Dear Evie: The Lost Memories of a Lost Child

by P. J. Rhea

  The card was a picture of the ocean and Mama had written the words, “Love and miss you.”

  “I remember thinking how sad it was that they didn’t want to meet such a wonderful, loving child.” She smiled at me while giving the complement.

  “I remember that. I had so much fun staying here for four whole days. It was like summer camp.”

  We both laughed about the things we’d done that week. Carla had made it special for me. We’d baked dozens of cookies, made a fortress out of her beautiful quilts by draping them over the dining room chairs, and she’d read me so many books I’d lost count. The memories were flooding over me, and as she reminisced over those days long ago, I was a child again and she was my grandmother, not biologically but in my heart. I remembered the love I felt from her and the love I had for her in return. Carla Wilson had given my scary childhood a bright spot of hope and, I was glad I was recalling the good feelings I’d enjoyed in her house.

  “There’s one more thing, Evie… I mean, Katherine, that I want you to have.”

  She seemed a little embarrassed by her slip of the tongue but quickly recovered and rushed to the closet to retrieve something. She brought out a box, and inside the box was a paper bag covered in stickers of brightly colored flowers. Carla reached down into the paper bag and pulled out a blond, curly haired doll. The very instant that her bright blue eyes and little red plastic lips peeked out of the sack, my heart was filled with joy. My first impulse was to grab the doll and hold her close, but Gracie ran to her and grabbed it before I had a chance. When I looked into the little plastic face, a flood of memories poured through my mind, and I knew the doll as well as I’d ever known anyone on earth. I looked at Carla Wilson, and we both had wet eyes from tears we didn’t want to shed. As Gracie sat and loved on the doll from Evie’s past, I placed my hand over Carla’s and smiled with overwhelming gratitude.

  “You saved her for me. I remember I asked you if she could live with you because Ralph started teasing me so much about playing with dolls. He used her as a threat to keep me in line.”

  I had a strange knot in my stomach. I knew the doll held all my terrible secrets. I knew she held a memory that scared me more than any other I’d had, but I didn’t have any idea what it could be. But at the same time it was as if I’d been reunited with my best friend in the whole world. Carla smiled and nodded without speaking. I could tell she was working hard to hold back her tears.

  Memories had flooded back for both of us. Hours spent in the old swing on her front porch, singing childhood songs, and reading storybooks she kept safe for me at her house. I realized then that Carla had been the keeper of my best memories. Grace and Evie had both sought refuge with her, and I remembered the love I had for her as a child. I struggled not to cry in front of Gracie, but the ache in my heart was almost too painful and a few tears did escape. The memories of the dear woman did not feel like they were just Evie’s memories. They belonged to me as well, and I gladly welcomed them into my mind and heart to keep forever this time.

  Once Gracie finished looking the doll over, she handed it to me. I stared into the eyes of the doll as if they held the keys to my childhood. If she could speak, there were secrets that only that doll could reveal. Like a movie playing in my head, I recalled the day I brought the doll to Carla. Ralph had made it impossible to enjoy my companion. It was close to my tenth birthday. My body was showing slight changes, and Ralph seemed to be more aware of them than I was. Small breast buds were making it necessary to wear a beginner’s bra. It had no cups. It just basically helped make the growth less obvious in a T-shirt. Hair had shown up in areas usually kept covered, but Ralph knew. I’d finally talked my mother into letting me use the tub in the bathroom down the hall. In exchange I helped to keep the clothes washed up and hung to dry in other places so not to obstruct the tub. Ralph had insisted that I not lock the door.

  “If you slip and fall, we couldn’t get to you,” was his reasoning.

  He could think of more reasons to come in when I was taking my bath. He needed a shirt that had been hung to dry, even though he was not leaving for work, or he was checking on me because he heard a bump and thought I might have fallen. He even came in a few times to use the toilet. He made no effort to face away or keep me from seeing his penis. When I looked away, or if I tried to cover my body, he would laugh in a way that made me feel so strange in the pit of my stomach. A fear of something I didn’t understand, like when I was younger and he would sit on the edge of the tub while I washed myself. My doll companion had been a witness to it all. She was with me always, and I would hold her tight to me when he would make me feel afraid.

  Ralph had lost his job about a year before I asked Carla to keep my doll. It seemed to make him feel better if he could show power over us. Once I locked the door despite his orders not to. I had hoped he would notice it was locked and just go to the other bathroom. He was enraged and gave me to the count of three to unlock it. I stood there naked and helpless as he screamed at me, his finger in my face and a look of insanity on his face.

  “You ever go against my orders again, and I’ll take that doll and beat you with it,” he snarled in a low threatening voice while putting his face so close to mine I could feel his breath puff out in my face.

  He pulled the dolls head off and flung it to the floor before slamming the door shut and sitting down on the toilet to watch as I finished my bath. Mama was outside the door pleading with him to leave me alone.

  “Ralph, she is getting too old to need help. Please just give her some privacy.”

  He looked at me with that smile that only went up on one side of his face, and his eyes showed that he felt triumphant. He handed me the washcloth and told me to get myself clean. I hurried to finish all the while keeping my eyes on the eyes of my doll as its head lay on the floor. Mama fixed my doll, but it became a weapon for Ralph to keep me in line. Once he hid her while I was at school, and I searched for days to find her while he chuckled softly at my heartbreak. Mama would help me search and Ralph would pretend he had no idea where she could be. My doll kept all my secrets for me and was the only one I could talk to about the man I hated so much. I finally found her in his closet shoved into an old work boot. I knew he would punish me for being in his closet, so I took my doll to Carla so she would be safe.

  “Katherine, would you like more tea, dear?” Carla smiled at me with the teapot in hand.

  “Yes, thank you, I would love more tea.”

  I could tell that Carla and Gracie were unaware of my trip back to the past. Only seconds had passed since I took the doll, but I had relived days of hell in those seconds.

  “Mommy, what is the doll’s name?”

  I looked at Gracie, and then at the doll. Carla looked at me waiting to see if I knew and at the exact same time we both answered her.

  “Her name is Hope,” we said.

  “I called her Hope,” I said in almost a whisper.

  I smiled and looked in the face of my plastic friend again. Hope was the perfect name for you, I thought.

  Carla had given me a great gift in returning my friend to me. Gracie was excited to have her because she belonged to me when I was little. I was just happy to have more proof that Evie was present and I was getting closer to remembering her and possibly putting us together again.

  The postcard was my only link to family. I had no idea if my brother, Stephen, was with family in Florida or not, but at least it was a start. The address was from 1991, when Ralph and Grace had taken baby Stephen to meet Ralph’s parents. I would write a letter and mail it to that address. Perhaps if Stephen Dark lived there, he would read the letter and want to meet me. Carla also knew the name of the town in Oklahoma where Grace’s parents had lived.

  “She talked about her hometown of Caddo a lot. Told me how much she missed her mom and that she wanted to go back there some day.”

  Carla gave a sad wishful look at Gracie, but I knew she was actually remembering Evie.

  “I have wi
shed a thousand times that she had made it back to Oklahoma.”

  I thought maybe an ad in the local paper of that town in Oklahoma might give me a lead. I had to consider that he might have been sent to live with Grace’s family instead of Ralphs. I had to cover all the possible scenarios.

  ***

  Jason was glad I’d enjoyed my visit. Gracie was talking a mile a minute telling him all about the nice lady who had a tea party for us and how she had a new doll that once belonged to Mommy and that I used to live where Ms. Carla’s garden was now. I looked into the happy excited eyes of my daughter as she relayed her adventure to her daddy. She had no idea how blessed and lucky she was. She felt secure and loved and safe with her daddy and her mommy, and her dreams were of princess castles and ponies. How I envied her. If Frank Moon had not been killed, would my childhood have been so different from Gracie’s? I prayed she would always be this happy. That she would know she was safe and loved.

  Dear Evie:

  I find myself crying for you so many nights as I try to sleep. I got your doll back for you. Hope was your companion and friend. I will keep her safe for you just as Carla did for all these years. I am still looking for Stephen, and I am still hearing you. Tell me everything so you can heal. So we can heal.

  Katherine

  ***

  Dr. Anna had been more than ready to hear all about my visit to Harmony, North Carolina, and all the detail of my search for Stephen. Without meeting her, Dr. Anna had become a big fan of Carla Wilson and would have to know before our sessions if I had heard from her since our last appointment. Talking to Carla was becoming a weekly habit. She was family now. That was the simple fact of it.

  “The search for Stephen has not been productive so far,” I admitted. “I have written two letters to the Florida address hoping to reach him. They both said the same thing, but I thought that I would send a second one in case the first one somehow got lost. They were both returned unopened yesterday.”

  I looked at Dr. Anna to see her reaction or to see if she was looking at me for my reaction, but she just continued to look at her thick folder and make notes, so I explained my feelings anyway.

  “I tried not to dwell on those letters because the truth was I didn’t want him to be there. I had been given the impression they were not the nicest of people.”

  There was still no reaction but more writing.

  “I have also placed an ad in the personals section of the local paper both in Webster, Florida, and Caddo, Oklahoma. Even if Stephen himself doesn’t see them, I’m hoping someone who knows him will and tell him about them.”

  She glanced up at me finally and seemed to be waiting for me to say more. To tell her what I was feeling.

  “Does he even know he had an older half-sister? And if he does know, maybe he doesn’t want to meet me. If Ralph Dark’s family raised him, he might have been told terrible things about me or our mother. Maybe they were mean and evil and that was why Ralph Dark was so evil. I have to be prepared for the possibility that Stephen is just like his father.” Suddenly I wasn’t sure it was a good idea to introduce him to my family, to my daughter. “Maybe I should have left that part of my past forgotten. I could be hunting for a monster. But what if he was raised by someone who was totally opposite of Ralph? He may be a kind man, not at all like Ralph. I will never know unless I look for him, unless I find him. But one thing I have learned from all of this is that no matter how scary it is, it is better to know the truth so I can deal with it.”

  Dr. Anna smiled at me with obvious empathy. She understood my need to deal with my inner conflict, so she let me go on and on about it, arguing with myself out loud on all the pros and cons of the situation, knowing full well that I might never hear anything back from any of it. After all, I had no idea if Stephen Dark was even his name now. That brought on another thought: Was it possible that he knew about me? Had he tried to find me and failed because I had a different name? He would be an adult now, and it was not unthinkable that he had known about me all along and was searching for his big sister. The sister who had saved him from the terrible fire that killed his parents. Finally, Dr. Anna reached over and placed her hand on mine in an effort to stop my rambling.

  “I think it is time to lie down and relax, Katherine. You are getting all worked up and it could keep the hypnosis from being effective. These sessions always help you relax and maybe the memories you continue to experience will give you clues about Stephen.”

  At that point I was coming once a week for those sessions. Each time I would remember more detail of Evie and my forgotten childhood. Some sessions would produce good memories, especially when she was very young and when she spent time with Grace. I would remember Evie being her little helper in the kitchen or Grace reading books to her. I also remembered times with Carla, the fun I had at her house, and the fact that I always felt safe there.

  Other sessions were filled with horrible memories of Ralph Dark and the torture he enjoyed releasing on them. The older Evie was in the memory, the more likely it would be a bad one, and the scarier Ralph was. In the memories after age nine, when he was no longer working and drinking more than ever, he was especially cruel, as if he were punishing them for his failures.

  Grace was being spared the physical brunt of it while pregnant, but the verbal and emotional pain increased. He was so determined to put Evie through daily sessions of humiliation and pain, and that caused Grace to worry herself to the point of sickness. The doctor could not understand why she wasn’t gaining more weight and told her she needed to just relax and stay off her feet as much as possible until the baby came.

  Grace might have asked the doctor for help, told him the truth of the house of horrors she was trapped in, but Ralph made sure Evie was always with him when she went to the doctor. She was afraid of what he might do to her if she caused any suspicion to be aimed toward him.

  The memories of my mother just after the baby came were the best ones that included Ralph. He had the son he had wanted and had found a job doing construction work again, so he was in a good mood for a couple of months. He was so thrilled about his boy that he hardly noticed Evie at all and that was fine by her. Dr. Anna had led us through the long weekend when Ralph had taken Grace and Stephen to Florida to show him off to his parents.

  Carla had been so kind to us, and I always smiled when my memories led me to time spent with her. I would allow Dr. Anna to lead me right up to the day before the fire. Whenever she would instruct me to move forward to that time, I would wake up abruptly, almost hyperventilating. Evie seemed to be so afraid of that memory she could not allow me to see it. How horrible must it have been if she had let me see all the other tortures but that one she refused to relive?

  “Katherine, I think we will take a few weeks off and give you time to process everything. Things have been happening so fast, maybe if you take some time to get your mind wrapped around the things you do remember, you will be ready to face this final memory. Please do continue to keep your journal of any dreams or memories we haven’t already talked about.”

  It wasn’t easy to stop the weekly visits, but I knew she was right. My mind was whirling with all the memories that still belonged mostly to Evie. I remembered them and even felt the emotions that went with them. Happiness, sadness, fear, terror, anger all lived in me, but it still felt like I was separate from Evie, and those memories were still mostly her memories and feelings. I had tried to explain that to Dr. Anna, to Jason, and even to myself but I could never find the words. It made no sense. I would feel as if I was having a memory and I was Evie. At those moments we were one and the same, and I could actually remember being Evie. The next memory might feel as if I were only a witness. I would see what was happening to Evie, but it was as if I was watching from a distance. I was only Katherine during those memories, and Evie was no part of me.

  I also had sessions where it felt as if we were two totally separate beings feeling the exact same thing. We seemed to share the same heart. It was us
ually during a dream that I felt the shared spirit. My heart would pound in sync with hers and we would share the fear. I felt as if I was trapped inside her little body and forced to experience everything along with her.

  Some of the memories had explained things I had always wondered about. I have a deep scar on my left knee. It was there when I was adopted, so my mother had no idea how I got it. One day in a session with Dr. Anna, I remembered a day when I was about seven years old.

  I had tried to ride a bicycle Grace had found at the secondhand store. While Grace was watching, Ralph ran up and down the sidewalk with me, holding on to the seat to balance me. I was catching on pretty fast. When Grace went in the house to start dinner, Ralph decided to let go and let me try it on my own. I was so proud of myself and had not even noticed when he stepped behind the tree in our front yard; but when I road past the tree near the end of our yard, Ralph was leaned up against it, and he jumped at me and caused me to wreck the bike.