The Secret Lives of Hyapatia Lee

by Hyapatia Lee

  My mother and stepfather had a son named Danny, who was born when I was almost a teenager. I developed early and was often mistaken for a 14 or 15 year old. There were many times when I would be told to take him outside and keep him occupied. I felt like everyone was looking at me strangely, many thought Danny was my son. I was embarrassed and would always make a point of saying something like, “Let’s not get your clothes all dirty, you know how upset Mother will be with us if I bring you back dirty.”

  Not long after that, my stepfather got transferred to Florida, and we moved to Fort Myers. Again, it was in the middle of the school year and just about as painful as possible because now I was 12 and had a lot of friends at school and near home I had to leave. Being that far away from my grandmother was torturous. Now the calls were long distance and even further restricted.

  To escape the unhappy home life, I again turned to dance lessons and the theater. One of my favorite roles was that of Helen Keller in “The Miracle Worker”. Not only did I get to learn the manual alphabet, which proved to be quite an asset much later in life, but also it was also quite an inspiration for me. Regardless of all the blows life dealt her, she survived and even thrived! I wanted to be like her.

  Once we were in Florida the situation with Don got progressively worse. He now felt he could create a total dictatorship, with the matriarch of the family over a thousand miles away. Traditionally, the oldest, most respected female heads Native American families. Don enforced his rule with his fists, saying he was the man of the family and what he said,went. Women have respect and power in my people’s ways. You can see how this change was quite a shock and a blow to my self-worth as a female.

  Again, my response was to get out of the house as much as possible. In addition to the theater I was involved in, I joined a drum and bugle corps, the Royal Lancers in Cape Coral, Florida. My mother went back to school to become a surgical nurse. I think she saw the writing on the wall and knew she couldn’t put up with this abuse much longer. She was trying to get an education that would enable her to support Danny and me. If she hadn’t been a teenage mother and could’ve finished her education we could have been spared many beatings.

  I was not allowed to ever close the door to my bedroom, not even when changing clothes. The master bedroom was across the hall from mine and he had a perfect view of my body every time. I was not allowed to close the bathroom door when taking a shower or bath, and he would always come in and stand there, pretending to do something at the sink, whenever I bathed. I avoided baths and showers for years after that, something my real father and stepmother never understood.

  My diaries were always read and discussed out of the clear blue at dinner or some other awkward, embarrassing time. He would use exact quotes of what I had written and no matter where I hid the journal, he would find it.

  I was not allowed to talk to boys on the phone or to have any over or go outside to talk to any. All of my friendships took place at school or in the Royal Lancers Drum and Bugle Corps.

  The Corps would travel all over Florida to go to competitions and parades. We traveled in two buses and stayed in VFW halls, sleeping in our sleeping bags and playing pranks on each other. It was a wonderful time and a great escape. I had many friends there.

  Whenever my mother wasn’t home, Don would come up from behind me, grab my breasts and comment on how big they were getting. He’d ask me what size bra I wore now and how far had I gone with the boys. Was I a slut yet? Did I let any of my boyfriends touch me here, and he would touch me there as an example. It went on almost daily. There were several times when I would wake up with him in my bed, on top of me. He would force me to have sex with him. The pain was excruciating but I was too scared to scream. He said he would take the machete from the library and cut me up into a million pieces and ship me back in shoeboxes to my grandmother, one by one. He would paint quite an explicit scene of her opening the boxes and her feelings and the body parts she would find, always the sexual ones first. I was afraid to tell anyone.

  I was terrified in my own home. “Veronica Holds the Anger” had to be created to fulfill her namesake. There was just too much anger at all the injustice and dark absurdity for me to hold on to, I would’ve exploded. There was no escaping the daily abuses and no way to let my fear, anger and grief out.

  Don would pick fights with me. One year, on my birthday, I remember my grandmother had sent me a clock radio. Everything my grandmother sent me he purposely destroyed. He did everything he could to make the severing of that relationship as painful as possible. He loved control and the power to inflict pain, both physically and emotionally. I was setting up the clock radio by myself in my room when he walked through the door.

  “You never did like me, did you?” He asked.

  If I said that I had liked him, I would be lying, and I knew I would get hit. If I told him he was right, I would get smacked for being a smart ass. It was always a “no win” situation with him. “Veronica” decided to stand up for herself. She told him he was right, I never did like him; in fact I hated his guts!

  He hit me with his fist, hard. I expected it, of course, but what I did not expect was my mother coming into the room standing up for me! It was the first and only time I ever remember her doing that. She said to leave me alone. It was my birthday. He said he didn’t care and started hitting her instead.

  Many times I tried to tell my teachers, guidance counselors, and I even called the police to ask if threatening to murder me was a crime. I explained that my stepfather had wanted me to keep quiet about something. I told them in detail what he had promised to do, if I let anyone know. I thought they would understand, that they would be there to help and protect a child in this situation. I even believed they would guess at what thesecret was. They did none of the above. They told me it wasn’t a crime and hung up on me.

  At school Mrs. K., the guidance counselor had a support group. I brought up my stepfather’s abuse. She gave me a book on psychosomatic diseases. The group was stopped abruptly. No one wanted to hear an ugly truth because they would have to get involved if they had a conscious, and if not, live with the guilt. They found it easier to turn their heads and ignore it.

  I finally told my mother. She was angry at me for messing around with her husband! As if I wanted the slime ball!!! She told me she would try to make it so I was not alone with him in the house very often and then she took me to a psychologist.

  My therapist had long blonde hair and was very pretty. She was nice and kind and I felt I could talk to her. I slowly began to explain the abuses a little at a time, until I could be sure I could trust her. She eventually brought my mother into the sessions and said that I was making things up. My mother told her that the things I described, that she had seen, were true. My therapist’s schedule became so full all of a sudden, that she could no longer see me!

  No one wanted to get involved! No one cared! I felt like no one believed me! On many occasions, I would hide with Danny, my half-brother, and try to comfort him during their violent fights. One time, he accidentally got in the way and ended up having to have fluid drained off of his head. I was too young to know the exact medical condition and procedure, but I remember seeing the doctor stick a huge needle into Danny’s little head and pull out puss and blood-colored fluid twice. He was just a baby. It was not a healthy environment for him and he would wake up screaming in the middle of the night almost every evening.

  One night, Don and my mom were involved in their usual knockdown when he pulled me up out of my chair and into the middle of the argument.

  “Your mother won’t have sex with me when I want it! That’s against the law. She has wifely duties. What do you think about that?”

  “Leave her out of this”, my mother yelled, but he wouldn’t let go.

  He kept hitting me, saying we uppity women needed to be put in our place. My mother came to my rescue and he started beating her. I left the house and went walking the neighborhood looking for help. I went up to several
doors and knocked, yelling that I needed to call the police, my mother was being beaten. No one dared answer his or her doors. They didn’t really care about anyone but themselves. I went to 7-11, knowing I didn’t have the money for a pay phone call, just hoping God would leave enough money on the ground for me to make a call to save her. Everyone let me down that night.

  When I got back, she was worse than I had ever seen her. Her face was bruised and her eyes were almost swollen shut. I could hardly recognize her. She called one of her friends from school, Charlene, and she took her to the hospital. I thought the whole thing would soon be over. I didn’t think she would go back to him. I thought I would finally get a chance to know my mother and have a relationship with her. We could help each other. We could heal together.

  The next night when Don came to pick me up from drum corps practice, I was terrified to get into the car with him. I stalled as long as I could, hoping my mother and Charlene would show up and rescue me. He was getting impatient and opened the passenger door demanding that I get in, now. I kept staring at the windshield. Not even out of it, just at the glass in front of me. I was petrified, too afraid to move or talk as I listened to his never-ending ranting and raving about how he was going to knock some sense into my mom and me. He said we were two of a kind and rotten to the core. He was going to teach us respect. He reiterated the threats about the machete and the many shoe boxes filled with my blood, bones and tissue being sent to my Grandmother in Indianapolis. I really didn’t think I was ever going to make it home that night. I thought he would find a field and kill me in it and that would be the end of my miserable life. I don’t even remember getting home, but I’m sure I did at some point, because I’m still alive today. Thankfully I had Veronica, Stacy and Lisa to breath for me until it was over.

  My mom and Charlene decided to rent a beach house for a week together, to “find themselves”. Charlene had four children,

  Stan who was one year younger than me, Laura, a year and a half younger than him, Betty, another year and a half younger, and Cindy, three years younger and the smallest of the family. Charlene had recently divorced her husband they were all trying to adjust to the change. I think she thought she could help my mom get through the hard times, but there was something else there too. I wasn’t sure yet what it was.

  The cottage was beautiful and was right on the beach off Sanibel Island, off the gulf coast of Florida. Our week was a nice, quiet one filled with sun, salt-water breezes, sand castles, radio Mystery Theater and seashell collecting. I got along well with the other children and it was nice to be a kid again. It was wonderful to go to sleep at night without the fear of waking to find a man in my bed or a fight outside my door. Danny was a happy child and he and Wendy were becoming great friends. I didn’t have to take care of him as much.

  On the last day of our beach stay, Don came. He and my mother and Charlene had a discussion behind closed doors in the master bedroom. I knew what was going to happen. It was only a matter of time before the violence started. Unfortunately, I was right. My mother was explaining to him how she wanted a divorce. Of course, he hit the roof, but this time, he didn’t hit her. Charlene was there, and so were four other children right outside the door, all just waiting to call the police if necessary.

  Whenever the fighting would start, Danny would cry hysterically. He was just a baby when all of it started. It scared him. Don came thundering out of the bedroom.

  “What are you doing to my son? What did you do to make him cry like that?”

  Veronica didn’t care if he hit her anymore, she figured he was going to, no matter what she said, so she might as well tell him how she felt and get some good out of it.

  “I didn’t do anything, you did! You are the one who always makes him cry! You start yelling and throwing things and hitting his mother, of course he’s going to cry! He’s scared!”

  I could tell by the look in his eye he just wanted to kill me, but he couldn’t, there were too many witnesses. He went back into the bedroom to finish with my mom. It wasn’t long before he finally left.

  We ended up moving in with Charlene and her children and I was trying to get used to family life like this. Perhaps I’d finally get to have that relationship with my mother I’d always wanted. My mom was still trying to “find herself” and it appeared she thought she had gotten lost in the bedroom because that was where she and Charlene kept locking themselves. Since I was the oldest, it was my responsibility to make sure the other five children did as they were told. I didn’t really want to be in charge, I certainly didn’t know how or feel as though I had the authority to be. The kids did as they pleased.

  When Charlene disciplined her kids, it was with a spatula. She would chase them all over the house, swiping at them anywhere she could get. Most of the time, though, it really didn’t matter if they misbehaved. She and my mother were way too busy with their lives to be around much at all, and when they were, it was behind locked doors.

  One time Lisa ran away. I was upset. Thinking back on all those nights with Don, all the terror, being taken away from my grandmother, I just needed someone to talk to. I had knocked on my mother’s door a few times, only to be told to go away. I knew what they were doing in the bedroom all the time. Even if my mother didn’t want to admit it to me, I had seen them in bed together. It didn’t upset me that she was having sex with another woman. I was only angry that it took her away from having a relationship with me because she was always too busy with Charlene. Lisa opened the front door and just kept walking, and walking and walking. Several cars pulled up by me and asked me if I wanted a ride. I ignored them, or if they were persistent, I’d run between houses to lose them. I was running from some headlights that got too close when I realized by the P.A. that it was a police car.

  They asked me what I was doing out at this hour, and Lisa Patrick explained about my mother being beaten, to the divorce, Charlene, and locked doors. I wanted a relationship with my mother more than I wanted Don to see justice, so I never brought that up, as he was no longer a threat. They took me home.

  When my mom answered the door, she was surprised. She didn’t even know I was gone. I’d been out almost all day and night.

  I really didn’t want to run away. I just wanted her loving attention, but no matter how hard I tried, she was not available for me. One night, Charlene and my mother had decided to put together a large puzzle. It was too big to hide in the bedroom, so they had to bring it out to the kitchen table. I finally had a chance to talk to her. I asked her if we could have a conversation. She said no. She was busy. I started crying. I just wanted to know if she loved me. She never told me. All I remembered was how she accused me of taking her husband and fooling around with him. I tried to tell her how I needed help to deal with these memories. She told me I was a liar, that nothing had ever happened and that she did not want to talk to me or see me. She sent me to Laura’s bedroom, next to the room she was in, and told me not to come out.

  At first, I just laid there and waited. Then I called out, “When you get to a stopping place, will you come here a minute please?” There was no answer.

  “Mom? When you get a chance, can you come here for just a minute? I need to talk to you.” Again, there was no answer. I was getting hurt and angry. I called out louder.

  “Mom! I really need you!! Just for a minute! Please!” She would not respond. I kept calling, louder and louder, thinking maybe she just didn’t hear.

  Finally, Charlene came in, spatula in hand.

  “She doesn’t want to talk to you. Shut up or I’ll give you something to scream about.”

  When she left, I waited a minute or two. Then I called out again.

  “Mom? Do you love me? I just want to know if you love me? I promise I will shut up if you will just please come tell me if you love me or not. Do you love me? MOM!”

  I called out to her for as long as I could, until, literally, I could no longer make a single sound with my vocal chords. She never came. I decided I would r
un away for good and never come back. I wanted to go live with my grandmother, but I didn’t know if she would have me. I knew she couldn’t afford me.

  I didn’t know how I would get money to leave. Would I go from truck stop to truck stop hitching rides and paying for them with sex? I didn’t care; it would be better than staying here. I didn’t have any clothes to speak of. I could fit everything I needed into one small bag. I also didn’t have any money. I would need money for food, at least. I had to come up with a plan.

  Every penny I saw on the ground, I carefully picked up and saved. I offered to wash peoples cars and cut their lawns. I tried to get a job or a newspaper route. I found there was a discriminatory law on the books in the state, boys could get a route at 12 years of age, girls had to be fourteen. I wasn’t old enough. A job was even more unattainable; I would have to be 16 for that. Not many people wanted their cars washed or their yards cut by a strange 13-year-old girl.

  There was only one other hope, the Royal Lancers Drum and Bugle Corps. I had won prizes for collecting the most donations for expenses like uniforms, bus repairs, gas to major competitions, etc. I started collecting for two charities, the Lancers, and the “Save My Childhood” foundation.

  I still won every fund drive competition we had. I simply increased my time in front of the stores tremendously and gave myself a small percentage. I only needed $93.00 for a one-way ticked to Indianapolis. I figured that would be a cheaper and safer way for me to go, as opposed to finding funds for food, hotels, gas donations instead of sex, etc.

  During the time I was saving money, I prepared for where I would go. I called directory assistance for Indianapolis and asked for my father’s number. Luckily, he still lived there. I didn’t know if he would even talk to me. It had been years since I had heard from him. He was remarried to a nice woman named Grace and they had three children. I had visited them a few times before my mom got married to Don.