Redemption (14 page)

I didn’t go around telling everyone I got my period, of course. I kept quiet while everyone talked about me. I was ashamed and embarrassed that people knew such intimate details about me. Maybe I did just lie there during sex. With my father, the less you moved, the less you got hurt. Anything I knew about sex was closely linked to surviving it. This time was no different.

As for my reputation, I was no longer a Goody Two-shoes—I became the school slut. I was mortified in that small town filled with kids I’d known for years. I didn’t confirm or deny any rumors about me; I just focused on schoolwork. I spent more time with Christy. I lay low while the rumor went around that I’d had an abortion. Who knows where that started? I let them think whatever they wanted. What difference did it make?

Passing Out

omething was wrong with Christy. She was no longer the little doll I wanted to hug and hold. Instead, she was a strong and beautiful ball of trouble. Dad abused her, not sexually, but physically and emotionally. She spent as little time as possible with him because she was tired of getting hit and being called a “fucking little bitch.” As far back as age seven or eight, he would tell her things like, “I’m going to break your fucking neck.” She couldn’t get along with Mom much better, so she lived with whoever would take her. She moved around constantly from our parents’ houses to an aunt’s and to our grandparents’.

Maybe that’s how she became a twelve-year-old alcoholic. Starting at nine or ten, she’d raid whoever’s liquor cabinet was the closest. She thought adults seemed to relax when they drank. She wanted to relax, too.

I tried to protect her as much as I could. But it’s hard to protect a kid whose biggest enemy is herself. As much as she fought me—and everyone else who was supposedly taking care of her—she knew I was her fallback. I was the one who would truly do anything for her. The feeling was mutual.

Christy was feisty. She thought she could fight because I always let her beat me up. As a teenager, I rarely hit Christy, for two reasons. One, she could whip me. Two, I would have felt too guilty if I ever hurt her. Everyone else might try to harm my sister, but I sure wasn’t going to.

Somehow, Christy got the idea that she was the destroyer. When she was twelve, she used to climb all the way to the top of a neighborhood swing set, right above the swings where nobody in their right mind would hang out. She liked to waste time there and spy on all the kids at the playground. One of the school’s biggest bullies, Rosie, stood underneath Christy one day to talk to her.

“Where’s your sister?” Rosie asked.

“What’s it to you?” Christy asked, her long blond hair dancing below her shoulders. She wore it in a curly perm like everyone did back then.

“I hate her, that’s all,” Rosie said. “I can’t stand that bitch.”

It didn’t occur to Christy to be scared of Rosie, a girl who beat up younger kids just for breathing. Instead she spit on Rosie’s head.

Then Christy added, “Hey, it must be raining.”

I’m just glad I wasn’t there; Rosie would’ve whipped us both. Christy wasn’t stupid; she stayed on top of the swing set until it got dark and Rosie got tired of waiting for her to come down. Rosie didn’t bother Christy again.

Another time, Christy went to a pizza place with a bunch of friends. That was no big deal—we all used to go there after we went to the movie theater nearby. But that night, Christy came home with a big patch of hair missing. She’d gotten into a fight with some big country girl when she was only in the seventh grade. She was that feisty. Christy was proud of herself.

I always thought she was strong because she would take risks, and I wouldn’t. I was outgoing enough, but I spent most of my time trying to keep the peace with Mom, Dad, kids at school, or whoever. Christy didn’t care about peace. Our voices sounded the same—they still do—but somehow, our words came out quite differently.

At this point, we still lived with Mom, and Christy never gave her a break. Mom was seriously dating a man named John, and she was planning to marry him. She tried to get along with us sometimes, but we were holding on to too much anger to take Mom seriously. She’d tell us to make our beds, and we’d say, “Hell no.” If she told us to make dinner, we’d tell her to go make it herself.

One day, we were going down the steps of our apartment building with Mom, heading out together somewhere. Christy, then age thirteen, said, “Mom, I wonder what would happen if I pushed you down.”

Mom was used to this kind of talk—the kind of words Christy had learned at our dad’s house. She had become numb to our nastiness. She didn’t try to correct it; she gave up. Mom didn’t raise an eyebrow when she answered, “You’d better not.”

Our mother was working all day and romancing all night. In some ways, teenagers love freedom. But secretly, they also wish they had boundaries. Boundaries and rules would’ve shown Christy and me that someone cared about our existence. We retaliated in the only way we knew—we’d have friends over to the apartment at all hours to tear up the place. We didn’t let Mom have any control; we didn’t feel like she deserved it. She hadn’t earned or demanded our respect, so we didn’t give it to her.

It’s a wonder our mother invited us to Arkansas at all.

Mom and John got married in Arkansas at a beautiful mill. Christy and I went with them, a mistake. The wedding was great, and then they took us to a place called Water World of Fun. They rented a cute two-bedroom house so we could test how the four of us got along. For a minute there, we were thinking things with John might turn out okay.

After spending a day with us, they started their honeymoon. They spent the next two days—and I mean they barely came out for fresh air—in their bedroom. Christy and I had never been so bored or uncomfortable in all our lives. They were too busy having sex to check on us. We didn’t know anything about the area we were in, so we couldn’t find any trouble to get into. We were fine—just restless. We watched the entire
North and South
miniseries while they celebrated their marriage. We couldn’t wait to get back home to Highland. If living with them was going to mean watching TV while they did it all day, they could count us out.

Shortly afterward, Christy and I were at Dad’s for the weekend in Soulard. Some visits with him were nightmares, and some were surprisingly nice. This one was in between. Dad sat us both down on the couch to tell us something.

“Your mom is moving to Arkansas with John,” he said, sober and scratching his head. “She’s leaving you.”

We weren’t exactly shocked. Ever since their marriage, we had known they wanted to live there eventually. We were just surprised they were going so soon. Later, Mom said she was sorry because she was supposed to be the one to tell us. Dad was always doing stuff like that to her when he could get away with it. We were used to getting stuck in the middle of their business.

He explained to us that we had options—we could move in with him or with them. It was our choice.

“I know we’ve had some problems,” he said, rubbing his knees, “but I really want us to be a family.”

I felt torn, but that was nothing new. I hated living with Mom. I didn’t know John because he barely talked to me. And living with Dad was a mess, but there were moments of happiness when he was sober. Either way, we never experienced feelings of being settled or wanted. No matter where we turned, we ran into more isolation.

It was kind of scary to trust him, but he’d been gentle and kind for the last few months. He’d gone easier on me, and he’d stopped traumatizing Christy. He had straightened up because he’d been planning for this exact situation.

“I’m going to buy the house two doors down from Grandma’s,” he said, pacing in front of us. He was going to pay $71,000 for a decent-sized brick cottage much like Mee Maw’s. I’m sure my grandmother was helping him with the down payment, just like she always did—she had money during her marriage and even more after my grandfather died. St. John was a great St. Louis suburb, and the house had two bedrooms—or more if you considered the space in the partly finished basement. It was an awesome little place, much better than his narrow, ratty Soulard apartment. But the house in St. John had a history. Because I had spent so much time in the neighborhood at Grandma Lannert’s, I knew that two men had died there. The original owner had died of old age, and the current owner’s father had lived there through an illness and passed away, too. I tried not to let silly superstitions influence my decision.

I thought about getting a new start at a new school. I needed a clean reputation. I’d get to attend Ritenour High School, same as my dad. Definitely, the biggest draw was Grandma Lannert. Living near her sounded fantastic. She was older by then, and we had to take care of her more. But she never stopped being the loving, doting woman who spoiled us rotten. She had been a consistent source of happiness and predictability through our family’s rocky years.

I was old enough to understand that my father was an ass. But his actions and words led us to believe that he wanted us. We rarely felt that from either parent—so when we did, we clamored like kids at a cotton candy stand. Kids love to be loved, and we were no different. Meanwhile, Mom and John never tried to talk us into living with them.

That day, Dad told us, “I’ll try. That’s all I can do.”

He promised he’d slow down on his drinking. “Things will be different,” he said, reassuringly. He promised he would change
—really change
—this time. He promised Christy he’d do his best to get along with her. He smiled at me in that old way, in the good daddy way. He made me trust him in that moment.

He kept talking, but I stopped listening. It didn’t really matter what he said. I was going to live with him in St. John because my grandmother was the best. I had hoped to live with her before, but she wasn’t healthy enough to take care of me. In fact, she needed me to take care of her. She had diabetes, and she couldn’t drive much anymore. I wanted to be there for her.

Sometimes, if my father acted really bad, and I didn’t know what else to say, I’d tell him, “If you do that, I’m telling Grandma Lannert.” Threatening to spill everything to her was the only consequence I could hang over his head. Usually when I used it, he would rein himself in. He truly loved her and cared about her opinion.

The choice was easy for Christy, too. We had faith in Dad. We clung to the hope that everything might get back to the way it used to be—back when we lived in Cedar Rapids and Kansas City. Faith and hope were all we had.

We packed up our things while he finalized the purchase of the house in St. John. And on my sixteenth birthday, Mom moved to Arkansas for good. When I complained—couldn’t she choose any other day?—she lectured me that she had celebrated my birthday with me the year before. She and John moved to a different state on May 28, 1988.

I got the chance to take one long, deep breath—maybe even two. That’s how long Tom stayed Daddy. While he slowed down on his drinking, he still popped open cans of Busch or Bud every night. He did it at home, taking a hiatus from the bars and the martinis for a few weeks. It was a break when I needed one.

From the beginning, I had a lot of responsibility. I was constantly helping Grandma Lannert monitor her blood sugar levels. I also had to monitor Christy. By the time she was fourteen, getting her to stay sober and go to school was a full-time job.

I also felt responsible for Dad. He was trying to cut down on his drinking, and he told me he needed my help. I stayed up worrying when he didn’t come home at night. He’d be out at some bar, and I didn’t want him to die behind the wheel. He’d had too many drunk driving accidents already. I’d be so worried that I couldn’t go to sleep. I knew his favorite spots, mostly a place called The Edge. I had my license, so I’d drive around until I found him. He’d let me bring him home without much fuss. The first few times, he’d be the happy drunk dad that I could love—keeping me up past 1 a.m. talking about school and life and stuff.

Then one night after I found him and drove him home, he attacked me. I wasn’t going to bring him home just so he could rape me. After that, I started to feel like he should go ahead and die out there on the road; he wasn’t even worth my gas money. That was the end for me. I stopped worrying about him. I didn’t try to help with the drinking. I no longer felt responsible for making our living arrangement work.

His alcoholism got worse. He threw up a lot. Christy and I lost it the first few times we saw him pass out. He would come home late, unable even to change his clothes. We’d find him in a heap near his bedroom door, half-dressed and in a pool of vomit. When we spoke to him, he couldn’t hear us. He wouldn’t move. He would smell awful, and we’d lean down to check his breathing.

We’d say to each other, “Yep, he’s still alive.”

In the morning, he’d wake up like nothing had happened. He’d be all confused. “What’s this mess in here?”

I’d tell him, “You passed out. You need to stop that.”

He didn’t believe anything strange had happened. He surely hadn’t done anything stupid or reckless, like driving after nearly drinking himself to death. The truth was, he couldn’t remember any of it.

“I’m not cleaning it up,” I’d say. Most times, he wouldn’t make me.

Seeing him that drunk was nightmarish at first. But after a while, the vomiting and passing out happened so often that we stopped noticing. Dad’s drinking was a normal part of our life in St. John.