And I Don't Want to Live This Life : A Mother's Story of Her Daughter's Murder (9780307807434) (21 page)

At the end of the workday she rode proudly home with me.

“Does this make us commuters, Mom?” she asked one evening grinning.

“Sure it does,” I replied. “After all, we do have our own business.”

“That's right, we do! Spungen and Spungen!”

She began to giggle. I did, too. It made me so happy to see Nancy happy.

Then it all unraveled.

The Bebees didn't come back to Barton that fall. Darlington reassigned them to another unit. Nancy detested their replacement, Mr. Grant, on sight.

He was a perfectly pleasant man in his thirties, tall with dark hair. But he was cool and formal and he kept a professional distance, unlike the Bebees, who were so warm and caring that they functioned as surrogate parents. Nancy had gotten very attached to them.

“I'm sure Nancy will have a very nice year with us,” he said quietly and shook our hands. His handshake was limp.

“Sure. You bet.” Frank assured him.

Mr. Grant then went inside while we pulled Nancy's things out of the car.

“Mr. Grant seems like a nice man,” I ventured hopefully.

“Mr. Grant,” she replied, “is a dumb fucking bastard.”

“Give him a chance, Nancy,” said Frank. “You have to give people a chance.”

“I miss the Bebees.”

“You'll get to like Mr. Grant,” I said. “You just don't know him yet. As soon as you do, you'll feel the same way about him as you did about the Bebees.”

“Do,” she corrected, glaring at me. “Do. Not did.
Do
.”

“Okay.
Do.”

She turned away angrily. She had That Look. “We may as well go in.”

The house itself had changed that fall, too. It had been remodeled to accommodate twice as many students. New walls broke the spacious downstairs living area into classrooms and offices. Upstairs, bunk beds had been installed in the bedrooms, along with second desks and dressers. No more private rooms.

Barton's warm family atmosphere was gone. It was now an institution. Nancy's new roommate's things were already unpacked. Nancy looked uncomfortable at this stranger's books and family pictures neatly arranged on one of the desks, clearly feeling threatened.

“I'll bet she's a real nice girl,” said Frank, trying to cheer her up.

Nancy slumped sullenly onto the bottom bunk. “It's not the same anymore. It's just not the same.”

She said it matter-of-factly. This wasn't an observation. Her mind was made up—she was simply not going to enjoy Barton ever again.

Frank motioned that we ought to leave. It was best to let her get settled. She wouldn't allow us to hug her or kiss her. She just sat on the bed staring at her feet.

We went downstairs and drove away with a stong sense of foreboding, a feeling that was thoroughly justified by a phone call from Nancy a few nights later.

“Did Mr. Grant say it was all right for you to call us, Nancy?”

“Fuck Grant. He's mean and he doesn't like me and I wanna come home.”

“You can't, sweetheart.”

“Why not?” she demanded.

“You have to go to school. It's a law.”

“Why can't I go to school at home?”

“Because you're not ready.”

“Am, too,” she insisted.

“Nancy, you were at the evaluation meeting at the end of last semester. You heard what Dr. Pritchard said.”

She said nothing.

“Have you seen Dr. Pritchard?”

No reply.

“Nancy?”

“No.”

“Are you going to?”

“I don't know. He's in Hartford or somewhere. I wanna come home.”

“You can't,” I said firmly. “Not until Christmas.”

She slammed the phone down.

But she called again the next night.

“Nancy, I don't want you calling unless it's an emergency. You're supposed to write us.”

“I can't write you,” she snapped, very agitated. “They stole my stamps.”

“Who stole your stamps?”

“The sickies.”

“What sickies?”

“They're all sickies here. They take twitch pills.”

“Twitch pills?”

“Tranks.
Tranquilizers
. They twitch out all over the fucking place. Have fits, shit like that. And they stole my fucking stamps and my stationery and … and my new Hendrix album. They're all against me. They hate me. They're all sickies. You have to get me out of here. You have to. You
have
to!”

“You're staying, Nancy.”

She slammed the phone down.

I was very concerned. She sounded as though she'd deteriorated, slipped back into her paranoia. I phoned Mr. Grant and reported what she'd said.

“There may be a few more peer problems in general this year,” he admitted. “We have more students and we're a bit understaffed. But let me assure you—there's no specific campaign against Nancy by anyone. She's making that up.”

“She said the other girls are stealing from her.”

“She's imagining it.”

“Is she going to be seeing Dr. Pritchard?”

“Yes, she will. Not quite as often as last year. He's doing his residency in Hartford now. But she'll be seeing him at least once a month.”

“Once a
month?”

“Possibly every two weeks.”

“Wouldn't once a week be better?”

“Possibly, though not necessarily.”

“Tell me, Mr. Grant. Is she … is she all right?”

“Her schoolwork's fine.”

“But she sounds so upset.”

“She's been a little difficult, I must admit. She's not getting on well with the other girls, and she's disrespectful of authority. Hostile. Curses a lot. It's most likely a readjustment problem. New faces, new environment. I wouldn't worry.”

But I did. So did Frank. We weren't sure whether Nancy was deteriorating or Barton was. How could they be understaffed if we were paying them $850 a month? Nancy didn't write us at all that fall. She phoned a couple of more times, agitated, and demanded to come home. When I said she couldn't, she hung up on me.

At Christmas she came home. She was nervous and unpleasant. She refused to do anything other than what she wanted. One of the things she wanted to do was work in my store again. I hesitated. Her manner was rude, her language foul. I told her I'd think it over.

On her first day back, she and Suzy went into Philadelphia—supposedly to shop—while I was at the store. Suzy told me that night that she and Nancy never did go shopping; as soon as they got off the train Nancy took her directly to a storefront youth help center, where she requested legal help. Nancy claimed that her parents physically abused her, kept her locked in her room, and now had her locked up in a school. When the worker asked Nancy for her name, address, and phone number, she called him a “fucking pig” and stormed out, Suzy in tow.

I decided to let her work in the store. She'd been so happy there during the summer. Maybe it would make her happy again. At least I'd get a chance to be with her. At least I'd know where she was.

I wasn't sorry. She was very friendly and helpful her first day on the job. She happily organized and shelved the stock. She made each customer, many of whom were young and long-haired, feel that their health and well-being were vital to her own.

That night Frank, Suzy, and David met us at the store at closing time and the five of us went to the Chinese restaurant across the street for dinner—per Nancy's request.

The restaurant wasn't too crowded yet. We took a round table in the middle of the room. Nancy happily began to list all the things we were going to order.

“… and spare ribs and shrimp and chicken chow—”

“Oh nuts,” I broke in.

“What's wrong?” Frank asked.

“I forgot to call my vitamin supplier. Maybe he'll still be there.” I got up to use the pay phone next to the kitchen.

“Mom, where are you going?” asked Nancy, frightened.

“Just to make a call, sweetheart.”

“Why?” she cried, her fear suddenly becoming terror. Her eyes were wide and glassy. “Who are you calling?”

The rest of us exchanged worried looks.

“I … I have to place an order,” I said calmly.

“With
who!”

“Vitamins, sweetheart. I'm ordering vitamins.”

The waiter came by to take our order.

“Go ahead and order what you want,” I said. I went to make my call.

Nancy ignored the waiter. “Who is she really calling, Daddy?” she cried. “Tell me!
Who
?”

“Just who she told you, Nancy. Relax.”

“No, she's not!”

“Of course she is. Who else would she be calling?”

I got to the phone and began to fish around in my purse for a dime. I waved reassuringly to Nancy.

“She's calling someone about me!” Nancy suddenly screamed. “She's calling someone about me! They're gonna take me away. Make her stop! Stop her! Daddy, stop her!”

The other customers turned to look at Nancy, alarmed. The waiter flushed nervously.

“Don't let her call!”

I went right back to the table without making the phone call. As I approached, Nancy jumped to her feet.

“No! You told them to take me away! They're gonna come get me!” She whirled, bowled over the waiter, and made a dash for the entrance, barreling into a couple who were coming in the door. Frank threw down his napkin and went after her.

He found her down the block, trying frantically to get into my car, which was locked. He was able to calm her by promising to take her away in the car. The two of them went for a long drive into Bucks County while I took Suzy and David home in his car and made them dinner. Frank and Nancy stopped for a hamburger along the way. When they got home she went right upstairs to bed.

“Nothing she said made sense,” Frank reported. “Just a lot of
stuff about people being after her, like the ‘twitchies' at school. She's in trouble again, Deb. We're right back where we started.”

I sagged into Frank's arms. He held me. We didn't discuss it further. There was nothing to say that hadn't been said already.

Nancy forgot the incident the next day. She also forgot that she'd wanted to work in the store. She just stayed in her room, listening to records at full blast.

That Sunday we had a cousins get-together in town, a holiday ritual. Nancy always enjoyed these family assemblages. She was big on holidays and especially liked to see her cousins Dean and Ellen, Frank's sister's children, who were in college now. The get-together was held at the new apartment of one of my cousins. It was a big place, and my cousin invited some of her friends to the party along with the relatives.

Nancy strongly resented the presence of these nonfamily members. Even though they were extremely nice people, she refused to be introduced to them or speak to them. She was very uneasy. When we sat down to eat, she erupted.

“What are you looking at?” she demanded of one of my cousin's friends, who was sitting across the table from her.

“Excuse me?” the man asked.

“You heard me! I said what the fuck are you looking at?”

“Nancy!” I said sharply.

She turned to me. She had That Look. “He was staring at me! I saw him!”

“No, he wasn't,” I assured her.

“No, I wasn't,” he assured her.

“Were too!” she screamed. “Goddamnit, you were!”

All conversation and chewing stopped. Nancy became aware of the silence. She looked around, frightened, at the surprised faces of the strangers and the not-so-surprised faces of her relatives. She bolted.

She grabbed my coat from the pile on the bed and took off out the front door.

“Nancy's a little uncomfortable with people she doesn't know well,” I explained to the man.

“Don't worry about it,” he said cheerfully. “Know just how she feels.”

The party resumed.

“Don't you think you should go after her?” I asked Frank. “She doesn't know this neighborhood.”

“She'll be back.”

Frank was right. She slipped back in about an hour later. We didn't make an issue of her return for fear it would start her up again. She went off in a quiet corner and talked to her cousin Dean until it was time for us to leave.

Dean phoned later that night.

“I have something to tell you,” he said, “but you have to promise me you won't say a word to Nancy about it. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said.

“Nancy told me tonight that she takes drugs. She said she's been addicted to heroin for several months. She also said she'd been pregnant and had an abortion so you wouldn't find out.”

“C'mon, Dean. She was pulling your leg. She's twelve years old.”

“I know she has a way of, well, exaggerating things sometimes. But she was so deadly serious about this that I thought I should tell you.”

I thanked him for calling, told him I'd handle it and not to worry. She was telling tall tales. I was sure of it.

But just in case there was even the tiniest grain of truth to it, I phoned Mr. Grant at the school the next day.

“No, absolutely not,” he said. “Nothing of that sort is happening here. We're very isolated. If drugs were coming in, we'd know about it. Believe me. And we keep close tabs on the boys and girls. These are youngsters. There've been no pregnancies here.”

“So she made it all up?”

“Yes. A form of boasting, I suppose. To get attention, seem more mature. It's all a figment of her imagination.”

I phoned Dean to set his mind at ease. I said nothing about it to Nancy. I'd promised Dean I wouldn't.

We took Nancy back to Barton after New Year's. The phone calls home started immediately.

“If you don't get me out of here,” she vowed, “I'll run away. You can't make me stay here. I'll leave.”