The Sound of Gravel: A Memoir

by Ruth Wariner

  14

  Meri and Audrey spiraled downward simultaneously, and even Luke seemed to struggle a little more as he grew into a rambunctious little boy. Audrey’s hostility increased by the day, while Meri’s physical limitations got worse. Her body was steadily growing heavier and longer, but her head was growing even faster. The doctors told Mom that my sister had water on the brain, though they weren’t sure why. Mom explained that Meri had hydrocephalus, which was why she still couldn’t crawl, walk, or talk, even though she was more than a year old. Still, I adored my baby sister and loved taking care of her, especially when I gave her a bath. Her disabilities were obvious, except when she was in the bathtub. In the water, Meri seemed normal. She kicked her chubby legs enthusiastically and laughed as the water splashed in her eyes. In those moments, I recognized myself, not as the fourth of six kids in a chaotic family, but as Mom’s little helper. I was a partner with a purpose, one whom Mom noticed and needed. I would hover over Meri in the tub, getting splashed in the face, laughing along with her.

  Like Audrey, Meri had feeding problems. We would feed her spoonfuls of mashed bananas and watch as her tongue sloshed them round and round in her mouth until they finally slipped down her throat. The problem with sucking that she’d had since birth also worsened. I watched Mom closely as she smiled nervously and carved larger holes in the nipples of Meri’s bottles, knowing that it would mean a flood of milk onto the floor or our laps when we fed her. Eventually, I perfected a technique for tilting Meri’s head at just the right angle so that enough milk would run down her throat to keep her satisfied, but not so much that she choked.

  Now in the third grade, Luke needed extra help at school and had started going to a special class. Mom spent extra time with him on his homework, helping him to read little words and write basic letters. His disability showed up most when he was in front of the television. He didn’t know how to separate himself from the emotional intensity that played out during a cartoon’s most dramatic moments. He’d lie on the floor directly in front of the set with a pillow underneath him. Anytime a character was in trouble, he’d groan from deep inside his throat while squeezing his pillow tightly or biting the edges of its pillowcase.

  Other times, he would go wild, jumping up and down or thrashing around on the carpet. None of us could do anything to stop him. When Scooby-Doo’s heroes were chased by villains, the truth about them hidden behind ghost masks, Luke would throw himself down as if his life depended on whether the Mystery Machine made it to safety. It was like nothing I had ever seen. Matt and I used to watch Luke, look at each other, then laugh. Sometimes, his outbursts were so intense that he’d cry, especially if an animal was hurt or killed, and Mom would insist we turn off the TV, which Matt, Aaron, and I hated to do.

  Meanwhile, Audrey, had become a teenager. When not visiting Meri’s doctors, Mom was taking Audrey to her own battery of physicians and psychiatrists, who became increasingly convinced Audrey was suffering from multiple disorders. Not long after that horrible night when Lane forced her to eat her spaghetti, we noticed that she had started experiencing hallucinations. Audrey’s doctors told Mom they thought she might be schizophrenic, but her reaction to the medications they prescribed were baffling. The doctors said that Audrey became more aggressive and violent when they gave her drugs that should have made her calm and subdued.

  Audrey’s behavior reached a crisis point on Valentine’s Day when I was in my second year of first grade. That morning, I went to school excited about the pink-frosted, heart-shaped cookies my teacher promised she’d be serving, and the thick stack of valentines my classmates and I had been making and delivering to each other all week. Sure enough, I received more cards and candy than either of my older brothers, both of whom begged me to share.

  When we got home, Aaron and Audrey were sitting at opposite ends of the sofa watching Scooby-Doo, as always, and the house was filled with the aroma of peanut-butter cookies. My brothers and I threw our things to the floor and bolted to the kitchen. Mom wasn’t there, and we took full advantage, each of us scooping up a handful of cookies straight from the tray and devouring them before Mom could catch us.

  A knock at the door stopped us in our tracks. Visitors to our house were rare, so we didn’t know what to do. My brothers and I ran to the door. We opened it to find … no one. Luke spotted something on the porch, though, a white envelope covered with heart-shaped stickers and with a handful of Hershey’s Kisses poured on top to keep it from blowing away. When Luke picked it up, we saw the letters M-A-T-T on the envelope. Matt ripped it open. “It’s from Mom!” he yelled. Then we heard another knock, this time on the back door of the house. We opened it and found another envelope on the back porch, this one with Luke’s name on it. He hadn’t yet even opened his letter when we heard another knock at the front door, where we found a letter for me. The shuttling between doors continued until everyone had a valentine.

  Then Mom walked through the front door. “Did you save me any chocolate?” she asked, out of breath and smiling coyly, like a little girl. We surrounded her and competed with open hands to share our chocolate kisses. “I’m just teasing.” She laughed. “There’s leftovers in the kitchen. That’s what’s good about being the Mom—I always get to eat the leftovers.”

  It wasn’t the first time Mom had played the door trick on us for Valentine’s Day, but we still managed to be surprised each year. Mom loved Valentine’s Day. She celebrated it with so much gusto that I never understood why we didn’t get the day off from school. In our house, Valentine’s Day felt every bit as important as Christmas and Easter.

  By dinnertime, we were all stuffed with chocolate and cookies—everyone except Audrey and Meri. That Audrey would refuse even sweets made her seem stranger than strange to me. But something else about her was different that day. It wasn’t her rocking movements on the couch—she did that every day—but her face seemed different somehow. She kept her dry, chapped lips pressed firmly together, her cheeks pale and sunken, her eyelids puffy and red. My sister looked like a monster.

  The effect was heightened by the purple and blue circles under her eyes, and her habit of scanning the living room, going from person to person, as if monitoring enemies. A quiet moan emanated from her, and when it had grown loud enough to reach the kitchen, I saw Mom peek her head into the living room and tell her to settle down. The sun had set and a February chill had descended over the house. When Mom called us to the dinner table, I stopped off at my bedroom first and put on my wool sweater.

  The kitchen smelled like baked potatoes and the steak Mom had fried on the stove, but no one really noticed because Audrey was so agitated. She just stood in the entryway to the dining room, squeezing two bright red hands together. Suddenly she uttered a shrill scream. Clearly rattled, Mom led Audrey by the elbow until she was across the table from me. Audrey sat and started her usual bouncing and moaning and clenching of teeth, but Mom had an unusual look of worry on her face as she went to the kitchen to prepare Meri’s baby food.

  “Here we go again,” Mom said, mostly to herself.

  Although Audrey hadn’t eaten a normal meal in months, Mom continued to set her a place at the table and had cut up her steak into bite-size pieces, as if my sister might one day snap out of it and just dig in. I noticed how carefully Mom had arranged the pieces of meat, how thoroughly she had mashed the potato inside its skin. Then I looked up at Audrey, at her blank, unfeeling expression. She continued rocking and moaning.

  “Audrey you need to settle down and eat,” Mom said firmly, walking from the dining room to the living room with Meri’s bottle in her hand. We usually fed Meri on the couch, her head propped up on a pillow. Mom said she found it too exhausting to eat with such a large child hanging limply in her arms.

  Audrey did settle down, staring straight ahead, but this time she clearly saw something, or thought she did. Her hazel eyes squinted, and she shook her head at some figure in the cold air. “Uh-oh, somebody’s in trouble.” She spoke loudly bu
t in a monotone voice. The window behind me rattled. “Uh-oh, somebody’s in trouble.

  “Uh-oh, somebody’s in trouble.

  “Uh-oh, somebody’s in trouble.

  “Uh-oh, somebody’s in trouble.

  “Uh-oh, somebody’s in trouble.”

  Each time Audrey said the sentence, it came a little faster than the time before. She bounced violently, her chest hitting the table. The dishes rattled. Matt looked at me from across the table, his eyebrows raised in alarm.

  “Audrey, who’s in trouble?” Mom asked, trying to stay calm on the couch in the living room.

  “Uh-oh! Uh-oh! Uh-oh!” Audrey shouted. She licked her flaky lips, biting at a loose piece of dry skin at the corner. I had to turn my head. A constantly empty stomach had left her breath so rancid it made me queasy.

  “Audrey, nobody’s there. Who ya lookin’ at?” Mom asked again.

  Audrey’s voice grew louder. “Uh-oh, somebody’s in trouble.” Her body went rigid, and she shivered.

  Mom tiptoed into the dining room. She immediately noticed something different in Audrey’s face, something that frightened her.

  “Audrey, there’s nobody there,” Mom said again quietly, hoping to charm some calm out of her. “You need to settle down now, Sis.” Once more, Audrey seemed to settle as soon as she heard the word, and Mom walked over to her, smiling now, trying to make light of the situation. “It’s okay, Audrey, there’s no one there.” Mom’s voice was so soothing, and I began to settle down too. “Please settle down now, Sis.”

  Satisfied that the storm had passed, Mom gently placed her hand on Audrey’s shoulder. Audrey reacted immediately. Staring at Mom, Audrey lurched backward, her back curved like a cobra’s just before it strikes. A moment of utter stillness swallowed the room whole. Then, with explosive force, Audrey leaped from her chair, her hands lunging for Mom’s hair. Gripping it with tight fists, Audrey jerked Mom’s head back and caused her to lose her balance and fall to the floor. Audrey fell down on top of her, Mom’s hair still firmly in her grip. Matt and I jumped up and each grabbed one of Audrey’s arms.

  “Audrey, let go! Let go!” Mom cried. “You kids—get away from her. Leave us alone! This is between me and Audrey.” Mom’s voice was as loud as Audrey’s moaning.

  Mom was determined to win this round. First, she yanked Audrey’s hands from her hair and then flipped her onto her back, still holding her wrists. I couldn’t help but notice how alike they looked. Both Mom’s and Audrey’s faces were red and blotchy in the exact same places, their lips spread the same distance apart, their teeth similarly clenched. Finally, Mom let go of Audrey’s hands and rose to her feet. Audrey stood up and lunged for Mom’s face, but Mom grabbed her forearms before she had the chance. Mom pushed her backward and their bodies fell to the floor again, Audrey’s back hitting the chocolate-colored carpet with a loud, hollow thump.

  Mom panted and pressed her face close to her daughter’s. They gasped for breath. “Audrey, you cannot treat me this way. I’m your mother!” Mom’s posture was so aggressive that her glasses flew to the floor, and she began to cry hard. “You better settle down … or else,” she wailed between gulps of air.

  Audrey sat up and gently put her hands on Mom’s cheeks, almost as if she felt remorse for the pain she’d caused. Then her hands tightened and she pinched Mom’s cheeks between her fingers, harder and harder until Mom hurled Audrey’s body back onto the carpet. This time, Mom got on top of her, straddled her waistline, forced her arms apart, and pinned her wrists to the floor. But Audrey wasn’t yet ready to give in. She fought to free herself, kicked her legs wildly, and lifted her head off the floor.

  Then something happened that was even more frightening than Audrey’s violence. Suddenly Mom’s face turned scarlet and her eyes went wild. Her whole body shook. She seemed to have found a new strength within and used it to pin Audrey down even tighter. Mom’s neck stretched from her collar until her face was within inches of Audrey’s, and a voice both low and hoarse rose from deep within her.

  “Get the devil out of you!” Mom wailed. “Get out of my daughter, whatever you are! Leave her alone. Leave this family alone. Get out! Get out of her!”

  The room went silent. The clock ticked on the wall behind us. At last Audrey was in the presence of a force she didn’t dare challenge. Her head and body relaxed into the carpet, her face still red and expressionless. Eventually, Mom let go of Audrey’s wrists and pushed herself up heavily from the floor, all the while keeping a watchful eye on her daughter. Audrey’s body remained limp as Mom backed away and took a deep breath. Then she leaned down again, wiping tears from her eyes as she picked up her glasses.

  “You kids go back into the kitchen and eat your dinner,” she instructed us in a half-dead voice. All of us save Audrey marched into the kitchen and no one said a word.

  That was the last time I saw Audrey for a long time. The next day, Mom took her to the hospital, where doctors decided that aggressive intervention was needed. Mom spent the whole day and evening at the hospital, and when she finally returned home, she was alone. She explained that she’d decided to have Audrey taken to the state mental institution. Mom couldn’t take care of her anymore.

  Mom never spoke to us of what happened at the hospital, of how it felt to be a mother who couldn’t give her child what she needed, who felt forced to entrust her daughter to the care of strangers. While I knew I should have felt sad that my sister no longer lived with us, a great sense of relief slowly washed over the house once Audrey was gone.

  15

  A few days after the hospitalization, Mom took Audrey’s soiled mattress to the dump, and for the first time in my life I slept in a room that didn’t smell like urine. I was especially excited to have a bedroom to myself, which felt like an obscene privilege in my family, where privacy was virtually nonexistent. My brothers and I had been raised to believe not that Audrey was sick, but that whatever made her behave the way she did was of the devil, that she had been possessed by an evil, destructive, and violent spirit. Once that evil was out of the house, we all felt a little calmer and more relaxed.

  One year later, I was a happy, healthy second-grader. I was getting better and better at reading and started reading books on my own. My siblings and I spent a lot of time on the school playground, playing tetherball or kickball for hours on the weekends and after school. We had dinner every Sunday night with my grandparents, and Grandma always made a delicious pot roast with vegetables, and blackberry cobbler fresh out of the oven with vanilla ice cream for dessert.

  Most of my siblings were thriving too. Matt was on the honor roll every month, and he and Luke had friends at school they were always playing basketball with. Aaron was still Mom’s smartest child. His blond hair and bright red cheeks made him stand out, and he had the kind of personality that attracted attention. His clever comments always made the adults laugh.

  Still, at times Mom would reveal a deep dissatisfaction with our lives. Over that year these moments came more and more frequently. She still hadn’t found a church she liked, which bothered her. Mom didn’t agree with the philosophy of the Christian or Mormon churches around us, and she was never an outgoing, social person who had a lot of friends. She said she had no one to talk to about her religious views except Lane, who had started showing up unexpectedly every few months and staying for a few days each time. Mom still didn’t tell my grandparents about his visits. Instead, Mom started complaining about our lives in Strathmore. She’d say that the processed foods we ate and the culture of violence and immorality we were exposed to by watching TV were standing between us and our connection to God.

  In March 1981, when John Hinckley Jr. fired six shots outside the Washington Hilton Hotel and almost killed President Reagan, Mom’s concerns about living in the Babylon that was the United States seemed to be coming true. But it wasn’t only the assassination attempt that convinced Mom to leave Strathmore and move us closer to LeBaron, which she’d often spoken of over the previous months,
especially after Lane’s visits. “You kids need a healthier environment,” she’d say. “You need a father figure, and we should be going to a church where people believe what we do.” That the president had almost been killed was a clear sign that the long-predicted destruction of the United States was at hand.

  “Did you hear about the president, Sis?” Mom asked when I came home from school that afternoon. She popped her head into the living room with puffy, red eyes and a red, sniffling nose. It looked as if she’d been crying. “Someone shot him.”

  I nodded. I already knew what had happened. The teacher had brought a TV into my class, closed the mustard-colored curtains, and showed the special news report of Reagan’s near-murder in an endless loop.

  That evening after dinner, Mom said she needed to speak to all of us in the living room. My siblings and I piled on the couch and faced her. “I think it’s gonna be time for us to move somewhere closer to Le Baron soon, probably at the end of this school year,” she said as Meri flopped on her lap. The setting sun created long shadows on the brown carpet. “With the president being in the hospital, there’s no tellin’ what might happen to this country next. I’m afraid it’s gettin’ closer to the Last Days, and your Grandfather LeBaron’s prophecies are startin’ to come true. I think you kids need to be close to our people now, to the people who believe the way we do.”