by Lee Barnett
I gave a sarcastic laugh at reading that out. Just how outrageous were all of his lies? Then I asked Russell if he knew why I had left the US with Savanna.
‘Wasn’t it because she was injured?’ he said.
‘No, it was because Harris, Bjorksten and Jania all said my mental illness, hyperthymic temperament, was a genetic condition and that I was the third generation. Harris alleged it hailed from an aristocratic background and that my mother and grandmother both had it. Harris’s wish was that if I couldn’t be put in an institution then he wanted the judge to order me to go on lithium to break the chemical curse. Harris believed wholeheartedly that Samantha was the fourth successive generation with this mental condition. He believed so strongly he even wrote one of his creepy poems about it.
‘Diane Goodstein, Jania Sommers’s attorney, asked Harris on the witness stand what he would do if he suspected that Samantha had the same thing Lee has. And his response was:
Well, that is a very great concern for me believe it or not, and I will probably be keeping a very close eye on her whether I’m custodial parent or not. I think that I will be able to see it. Experts can sometimes detect this at as early an age as two or three. I certainly wouldn’t want it to go untreated and negatively affect her life or her happiness in any way. I will be prepared for it.
‘And on being asked how he would prepare for it he said, “I would be looking for it. I would just take her to the best person available without question. I will seek whatever is prescribed.”’
I remembered that while Diane Goodstein cross-examined Harris I was scribbling questions for Mendel to re-cross Harris with. Mendel asked him, ‘You are quite prepared to put her on medication, are you not?’
‘If it was suggested by the doctors, yes Sir,’ was Harris’s response.
‘And how many doctors would you need to go to before you would be persuaded it was time to put Savanna on medication?’
‘Just one good one.’
Mendel then posited a hypothetical situation: ‘What if Savanna were three years old, and you took Savanna to Dr Oliver Bjorksten, and he said, “I detect hyperthymia in this child. I think she should be on medication.” What would you do?’
‘I would put her on medication,’ said Harris.
‘Okay. You wouldn’t hesitate, would you?’
‘No.’
‘Because you are so persuaded that this woman is sick that if the daughter has anything like the mother, you’re going to put the daughter promptly on medication, aren’t you? At any age?’
‘You bet,’ answered Harris, ‘because look at her great grandmother, her grandmother and herself. I don’t want it to ruin another life, for God’s sake!’
My voice sounded almost hollowed out now as my breath caught in my throat.
‘So you see, Russell, I just couldn’t let them destroy my innocent baby’s life. I was the only thing standing between them and I had to protect her.’
Harris’s admission that he wouldn’t hesistate to put a two- or three-year-old Savanna on medication terrified me. ‘Hell, Russell, I was a thirty-year-old women and I couldn’t defend myself against their accusations. How could my defenceless baby?’
20
New Zealand and Australia
2003–2013
WE LANDED IN AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND, ON 3 JANUARY 2003. EVEN though it was summer it felt cool after the sweltering heat of Botswana, and when we looked at the overcast day and set off for the nearest beach it didn’t occur to us that we needed sunscreen. That was the first lesson we learned in the antipodes. Every one of us suffered a nasty sunburn and we realised very quickly just how deceptively fierce the sun in this region is.
A friend of Juan’s showed us these amazingly green and lush places around the north shore, and I felt like we’d been transported to the middle of a Jurassic Park movie given the abundance of giant ferns, miles of sandy white beaches and the crystal clear waters of the Pacific Ocean. New Zealand’s natural beauty, and the freedom we found there, were two things we couldn’t get enough of. We just loved it!
Because it was summer and the schools were still closed, Juan and I thought it would be great if the children started swimming in a club to make some new friends, not having any idea how competitive these clubs were here. Once we had found our feet a little, Juan and I began to argue about buying a house. I wanted to get into the market right away while he was adamant that we should wait a year. After keeping my eye out, I found a wonderful house in a perfect location and managed to persuade Juan we should buy it, and so we did.
When the children started at Browns Bay Primary, Samantha was moved up a class to year 6. Once again she was younger than her classmates, though that didn’t seem to bother her academically or socially. She was settled in the swim club and took private piano lessons to keep up her exams. Reece jumped into everything connected to sport that the school and community had to offer, including cricket, rugby, basketball and swimming. Sailing was the go-to hobby on Auckland’s north shore so the children had sailing every Tuesday at school. Then the children became involved in surf lifesaving, an incredible sport that meant a lot more time at the beach than we could have imagined. It was a combination of voluntary lifeguard services and serious surf sports as well as running and swimming, and Samantha and Reece loved it. Once again we became a part of a community and our weekends were nearly always spent watching the kids play sport.
Life was good and we were all happy. Juan got a job, while at first I worked part-time doing things like stocking supermarket shelves and sales in the wine industry, which was similar to what I had done in South Africa.
The high minimum wage and the tax breaks and allowances we received – for the children and for health care – were amazing. We were granted permanent residency once Juan got a job and this change in status even allowed us to vote, which made us feel like we really belonged. And after just three short years of permanent residence we were eligible to apply for citizenship, something that we knew we wanted.
Before long I landed my dream job in publishing with Thomson Learning, which would later become Cengage Learning. I was an ‘educational consultant’ based from home, though the reality was that both Juan and I were road warriors and spent most of our time travelling to appointments. Our jobs, however, ensured us the freedom to be there for the children and we truly felt blessed.
In spite of it sounding a little frenetic, life in New Zealand was simple, calm and inviting. One fond memory was when Reece and his best friend built a fort consisting of wooden tunnels under our stilted house that took them many weeks to complete. Finally they persuaded me to crawl through this wooden maze, which ended in a ‘room’ the size of a coffin. Once there, I poked my feet out one side, and they landed in hot soapy water. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that the ‘pedicure’ reward at the end was no compensation for the claustrophobia and splinters picked up along the way, and the fact that I had to repeat the journey to get out of there.
Perhaps the only criticism we had of this marvellous country was the weather. So many times we went on mini holidays to the beach, staying in a secluded cabin or tent and without fail we were always rained out. But as annoying as the wet weather was, it forced our busy family to spend time together and to reconnect. I remember one time the four of us were playing gin rummy, a game the kids loved as much as me. The electricity had been knocked out and we were playing by candlelight when suddenly Samantha accused Reece of cheating. And she repeated her accusation a second and a third time. I looked at Reece who gave me the most innocent smile imaginable and he said he wasn’t cheating. Then Juan, who differed from me in so many ways but never when it came to raising the children, told Sammy to say sorry to her brother. Sammy refused. But instead of calling an end to the game I thought we should finish it first, and then have a chat about falsely accusing people of cheating. It finished with Reece winning for the third time in a row, quite a feat since he was only about eight and I always fancied myself a good gin p
layer. Then, when we stood up to get ready for bed, playing cards that had been hidden under Reece’s bum fell to the floor. The three of us just stared at him, two of us in total disbelief.
‘The little bugger fooled me,’ said Juan later when we were in bed. He hadn’t, however, fooled Sammy.
As the years passed, Reece became sports mad; he and Juan would re-enact every play on the rugby field or cricket ground for hours and hours at a time. It almost drove Samantha and I crazy with boredom!
It was around this time that it became clear to me that our marriage was strained. The strain came from the constant stress and worry the two of us carried every second of our lives. The other major strain on our relationship came from Juan’s inability to keep a job. Over time I’ve since learned that neither of these difficulties was the fault of any one person – it was what it was, and yet it resulted in our relationship resembling a friendship rather than a marriage. We loved our family and we were devoted to our children, but no matter how much Juan loved his children, he struggled living outside his native country. To many people he appeared gruff, perhaps even a little rude. And I think around this time he may have been homesick for a land that understood him better. I remember we were at the house of one of Juan’s co-workers and he had forewarned Juan that he was close to losing his job. After we got home that evening we had a talk, a talk about moving yet again.
Reece and Juan already had their New Zealand citizenship and Samantha was waiting for hers. I had delayed applying for Sammy’s because I was afraid, and that fear had put me off applying for mine entirely. The ceremony the New Zealand government put on the day the boys received their certificates of citizenships was terrific. The official went out of his way to make them feel special, especially Reece. Then Samantha’s finally came through and we attended another wonderful ceremony. More than anything I wanted my family safe with passports from a first-world country, not just their South African passports. Around this time I was at the beach one evening while Sammy was surf training when I started chatting with her coach and his wife. They were both Australian. I had mentioned that I had fallen in love with the Sunshine Coast on a recent holiday there and that I would love to move to Australia. ‘That’s where I’m from,’ said the wife of Sammy’s coach. ‘I’m from Mooloolaba.’ And that was the exact area that we had fallen in love with. She asked me why I didn’t move and I said I had heard that the private schools were really expensive and the public ones weren’t too good.
‘What? The best public school is right there, Mountain Creek High, and it even offers international baccalaureate.’
Well, that pretty much sealed the deal for us.
Yet the great scheme to move to Australia still had a few hiccups. Firstly, if I was planning on moving with the rest of my family, I had to apply for New Zealand citizenship. There was no avoiding it. So now armed with the information that the only way I could live and work in Australia was to be a New Zealand citizen, I began. And I was spurred on by the news that Juan had found a job there easily, in national geotechnical sales, which meant that he could work from home. We sold our Auckland house less then four years after buying it and made a tidy amount to help fund this next adventure.
As had happened with Botswana, Juan moved first to start his new job while I stayed back, to let the children finish school and pack up the house with all our belongings. This was the third time we had started over and I felt terribly guilty for Sammy, who simply did not want to leave. She was now a teenager and it had taken her a little longer to settle and to make great friends. The swim club had become like an extended family to her, and even her first boyfriend was a fellow swimmer there. ‘It’s going to be great,’ I kept telling her. ‘You’ll love the warmer weather and all that sunshine, and all your friends can come over for a visit anytime they want.’ I repeated this over and over until I hoped she believed me.
In December 2007, we landed in Brisbane, with Juan waiting for us just on the other side of customs. It had only been six weeks since the children had last seen him, but they had missed him very much and ran into his arms.
‘Hey, sweetie,’ Juan said to Sammy. ‘And my little man, you’ve grown in the past six weeks.’
‘Hi, Juan,’ I said. Instantly I knew something was wrong. He refused to look at me and barely acknowledged my presence. ‘Is anything wrong?’ I asked as we walked out of the terminal. The first thought that sprang to mind was that he’d already been let go from his new job.
On the drive up to the Sunshine Coast the kids were loud and silly, positively bursting with excitement. Uncharacteristically, Juan shouted at them.
What in the world? I thought. What could they have done when they hadn’t even seen him for nearly two months?
Once we arrived at the small two-bedroom rental, Juan suggested that he sleep with Reece and that Sammy and I shared the queen bed.
Really? I asked.
Juan said he knew how Reece’s talking in his sleep kept the rest of us awake.
‘Come on, Mum,’ said Sammy enthusiastically, ‘let’s go to our room.’
‘Okay,’ I said, giving Juan a questioning glance over my shoulder.
That evening we had dinner at the surf club where a high-school friend of Sammy’s and her family were eating; they were holidaying from New Zealand. But what was memorable and strange about that evening were Juan’s frequent disappearances during dinner.
I woke soon after 5 a.m. with the birds and sunrise and decided to head out to see some houses that I’d checked out on the internet. I spent around three hours walking around the area getting acquainted with where things were. I found several of the houses I’d seen for sale and, among things, located the high school. When I returned to the apartment, though, Juan began shouting at me, demanding to know where I had been. I told him, then told him to relax a little but became increasingly puzzled by his very odd behaviour. Later that same morning, Sammy told me that Juan had left the apartment the night before, after I had fallen asleep. She said that she had heard him leave and looked out the window to see that he had left the car.
‘But it was pouring with rain,’ I said. Then I wondered if he had made it back before I had left for my walk.
‘Mummy?’
‘Yes, Sammy.’
‘I think we should follow him. Maybe he has a girlfriend.’
‘Oh, don’t be silly, he wouldn’t have a girlfriend.’
That same evening I noticed a peculiar smell emanating from Juan. And by that I don’t mean anything like a store-bought perfume but instead a scent that was sour and pungent. And I remembered thinking: Could it be fear?
The truth will always out and in time I learned that Juan had indeed been seeing someone, a born-again Christian South African woman he had met at an event our real-estate agent had organised. He begged me to give him another chance. He even spoke to Samantha and apologised. And he talked me out of dividing our money and going our separate ways to instead buy the house we had been looking at. I accepted his promises and, for the children’s sake, accepted his excuses – until the third time I caught him seeing her. By then I called time on the marriage.
We were sitting outside by the pool at our new house.
‘Juan,’ I said, ‘what do you think I would have said if you had come to me and said, “Alex, I’ve found someone I really like, I can relate to her because she is South African.”?’
He was quiet for a minute.
‘Juan,’ I gently persisted. ‘What do you think I would have said?’
He sighed. ‘You would have said you were very happy for me.’
‘That’s right. That’s exactly what I would have said. But I cannot forgive this lying over and over. I just can’t.’
We separated once I received my New Zealand passport and was able to work. I gave Juan half of everything and, of necessity, began working three jobs to meet the mortgage payments. Juan and I divorced at a local law firm. Simple, and no fuss. He didn’t ask for the kids and I didn’t ask for any
more child support than I knew he could afford. It was all very amicable, almost friendly, really. Later Juan would move back to South Africa and the children and I would stay in our new home in our new country.
The children were happy, I was happy and Juan was happy living back in the country he loved. Perhaps unusually, Juan and I stayed friends. My thinking is that we knew each other too well and too long for that not to happen. And we shared a deep secret. When he came for a few fleeting visits he sometimes stayed with us, and at other times he stayed with the Schofields, our Botswana friends who’d moved to Queensland. The ones who betrayed us. He continued to support me as a parent and we never differed in our parenting styles. He will always be missed. Oh, how I would love to talk to him about Samantha and Reece. He would be so incredibly proud of his two beautiful children.
21
Brisbane Women’s Correctional Centre
Queensland, Australia
2014
IT WAS A HOT DAY AND HOT WORK RUNNING MY LAPS AROUND THE oval before I encountered my former unit mate Becky. She was someone I had worked hard to avoid or, if that wasn’t possible, to ignore. Our beliefs were so wildly different, and even though deep in my heart I knew she was just another misguided young woman who had become embroiled in the drug world, I simply didn’t want to be around to hear what cracked nonsense she had to say.
Becky stood blocking my path as I headed towards her on the grass. ‘Hey, Alex,’ she said, and I had no choice but to stop. Suddenly she hugged me to her sweaty body. ‘I’m so sorry I was such a cunt to you when you lived with me.’ I pulled away from her slick embrace and wiped her excess sweat from my face. ‘I thought you were bullshitting us the whole time you were in here,’ she continued, ‘saying you stole your baby. And then I saw your show last night and realised you weren’t lying.’