Dear Evie: The Lost Memories of a Lost Child

by P. J. Rhea

  She was right. I knew that the only way I would heal was with God’s help. I prayed he would help me with the next leg of this healing journey.

  Chapter Fourteen

  My first conversation with my father’s parents had been surprisingly relaxed. I’d been a little reluctant to call Frank Moon’s parents. I really had no memory of my father at all. I had only been a small child when he died and until Evelyn had given me a note from them, I had not even considered them at all. I knew they lived very close to my grandmother and brother, so I decided that I would offer to come to Oklahoma and meet them. Then I could tell Evelyn and Stephen face-to-face about my resurfaced memory of Grace and Ralph’s final day. It really wasn’t the kind of thing I should tell them over the phone.

  Jason was happy about my decision and gladly agreed to come with me. Gracie would come too to meet her other great-grandparents and to see Evelyn and her uncle Stephen again. She had asked about seeing them several times, and they had called and talked to her almost weekly since Christmas. They were family now. It felt right for them to be in my life and in Gracie’s too. I had high hopes that I would feel the same about the Moons once we got to know each other.

  Our trip to Oklahoma was perfect. Frank and Ruth Moon were wonderful, caring people and accepted all three of us into their home and their life with open arms. We spent three days with them pouring over pictures of my father as a child. I could tell he was very loved and missed still today by his parents. He had been their only child, so to finally meet their granddaughter and great-granddaughter had been the thrill of their lives. I knew we would continue to stay in touch with them in the same way we would with Evelyn and Stephen.

  I didn’t tell the Moons all of the details of my childhood or my mother’s tragic ending. I told them how much I wish I could remember their son and that he sounded like a wonderful father. I decided their loss was enough to deal with, and I would not add to their sadness by telling them the unbelievable torture that their beloved Frank’s one true love, his wife, and his only child had gone through after he was taken from them. I did tell them I didn’t think Grace ever stopped loving Frank. I think I was right on that even if no one told me.

  Before heading back home, we stayed the night at Evelyn’s house. I told her that I had not given the Moons the full story and would appreciate it if she didn’t either. She agreed, but I knew she was on pins and needles, almost terrified of what I was about to tell her. Concerning what had happened the night her beloved daughter died in that fire. I wasn’t sure why, but I wanted to tell Evelyn and Stephen the whole story. It just seemed like the right thing to do. I gave them every gruesome detail up until the moment I became Katherine and the memories were hidden from me.

  Evelyn cried for hours and must have apologized to me at least a thousand times. She was determined to take all the blame on herself for what had happened to me and to Grace.

  “If I had not pushed her away when she came to us about the pregnancy, none of this would have happened. How can you ever forgive me, Katherine? How can I ever forgive myself?”

  A twinge of guilt ran through me. Maybe that was the reason I’d told them the details of my story. Maybe I wanted her to feel bad for having turned her daughter away. I had no words of wisdom to make her feel better. I had gone through a long list of emotions during the past year. There had been days when I’d blamed her and Samuel Stewart for the roll they played in pushing their daughter away. I’d blamed Grace for not leaving Ralph sooner or for having ever let him in our lives in the first place. I’d even had a moment of being angry with Evie for making me remember all the horror. And I’d been angry with God for letting such a terrible thing happen to me. How can He let things like this exist in this world? But I knew from my Christian training that God has given us free choice. He wants everyone to follow him, but we must do it willingly. And when sin comes along and either causes us to do wrong or does wrong to us, we can lean on Him to get us through it.

  I also knew that I had to forgive. Not so much for them but for me. Holding on to the anger and pain would only hurt me, and I wanted to heal—to get better. I even began working on forgiving Ralph. I can’t say that I am there yet, but I know he had his own demons that haunted him and contributed to the way he was. I know that God teaches that revenge belongs to Him and I know Ralph did not go unpunished for the things he did. That knowledge has made forgiving the others much easier. Rather than try to talk Evelyn out of feeling guilty, I gave her what she needed in order to heal from the guilt.

  “I forgive you, grandmother, with all my heart.”

  Evelyn burst into tears again and hugged my neck.

  “Thank you so much, Katherine. Thank you for giving me that peace of mind.”

  Stephan seemed to struggle with a little guilt too, but he also had used his logic to explain it away.

  “I feel so bad for what the man who was my father did to you and to our mother; but, after all, I was an infant. There was nothing I could have done to stop him. I guess the one positive I get from this is the evidence that our mother must have loved us so deeply she gave her life to save ours. I want to make her proud,” he said and smiled.

  “I think she is proud of both of us. I know I am.”

  So many bad things had come into my life during the past year, but I’d also been blessed with so many dear people who were now my family. My once tiny family unit that didn’t go beyond my years with the Tipton’s now included several people and went way past the borders of the town I’d lived in for the past twenty years. I didn’t think it could get any better, but that wasn’t true.

  I found out once we returned home that it was going to grow even more. Jason and I were pregnant.

  ***

  It was time to go back to Harmony and visit Carla Wilson. Jason and Gracie were so exhausted from our trip that they decided not to go with me this time. Both had met Carla and knew they would see her again. She had become one of the most important people in my life. I had gotten into the habit of calling her and talking to her almost as often as I called my mother, Vanessa, but she had not pressured me for details. I’d waited until I could meet with her face-to-face to tell her what had really happened that night.

  She, like Evelyn, felt great guilt and remorse. She was sure it was somehow all her fault that Grace and Evie had not escaped long before it got so bad.

  “You would still have your dear mother,” she said, “and Evie would have survived.”

  I simply gave her the same gift I’d given my grandmother and forgave her so she could forgive herself. I also thanked her for all she had been to me as a child.

  “One of the few good memories I have recalled is of you, Carla, and the love you gave me as a little girl. Evie may not have had the courage to create a way out of the pain if you had not given her so much love. I think you are as much a part of Evie’s survival as I was.”

  Carla was the only person that seemed to understand the relationship between my two selves. It was easy because she saw us as two separate people. Evie was the beautiful little girl who had stolen her heart and made her feel like a grandmother. Katherine was the strong young woman she had met only a few months ago. Evie had died that night for Carla, too.

  “When you came to my house that night, I knew you would never be that little girl again. Back then I didn’t know how to explain it to anyone, but I grieved for Evie at the same time I grieved for Grace and made my peace long ago,” she admitted.

  I knew Carla would in many ways be more like a grandmother to me than the two true grandmothers I now knew. She was the only one that came with childhood memories, as a grandmother should. I shared my news with her about the pregnancy and promised to come back soon and bring Gracie with me.

  Dear Evie:

  I hope you have found peace where you are. I believe you have. My wish is that you are with Frank and Grace somewhere and will wait for me to join you someday along with all our family. I think it is safe to say Ralph is not invited to that r
eunion. I am so sorry for what happened to you, Evie. I hope you know, as I do, that none of it was your fault.

  I want to thank you for taking the pain from me so I could live a life of peace. We are going to have another baby. I hope in some way you are able to enjoy the new memories of our children. I know that they will enjoy their childhood in a way you were never able to. I pray that peace will fill both our hearts until we truly do unite someday.

  I love you, Evie… I promise.

  Katherine

  Each time I talked about what had happened to me as that little girl so long ago, it became easier. Every time I told someone I cried less and felt stronger. I knew I was healing by telling. Secrets give the perpetrator power and keep you a victim. The more you tell, the stronger you become and the less power they have over you. As I prepared to start my sessions with Dr. Anna again, I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to do for others what Dr. Anna had done for me. I wanted to help victims of abuse take back their lives. I wanted to help woman escape before it was too late. I wanted to help children find their voice. I wanted to make a difference, at least in my small corner of the world, to as many people as I could. I knew I had a long way to go before I was finished with my own healing, but at long last Evie had been heard.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I went to see Dr. Anna the following week. She was thrilled that I’d finally started back with our sessions. I’d told her about the pregnancy over the phone when I made my appointment, and she was so happy for Jason and me.

  “I have something special to show you before we start,” she announced, smiling happily. “I have added a new staff member and I want you to meet her.”

  I looked around for someone to walk out of her office or down the stairs, but instead she ran like an excited child to the kitchen and walked back in with a kitten in her hands.

  “This is my newest staff member!”

  I took the kitten from her. I held back the tears as I remembered Sophie and the comfort she had given.

  “She is so cute!” I squealed. “What’s her name?”

  Dr. Anna smiled at the kitten in my hands and gave me a pleading look.

  “Would you name her for me, Katherine?”

  I stared down at the little kitten as she slept in my arm, sounding like a very small engine as it hummed. Her name would have to be special, I thought.

  “What about the name Solace?” I asked. “Because I know the children who come here will find comfort in her warmth and unconditional love just as I did with Sophie.”

  She motioned for me to carry her down the hall to her office.

  “Solace it is then.”

  Our session was much longer than normal. Dr. Anna had cleared the afternoon for me. We spent the first hour just talking like the dear friends we had become. We talked about our families and things that we had planned. I’d stopped calling her Dr. Anna. Now she was just Anna. She didn’t bring the thick folder to our session this time. I was pretty sure it was put away in a cabinet somewhere. We did talk some about the memories and how I felt about them. Like Jason, she still struggled with the fact that I had not merged with Evie to become one, but she was dealing with it. It was completely opposite to what she’d been taught should happen. She felt as if she had failed me somehow.

  “Anna, it is what feels right for me. If Evie and I were one and the same, then I would have no choice but to feel all the horror I remembered on a different level. I know it happened, and I realize it happened to this body I live in. But mentally and even physically it happened to Evie instead of me, and she holds the pain so I can escape it. I think the night Ralph… hurt her… she had to escape somehow in order to live through it. So she created me. I had no name until I took one for my adoption, but I am the part of Evie that gets to live on and be happy. If I had to remember all the things Evie felt as my own… I don’t think either of us could have survived.”

  Anna had already decided to write about my case for some research magazine.

  “It could completely change how the textbooks present it. I’m actually a little excited about the whole thing,” she admitted.

  Anna had tried one last time to hypnotize me. She said she wanted to see if I had any other memories that needed to come out, because my last session had been so tragic and emotional, I may have passed over something. But when I went under it was as if I were a young girl walking alone down a passageway looking for something. I knew in my deep sleep that Evie was not there. She had gone on to where she could be at peace. The only thing that appeared in front of me was the smiling face of my new parents. I knew when Anna counted to three that I’d come back to where Katherine began.

  I agreed that I would continue to keep my journal, writing down any new memories I might have and, of course, any dreams that pertained to my childhood. Although, the dreams seemed to have stopped once I had my final memory of waking up in the hospital with bandaged hands and no recollection of how I came to be there or who I was exactly. I’d come full circle from the only childhood memory I’d possessed before this journey began. The day of my adoption was the first memory that was strictly Katherine’s and did not belong to Evie at all. After that day, Katherine would be the only one to build new memories. And I knew that the time had come to build new memories with the family that I had loved since I was a child of eleven and the family I only knew existed a few months ago.

  I continued my sessions with Anna for several months just to assure her that I was dealing with everything and no new dreams or memories had come into play. Once she was confident in my recovery, she released me from her care. She made me promise to keep in touch because we were friends now and this was not the end of that just because I was too strong to need her counsel.

  I laughed when I told her she had watched me grow in more ways than one. My pregnancy had come to term about the same time our sessions came to an end, and Anna was as excited for the birth as any other member of the family.

  Gracie had not been too happy about sharing us in the beginning and insisted it could not be a girl, because she did not want to share her dolls. Her wish came true times two when I gave birth to her twin brothers William and Franklin who were named after my two fathers.

  ***

  I was pleasantly surprised about three months after the twins were born when Anna came to pay me a visit. I had expressed to Anna how much I wanted to help others. I had been given a gift of sorts, and the reality that there were so many others suffering from abuse made me feel almost desperate to help them.

  “Well, Katherine, you have mentioned to me that you would love to go back to school someday. What exactly were you thinking you might major in?”

  She smiled hopefully and slid a pamphlet across the table for my consideration. It was to a university in the next county that had a well-respected psychology program. I remembered seeing her diploma in the office behind her desk. She had received her degree from the same school, and I knew instantly that she was exactly right. That was where I would go to prepare myself to share the help I’d received with others.

  I went back to school after the boys were a year old. I thought I was nervous when Gracie started kindergarten. Well, let me just say, that was nothing compared to the gut-wrenching fear I felt when I started attending college at thirty-two years old. Jason was great. He was so supportive and never complained about helping with the kids while I studied… well, not a lot anyway. In the beginning some of the classes were not that interesting. But once I started classes on human behavior I was hooked. I was a sponge and so amazed at how much could affect the human spirit. I had no idea how many ways a person could be harmed emotionally, physically, verbally, and mentally. I wanted to be able to counsel women. When I finished my studies, I had one of the largest families at the graduation. Jason and our three awesome children were there front and center along with my parents, my in-laws, Evelyn, Stephen, Frank, Ruth, Anna, and Carla. My heart was so full. I couldn’t believe some had come from so far to support me. Afterward w
e had a lovely celebration in our backyard. Jason mastered the grill and my mom made a massive cake. I decided not to share this with anyone, but in my heart I knew Grace and Frank were looking down with pride. This accomplishment belonged to Evie too.

  Dear Evie:

  We did it! I could not have done this without your help. Our relationship is still hard for me to fully understand, but I know you are a part of me… or maybe I am a part of you… I’m not sure. I do know that I see you in our children. Their expressions remind me of the child in my memories. They have the gentleness you possessed before Ralph, and I recognize that many of the traits you were born with changed with time and as a result my spirit is more skeptical and harsh.