by Lee Barnett
This loss was worse than all the others, and as well as feeling pain and humiliation at this, I knew that Juan also felt scared. He was scared because South Africa only had so many geotechnical positions in companies. He had worked for them all and no one was willing to re-hire him. Thankfully, our mortgage payments were low and we survived for a while, even when interest rates hit 23.99 per cent. At that time my job became critical.
And then after some months, Juan received another job offer. This time it was a two-year contract through a friend, and it was located in Botswana. As excited as I was about living in incredibly wild and beautiful Botswana, I felt a huge tug at my heart knowing the kids would have to move again. The plan was to complete the two years in Botswana and return home, so we decided to rent out our house. Juan went on ahead of us while I stayed behind to work, pack up the house for shipping and let Samantha finish school.
17
Brisbane Women’s Correctional Centre
Queensland, Australia
February 2014
CLIFF AND MOM WERE ABOUT TO LAND SOON AND IN ANOTHER DAY, perhaps two, they would visit me here in prison. I was excited, but also pretty worried about Mom. Unsurprisingly, I was nervous about seeing her face-to-face after so many years.
To make things even weirder, I had only just finished re-reading how she had set me up. And while there was no way I could have forgotten any of that, some of the detail had been lost. It was something I was still struggling to deal with because I knew in my bones that I would have never lost custody of Samantha if it hadn’t been for my own mother working against me.
And I said exactly that to Sammy when I called her that morning.
‘I know, Mum,’ she whispered in sympathy. ‘It was hard to read, but it happened and hey, we have had a great life, and you got Reece in the deal as well!’
Naturally, we both started laughing.
After I had calmed down I explained, ‘I don’t hate her; it just hurts. And being away from that hurt was so welcome. I know that I have to forgive her, that her behaviour is who she is and will always be. I know she’s not going to change now, and I gave up a long time ago wishing I had a mom I could count on.’ I said all of that and meant all of it too, but that didn’t stop it remaining a sad fact.
Then Sammy told me she had been drafting an email to Harris to say that even though the FBI and embassy had told her she needed to choose between me or him, she did not want to make a choice. ‘So I’m asking him some questions that I need answered before we move on, like why would he accuse you of being mentally ill and why didn’t he get me medical help when I was hurt.’
I knew Harris wouldn’t like that and cautioned her, but I also trusted her judgement completely, and told her if she really wanted to go down that road, she should.
After we finished our conversation I was on the phone to Bruce. He had some wonderful news. While Channel 7 was filming my neighbour Babs in the US, she had given them a VHS tape, a copy of the one I had made with all the evidence on it, all eighty-six minutes of it! And Bruce’s remarkable secretary, the wonderful Raelene, was in the process of transcribing it for me to read asap. After that call I took myself off to the library and back to reading more court transcripts. Several hours later, I rubbed my eyes and glanced at the clock. I asked for my ID and permission to go back to my unit.
As soon as I spotted an empty phone I called Bruce and briefly spoke to Cliff. They’d had a trouble-free flight. Next, I called Sammy who had Mom with her. She put her on. Even after all these years, her voice was recognisable to me. It was so strange. For a moment I was lost for words; her voice triggered so many mixed emotions, some happy and some sad. We said hello and talked about her flight. After twenty years that was all I could ask her about?
She had flown from Belize on to Tampa, Florida, then LA and Australia. Damn, how did she do that? Most people, let alone an 85-year-old, wouldn’t be able to handle that.
‘Well, I’m happy you’re here now and meeting my wonderful children and my friends. I know you’ll have a good time with everyone.’
‘And you?’ Mom asked. ‘You’ve had an exciting life travelling the world?’
‘Kind of exciting, but more like working three or four jobs just to keep a roof over our heads.’
‘Oh, I know just what you mean,’ Mom jumped in. ‘Now you know what I did all those years just to take care of my three little ones.’
I swallowed the laugh that had nearly escaped and tried to recall when my mother had ever worked.
The following morning, my feelings swung from excitement to trepidation and back again. I was excited at the prospect of telling both Mom and Cliff about my children, my second husband and our lives lived around the world. And I couldn’t wait to hear about all the people I had to leave behind.
What was especially interesting about that day, though, was that there was an almost feverish excitement throughout the prison and about this visit. Inmates and the officers alike were aware of the Today Tonight program which was soon to screen, and which would now also feature my mother and brother, and not just Sammy. On the promos my mother appeared so forlorn and desperate to see me that it had pulled at the heartstrings of every woman in the prison. I had also made a point of writing a note thanking the warden for allowing my family to visit on such short notice, because it was such a huge deviation from normal protocols.
So with all of this thinking about my family, I naturally thought of Tommy too, now deceased, and what it would have been like to have seen him again. I was pretty sure that he would have been proud of me for keeping Samantha safe all the way to adulthood. Poor Tommy, I wished he had found his way in life. Such a contrast to Cliff, who had always been the most stable and driven person in our family. Cliff had always done the right thing. He graduated from college as a doctor of veterinary medicine, and he had married and raised two beautiful children. How thankful I was for my brother, who had not only stepped up and taken my children under his wing while I could not, but had also stood proudly by his little sister … his little sister who was a prisoner and potentially looking at a 23-year jail sentence.
Some many years after the fact, I looked back on our childhoods as an adventurous and exciting time for the entire family. My memories of the constant teasing no longer upset me – quite the contrary; I remain thankful to them for thickening my skin and making me resilient. And when I needed them most my brothers were there, no questions asked.
As for Mom, I knew I was lucky to have a mother who was still so healthy and active, especially as so many of my friends had lost their parents. And I had had twenty years to ruminate over Mom’s participation in me losing my baby. About three years after I had left, I had even written her a letter about it, but had been too afraid to mail it. Samantha found the letters I had written to Mom, Susan, Cliff and Tommy that I had stashed together, contained in the same bag that had her diary which was hidden away in the attic. In that one letter to Mom, I wrote that I didn’t for a moment regret what I had done and also:
I’ve thought almost daily what I would say to you. Even though I’m grateful to you for bringing me into this strange world and giving me a most interesting upbringing, I cannot erase what happened three years ago. It boils down to the fact that I feel sorry for you. Sorry for losing your daughter and more importantly the relationship you will never have with this truly incredible child.
Re-reading that letter helped me think of how best I might manage this reunion. I couldn’t hate her, it was not in me to do that, and a funny thing was, that even though I was hurt – so much – by what she had done, I wasn’t altogether that surprised. After all, she had been my mom for thirty-three years before I left. And I couldn’t have have made it as far as I had if she had been a protective maternal presence. So instead of anger, I resolved to be thankful. My upbringing had instilled in me a self-preservation and a will to trust my instincts, and the self-sufficiency to not need to rely on others in order to protect me or to make me happy.
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All of that said, though, I even told Bruce how amazing it would be if she put her arms around me and told me she was sorry.
‘What are the chances that would happen?’ he asked.
‘Slim to none, but my little girl self would love it,’ I sighed. ‘I’m sure it will be the same as things always were – with any difficult conflicts brushed aside or ignored.’
So it was with a real sense of irony that as we stood in line for our pat-down before entering the visiting rooms, every officer asked me how I felt about the chance to put my arms around my mom.
‘Incredible!’ I said with a huge smile while my stomach churned.
And then the visitor’s door opened and everyone stood to welcome their loved ones with open arms. I spied my brother, a few more wrinkles and a bit grey but still super strong and fit. Cliff gave me a sly smile and said, ‘Hello,’ in his usual casual way, and we embraced. It was then that I saw Mom over my brother’s shoulder.
The second my eyes caught hers I knew this was a mistake. After all these years her pale steely eyes bore lasers through mine, and together with her tense tight lips I knew I was in trouble. At once I felt like a child again, but with no visible means of escape.
All the officers’ eyes were on us anticipating this miraculous reunion.
‘Hi Mom, how are you?’ I said as I embraced her stiff body while her arms remained by her side. I ushered her towards the table and chairs. ‘Let’s sit down.’
I sat with Cliff to my right and Mom on my left. Our seats were bolted to the floor to keep the visitors separate. And yet Mom appeared to lean as far away from me as she could possibly manage while still sitting. Her arms were folded across her belly and her back was hard against the seat.
Damn. Two hours of this, I thought to myself.
‘So,’ I began awkwardly, ‘how does it feel to be in a prison?’
Instead of answering that question, Mom just stared at me before asking her own.
‘So why did you marry that homosexual?’
No one witnessing this reunion could have missed the animosity in her body language even if they didn’t hear what she said.
Instead of saying what I wanted to, I reached over to hold her hand and, with a smile as big as a Cheshire cat, said, ‘Mom, I loved him.’
My face began to hurt from the ridiculous smile pasted across it. How could pretending be so painful? And I imagined the officers wondering what sort of person I really was to have made my mom so mad at me.
Then Mom began spitting out dates at me: the day I eloped, the day I called her, the day I allowed her to organise the flowers for the party we threw to celebrate our wedding. I turned to my brother for some support but he only smiled. When I tried to change the subject to talk about Cliff’s children she changed it back to speak about all the people who had died. And when I couldn’t remember who she was talking about she snapped, ‘What’s wrong with you? Why can’t you remember.’
Jesus, it was hard.
So I started to speak about my children, with a broad and genuine smile.
Her response was to smirk. ‘That son of yours must have been born with a silver spoon in his mouth.’
There is nothing in this world that can hurt me more than for someone to speak ill about my children, and especially at that time with all they had to face.
I looked from my mother to my brother. ‘Whatever do you mean?’
‘He eats everything without any regard for anyone else. He ate three of the six pizzas for dinner last night, and all the expensive cheeses without even offering us any.’
I still had my ridiculous smile on my face and leaned over and patted my mother’s leg. ‘But how wonderful it is for you to discover you had a surprise grandson!’
For once she remained silent and Cliff jumped in.
‘Mom, Reece is an athlete and a growing boy so he eats a lot.’
Quick as a whip Mom snarled back, ‘Don’t tell me about growing boys.’
Oh, dear God.
I inwardly prayed for the time to be up, as every single exchange seemed to elicit a prickly reply or disapproving glare from her. And just when I had thought we were down to our last few minutes she said, ‘So why didn’t you get a genetics test?’
I was taken aback and asked her what she meant.
‘To prove that Samantha is not Harris’s child, but the child from the guy you were with in Boston!’
What? Thoughts flew around my rattled brain. The guy in Boston? What guy in Boston? Was she still speaking with Harris, even after everything that had happened? Then I remembered Harris’s phase of claiming Samantha wasn’t his and saying so to his psychologist Susan McClure. I suspected he had also told Mom as well.
‘Well, Mom,’ I said, still with a smile on my face. ‘Talk about kicking a dog when it’s down! I was never unfaithful while I was married to my husband and Samantha is most certainly Harris’s!’ Then the bell rang. Thank God, only one more minute.
Cliff caught the relief cross my face and gave me the tiniest of smiles.
‘Well so, okay, thanks for coming all this way to see me, and meeting my children and friends. I guess I’ll speak to you guys again before you go and I’ll see you back in the US real soon.’
I stood to give them both a hug. As I hugged Cliff I whispered, ‘What the hell!’, making sure Mom’s X-ray vision and hearing were out of range.
Cliff shrugged and whispered back, ‘Did you really think things would get better after twenty years?’
‘Bye, Mom,’ I said and bent down to offer her a hug, one that she reciprocated this time. ‘Thank you for coming and I’ll see you soon.’
Then out they filed, leaving me speechless and numb. All those little-girl dreams of remorse and a chance to start anew, gone!
People were still excited, if a little confused, by the two-hour show, and during the strip search I fielded the questions as best I could. My officer (the one who had that black eye) explained that she had escorted my Mom inside. She said Mom was wearing low heels and seemed to slip so she took her arm to support her, also mentioning that she too wasn’t very good with heels. Apparently Mom had snatched her arm away and said, ‘My heels are not what caused me to stumble.’
And there it was again, something I had known all my life: that reflexive way my mother just trampled over other people’s feelings and kindnesses. And it had happened right here in prison! Immediately I started to make excuses for her, apologising and then I whispered conspiratorially, ‘I think while I’ve been gone she’s become a little senile.’ I hoped that lie might spread among the officers and do the job. Thankfully the officer nodded her head with understanding.
18
Botswana
2000–2002
SAMANTHA AND REECE WERE SO EXCITED ABOUT MOVING TO Botswana. Some of their excitement sprang from their own visits to Kruger National Park and other parks we had visited in South Africa, and some from the stories I had told them about my travels with Susan through Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Zaire. Reece’s favourite was when Susan and I had narrowly escaped poachers at Mount Elgon in Kenya, while Samantha loved to hear about the gorillas in Zaire. I was also excited – excited that they would now learn what some of the rest of this vast continent was like, and not just the high-rises and six-lane roads they had grown up with in South Africa. This move would allow my children to live in Black Africa, ruled by blacks and run by blacks. I was happy at that prospect as I had never felt truly at home in South Africa; I had thought it a place that put me above others because of my skin colour rather than considering any of my accomplishments.
There was no question that this was a lucky time for us. Juan’s position gave us a house to live in rent-free and schooling for the children at an international private school, perks that were necessary in this expat environment. We were going to live in a subdivision outside of the capital, Gaborone, and the kids were to travel to school in the city centre.
Samantha and Reece loved our new modestly sized hous
e when we pulled up outside for the first time, but they loved the large back yard and stunning pool even more. I was sure most of our free time would be spent out there. We also had our beloved black Great Dane, Kokie, and beautiful cat, Squirrel, with us, so our family was complete. And, true to form, the animal part of our family quickly grew when I was called on to catch a baby rock python at a friend’s house, and Juan insisted on getting chickens.
Most mornings Sammy and Juan would get up first, make coffee, feed the chickens and sit by the pool. For about a month they insisted a hyena was visiting our neighbourhood. I scoffed. There was no way a hyena would hang around a built-up suburb like ours. Sammy insisted, and told me in no uncertain terms that Daddy was the person from Africa, not me. And even Juan was so convinced that I started to believe him. A month or so later, they both woke me to say that the hyena was right outside our gate. I staggered down the driveway wiping the sleep out of my eyes to see that the hyena the two had been stalking for weeks was an Alaskan malamute!
One thing that did take some time getting used to in Botswana was our high cement wall topped with electric wire, and the security alarms in the house, even though it was much safer than South Africa; back there we had only had a white picket fence surrounding our house.
The kids soon made wonderful friends at school and Juan and I became friendly with the children’s parents. Samantha went straight into the International School, Northside Primary, though unfortunately there wasn’t any space for Reece until later. The school was wonderful and the children were of all nationalities, including international families based in the diamond mining industry as well as dignitaries and diplomats from all quarters, not forgetting a healthy blend of wealthy Botswanan families.