When the house was done, it was nice. The living room and two downstairs bedrooms had been painted and sheet rocked. The kitchen and upstairs were just walls with insulation stapled in them, but the fact that there was insulation at all was a comforting thought. The October wind was already howling and the temperature was dipping below thirty degrees; Grandma was constantly cold. Brian had installed a large barrel heater in the corner of the living room, and this is where we parked Grandma’s wheelchair every morning.
During this time, Samantha and I noticed that Grandma was starting to sleep all the time instead of taking frequent naps and she only woke up when we shook her. Every day we checked her blood pressure, and it was always higher than it was supposed to be.
It was an exciting day when Aunty Laura arrived. It seemed like we had not seen her in a lifetime, but she looked the same. Although she was now in her late fifties, she still had soft, curly blonde hair, porcelain skin and kind, sparkling, blue eyes that seemed brighter when paired with her usual red lipstick. She was always dressed sharply, even for an excursion to our farm which was in the middle of nowhere.
Her black pencil skirt and button-up pink blouse seemed out of place to us, but that was Aunty Laura. Her husband, although quiet, always smiled from ear to ear. Although Uncle Bill lived in the city, he fancied himself an outdoors man and had dressed in camouflage pants and a bright orange hunting sweater.
“They look funny together,” I laughed.
Samantha just shook her head and rolled her eyes in amusement.
As Aunty Laura got out of the car, she removed her sunglasses and walked toward us with a smile, but there was a bit of disapproval in her eyes.
“Hey, Brian,” she said, giving her little brother a hug. “How in the h*** did you get Mom to agree to live up here in the middle of nowhere?”
Brian was taken aback and said defensively that Grandma had asked to live with us. Aunty Laura did not seem to buy his story, but she looked over at me and Samantha and smiled.
“Wow, you girls are all grown up,” she said, hugging us. She looked at me and asked my age.
“I will be sixteen next month,” I said with little enthusiasm.
She raised her eyebrows and looked at me in my long, dark dress, cape, apron and covering.
“So, did you finish school already?” she asked with raised eyebrows.
Mamma popped over and put an arm around my shoulders. “Our Misty is really smart,” she said. “She just finished the tenth grade but has decided to stop now.”
“Well, she still has those giant, green eyes. I am sure some boys are going to come knocking your door down any day. Better have your shotgun ready, Brian.” She laughed and winked at her younger brother.
I smiled as I was supposed to, thinking how much I wished it were true.
Aunty Laura hugged Samantha exclaiming how she, who had always been short and chubby as a little girl, was now several inches taller than I was. When she asked Samantha what grade she was in, Mamma answered that she was in the eighth grade. It was obvious that Mamma and Aunty Laura still had no intentions to like each other even a little bit.
In stark contrast to Aunty Laura’s trim figure and confident manner, Mamma, who was nearing two hundred and seventy-five pounds, had a defensive-looking face and a brow that was constantly furrowed and angry. Her green eyes were penetrating and miserable, and her blackish-brown hair was always combed severely back away from her face. I had always wondered what Brian saw in her, besides himself, of course.
“Well, where is Mom?” Aunty Laura asked, trying to lighten the mood that had suddenly become ignited with hostility.
We went into the house, and Aunty Laura looked around with interest as she went over to Grandma. Grandma was sleeping again with her head slouching into her lap.
“Hi, Mom,” Aunty Laura and Uncle Bill each lightly jiggled one of grandma’s shoulder. Grandma woke up and looked around blankly.
“Oh, Laura, honey.” She smiled and extended one of her pale, thin hands.
Uncle Bill took her hand in his giant one and patted it gently.
“How are you, Mom?” Aunty Laura asked from the wood chair in which she was sitting.
“I am fine,” Grandma responded in a shaky voice.
“Hmm…” Aunty Laura was not convinced. “How often has she been to the doctor since she has been here?”
“Don’t worry about that, Laura,” Mamma said in a it’s-none-of-your-business tone.
“Yeah, I know just how you handle things, Sue,” Aunty Laura snapped back. “However it suits you.”
“Now, listen here, Laura,” Brian piped up. “We got this handled. She is going to the doctor next week.” He frowned. “She is my mom too, you know.”
“Unfortunately,” Aunty Laura snapped. She looked very worried.
“Besides,” Brian said, standing a little taller and pasting a smug look on his face, “I have power of attorney over her, so legally you have absolutely no say.”
“Oh yeah, Brian? You really want to go down this road with me?” Aunty Laura got out of her chair.
“I don’t know what you mean.” Brian feigned ignorance.
As Mamma made sandwiches, Samantha and I showed Aunty Laura the farm. Some may wonder why we did not ask her for help, but as victims of severe abuse we were too scared. We had no idea if Aunty Laura would believe us. We did not know if she would take us with her immediately. We did not know if she would confront Brian but then be scared off by him. Brian had once said he could chop our heads off, bury us under a tree, and no one would know. It was too risky.
After the tour, we went back to the house for Mamma’s sandwiches. Everyone played nice as we ate, and all too soon, Aunty Laura and Uncle Bill were saying goodbye and preparing for the five-hour drive home.
Aunty Laura gave us a long hug goodbye and told us to write her. Grandma fell back to sleep as Aunty Laura and Uncle Bill disappeared around the bend in the road. I felt a tear roll down my cheek as I watched them go. An abuse victim learns to deal with the everyday torturous life because it is always the same, but when a breath of hope comes and goes, it feels worse than ever.
Later, people would ask why Samantha and I did not run when Mamma and Brian were in town. We were six miles out of town on a dirt road. The hills along the road were covered in sagebrush. If we took the road, we could be easily caught. Walking six miles into town through the sagebrush hills would have taken longer and we still risked being caught.
Mamma and Brian had conditioned us to think they were always watching. Sometimes, when we thought they were in town, they would suddenly be in the yard. They would park the truck around the bend in the road and sneak up the back of the hill to surprise us. This happened once or twice a year and each time we would get in trouble because we were talking or were both inside the house. We could not run; we never knew if they were watching.
That week, the weather became intensely cold, and I knew snow would soon follow. The cows and goats began huddling closer together, and in the mornings when I went to feed them, there was a thick layer of ice in their watering troughs.
We had been ordered by the doctor to give Grandma baths several times a week to help prevent the urinary tract infections to which she was predisposed. This proved to be challenging, since the house was cold despite the large barrel heater in the living room. The tub in the bathroom had no running water, so Samantha and I had to heat water on the stove to warm the bath for Grandma.
Still, Grandma cried and tried to cling to her sweater as we took her clothes off and lowered her into the tub. I felt sad for her but the doctor was adamant about reducing the risk of UTIs. He had put Grandma on antibiotics for ten days, but he warned that the more she took, the less they would work. Brian got on me about not letting her get an infection. While Grandma cried from the cold, Mamma’s voice would come from the living room, telling her
to shut up and quit being a baby.
And Grandma’s Alzheimer’s was getting worse. Mamma and Brian knew Aunty Laura would not be coming back until the spring thaw. So Brian took Grandma’s trailer and sold it with all of her things in it; I was instructed to make dresses, aprons and head coverings for her. When Grandma first came to live with us, she had been on a strict eye drop schedule for glaucoma and was partially blind in one eye. Samantha and I had dutifully followed the instructions on the eyedrops bottles, but after Aunty Laura’s visit, Samantha and I were told to stop giving the eye drops.
“The sooner she goes blind the better,” Mamma said. “And the more she sleeps in her room, the happier I will be. I don’t want some Chatty Cathy sitting around here all day.”
At night, Grandma’s bedroom door was locked and no one was allowed to stay in the room with her. Each morning, when I opened the door to her room, I had a knot in my stomach. Most times, she was still in bed but, sometimes, we would find her on the floor. Mamma and Brian had no respect for anyone.
That winter, I turned sixteen. It was just another birthday. Another lonely wasted year in my life. That fall, when Samantha and I had gone to the eye doctor to get our prescriptions renewed, I looked around at other girls my age. They were so different from me, and as I stood off to the side and watched them with their families or friends, I could not understand why my life had to be so vastly different.
In December, when Mamma and Brian returned from Wenatchee, they were both yelling and upset. They called me into the house and showed me a letter from the government. I did not know what to expect. It stated that because I was now sixteen, Mamma could no longer collect a check for me unless I came into the office to discuss a work program. I was horrified to learn that Mamma had told them that I had run off to Canada with a boyfriend. They would not expect to hear about me again. I felt sick to my stomach and more forgotten by the world than ever.
Another letter had been sent for Fanny. The State was ordering Mamma to take Fanny in for a psychological evaluation. Mamma had orders from the government to comply by the end of January, and I could not help but hope that Fanny would be taken away from Mamma at that interview.
On Christmas Eve, a chilling and blinding blizzard had blown in, and on Christmas Day there were deep snow drifts everywhere. Samantha, Fanny and I spent Christmas Day shoveling snow away from the gates, the barn, and the house. As I shoveled, I sang a few Christmas carols under my breath. I loved the holidays, and whenever I was in town around that time of year, my eyes would look hungrily at all the beautiful decorations. I especially loved Christmas lights and would sometimes stand frozen in place, gazing at their beautiful colors.
The day of Fanny’s psychologist appointment I got up early to bathe and dress her in a new green dress I had made for the occasion. Brian had lectured me the day before: psychologists were all idiots who thought they were smart because they had a degree. They would try to play with our minds like all government employees.
We drove the entire three hours to get to Wenatchee in silence and, when we arrived at the doctor’s office, we had to sit in the waiting room. Fanny seemed agitated, and when I tried to keep her seated so she wouldn’t dance around, Mamma said to just let her be, because the less orientated she was, the less likely she would be able be to answer the psychologist’s questions coherently. When the psychologist came out for Fanny, he told us he would like to see Fanny alone.
This did not sit well with Mamma who stammered with a fake German accent, “Um… We don’t allow our women to be in a room with a man by themselves.”
The psychologist frowned as he motioned Fanny to follow him, but she did not. “Well,” he said, a little surprised at Fanny’s behavior, “I suppose you can come in if you are quiet and don’t say anything.”
Inside his office, the psychologist began questioning Fanny about her age, her name and so on. Fanny did not respond but kept twitching her fingers and talking to someone over the psychologist’s shoulder. The doctor pulled out some blocks and began asking her to do things with the blocks. Fanny haphazardly arranged them as she continued to twitch her fingers.
“So how do you like where you are living, Fanny?” he asked in a soothing voice.
“I don’t like it much,” Fanny said as she went back to twitching her fingers.
“What don’t you like about it, Fanny?” he asked, trying to draw her attention.
“I don’t know,” Fanny answered distractedly.
“She doesn’t like anyone or anything,” Mamma said abruptly with a worried look on her face.
The psychologist put a finger to his lips and shook his head at Mamma. He was trying to connect with Fanny, but it was futile. After about twenty minutes of getting nowhere, he took off his glasses and turned to Mamma. With a solemn look, he said matter-of-factly, “She is not taking her meds, is she?”
Mamma looked at Fanny and raised her hands in a helpless gesture. “We have tried, but she knocks them out of our hands and runs from us. It is impossible, but I guess we can try again if you think it is that serious.”
The psychologist nodded thoughtfully. “If she is to have any quality of life, she must be on her meds.” He put his glasses back on and looked at some papers.
“So, you have had Fanny about eight months?”
Mamma nodded.
“And how is that working out for your family?”
Mamma shrugged. “She is adjusting to our customs and our ways of dressing, but most of the time she is so absent-minded she doesn’t even seem to care.”
“Uh huh, I see.” The psychologist studied Mamma’s face. “And how often do you engage Fanny in conversation and activities?”
Mamma shrugged again. She was obviously nervous now. “We live on a farm, so there are countless chores and lots of animals … that is just about all the stimulus one could hope for.”
“And does Fanny have a lot of chores?” he asked with interest.
Mamma’s face turned red, and she nodded vigorously. I envisioned the many bruises up and down Fanny’s body, as well as my own. If only the good doctor could see them, I thought. But here was no reason for him to suspect anything, and no way for him to see the numerous bruises on Fanny’s breasts and arms and legs.
The doctor paused and then matter-of-factly stated, “I am just not sure that your home is the best environment for Fanny.”
My heart skipped a beat.
Mamma seemed to panic for a moment, but then she leaned forward with a deceptively shocked face. “Why would you say that?” she asked, as if she really cared. “I don’t understand; this is my sister and I love her. It would make my whole family sad if she left us.”
The psychologist looked at Mamma curiously, and I wondered if we were the first Plain people he had ever seen. “Well,” he looked back at the papers in front of him. “She is off her meds, and the progress notes from her last visit in Arizona clearly show that she has relapsed and any kind of progress she was making there has been lost.”
“Yes, that may be true,” Mamma leaned forward again. “But they were also ready to ship her off to an asylum where they could keep her locked up since she has the tendency to run off whenever she gets the chance.”
“And how do you prevent these episodes?” the psychologist asked with raised eyebrows.
“One of my daughters, or I, is with her at all times,” Mamma said defensively. “And besides,” she added, “you have to admit the fresh open air and good farm food are way better for her than the stale, closed-in environment at one of those homes.”
Although I could see the psychologist did not like Mamma, her words seemed to convince him, and he nodded slowly.
“All right,” he said after a moment of thought. “I will write you a prescription, and we will see how it goes from here.”
He stood up from his desk and walked us to the door. He smiled at me, and I smiled
back. For a split second, I toyed with the idea of grabbing his arm and begging for help, but then I remembered he was a worldly outsider who was going to hell. It was a catch-22 situation, so I walked past him letting yet another opportunity for freedom slip through my fingers.
Mamma seemed relieved and wanted to celebrate, so she stopped at Burger King and got us all hamburgers. It made me sick that Mamma was in a good mood. She was trying to be nice to us now when she was usually so mean. I shuddered as she put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it while she gloated about her ability to fool the government.
Face of Evil
I have seen the dark universe yawning
Where the black planets roll without aim,
Where they roll in their horror unheeded,
Without knowledge, or luster, or name.”
—H.P. Lovecraft, Nemesis
In May, we got the results from the psychologist’s evaluation: Fanny had the IQ of a three-year-old. He recommended that a social worker visit our house to check our living conditions to be sure they were suitable for a person with special needs. However, his review arrived too late. Mamma had completed the paperwork that would give her full custody of Fanny. Because of the psychologist’s suggestion, however, the social worker said she would still like to visit the house.
Mamma went to see her to tell her our church did not like having government people in our homes, and that the church could punish her for disobedience if she allowed the visit. The social worker bought Mamma’s story and told her to just send some family photos for her file, and the matter would be closed. This was just one of the many close calls Mamma and Brian were having with the law of late.
Tears of the Silenced Page 6