by Phil Hamman
She cut off the thought before it went any further this time. Sandra the survivor had met her challenge. She stood in the kitchen staring into an open cupboard. She removed a box of crackers, but put it back and moved on to the next cupboard. She felt she should eat but had no appetite. Finally settling on a vanilla wafer, she headed back upstairs to the bathroom, intending to brush her hair if she still had the strength by the time she got there.
Sandra stood before the mirror and gazed with disgust at her reflection. She was wearing a wrinkled, oversized T-shirt and hadn’t shaven her legs in days. She pulled down the edge of one eye and recoiled at the grayish, bloodshot eyes then took a step back. Who was this pathetic stranger? When had she given up and not even realized it? Something invisible was destroying her from the inside out. No one saw it, so it was allowed to go unchecked, slowly eating away whatever parts of her it desired. The despair rendered her powerless. The life she’d once hoped for now seemed out of reach. The image in the mirror was a different Sandra. She wasn’t sure if the two of them could co-exist in the same body. And again the thought that she should not be alive slipped into her mind.
Through some unseen force, Sandra found herself at the doorstep of Roger’s house day after day. Roger’s older brother, the one who’d driven her to the police station the morning after the murders, had taken Sandra under his wing. He understood her pain because he felt it, too. She emptied her emotions at his feet, and he never complained about it, never told her to move on. Not once did he say he was too busy or that he didn’t have time to listen to her. Most days she just hung out there, feeling welcome and knowing that his family didn’t blame her for what happened. That alone eased her grief. She’d play foosball with Roger’s siblings. They also had a dog that Sandra adored who had been trained to take unlit cigarettes out of people’s mouths because Roger’s brother didn’t like smoking. It was one of the few things that made Sandra laugh at the time. She discovered that when the dog was lying on her lap, a peace wafted through her. She would vigorously scratch his ears or pull his head next to hers and sing winsome songs softly into his ears. The dog never tired of the attention, of course, and Sandra longed for a dog of her own.
Roger’s mother was supportive even though her own pain was excruciating. For almost a year, Sandra would arrive at their house nearly every day feeling that life was unbearable. His family had crutched her through each day, and she knew that without them she couldn’t have found the strength to go on. But the strain of losing a son in such a horrible manner took its toll on Roger’s mother, too. By the year’s end, she passed away. Sandra, along with the Essem family, was devastated. Soon after that, the Essem family began to head in different directions. They were older now, getting married and moving off on their own. The security she’d once had in their home had run its course.
Chapter 32
An indescribable hurt returned that festered inside Sandra, spreading to her edges and forming to the shape of her body like a toxic gas inside a bottle. She couldn’t escape the emotional pain. And if she somehow managed to erase the garbled memories through partying and alcohol, it simply rippled back during her sickened slumber and she awoke to a fresh round of anguish. Her instinct for survival was so fierce that she tried various methods to right her life again. When she had nowhere else to put the pain, she would go to Roger’s grave and sing to him. She’d let the words and rhythms gently shake the worst of the hurt from the weary fibers of her body.
It was her season of loneliness. Lolo and her brothers, though largely absent for most of the day, loved Sandra. Her grandparents were dead, no one had heard from her father in years, friends had abandoned her. Yet when she thought of Roger and the perfect times they’d spent together, she felt a glimmer of hope that she could reclaim her life again someday. So she clung to his memory, sang to him, and let him know that he would live on forever in a special corner of her mind. And with this one optimistic thought, she cut away a sliver of the pain, allowing her to smooth its rough edges. It was a start. She kept Roger safe in her mind. She’d never again feel the tender kisses he’d once placed on her lips, but she felt his spirit whenever she succeeded in pushing the ugly emotions to the side through melody and music before the awful feelings returned and knocked her down as if hit by a loaded spring unleashed with a vengeance.
“Come shopping with me,” Debbie said, making a point of sounding upbeat. She was worried about Sandra. It had been two years since the murders at Gitchie Manitou, and she was never certain whether she’d call and discover that Sandra was in another one of her “dark” moods.
“No, I’m going to Roger’s grave.” She didn’t say it with any expectation of empathy. It was just a fact, and she wasn’t ashamed or embarrassed to let anyone know about one of the few things that relieved her pain. “There was a song on the radio this morning that reminded me of him, and I just want to sing to him.” It was true. For some reason the moment she’d heard the song it had reminded her of the day the two of them spent at Falls Park, his arm around her waist, her head on his shoulder. For whatever reason, she couldn’t get Roger out of her head today.
Debbie paused and twisted the phone cord around her finger. Her heart had broken for Sandra so many times since Roger had died. “Sandra, I’m just wondering...it’s just a thought. Um, do you think it might be better if you didn’t go? You know, maybe it’s harder to keep thinking about Roger, and if you just moved on...” Debbie knew Sandra still loved him but worried that her friend was holding onto a ghost out of guilt perhaps.
Sandra looked up at the ceiling and let out a sigh. She wasn’t mad at Debbie. It was just that no one seemed to understand. She couldn’t forget Roger. She couldn’t forget any of them, and she especially couldn’t forget that night. She tried, but the memories were right there, dancing at the corner of every thought. “I know everyone thinks that, but you don’t understand. When I go to his grave, I feel him. I mean I really feel him. Maybe it’s not like feeling his arms around me, but it’s like he knows I’m there. Like he can see me.”
She would talk to Roger. She confessed to him that she didn’t think she’d ever actually told him her age. She’d meant to after their first date. And once when Roger had come to pick her up she’d introduced him to Debbie and her sister. After a hurried conversation, it seemed he was left with the impression that Sandra was in the same grade as Debbie, who was actually three years older, rather than the intended message that they both went to school in Harrisburg. Sandra had let it slide, and then it just never came up again before the fateful night.
So she did go and sit by his grave for hours, singing to him and pleading with him to understand that he and the other boys were her heroes.
“We didn’t even get to say goodbye before you were gone. And in spite of terrible pain Mike and Stew remained strong. I think even Dana, who was so young, knew things were worse than I thought. You are my heroes, and I never had the chance to tell you.”
She talked and sang until finally the burden of pain lifted from her shoulders slightly. For the rest of the day, she waited for the horrible feelings to come back, but that didn’t happen. Instead, a strange sensation, as if a layer of pain had been rinsed away, left her with clarity and freshness, unfamiliar feelings that she hadn’t experienced for a long time. She felt almost, well, normal again.
She’d managed to push the darkness away but only for the time being. Sandra had gone back to a job during the day. Debbie worked at a truck stop just off the interstate that was close to both of their houses. The minimum age for employment there was sixteen, and Sandra was only fifteen, so she and Debbie cleverly modified Sandra’s birth certificate so she’d appear to be sixteen. Working gave Sandra an escape from the uncontrollable sadness that tainted her life. The job distracted her for hours at a time, allowing some semblance of a normal life to return.
When Debbie called a few days later, Sandra went with her to a party.
“I don’t know a lot of these people,” Sandra
said, looking around at the crowd after they’d arrived at the house where one of Debbie’s co-workers lived. The house was a sprawling ranch style, every room packed elbow-to-elbow with partygoers, and music pulsed through the house from oversized speakers. It wasn’t long before a clean-cut boy in a button-down shirt handed Sandra and Debbie each a beer. In the kitchen, people crowded around a Formica table telling stories and roaring with laughter. The door to the gold-colored refrigerator was working overtime with people helping themselves to the well-stocked shelves of beer.
Sandra gravitated to the living room and settled onto a long, armless couch. “Let’s sit here. I don’t feel so claustrophobic,” she told Debbie. Sandra liked this atmosphere where no one made the connection she was that girl. The “Gitchie Girl.” She still heard the reference occasionally. She knew her brothers did, too, though they never let on to Sandra about it. A friend had told her this after too many beers one night. Sandra tried not to worry much about what others thought of her. There was nothing she could do now to change that night. The beer she’d been sipping had gone warm, but she didn’t want to give up her coveted spot on the couch
“Sandra!” The person yelled her name with such enthusiasm she thought it must be an old friend. It wasn’t. It was a boy she didn’t recognize but remembered meeting through a friend after he said his name.
“Remember me? That was quite the night,” he said as if there were a period between each word. He seemed vaguely familiar. Memories of that night had been fuzzy at the time and even more so now. She was reluctant to admit to herself that it had been harder to concentrate and focus since the whole ordeal with the murders, especially when it came to meeting new people. It was as if her mind had formed a protective barrier between itself and anything unknown. This boy had lively eyes and an engaging smile. Did he seem trustworthy or was it just that she missed her old life? The one where she’d attracted friends so easily that she’d broken through to the popular crowds with practically no effort. Perhaps it just felt good to hear someone shouting her name, seeking her out as if she were the life of the party. For whatever reason, Sandra nodded and smiled. He was friendly and there was no one else to talk to. Before the night was over, the new friend had given her a handful of pills, “white cross” he called them, along with his phone number in case she wanted more.
She never did call him. However, Sandra began regularly drinking beer with a group of people who liked to party. She acquired a daily routine that passed for a normal life to the casual observer. But then the depression would descend without warning, and her balance would sink away as if it had been resting on quicksand the whole time. One day she was thankful to God for saving her life at Gitchie and the next wishing He wouldn’t have.
Sandra’s life remained derailed. The tragedy at Gitchie Manitou had thrown her into a world foreign to most teenagers. She’d dropped out of school, was working full-time, and had moved into an apartment in Sioux Falls with her brother Bill. She was basically a sixteen-year-old adult. A new job came her way at Raven Industries, a factory where she sewed clothes, something she’d always loved doing in home economics class at school. Sandra liked the simple things in life: sewing, spending time with family, and music. Her life was simple but predictable. She occupied her mind with work during the day and often numbed her mind with beer and partying during the night. It kept all the bad stuff at bay temporarily.
She didn’t want to start drinking alone, so she and some friends would gather at one of their houses in the evenings to drink and listen to rock music. Always the music. Sandra loved music and dancing, and one night found herself dancing with a young man who soon became her boyfriend. Neither of them wanted to admit that they fueled each other in a bad way. Somehow they each ended up with a bag of white cross pills. Sandra hadn’t even thought of the pills since that party months ago when she’d been given her first one. There were a hundred pills, and she took them regularly, washing down a couple in the morning with a glass of juice and then not needing to eat again until evening. It was speed, someone had told her, and the energy kept her going all day, but she crashed at night. She lost ten pounds she didn’t need to lose, but it was nothing that made her feel fantastic. When the pills ran out, she never felt the desire to take them again. The days of pills were over.
But when the Gitchie Manitou demons came back to haunt her, she still had the comfort of her drinking buddies. There were times when she thought life was getting back to normal and mornings when she could hardly muster the energy to get out of bed. It felt as if all the joy had been sucked out of her life and there was no point in moving on. She dreaded the month of November as the calendar steadily crept toward the seventeenth, the anniversary of the murders. She wanted to talk about what had happened so desperately, but it seemed that even her family avoided the topic, not knowing what to say. She never received a card or phone call. She wanted to know that someone understood her pain, but she’d inevitably spend that day alone, and it seemed as if time stood still. She wanted someone to love her despair away. She wanted a normal life. She wanted...someone.
A series of on-again, off-again relationships followed. She came home after work one evening to find that a neighbor’s party had spilled onto the back porch. Sandra joined them and before the night was over had met a strong, good-looking man with long, dark hair who would first become her boyfriend and later a lifelong friend. They just couldn’t get on the same wavelength, and when they were together they drank too much. He eventually moved away.
With a strong sense of loyalty, Sandra rarely parted ways harshly with anyone. Over the next few years she would meet several boyfriends who would stay in touch with her. The relationships were often toxic and short-lived. Sandra’s desire for love and stability was intense. She latched onto others for support, but that one person who could not only give but accept love and accept her past eluded her. If only she could find that person, she knew she could rebuild her life. More time passed, however, and the security she desperately craved seemed as though it would never happen.
She couldn’t find the key to letting go and moving on, though it seemed she tried everything to make the pain go away. One evening Bill returned to the apartment and found her perched on the edge of the couch with India ink and a needle. She’d tattooed a large “RO” on her upper arm and was preparing to add the “GER.” It was the only way she could think of to show that she hadn’t forgotten Roger. It would tie a piece of him to her forever. Bill threw the ink in the garbage and returned to console Sandra. “No, sis, you don’t want to do that.”
Chapter 33
Just before turning eighteen, Sandra moved to a small town in Minnesota with Bill’s girlfriend, who was attending an interior design school there. The two girls lived in a cozy loft-style apartment above the design school, and Sandra got a job in a retail store downtown. It was a relief living in this town where no one knew of her past. There were no sideways glances followed by the look of aha when they realized who she was. The “Gitchie Girl.” It was a fresh start in this new town, but she missed her family and everything that was familiar.
Toward the end of the school year, the two of them went back to Sioux Falls to find places to live since their stint in Minnesota was nearly over. Sandra went out with two of her brothers to a popular pub downtown. While there, she was introduced to her brother’s boss, Carroll Chrans, who owned a pawnshop next to the pub. Carroll offered Sandra a job but needed her to start immediately. Sandra hadn’t moved back from Minnesota yet, so she had to decline the job offer. She didn’t realize how fateful that night would become.
Upon Sandra’s return, she and Bill moved into a dingy apartment on the outskirts of Sioux Falls that was conveniently just down the street from her old friend Debbie. The apartment was so bare that in December her brother Jim showed up with a Christmas tree because he felt horrible about their living conditions and thought everyone should at least have a tree. The greenery brought cheer to the otherwise dismal furnishings, yet she
was simply relieved to have a steady job, a place to live, and a family who cared so much about her.
She worked at a retail store for a while and later at the mall. All around her, friends and relatives were getting married and building happy lives. Sandra continued to search for someone to love, but all she found was disappointment. A series of failed and dysfunctional relationships filled the years with their empty promises taunting her with the prospect of affection which remained just beyond her grasp.
After one frenzied relationship fizzled out, she refused to mope in her apartment and decided to visit a friend. On the way there, she cranked the music and roared down the interstate, hoping her junker car wouldn’t give out. Dusk was approaching, so she flipped on the headlights and spotted a small mound on the road just ahead. She hit the brakes, steered the car to the shoulder, and craned her neck, glancing out the window to see what she’d almost hit. When she saw what it was, she felt a pang in her heart. Sandra shifted into park, got out, walked over to what had caught her eye, and found it was a small turtle that had probably strayed from a nearby pond. Its curious eyes looked at her as she returned it to the grassy ditch. “You better stay off that highway,” she scolded the little guy. It’s strange, she thought smiling, how one disoriented turtle can bring joy to an otherwise worthless day.
Years went by and Sandra couldn’t find her footing in life or love. She’d tried partying away her problems, tried pills, tried building a life with different men, even tried moving to Minnesota. Nothing had helped. Her bouts of anger at God continued. To top it off, she now lived in a dilapidated house with two of her brothers. At least they could lean on one another, but Sandra felt ungrounded, like a weightless feather at the mercy of whichever wind decided to toss her here or there. How much disorder could she endure? Yet she never gave up hope of finding that perfect relationship. Not perfect actually, she wasn’t that starry-eyed, but perfect for her. Somewhere there had to be the right guy to build a happy life with. That man was closer than she knew, and she’d already met him.