I always loved how the wash looked as it was hanging out on the line to dry. It just seemed like such an ordinary housekeeping thing to do and it smelled so nice. Never while hanging laundry did my father or anyone else try to come up to me to do anything yucky, probably because it was outside and in the open.
Washing dishes and other chores inside the house were a completely different story. I couldn’t tell you the number of times that my father came up behind me to bring me somewhere to do that horrible thing to me while I was washing dishes or dusting furniture or any of the different other indoor chores. I took one last long whiff of the washed bedding that was hanging and then went back in to the house to check on my sister.
Before I even had the chance to get settled in my room again I heard the front door slam open. Uh oh, they were home and it didn’t sound like someone was very happy. “You’re just like our father was, aren’t you,” I heard my mother’s angry voice accusing my father. Oh no, this was going to be awful. I wondered what had happened at The Fair and if Johnny was alright. Something wicked must have happened for Mom to slip and say, “Our father,” where anyone could have heard her.
Instead of the hitting and furniture throwing that I expected to start hearing I heard Dad say calmly, “What do you want me to say Ruth? What did you expect? I’m sorry. I’ll stop, I promise.”
I heard footsteps on the stairs and quickly got into my bed. After listening a little more closely I realized that it was my brother’s footsteps I was hearing. Thank God he was okay.
Then I heard my mother’s voice again, “How will you stop? How long has this been going on and why? You know what it was like when we were little, John!”
My mother sounded like she really didn’t know what had been going on under her own nose. Something had happened while they were at The Fair to open up my mother’s eyes to the truth of what we had been going through. I wondered if she had gotten the whole picture or just a small part of it.
I heard my father cry. Then I heard both of them walk into the kitchen and then into their bedroom. The door shut behind them and I heard nothing more. No fighting, no muffled voices. I was shocked by what I had just heard. Would things really change now?
I couldn’t help myself. I snuck quietly out of my bed and across the hall to Johnny’s bedroom.
Johnny turned away from where he had been looking out the window when I came through the door. “Emily what are you doing in here? Do you want to get us both in trouble?”
“What happened at The Fair Johnny?”
“What was supposed to happen or what really happened,” he asked in a whisper.
“Both.” I sat down on his bed, waiting anxiously to hear what he had to say.
He sighed and then said quietly, “I shouldn’t be telling you any of this. You should just be happy you weren’t there.”
“Please Johnny? I have a bunch of stuff that I found out that I have to tell you too.”
“Fine,” he sat down next to me and began to tell me all the horrible details of the day, both what was supposed to happen and what had happened instead. Johnny told me that our father had planned to go to The Fair to have his own fun all day with as many little kids as he could. There was going to be some sort of secret sale at one of the tents to sell children for an hour at a time to the highest bidder. Caroline and I were supposed to be in the lineup of available children. I shuddered at the thought of what that might have been like for both Caroline and me.
“Dad also told me to keep my eyes peeled for a wife for myself. He wanted me to just choose any girl at all from The Fair that I may want. Then he was planning for us to just take her. I don’t want that. I want someone that actually wants me for who I am.
Anyways, Mom ended up following Dad when she saw that he had one of the little girls from the auction. While she was following him she asked me if what you had told her before was true. I told her it was. She ended up catching him in the act of using the little girl in one of the worker’s campers and she seemed horrified. She confronted him right then. I never saw Dad look as ashamed as he did at that moment.” Johnny began to get back up from his bed.
I reached my hand over to stop him. “Wait Johnny. There’s stuff I have to tell you that I found out.”
He sat back down only because I forced him to but seemed like it was hard work having to sit still. “I’ll tell you as quick as I can. I saw Mom looking at some pictures one day and crying. When I got the chance I took the box I had seen the pictures in and looked through it. I finished looking through it today while you guys were gone.”
“So what,” Johnny replied sounding irritated at me. Then he added, “Besides, do you know what could have happened if you got caught snooping in Mom and Dad’s bedroom?”
I waved my hands in frustration, “Yes, yes… but listen. I found out a whole bunch of crazy stuff.” I went on to tell him everything that I had found in that box. He listened quietly through the whole thing until I was finished.
“Okay. You’d better get back to your room before one of them decides to come up to check on you guys. I need time to think about all of this. Not a word of it to Caroline or anyone. If anyone says anything it will be me.”
Emily must have realized somewhere in her mind what Johnny was about to do when he leaned in towards her. She let me take over, finally. He put his lips to Emily’s and tried to part them with his tongue. His lips were soft, but his breath smelled like old ketchup and peanut butter. What a disgusting combination that made. I didn’t let him get his tongue into her mouth but instead slapped him and said, “Don’t you ever try to kiss Emily like that again or you will be sorry.”
I found Emily’s brother quite attractive myself, but I knew when he looked at me all he saw was his little sister Emily, not me, Julie. So this type of behavior could not be allowed.
He looked shocked and a little confused as he held his cheek and said, “Now go.” He almost pushed us out of his bedroom.
Why would he try to kiss Emily like that? I knew that he cared for her, but as an older brother, not as someone who wanted to take advantage of her like her father always did. I was so glad that Emily finally let me take over for her. She didn’t need to deal with her brother acting like that on top of everything else. At this point I would have never thought something like that was what it would take for Emily to let me in, but it worked and that was just fine with me. Now the next time would be even easier to take over for her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
No one checked on Caroline and me for the rest of that evening or even later that night. I guess my parents had been busy with their own much bigger problems. As far as I knew, they didn’t leave their bedroom again that day.
Caroline had woken up for a couple of hours and I read a couple of chapters to her from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as I had promised her I would. We left off at the part where Charlie found the golden ticket. I had read the book before and I knew that she would love it as much as I had.
Then I went downstairs and made the three of us kids a quick dinner of hot dogs and pork and beans. I made sure I saved enough for my mother and father in case they decided that they were hungry later on. Then I brought our suppers upstairs for us to eat so we wouldn’t disturb my parents. Johnny chose to eat his dinner alone in his room. While Caroline and I ate she reminded me about the bedding I had left hanging out to dry. I’d have to go bring that in so no spirits could wear the clothes if by chance that story was true.
After Caroline and I were both through eating I took our dishes and Johnny’s to the sink. I washed the few dishes that we had dirtied and then dried and put them back in the cupboards. Then I went out to take the bedding off the line and brought the basket back upstairs to fold the sheets and bedspread to put them away in the hall closet.
None of us kids heard any more about The Fair or what had happened there that day. We went on with our lives as we normally would have. Except that my mother seemed to have gotten through to my father’s co
nscience or something of the sort.
His streak of murdering and craziness seemed to finally be over. It had been almost a full month without him trying to do any of the bad stuff to me and I was pretty sure he had left my brother and sister alone in that way as well. He was still very strict with us and still didn’t hold back on the beatings of my mother or any of us. At least the other stuff seemed to have come to a stop.
We celebrated Caroline’s ninth birthday. For her birthday dinner she chose to have breakfast foods. So for supper that night we had French toast, strawberries, bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, and orange juice. Then we all sang Happy Birthday to her while she stood smiling in front of her chocolate cake all lit up with candles.
Johnny didn’t mention anything to me or anyone else about the things I had told him I found out from snooping through Mom’s picture box. I imagined that he was waiting until the right time. Maybe he just wanted to keep those newly found secrets hidden and forget that they were really true. I kept quiet about my findings as well, mostly because I had no idea what to say or who to say it to.
Johnny would soon have a birthday of his own. He was growing up fast and would be leaving us before we knew it to start a new life of his own. Since things had calmed down with my father there was probably no need for him to steal Caroline and me away from our home and our parents.
Life wasn’t perfect in the Fleischer household. I didn’t expect that it ever would be. I could settle for this new normal that my family seemed to have settled into and be quite satisfied.
I knew that there was always the possibility that the bad things could start happening again. Because of that I never completely let my guard down. That was probably smart on my part.
Not even a month had passed since The Fair. It was a late September night and I heard my father’s footsteps as they came up the stairs towards our bedroom. My heart sank into my stomach as our door opened. He told me to take my nightgown off and then he woke Caroline from her sleep. I was terrified of what he could possibly have planned for the two of us. He brought us across the hall to Johnny’s bedroom. Apparently this was going to be a family event.
Julie began speaking to me again. I tried like crazy to ignore the voice in my head but as I began to realize what my father wanted us kids to do Julie’s voice got stronger. For the second time ever I let her have my mind so that I wouldn’t have to really be there for what was taking place. I felt so peaceful; it was like I was sleeping.
Maybe I had just dreamt it all. I woke the next morning and remembered the peaceful drifting into nothing that I had done. However, my girl parts were sore so I knew that it hadn’t just been a dream.
My world felt like it had been crushed. I couldn’t go back to the way things had been before The Fair. I just couldn’t. And I wouldn’t accept that I had let myself lose control of my own mind.
After that night life continued as it had after The Fair for about two weeks. Two weeks was a lot longer than my father had waited between those awful visits before The Fair.
I began to worry that something was wrong with me. I began to wake up in the mornings feeling like I needed to puke but nothing really came up. My boobs felt hard as rocks. I wondered if these could still be symptoms of my poisonous tea party. I didn’t really believe that since both Caroline and I seemed to have already gotten all better from that tea party long before I started becoming sick every day.
I took a quick bath to clean myself up, got dressed, and then went to eat breakfast with the rest of my family. The whole time I was eating I was wondering whether or not I should tell someone what was going on with me. My thinking was that it probably wouldn’t turn out very well right now if I did.
The rest of my family went about their days and I finished my breakfast alone. Dad sent Johnny and Caroline in the truck to town. They were supposed to try to sell some of the last produce left from summer at a lower price than normal. Dad had said that he figured it was worth a try. What they didn’t manage to sell through the day we would figure out how to use somehow. Once I was through eating I did what I always did after I ate: the dishes.
After I was finished with the dishes I was supposed to help decorate for Halloween outside. We had a pumpkin patch as usual where people could come to pick out their own pumpkins. This year we would also be hosting a haunted barn that families could pay to walk through and get scared. If people only knew the true horrors that took place there they probably would never come. I would have given anything not to have been a part of it all.
I wished I had been able to go into town with Johnny and Caroline. I really didn’t feel like decorating. What I felt like doing was curling up into a ball and sleeping the rest of my childhood away until I was old enough to finally leave this place and its terrible secrets behind.
Emily probably worried as I did that she could be pregnant. I remembered, as she most likely did, how her mother had complained of feeling when she had been pregnant for Eric. The way Emily was feeling sounded an awful lot like that. Poor Emily was only twelve years old, certainly not old enough to be having a baby. She would never be old enough to be having her own father’s baby. Maybe I could figure out a way somehow to help her with this problem too.
She didn’t know that if she was in fact pregnant, the baby could either be her father’s or her brother’s. She had let me take over control of her mind again before her brother did that gross thing to her. It wasn’t nearly as bad as when her father did that stuff. What she had really been afraid of that night was having to watch Caroline go through anything bad. It had been a good thing that she didn’t know everything that happened in that room.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
While I was alone once again washing the dishes I heard the no good intentions in my father’s heavy footsteps as he entered the house. Again, as always, that awful feeling of fear crawled in and took hold in the pit of my stomach. I was washing the butcher knife and Julie suggested that I take my time with it. “Maybe if he sees you have the knife he’ll leave you alone. Maybe you can use it if you have to.” Would I? My heart was racing even faster than the thoughts in my mind. My head felt like it would burst from the pressure that was building up there.
He came closer. I could smell his breakfast still on his breath. “Hey. Why don't you leave the dishes to soak for now? I need you to come do something in the cel...” He had grabbed my arm and I didn't even have time to think.
I heard Julie from behind me screaming, “Do it! Do it now,” and I knew what I had to do. And I couldn't screw it up or I would be dead. For real. I plunged that huge knife as deep up under his ribs as I could and lifted. It felt as if I had done as much tearing as cutting. If he had a heart I had to have hit it. Or some important inside part. I had to hold the knife tightly so it wouldn't slip out of my hands because it was wet and soapy.
“You monster! No more! No more ever again!” I shoved the weapon even deeper as I pushed away from him, praying to God that he was too hurt to fight back.
He stumbled back against the counter, sending a couple of the dishes I had just washed crashing to the floor as he grabbed for the knife that was still stuck in his chest. I had almost expected some sort of a black oil to come oozing out of the wound and was a little surprised when I saw the red blood. He had a look of pure shock on his quickly paling face. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but the only thing that managed to come out was more of his blood.
As if in a trance, I watched as the life drained from him. I listened as it came choking and sputtering from his mouth. I was the only one around to watch the death of our family's tormenter. “Good bye and good riddance John A For Asshole Fleischer,” Julie said from my mouth.
I didn't realize until I heard the vomiting that my mother had also been watching. How much did she see? Whether she came in at the beginning or the very end, the scene pretty much spoke for itself.
She began to mutter something that I couldn’t understand and then sat down right there on the worn throw rug
on our floor, holding her knees to her chest, and began to rock. I left her there between the living room and kitchen by herself to mourn. Or to do whatever it was that she was doing. It was actually quite a sight to see someone as chunky as her huddled together in such a way.
I had a lot of work to get done. “Come on, Dad. We have a date in the cellar, remember?” I dragged him backwards, holding him under his arms. He was heavy, that was for sure. Luckily the stairs that led to where I planned to take his body weren't far. Once at the top of the staircase, I pushed my load so that it would fall down the rest of the way. Actually, Dad's body did more tumbling than falling. His body landed in a crumpled heap at the bottom. That was good enough for right now.
I turned back to the mess I had made in the kitchen. Ugh, I was quickly becoming exhausted and there was so much left to be done. I had to get busy. The other kids would only be gone for so long. I got out the stuff my father used to clean up the real messes and got to work. Luckily there wasn't a lot of blood, but there was enough. I scrubbed and scrubbed.
Detached: Book 1 of the Fleischer Series Page 17