words around dinnertime, but I found her wise words to ring true in many situations.

  Before we left for Oregon, I hung up a pretty dress my grandma gave me for school, so it would be ready when we returned. My knee-high socks were washed with dish soap in the water behind the convenience store and hung to dry near my dress. These socks were very special to me because they covered all of the vitiligo on my legs. “Cow-Girl” was not a name I would be called at my new school.