When Amelia saw Lynn with the suitcase, she came rushing down the stairs, “mom, and mom, “she cried out, “Where are you going?”
“I have to go Amelia, I can’t stay here anymore, I’ve already been here too long. I love you and the boys,” she said, “but I can’t stand being here anymore, please I have to go,” her face looked very sad, but determined.
Amelia was crying and begged and pleaded with her mother to stay, she grabbed her hand and tried to stop her, “Please mom, please don’t go,” Amelia begged, “what will we do without you?” Just then a taxi from town pulled up outside the house. Lynn shook her hand free and picked up her suitcase, slammed the door, got in the taxi and left.
Amelia went over to her father and tried to wake him. He moaned so she decided she would let him there until her brothers, who were out hunting, returned in the morning. She covered him with a blanket, laid on the sofa, covered herself with a small quilted coverlet, cried, and shivered, until she fell asleep.
Secret Thoughts: (I can’t believe what I saw really happened. I think daddy will be OK, physically, what about his feelings for my mom? And what about my mother. I know she broke his heart. He hasn’t been right for the last few months since she started acting so strange. I guess my goose is cooked about going to college I will be too busy to go. The worst thing, which I will try and put out of my mind is what she said, “But not her.” I think I know what she meant, that my father is not really my father. I wanted to race down the steps and ask her why she was lying. I feel so upset. I wasn’t able to make her stay, somehow all this was my fault, I want her to stay and tell me the truth about if daddy is not, then who is my real father? I’ll never tell Roger and Matt and I won’t let daddy know that I heard what mom said either. It hurts so much. Mom must have known she was leaving her suitcase was already packed.)
The following morning when Roger and Matt came home, she told them what happened. Her father had awakened during the night and went to his bedroom. After telling her brothers about the terrible argument and their mother leaving, she asked, “What are we going to do?” asked Amelia.
“About what?” asked Roger?
“About mom leaving?”
“There’s nothing we can do, it’s up to dad, if he wants to get her back, I guess he’ll have to go after her himself. She has a mind of her own. Come to think of it she has been acting squirrelly lately. Ever since Jerry left, like she had itchy feet or something.”
As they talked, their father came out of the bedroom and he had a huge knot on his forehead and a black eye.
“Amelia get started making breakfast,” he ordered, “I reckon you mother won’t be back for a while, maybe never.”
“What are we going to do?” asked Amelia, worried and crying.
“Nothing we can do now, except carry on as we always do. Let’s go boys and get the animals taken care of. He went over to Amelia and gave her a hug, “Mellie honey don’t go on worrying yourself sick, none of this was about you.”
After they ate breakfast, Amelia did the dishes, and then got ready for school. She felt bad her stomach was churning, her only hope was that her dad must have said that to her because she was crying, he couldn’t possibly know that she heard what her mother told him.
Amelia went over to Ida’s that day for only a few minutes she quickly told Ida what happened, “I have to go home to fix supper for the family, I’m not sure when I’ll have some free time to visit, I have all of mom’s chores to do now,” Amelia said with tears in her eyes.
“I’m so sorry Amelia,” said Ida hugging her, “can I help in any way?”
“I don’t think so,” said Amelia, gloomily. “I guess this means that I won’t be going to college or anywhere else, dad needs me around the house to pick up mom’s chores plus my own,” and silent tears rolled down her face as she began crying.
“Amelia,” said Ida, as she put her arms around her, “I’m so sorry, let’s try not to think of the worst and see how things work out, maybe she’ll come back. You must hold on to your dream. I’ll send Elsie my cleaning lady over to help you. Let’s plan so that you can come over at least every Sunday after church.”
Secret thoughts: (At first, I was going to tell Ida what I heard my mother say about me. But I am so humiliated, and I didn’t want her to feel sorry for me. I think I did the right thing by staying quiet about it. I vow not to ever let anyone know my dark secret, especially my father, he’s already very upset and I’ll never tell Ida or Chad they might think I’m somehow bad. Maybe mom felt guilty and that’s why she left. I wish I could crawl into a little ball and die that would be easier.)
Ida missed Amelia’s daily visits and emailed everything that happened to Chad. He emailed back to say he felt badly for Amelia and asked if Ida could think of any way, he could help to let him know.
[ Chapter 8 ]
Summer went into fall and winter passed by and they still had no word from either Jerry or Lynn. When the weather broke, the boys and their father were busy planting. They didn’t have any construction work, so they concentrated on the farm. Amelia was busy with the housework, cooking, laundry, and the rest of the household chores. She found little time for leisure and when she did, she made a beeline for Ida’s. School was almost over and she would be starting her senior year of high school in the fall. She wanted to do her best; however, she had a lot of other responsibilities, which cut her study time short. Amelia still wrote to Chad, but the letters were usually short one pagers now.
Suddenly it was summer again and the weather grew hot and sticky. It seemed Amelia never got very far away from the stove, making breakfast, fixing lunch, and cooking supper every day for three hungry males and her, plus all the housework and farm chores.
It was near July 4th when her father decided they needed to clear some more of their land at the far end of their property to have more grazing room for the animals. The boys rode out on horseback, to the spot they planned to clear, and Amelia and her father drove out in the stake body truck, towing the large woodchipper behind the truck. It was a rugged, older commercial model, but it was still in good working order, and did a good job. They would chop some of the wood into fireplace lengths, and bring it back to use during the winter, and use the wood chips for bedding in the barns.
They had been working all morning. Roger and Matt cut down the trees with chain saws, tied them to the drag sled pulled by the horses, and hauled them to the work area they set up. Henry would cut off the limbs and put the smaller branches in the woodchipper. Amelia raked wood chips, loaded them in burlap sacks, and put them in the back of the truck. At noon, the boys took the horses to the stream at the far end of the property, to water them.
Since Lynn left, Henry’s mood and appearance changed. He stopped shaving and getting his hair cut and was generally unkempt. Amelia knew he felt badly inside, because he had never let himself go like that before. In the past he was very fussy about his appearance and hated it when Jerry let his hair grow long. Now it was different, Henry let his beard grow and it was quite long. He tied his hair in a ponytail to keep it out of his face, or stuffed it under his hat, it had grown long also. It was as if he didn’t care about himself or anything anymore. Lynn had shaken him to the core.
Although the day was very hot, they all had on long sleeve shirts, jeans, and boots, so they could minimize getting scratched by the limbs of the trees. Amelia was standing on the back of the truck pulling up the sacks full of wood chips when she heard her father’s first screams.
Alarmed, Amelia jumped down from the truck and ran to the chipper. A cry ripped from her throat when she saw the horrible sight! Oh my God! She screamed. Somehow, Henry got his ponytail caught in the chipper. The pull of the powerful, chipper had overpowered Henry and pulled him into the cutting area and now his beard was caught too! The chipper pulled the ponytail into its blades; its movement turned Henry’s head into a grotesque position,
and bit into the side of his head and face.
He franticly yelled, “Help, help, get me out of this fucking machine.”
Shocked and frightened, Amelia was horrified to see blood flying everywhere. Amelia’s first instincts were to get him out of there, and she immediately tried to pull him out by pulling on his legs. She pulled on his legs as hard as she could, it was a very hot day and her hands were wet from perspiration, and blood was spraying all over and now it sprayed on her. Henry and Amelia and the area around the chipper were covered with blood. The only part Amelia worried about was that the blood was making her grip on Henry’s legs slip. She prayed, begged, cried and cursed all at the same time just hoping somehow, she would not loose purchase of his legs, but the blood kept pouring out, in bursts of fury. Amelia screamed as loud as she could when she lost her grasp on Henry as if that could magically stop the slow losing battle from happening. Amelia didn’t notice right away that Henry no longer called out or screamed or moaned any more, still Amelia clutched frantically at his skin, his pants, his shoes, please God help me get him out of there. She even dug her fingernails into the skin on his legs to try and get a solid grip on him. The thought that the powerful pull of this equipment could pull her into its wake too, never crossed her mind and she continued to struggle to get Henry out of there.
Then it hit her like a bolt and she suddenly remembered, Jesus! God! I forgot; the emergency stop switch. She had to make a split decision, should she let go of Henry’s legs completely to try and pull the switch to stop the machine? Or should she hold on and keep trying to keep the chipper from devouring Henry. She had to let go of him to get to it and pull the switch down. She had no choice. The chipper was making a loud low grinding, grading sound as if trying to get up enough energy to eat Henry’s whole body. She had to stop this man-eating beast of a machine. She let go, ran around the back of the woodchipper, and tried to pull the emergency stop switch down as fast as she could, it wouldn’t budge. She tugged and banged on it with her hand till it hurt and then she tried to hit it with her booted foot. Nothing! It was stuck, the old chipper sat outside in the weather and the shut off handle was rusted. Her hands were sticky from all the blood and perspiration, she tried to wipe them on her clothes to get them dry, but her clothes were covered in blood now too. Panicked that she was unable to pull down the emergency switch, she ran around to see if she could pull him out again. Amelia jerked on his leg so hard his boot came off propelling her to the ground where she landed on her butt. She got up and tried pulling on his legs again. For a minute, she thought she had been able to pull him out then realized it was his jeans and the boot that were coming off, but his body didn’t move. Still the low moaning pitch of the chipper wanted to do more damage, the squawk, squawk of the blades as they sang trying to find each other to grind again. More food, I want more food it moaned. Amelia kept trying to wrench him out of the bin, blood was still spraying everywhere, and it was all over her, in her hair and on her clothes.
This was not good, there was no help for it, she had to try shutting off the chipper, and she went to the emergency switch and tried again.
She rubbed her hands on the ground in the dirt to get them dry; still she couldn’t pull the switch down. She looked around to see if there was a tool of any kind and finally after what seemed like an eternity, she saw a wrench on the ground. The metallic noise of metal on metal shrieked out, and a high-pitched sound, Ping! Ping! Ping! Ping! It rang out as she beat and banged on the emergency lever with the wrench. It hammered in her ears, until the lever finally creaked down and suddenly the chipper shuttered with a whine and stopped. The roar of silence was deafening. Her father stopped screaming some time ago, now there wasn’t even a bird chirping; only a dead stillness filled the air.
Exhausted, Amelia shuffled around to the front of the chipper, once more, she felt drained, but couldn’t stand to doing nothing, so she tried once more to get her father out of the chipper. Amelia jerked, pulled, and yanked with no success. Bone weary and defeated, she was unable to do more. She went closer to where his head was and saw his ear was on one of the blades; his head was caught on another blade of the chipper and had pulled chunks of hair out of his head with large pieces of scalp still attached. There was blood all over, it was starting to clot, and it looked like cherry Jell-O was coating everything. Another of the chipper blades ripped through his chin, cheek, and neck. His jaw was open, and another blade had ripped out his front teeth and cut through his nose. If she didn’t know who he was, she wouldn’t have recognized him. Half of Henry’s face was missing the other half distorted. It sickened her and tears ran down her cheeks and she was filled with sadness to think this was her father, her daddy eaten by this fucking monster machine.
Amelia was physically sick she gagged and threw up until she was left with nothing but dry heaves. Amelia was devastated. Once more she tried to free him of the menacing machine. Amelia could hardly see now because of the tears, perspiration, and smeared blood on her face, but she tried to get him out and then began losing strength, her adrenaline burst waning, she was too weak and finally fell to the ground. Amelia tried to get up she looked as if she had to much to drink she swayed and began to slump. She was certain daddy was no longer alive. She fell to the ground again next to the chipper unable to stand any longer or take a step. She didn’t know what to do next; she seemed to be in a trance. In her mind Amelia heard the squawk, squawking sound of the woodchipper over and over, it said give me more, give me more!
Amelia didn’t know how long she was on the ground in that state it seemed she was there for eons. After some time, she realized that she needed to get help. She tried to stand but her legs like rubbery masses of glop. She crawled to the truck and with her arms pulled up on to the running board and reached into the truck. It felt to her as she was moving in slow motion, her limbs seemed so heavy and would not follow her commands. She tried several times to reach the rifle that sat between the seats, but her arms were too short. Finally, she was able to use the hay baling hook to snag the rifle and pull it to her. Mel held it with both hands wrapped around it and she tried to fire the rifle, but her hands were so slippery she couldn’t get a grip. She saw a bottle of water on the floor of the truck and after several tries opened it up and poured it all over her hands. Amelia gripped the rifle again and fired two shots in the air. This was their signal if there was an emergency. It wasn’t long before Roger and Matt rode out of the thicket galloping as fast as they could. They drew the horses up when they saw the terrifying scene.
They saw Amelia sitting with her back against the truck tire motionless, holding the rifle, covered in blood staring into space. Then they saw their father. The lower half of his body was hanging outside the woodchipper bin. One boot off, his arms were positioned as if he was trying to push away from the bin. One of his hands was missing, and his head was caught in the chipper blades, blood and pieces of bone were everywhere. Henry’s clothes were cut to shreds, his other hand caught in the chipper blades, fingers ripped off, as he tried to push his body away from the machine.
Roger put his hand on his father’s chest to see if he was still alive, there was no movement. He could see that part of Henry’s neck lay open; the blades had cut his carotid artery. He went to the truck and grabbed the two-way radio. Matt went to Amelia, took the rifle out of her hand and spoke to her, she didn’t answer.
“May Day, May Day, May Day,” Roger repeated in a loud anxious voice repeatedly, until he finally got an answer. He gave the person who answered his name and said, “Please send the sheriff out to our place. We are at the back of the property and send an ambulance; there’s been a terrible accident.”
Roger and Matt helped Amelia up and sat her down on a log. They tried to see if she was hurt, they didn’t know if the blood that covered her, was their father’s or if she was hurt too. They felt her arms and legs and they seemed Ok. Amelia was hysterical or in shock or something, she sat on the log, staring straig
ht ahead, with a faraway look on her face. Then she began talking and crying, not looking at any one and staring into space. Between her sobs she said, “I couldn’t save him I killed him. I tried to pull him out, push daddy, help me pull you out. I tried my best to pull him out, I just couldn’t, I couldn’t pull him out, and I pulled on his legs. I tried to pull the emergency handle down and it wouldn’t move. That monster machine trying to eat the rest of him! Gobs of slimy tears mixed with the blood ran down her face she was a mess. I can hear the noise in my head! Squawking and squawking! Amelia stammered on.”
The sheriff and the ambulance arrived almost at the same time. They were shocked when they saw the accident scene. There was so much blood and Henry’s body looked so strange hanging out of the chipper like a macabre Halloween hoax. One of the sheriff’s men walked into the woods and threw up. The EMTs got Amelia cleaned up as best they could to determine if she was hurt and tried to get her to calm down and made her drink some water. After they examined her and felt she was not injured, the sheriff asked her to tell them what happened. Through her crying and sobs, she told him that she was in the back of the truck pulling up the sacks of wood chips, and she heard Henry call out, help me, help me, get me out of this fucking machine, then she told them how she tried to pull him out.
It was very late by the time they got back to the house. Amelia was almost back to normal; except she looked like a wild person and was still crying. Her clothes were stiff with dried blood and her hair stuck out like a porcupine. She had dried blood everywhere under her nails and inside her ears. She could have easily been in a zombie movie. As soon as they got home, she took a shower and let the water pour over her trying to wash the horrible scene of her father out of her mind. Roger and Matt did the evening chores. Amelia went through the motions of making supper, she made soup and sandwiches for them, they couldn’t eat, they weren’t hungry.
Secrets of Amelia Page 4