CHAPTER TWO

 

 

Our life with you is cemented in utter chaos. My feet remain glued to the floor while you whirl around in a tornado of anger and constant crisis. You do something beyond irrational and borderline evil (say, killing my cat. And yes, I’m bringing that up again!) and then go into cutesy mode for a few months. There your tantrums die down and the giant episode that led us to peace falls further away until Jacob and I are thankful you got your demons out of your system so that we could pretend to be a family.

But it doesn’t last long.

I had actually forgiven you. After months of piping Christina Aguilera through my MP3 player as I ran at dawn, I had received her message and taken my chill pill. Swallowed yet more emotion. Chose an amber bottle for it this time, with a drizzle or two of black wax, and added it to my collection.

We had been cooking together. I had told myself that to be a good mother I needed to teach you about the ways in which I controlled myself. How the smells could comfort you, as food baked or sizzled. How hard work is so rewarding, and you didn’t even complain about the way I clean as I cook, taking part in the wiping down of counters and constant use of the dishwasher. We picked out the proper dishes for our table and made it look fantastic for Jacob to enjoy.

I projected Agnes. Explained how doing nice things for other people (we had baked Jacob a rhubarb pie, although neither of us would dare touch it) is rewarding and puts your heart at rest. You shook your head, buying my ideas, but bagging them up rather than wear them in the store.

Our time in the kitchen had been so fruitful that we had even taken a vegetarian challenge as a family, to see if we could go two weeks without meat.

No problem. You and I set to menu making, got out the good knives and used them to chop away at the vegetables for our salad. The better behavior you had shown over the past several months had blinded me to reason and I allowed you to peel the carrots and transform them into the coins that would add color to our lettuce.

We were fine until Jacob called me into the dining room. He was on light bulb duty, switching ours out to a more ecological design and wanted me to be his jovial assistant. I had the pleasure of taking the old bulb from my husband and then handing him an unused one to stick back in the ceiling fan. As usual, Jacob and I were laughing. Climbing the step stool proved difficult with his knee, but I was never tall enough to reach even from the top step. He balanced on my shoulder during his ascension and kept one hand on top of my head while he worked. We made an excellent team.

Because my head was immobile I did not see you approach. Poor Jacob never stood a chance.

My husband fell off the step stool and landed on top of me, crushing my arm as his big frame pinned me to the floor. The onslaught was sudden and we were plunged into instant havoc, Jacob yelling while I drowned beneath his weight, the confusion of the moment rushing past me in a flashflood that was at once frenzied and full of life-threatening rubble but also issued in slow motion, the entire scene floating by like a silent movie filmed in black and white.

I was gasping for air and pushing Jacob over, his moans a sure sign that something was desperately wrong. My shoulder was killing me, but my main concern was my husband, who was somehow covered in blood. When I looked up I could see the spatter pattern reach all the way back to the door near the kitchen, high up on the wall. My first thought- that he had fallen on the bulbs and cut himself on the shattered glass-fell to the wayside when I caught site of you out of the corner of my eye.

You looked feral. Dissociated. Frenetic, growling like a predator.

I saw the knife- your treasure, your warrior weapon-held so tightly in your hands that your fingers had turned white, despite the blood decorating them. Looked back to your face and noted the fear that maddened you.

“Keep him away from me, Mommy. That man came here to hurt us.”

My cell phone was in my purse, three rooms away. I looked at Jacob’s shirt pocket, where his phone was always stored, and it was empty. Probably sitting on the charger by the coffee pot. If I sprinted, I could beat you to the house phone in the living room. But my left leg was still half buried under Jacob and I knew I wouldn’t make it in time.

“No he didn’t, sweetheart. Mom’s okay. This is a nice man. He came to help us fix our lights.”

I could see the confusion fog over your face. Reality fighting with a past nightmare you couldn’t escape.

“I’ll protect us. Get the girls out of the house and I’ll take care of him.” Your words, although hostile, came out with a determination I had never heard from you.

“Your sisters are safe, sweetie. I sent them somewhere earlier where no one would think to find them.”

Even though your sisters had been dead for years, you never thought about them in the past. You searched for them everywhere. Lived to save them. Could absolutely never acknowledge that your time together had passed.

“Those girls mean the world to me! Where are they? Did you lock them in the basement again, you fucking whore?” Flashback Jessie. Bouncing from pain to truth to the drama you were reliving.

“No, no, no. I promise I won’t ever do that again. The girls are at the church. I let them go there to watch the free movie this afternoon.” We hadn’t done that in so long, not since you had first come to live here. I hated that such simple family fun proved too challenging for the three of us, as our free time was spent wallowing in one pit of pain or another, chasing your moods, your white rage.

“Jessie, this nice man needs help. Can you bring me your dad’s phone? This nice man fell and we need to call an ambulance.”

You actually did it. Brought me the phone, stood back by the kitchen door, clutched the knife to your chest. I knew who you were. I could see the features in your face shift. You were three year old Jessie, terrified and on attack. Protecting yourself this time around from the men who hurt you years ago.

When we caught eyes you exploded.

“What the fuck? What the fuck? Daddy? Mom, what’s wrong with Dad?”

I had 911 on speaker, as my one good hand was pushing on the back of Jacob’s leg, where the blade had gone in.

I explained my situation to the best of my knowledge; from previous runs to the ER when we couldn’t calm you down, the local EMTs were familiar with your emotional problems. I forewarned them of the knife, the dissociation, the man I loved bleeding onto our carpet in the dining room. And you let loose with a scream that never ended, so insanely loud I could no longer hear the voice on the other end of the phone but just hollered at her to tell the guys to come in the front door, we were in the back of the house.

Did they use stun guns on a girl not quite eleven but who had such power when in this state she could take down an elephant? Would they shoot you if you didn’t relinquish the knife? How did our good day ever go from tranquil to psychotic in 2.2 seconds?

I told Jacob to keep quiet but his whimpering made you even edgier.

“Mom, tell me Dad’s okay.” I could see your vulnerability right then, and even though we were in the worst moment our family had ever experienced, I actually warmed to you.

Your fear sat on your sleeve, your love for Jacob obvious and heart wrenching as you slowly understood what you had done. Without the stabbing incident, this was what I had always needed from you- honesty. No walls surrounding either of us. No games of hide and seek with our emotions. No vicious explosions of hatred used as a means of pushing me away so we would never bond. You were a child who had been abused and left absolutely alone in the world; you were my daughter, blood splattered and horrified, fresh from a flashback where this time you had battled the big man who came to shame you and won; you were Jessie, so desperate for acceptance and love, so heartbreakingly shattered inside that no one even bothered to help you anymore but us.

As the police gently moved through our house even Gertrude knew not to bark.

I became the Director of Food Services and took control of my family while the officers followed my voice to the scene.

“Jess, sweetie, can you please give that nice man the knife? They’re going to help us get Daddy to the hospital.”

“Dad got hurt?” You asked, eyes wide like a deer, your bewilderment a truth in itself, as you still slid in and out of your two worlds and had only a vague recollection of this episode.

“If you give him the knife, we’ll be able to help Dad before he gets any sicker.”

You loved Jacob so much. And for that moment, the two of us dropped our weapons. This was why I had vowed to be your parent- not because I wanted you to injure Jacob, but because I knew that beneath the turmoil of your emotions lived this lonely angel clutching at the world for something to hang onto. As you handed the policeman the knife I could see how grueling a decision you had made, for you weren’t aiming to hurt Jacob, but had only wanted to save yourself from the images that haunt you. And to help out your Dad, you had left yourself defenseless in a room full of uniformed men you did not know.

“Mommy?” You asked, looking to me for clarification. Speaking to me in your most childish voice. Horror haunting every letter that passed your lips. Seeking comfort from your first mother, the one I could never be, the one you loved unconditionally even though she lounged around, high on whatever drug she could find, and collected cash from the men who touched you.

That same woman who had forgotten about you, barricaded behind the basement door for weeks on end. Letting you waste away your hours in utter darkness. Begging for food. Pleading with the men who came downstairs not to be hurt. To be given water. Bread. Anything.

Lingering with the corpses long after your sisters had died.

“Mommy! Mommy! Don’t let these men hurt me! Mommy! I promise I’ll be good! I promise I’ll be good! Please!”

Your terror stopped the group in their tracks.

“Jessie, honey, its okay. You’re upset and they are going to help you. Mommy will never let anyone hurt you again. Trust me.” I tried to be what you needed; tried to soothe that three year old soul and get you to surrender to the EMT’s so Jacob could be moved to the hospital.

“Yeah, bitch, like I’ll ever believe that again.” You turned your head to me and decked the deputy, following your fist with a roundhouse kick to his balls.

“Daddy! Daddy!” You screamed as two men restrained you.

I could barely keep my seams stitched. The absolute compassion I had for you swelled inside my skin, my motherly instincts on full steam, my love for you and all your suffering exploding like a flock of birds out of a tree, fluttering all over the room and panicking as I watched you cower and fold for the authorities.

“He’ll be okay, Jessie. Daddy will be fine. They’ll get him to the hospital.”

You let me be the one you loved; you let me be her, the first mother, the bad one. Your eyes were so forgiving, never blaming me for your problems, never once even associating my crimes with your sorrow. We were one. Two females with separate pains, yet fighting the same demon.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t aim to. I didn’t mean to hurt him.”

“Daddy’ll be okay, Pumpkin.” I called you his pet name, hoping to let you know he wouldn’t be angry.

“No. Tadpole. I loved him, too. I didn’t aim to hurt him. I was just so mad.”

You gave me those eyes again. The-girl-inside eyes, the ones I understood to belong to the Jessie floundering through all the garbage littering your soul. I fell in love with you then. My husband, his hand reaching out weakly to touch mine, letting me know it was okay. The right thing.

His forgiveness was instant. Mine had taken months and was snagged with all kinds of misgivings.

The hospital trip unnerved me. They took you one direction, to the nearest facility with a psychiatric unit, and Jacob to the ER only five miles from home. I got in my car and wound up sitting for a minute, letting my hands go all Agnes on me, deep breathing while I planned what to do. Our relatives all lived so far away. I couldn’t call my in-laws and send them to sit with Jacob; nor would I beg my mother to follow you and let you know you were not abandoned. Even if she lived next door I wouldn’t have knocked on her door to ask for help.

I followed my husband. From previous experience I knew that you would get ‘bootie juice’ as soon as you entered the hospital and would be out like a light for hours. I called to let them know I’d be there soon. In the past few months we had frequented the ward so often that Jacob was on a first name basis with most of the staff and his injury had sent a ripple of concern through their ranks.

Two days later I was finally allowed to see you. Jacob had yearned to come, but his fever was of too much concern for him to venture out of his sick bed- not to mention how difficult it was for him to walk.

The staff said you were only starting to come out of sedation, the day before spent in isolation as you bounced around the padded room just down the hall from the nursing station. Because you had been so violent and out of control we had missed our allotted phone time and weren’t allowed a visitation until you calmed down.

I desperately needed to see you. To find that child you had shown me and comfort her, cherish her, love away all that terror she had unleashed in our dining room. She whispered to me from all the dark corners of our house. Woke me up at night, banging on the basement door. Asking for water in her raspy, desperate voice. Asking for help with Libby, who had stopped talking days before. Seeking clarity on what bugs were okay to eat. Could I just please give her a glass of milk?

“Yeah…uhm, that’s not who your princess is today. Don’t count on seeing her vulnerable again for awhile.” Our family counselor, Estelle, warned before you were brought into the room.

She was quite right.

“I didn’t want to see you. Who the fuck asked you to come here, you skanky bitch?”

“I know you’re upset, Jessie…” I started, but when your phlegm hit my face I immediately stopped talking.

“I wanted Dad. Where is he? “You scoured the room, put your back against the wall. Stayed far away from me as I tried to politely clean my cheek.

“He can’t come yet, Jessie. His leg is getting infected.”

“What the fuck do you mean by that? Where is he? He’s mad at me, isn’t he?” Your face turned purple while you hollered, pulling your arms against your body. The counselor removed your arm from your mouth when you started biting yourself.

“He sent you this letter. He’s really sorry he couldn’t make it.” I pulled the envelope from my purse, but you wouldn’t take it.

“I knew this would happen. I knew YOU’D be the one to visit me. What’s it going to take for you to understand? I don’t want a fucking thing to do with you. I HATE YOU! I wish I’d broken both your arms and they’d have to cut them off! You’re such a goddamned whoring bitch! I should sue the state for ever leaving me at your house!”

“Jessie, is that any way to talk to your mother? If you don’t calm down you’ll lose all of your recreation privileges for tonight,” Estelle advised you.

“I HATE HER! I HATE HER! I HATE HER!”

“So you’ve made your point. Do you have anything else to say?” I asked, my defenses standing tall with weapons drawn.

“Sure I do. Like, how I wish it had been you I had stabbed. Boy did that feel good, but I love Dad. I wish I had slashed your fucking throat and we both could have stood back and laughed as we watched you die. I would have kicked you in the head just so it would’ve hurt more. Fucking coke whore.”

My love crept down my sleeves, a thousand brown recluse spiders nibbling on my skin for fun. I could feel the venom slip in, the sensation of being boiled alive, my fury an infestation that could not be stopped. How I had longed to hold you. To kiss the top of your sweaty head and whisper promises of your security. To be the mother you needed, not the one you wanted. I had felt for you. I had remained in the bathtub long after the water was drained and sobbed for the-girl-inside, the one clinging to her dead sister for comfort, the child still fighting for her dignity as the EMT’s strapped her to the gurney and wheeled her back into darkness.

“Actually I’m a fucking Diet Coke whore. I wish you’d get it straight,” I said with a smile.

“You see, this is what I’m talking about. With this bitch all you get are lectures and her fucking sarcastic bullshit. I can’t talk to her.” You swirled and pointed at Estelle.

“I can see how it might be difficult for your mom to talk to you,” she responded. “You’re really not very nice at all.”

“SHE’S NOT MY MOM! She’s just some whore they make me live with!” With this new insult, you finally broke down and started crying. “She’s not my mom. I hate her. I wish they’d let me leave. Why can’t I live with someone else? Where’s Dad? He’ll take care of me. I could kill her and he’ll take care of me.”

“Jessie, I am your mom, just not your birth mother. I absolutely consider you my daughter.”

You actually jumped over the table, a move your father would have envied. Kicked me in my darkest bruises, my chair toppling beneath you. I felt the assault but in a weird way did not experience it, your fury radiating throughout the room, even when the staff came to tear you off me.

“Don’t ever say you’re my mother again, fucktard. You aren’t my mother. You never will be. She was beautiful, not skanky like you. She loved me. She wanted to keep me, but the fucking state wouldn’t let her. SHE’S MY MOTHER! She loved me. Get the Hell out of my life!”

I had to endure another three hours in the emergency room. As if I hadn’t done enough medical paperwork this week, I had the joy of sitting through another intake session. The staff encouraged me to press charges, but I pushed myself to remember the terrorized girl in my dining room, pleading with her mother to protect her. I gave you one more chance.

I stopped by Jacob’s hospital room on my way home, talked to the nurses about his care, let him know that you were definitely keeping them on their toes on the psych floor. We held hands and sat in silence, watching his stupid political talk shows. He quickly turned off the t.v. when the story about your attack on Jacob came on.

“Are you serious?” I asked.

“About what?”

“It’s on the news?” My mouth gaped open, the shock tearing through me.

“Don’t worry about that. No one mentions our names.” Jacob tried to calm me.

“Everyone will know it’s us. Fuck. Isn’t it enough we have to endure this, let alone for the whole town to know what we’re going through?”

“Honey, everyone already knows. It was on the police scanner. The neighbors have been sending flowers.” My husband pointed across the room and I noticed the bouquets for the first time.

I returned to a relatively quiet house. The cats demanded their daily ration of canned food and I filled in for Jacob, singing his Hungry Cat feeding time song so their routines wouldn’t be damaged. Gertrude had barely eaten a nibble since Jacob’s injury, so I slopped some milk onto her dry food and waited for her to dig in until I left the room.

No one from work had called. I was actually on vacation, so no one knew yet of the twisted dynamic that made up my family. Or at least they weren’t talking about it.

With me, anyway.

I uncorked a Lambic Kriek, one of the few alcoholic beverages I enjoyed. Took a wine glass from the china hutch. Watched the foam expand as I poured. Unpadlocked the kitchen cabinet and found a lighter. Lit all of the candles in the living room and retired into Jacob’s chair.

My ire was stacked eight feet high, a Jenga tower of misfit boxes on the verge of toppling to the floor. I sipped the Lambic and waited. Kicked off my shoes and grabbed the remote. Flipped through the channels until I found a good weeper, a Lifetime movie, which was thankfully nearing the saddest parts, and gave myself to tears.

The boxes tumbled as I knew they would. Not that I could escape them. You had stacked so many heavy ones near the top that they were bound to fall.

Before you came to our house they had shown me the picture of you after you were finally removed from your mother’s care. Someone had asked you to raise your shirt. Your bones stuck out everywhere. They had compared you to a prisoner of war, battle weary and starving.

You were zombie pale. Virtually intolerant of light, a three year old albino fish freed from your basement cave.

When box #1 fell, it held that picture. The caseworker said you were so weak you couldn’t even walk. No one thought you would live.

Box #2 contained the memory you had shared of a Hispanic man who paid your mother just so he could sneak you food. How kind he had been, how you had cherished the handful of times he had joined you in the basement. His thermos full of chicken soup. The bottles of apple juice he had hidden in the sleeves of his coat. Carrot sticks, peanut butter, water. Once a few bites of chocolate that nearly made you comatose. He never touched you.

Your sister, Sarah, thought he was an angel.

I wanted to remind you that he hadn’t called the police. How a nice man, so concerned with your health, would have sent someone to liberate you. That if he was an angel, your sister was living with him now.

Six units in a row cascaded to the floor, plunking me in the head as they fell. I didn’t have to open them; they bounced with your fury. I could hear the tantrum and remembered how our neighbors had gathered outside, afraid we were abusing you. That one lasted for days. You put a dozen holes in the walls, broke the upstairs bathroom window, threatened to kill yourself at least ten times. When it was over I thought I’d have to commit myself, I was so beleaguered with my inability to control your ire.

Pretty soon it was like Christmas, the pretty packages falling from the sky to pile by my feet.

But I certainly didn’t want to unwrap them.

I finished my movie, switched over to iced tea, put on sweat pants.

As I returned to the living room I could see Rasputin, scratching at a box that had landed pretty far from the recliner. He peered at me with a fleck of need in his eyes, whined like his life was on the line.

I didn’t want to open it. I didn’t want to see it. But as soon as I crawled over to the package I could hear the faint whimpers coming from behind the tape. He had no air. If somehow he was alive, he was dying inside the box and I had to get him out.

My fingernail file did the trick. As soon as Tadpole heard me he started chirping like a bird, his way of telling me about his day. I unsealed the tape and opened the flaps, the cats all rushing to see what was inside.

He wasn’t cremated. Poor Tad was still alive, his wounds old and unhealed. He tried to lift his smashed head when the air hit his fur, tried to be a good friend and greet me. The pain must have been overwhelming. One of his legs had a compound fracture; his left ear was almost completely severed from his head. When I petted his belly he howled with misery.

The cats were quick to turn on me. Why would I let him live like that? Why wouldn’t I be a good mother and put him out of his agony?

My face contorted with my own torment. Tadpole hurt so badly. And I had missed him, suffered every time I came home and he was absent.

Gertrude despised my weakness and walked away from me.

The cats flipped out; all of them, even Athena, who never came out from under the bed, lined up in front of my feet and did their most persuasive muttering, chastising me for not taking care of things like I needed to.

I hated my life. Hated how you had twisted it into something so dark that I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to find my way out again.

Always the brave one. Always the one who took care of business. Always the one in charge.

I found a knife in the kitchen. Started begging God and Tad and Jacob and the rest of my family for forgiveness.

I couldn’t look. I closed my eyes. Plunged the blade right next to his leg, where I thought his heart would be.

But Tad didn’t die.

He squalled. Rasputin jumped at me, burying his claws in my hand. I screamed. Gertrude barked.

And Tadpole breathed on. I brought the knife back down on his chest. Over and over. Made him suffer even more than he already had. The blood soaked his box, started collecting on the carpet. My other pets walked through it, their footprints leading away from his horror and all over the house.

Hysteria took over. I raised my good arm repeatedly. Tore open his beautiful fur coat. Finally found an end when I cut out his heart and left it impaled on the blade. When he was still I realized that I hadn’t been breathing and sat back on the floor, gasping.

The last box was full of you. Your hostility. Your inability to differentiate between your birth mother and me. The constant onslaught of vulgarities you unleashed on me every day. Hatred, hatred, hatred. Rage. The horror you can’t put to sleep because you seemingly never want it to end.

I fed you. Slid his heart off the knife, let it fall into your box and resealed it as fast as I could. Your munching was loud and obvious. When you were done you kept asking me who was next.

“I’m still hungry, Mom. When are you going to feed me again? It’s so dark in here. I’m lonely. Will you send in one of the cats to play?”

I shot a hole through the floor that night. Darted upstairs as if chased by fire, yanked the gun out of the safe, aimed from three feet away, and pulled the trigger. Murdered a bunch of boxes that only existed in my head.

The animals hid for three days.

The hole I had made in the floor still much smaller than the ones you had put into the wall.

When my heart stopped wrenching, after the explosion had wiped away all traces of you and Tadpole from the living room, after I had started to breathe again, I ran.

Flew back up the stairway and into our bedroom. Took the ammo and replaced the bullet I had just used.

Filled a second slot.

Sat on the floor and wailed, my arm throbbing from so much exertion.