Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland (18 page)

It’s almost midnight. Ten . . . nine . . . eight. Everyone on TV in Times Square looks so excited, but I am crying harder and harder. There goes the ball. This is the third New Year’s in a row that I’m not with my mom, locked up by myself in this room.

Now it’s 2006. Maybe this year will be better.

January 25

It’s been a month since there has been any news about my mom. Maybe she’s better and went home from the hospital.

He unplugged my lamp, my TV, and my radio because he was mad at me. So I just sit here in the dark, though I can still write in my diary, because I have the light from Mom’s candle to help me.

But now he comes in and he’s being a jerk and I can’t take it anymore, so I call him an asshole.

“Take it back,” he demands.

Take it back? What is he, six years old?

“You call me names all the time, and
you
never take it back,” I tell him.

“Apologize!” he says, more angry now.

When I tell him I won’t, he takes a needle and digs it into my toe until blood starts pouring out, and I scream.

March 2

His alarm goes off before six. I’m sleeping downstairs in the dining room with him. He’s been making me do that a lot. It’s Thursday, so he has to go to work. I still can’t believe they let him drive kids on a school bus.

He gets the key from the kitchen and unlocks the chain around my ankle. I don’t want to wake up but he walks me upstairs. He always stays so close behind me whenever I’m not chained that I can feel his breath. Like I’m going to run. Where would I go? I don’t need him hitting me or taking away my TV, and I do need sleep. I lie down on my bed, and he chains my ankle. I think I’m going to have scars for life from these chains.

I flip on the six a.m. news to see if there’s anything about my mom. They’re talking about the weather. It’s freezing rain outside: thirty-two degrees, with a wind chill of twenty-one.

Breaking news:
LOUWANA MILLER, MOTHER OF AMANDA BERRY, HAS PASSED AWAY FROM A MASSIVE HEART ATTACK
.

I can barely breathe. I stare at the TV. I’m numb. I don’t know what else to do. I pick up a pen and start writing:

March 2, 2006. 6:27 a.m.,
Thursday.

Hi Mommy. How are you? I know you’re doing better because you’re with the Lord now, in a better place. At least, I know you’re not in pain anymore. You were in the hospital for almost three months! I’m so sorry I wasn’t by your side. I didn’t get to hug or kiss you, and I never will be able to again.

Is this my fault? You were fine when I was there. I always pictured when I got to return I’d run into your arms and squeeze you and see your beautiful smile, your beautiful face. But now I never will. I know you’ll always be looking down over me and will always know where I am.

I hope Beth saves everything because I need to have your scent and your stuff close to me. God must have needed an angel. There’s no other reason he would have taken you. You’re so young.

Why did God do this? I won’t be able to even go to your funeral or touch you one last time. I love you, I love you, I love you. Thank you for never giving up on me and everything you’ve done for me.

R.I.P.

God bless you.

Love,

Me.

 • • • 

I watch the news all day. It’s the top story. People on TV are saying my mom was never the same after I disappeared and that she died of a broken heart.

Gina opens the door.

“Did you see the news?” she asks me.

“Yeah,” I say.

“I’m sorry about your mother.”

That’s kind of her. I know she’s being nice, but I don’t want to talk to her about this. I just want to be left alone. I want my mom.

He’s gone all day until he comes back with bags of Wendy’s for dinner. He’s standing in the doorway between our rooms when I hear Gina ask him, “Did you see the news?”

“What news?” he asks.

He acts like he doesn’t know. Maybe he doesn’t.

“My mom passed,” I say. I’m still crying.

He doesn’t say anything but just hands me a bag. I shake my head; I’m not hungry.

“I want a cigarette,” I tell him.

“You should quit,” he says. He’s been trying to get us all to quit, so I haven’t had a cigarette in weeks.

“My mom is dead and I really need a cigarette, please.”

“Okay, okay,” he says.

He goes out and returns a few minutes later with a pack of Marlboros. I light the first one and keep flipping the channels to find more news.

I watch all night, not getting any sleep, but it’s just the same stuff over and over. Nothing new.

It’s already morning when he pushes the door open.

That look in his eyes. I know what he wants. My mom just died, and this is what he wants from me?

“You can’t do this,” I say.

I can’t stop him.

March 5

Eminem’s movie,
8 Mile
, is on TV when he brings me a copy of the
Plain Dealer
. There’s a story about Mom on the front page of Metro. It makes me smile to see what Regina Brett wrote about her:

She didn’t act the way moms of missing children do on TV, delicately wiping tears with folded tissues while whispering pleas for help. Louwana was angry. She chain-smoked Marlboros. She didn’t trust the police, so she put her own phone number on the flyers. She would cuss out the very people who tried to help her, then she would apologize and sob like a baby, tears rolling down her big, puffy cheeks.

That sounds just like her!

I also learned from the article that she named me for a Conway Twitty country-western song called “Amanda” that starts,
“Amanda light of my life.”
She used to sing it to me, but I didn’t know that’s where she got my name.

I hope Beth saves all her stuff. I want to keep her toothbrush, soap, shampoo, her cigarettes and lighter. Everything she touched. The clothes, hairbrush, pillows. I want to sleep in her bed.

“You told me if somebody close to me dies, like my mom or dad, you would let me go to the funeral,” I remind him.

“I never said that,” he says.

“Yes, you did!” I shout.

Now he’s mad.

“No!” he says.

“I want to go to her funeral. Please let me go.”

He walks out.

March 7

The news shows clips from the funeral, and I see Beth carrying her new baby, and Teddy and Aunt Theresa. I can’t see anybody else, because they’re filming it from the back of the church. I wonder if Daddy is there.

I see the casket. It’s white. That’s what I hoped they’d get. It has gold trim and pink flowers on top.

At least Mom doesn’t have to be in pain anymore because from heaven she knows where I am, and that I’m alive.

I don’t know where she’s buried, but when I get free I’m going to visit her grave all the time.

I wish I had a cigarette or some weed for my nerves, but he has cut me off. He says it’s too expensive.

April 2

He tells me he saw a storage truck in front of my family’s house. I don’t know why he drives by there, but I’m glad to hear that Beth is saving Mom’s stuff.

Mom died a month ago today. I made her a butterfly with hearts on it. I saw on TV that she made a “missing” poster for me with butterflies, so they are going to be our special thing.

I’m so sad and lonely, I can barely eat.

I want to die so I can be with her.

April 22

Happy birthday to me. I’m twenty. I have a secret. I think I’m pregnant. I missed my period, and I’m throwing up all the time.

I think this has something to do with Mom. It’s crazy. All this time and I’ve never gotten pregnant. But then she dies, and now I’m pretty sure I am.

I think my mom sent this baby. It’s her way of giving me an angel. Someone to help pull me through, give me a reason to fight.

I think she is sending me a miracle.

May 2006: First Trimester

Amanda

Yuck, Fritos. When I was in high school, I ate them by the bag. Now all it takes is one whiff, and I’m puking my guts out. He has been leaving bowls of Fritos out in case he doesn’t get home by dinnertime, and I can’t escape the smell. I try to move the trash-can toilet as far from my bed as I can, but I need to keep it close enough that I can retch into it. I had no idea that’s what pregnancy does to you.

I worry about what he’s going to do when he figures out that I’m having a baby. He’s already begun to notice that the only thing I can keep down is milk and cereal. For every meal I ask for the same thing: Peanut Butter Captain Crunch or Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal. I’ve been telling him I have the flu, but this is getting to be the world’s longest illness. I feel dizzy and faint, too, and I think my blood sugar is out of whack.

I weighed about a hundred twenty pounds when he kidnapped me, and I’m probably ninety-five pounds now. I wish he had a scale, because I still seem to keep losing weight.

Last year, when he put us all in the basement and the van, Michelle told me that he beat her to make her miscarry. I once saw him slam Michelle into a wall. He said they were “play fighting,” just messing around, but Michelle said later that it was because he was trying to force her to have a miscarriage.

If he didn’t let her carry that baby, will he let me?

He gets home from work and brings Burger King food to Gina and Michelle, and then comes into my room with a burger and fries.

“No thanks,” I tell him. “I’m still too sick. I can’t keep anything down but cereal.”

He looks at me suspiciously. “Are you pregnant?”

I feel the breath sucked right out of my lungs.

“I think so. I missed my period.”

He doesn’t say anything. I’m trying to read the expression on his face. Is he furious? Happy? Worried? He stays silent, but his eyes are saying,
Oh, shit.

I can tell he’s thinking. I’ve seen this before. Whenever he has a problem, his mind starts turning as he figures out how to solve it. I’m frozen with fear as I watch him deciding how to solve this “problem.”

Finally he says: “We could always bring it to a church right after it’s born, and leave it on the steps. Somebody would take care of it.”

“Please,” I say softly. “I want to keep the baby.”

He doesn’t answer but only looks confused.

Gina

I hate summer in this house. It’s the worst time of year. It must be a hundred degrees in my room, sometimes hotter. I sweat so much that I soak my sheets. Sometimes it feels good to roll over into the puddle of sweat, because it’s a little cooler.

It doesn’t help that Amanda is puking constantly. The smell from her room is horrible. She lies, too. She’s been telling us she isn’t pregnant, but then he tells us she is. I make fake puking sounds just to bug her and to let her know that I know she’s pregnant.

He gives her special treatment. She has the bigger bedroom to herself and she has the nicer TV. I have to scrub the floor on my hands and knees, and she never does. He says she doesn’t want to because it will mess up her nails. He always tells us that we have to have sex with him because she doesn’t want to. She gets first choice of the food that he brings home. I used to be the favorite one, but those days are over. Now it’s Amanda for sure. I think he actually likes her. And weirdest of all, when he’s with me now, it’s like he’s trying to hide it from her.

“Let’s go downstairs to clean,” he tells me, loud enough that everybody can hear. Then we go to the living room, where he forces himself on me. It’s almost like he thinks Amanda would be jealous. Maybe she would be, because things are just getting stranger here.

I know it’s mean but it’s fun to get on her nerves. She told me she hates the sound of people chewing with their mouth open, so when he gets me gum I make sure to chew it really loudly. She comes to the door between our rooms and gives me a dirty look. It’s so funny. I do it with bananas and hamburgers and fries, too, so it sounds like a cow, and Amanda goes crazy.

She also hates the hip-hop song “Laffy Taffy,” so whenever it comes on the radio, I turn up the volume. She screams at us to turn it down, and Michelle and I can’t stop laughing and we sing as loud as we can: “Shake that Laffy Taffy!”

I don’t know why I think it’s so funny. I just do.

July: Second Trimester

Amanda

I just watched the July 4 fireworks on Channel 3. He went to a barbecue at his mother’s house and now he’s back with leftovers. For the first time in over two months, food smells good. In fact, it smells delicious. He brought us back ribs, salad, rice and beans. I can’t stop eating.

“Wow, you were hungry,” he says, sounding like he actually cares.

I’m startled because I remember all those times when I was hungry and begged him for food, and he said no. But now he’s being kinder. I hope this lasts.

It’s been a month since I told him I was pregnant. I don’t feel nauseous anymore, but I keep fainting. Even though I’m finally eating real food I know I’m still not eating right. I wish I had vitamins, but he says I don’t need them.

One day I passed out and fell down on the floor of my room. He picked me up, put me on the bed, and made me ramen noodle soup. But another time I fainted in the hall upstairs, and he just left me lying there. He was with me when it happened and decided that while I was passed out he would go into Gina and Michelle’s room and get what he always wants. I must have been lying there for fifteen minutes, if not more, and when I came to I saw him zipping up his pants and leaving their room.

I don’t know how he can treat me this way. I’m having a baby. What if there was seriously something wrong with me or the baby? Doesn’t he care? I’m hurt and angry that he’s still having sex with them, but I don’t understand why I feel this way. He tells me that he’s not and he’s always calling Gina his “cousin” and saying he wouldn’t touch her. But it’s obvious that he is. I hate it that he sneaks around and lies. I want to kill him, but I also want to be with him. God, what’s wrong with me?

September 22: Digging for Gina

Gina