When Smiles Fade (3 page)

“Mrs. Tisdale,” Emma had sobbed, “it won’t be any use. My mother will just stick up for my dad and tell them I’m lying.”

Against her better judgment, Mrs. Tisdale had let it go. Instead, she had turned to prayer, asking for peace and love to be bestowed upon Emma.

At home, Emma lived in fear, but with Mrs. Tisdale, she always felt safe and secure. Life was sweet with her elderly neighbor, regardless of how short-lived those moments of happiness were. When Pepper was at work or drowning himself in booze at the bar, the child helped Mrs. Tisdale fold clothes and do small chores, listening intently to the stories the lady shared of her own youth. Emma would pretend that her neighbor was her real mother, knowing that if she were, her life would be very different.

In the neighborhood, Mrs. Tisdale was regarded as a tough old black woman. Nobody in Norristown fucked with her. She had three grown sons. They were big and they were mean. When it came to protecting their mama, they were ruthless. Her sons were always nice to Emma, because their mama had explained to them, “The poor child has to put up with brutal beatings from her papa. He’s a sorry excuse for a father. We need to give her as much lovin’ as we can, so she knows people care for her. Otherwise, she’s likely to turn out just like him. Children become what they know. You hear me now?”

Rather quickly, Emma secretly began to wish that Mrs. Tisdale’s sons would stop Pepper from hurting her. But just like Valerie, they never came to her rescue. Emma had no choice but to carry the burden of her sickening youth alone.

Pepper Murphy’s mother had died in childbirth, leaving his alcoholic father to raise the boy. The man often beat his small son, berating him time and again for killing his mother. The boy’s destructive temper evolved over time, fueled by his anger and helplessness as he endured daily rounds of abuse from his father. When he was still a young boy, Pepper had taken to hiding behind bushes and cars and either throwing large stones at other children as they walked by or whacking them on the back with thick tree branches. He did these things in an attempt to release his own anger.

In middle school, he acquired quite a reputation as the class bully; he would hit and verbally abuse his classmates for no good reason, leaving them defenseless and humiliated. As a young teen, Pepper’s explosive anger at his peers escalated to intolerable levels, often leaving his weaker prey with scars and bruises from his boiling rage.

By the time he reached high school he was drinking and smoking and had only a couple of close friends. However, when he entered eleventh grade, Pepper’s shop teacher took a liking to him. The teacher realized that with some encouragement the boy could be saved from the fate that he was heading toward. He thought Pepper could someday be a talented home builder, a dream of Pepper’s from the time he was small and had used his homemade wood blocks to build houses.

Pepper’s whole attitude changed with the positive attention he received from his shop teacher. He made the teenager believe that he could actually do something good so that he would become a man that others respected. For the first time in his life, Pepper was filled with optimism. He quickly became likeable to many of his peers. He enjoyed the last two years of high school—making new friends, going to parties, and becoming the guy that all the girls wanted as their boyfriend.

When he graduated from high school, he had big plans of setting up his own construction business with his closest friend. They talked with excitement about getting contracts for building houses for a large company. The two friends mapped out how they would start out with smaller construction jobs before branching out to build homes on their own. They agreed to save a portion of their earnings from each job to purchase their first company truck.

Only four months after they graduated high school, the two young men signed their first contract. They believed that all of their dreams were coming true. “We need to celebrate! We’re on our way to the big time,” Pepper boasted. “Let’s go to the bar and have a few beers.”

They had only been at the bar for an hour when Pepper raised his beer. “Here’s to building houses, buddy!”

As they banged glasses and chugged their beers, a beautiful woman named Valerie walked in front of them. Pepper and his friend stared at her, along with every other man in the bar, as she made her way over to a table of friends. That was the night Pepper and Valerie first met.

Pepper and Valerie were almost immediately infatuated with each other. Her beauty stirred a sexual hunger in him that he couldn’t control and she was smitten by his apparently strong, protective nature. The two made an attractive couple. Pepper was tall and full-bodied and his intimidating stature matched his burly character. Pepper’s jet-black hair and thick, dark eyelashes set off his blazing green eyes. His full lips complemented his long, slender nose, and his rugged features and square jaw made him appear fearless.

Valerie was equally attractive, but what she possessed in physical beauty she lacked in brains. She had long, straight blond hair that fell to her shoulders like strands of golden silk. Her eyes were stunning, almost royal blue, and her pale pink pouty lips were plump and inviting. She was tall and thin with full breasts, a tiny waist, and curved hips.

Valerie’s parents had died suddenly when their car slid off of a bridge on an icy winter night two days before Christmas. She was just thirteen-years-old with no other family, and spent the next five years of her life being raised in various foster homes. She carried an unrelenting resentment towards her parents who died and left her alone. Moving all the time annoyed the shit out of her and she hated having to adjust to new families and different rules.

By the time she was fourteen-years-old the other foster girls had taught her how to use her body to get men to do whatever she wanted. These girls influenced her into being manipulative and self-absorbed. Her mannerisms and good looks often created tension between each of her foster parents. The men took her side while the women resented that she stole all of the attention that rightfully belonged to them. Valerie lied and cheated to her foster parents, teachers and anyone else who stood in her way. The once sweet child had grown into a despicable young woman. Finally, when Valerie turned eighteen, she and another girl who she knew from foster care moved into a cheap, rundown apartment over a pizza shop in Pottstown.

Pepper and Valerie were inseparable at first. He took her to the movies where they sat in the very back row, kissing and groping each other. When the weather turned warmer, Valerie made picnics with egg salad sandwiches, potato chips, and homemade blueberry pie. They would spread a blanket out in Valley Forge State Park where they ate their lunch and talked about how much they liked being together. Since their conversations lacked substance, they spent most of their time together kissing and sexually teasing one another.

They had been dating for six months when, after Pepper had one too many shots of whiskey, he forced himself on Valerie against her will during one of their usual make-out sessions. Valerie was devastated that he had stolen her virginity. When she found out she was pregnant with Emma, she threatened to tell the police that she had been raped by him if he left her.

When Pepper turned to his old high school shop teacher for advice, he told him in no uncertain terms, “Good men take care of things when they make mistakes. If it’s true that what you did was a mistake then your only choice is to marry her and raise the child together.”

Pepper’s attraction to Valerie had always been a physical one and he had never planned on spending his whole life with her. But between his shop teacher’s advice and her threat of lying to the police, he grudgingly agreed to stay with her. Pepper, for his part, was forced to work on an assembly line at the local auto factory in order to feed his new and unwanted family. Abandoning his friend and the dream of his own business made his heart heavy and filled him with bitterness.

By the time Emma was born, Pepper already resented the baby who, he firmly believed, had destroyed his dream and stolen his life. It was inevitable that she would never know a father’s love. She only knew the man as a large and frightening creature she had to please at any cost. But no matter how hard she tried, she was never successful. She clung to the only option available to keep his violent temper at bay—obedience. It might, she hoped, help to lessen the intensity of the physical and emotional pain he caused her.

Despite her dismal circumstances, Emma was still a sweet-natured child, respectful toward everyone she met. People took to her easily, and those who knew her well sensed a deep sadness about her. They couldn’t help being moved to pity. A beautiful girl, she seemed to have the perfect combination of her parents’ good looks. Blessed with her mother’s blond hair and her father’s piercing green eyes, she was taller than most nine-year-olds, her height alone leading people to believe that she was older than she actually was. She worked hard every day to keep her spirit intact in the unhealthy, dysfunctional place she knew as “home.” While her father abused her physically and emotionally, her mother constantly blamed her for Pepper’s rotten temper. “The two of us were doing fine,” Valerie would explain as if it were really true, “until you came along and ruined everything we had.”

Three years younger than Emma, Gracie was an average-looking girl with curly black hair and deep-set brown eyes. Her nose, a bit too large for her long face, merely accentuated the thinness of her lips. Although far less attractive and more timid than her sister, Gracie was equally sweet-natured. The child’s only asset in life was her sister, who acted as her protector and was the only one to stand between her and their heathen father. As Emma grew older, she often spared her younger sister from their father’s beatings by pushing herself forward as a buffer. When Gracie was old enough to understand her sister’s sacrifice, her emotions were set in turmoil between guilt and love.

The so-called Murphy family lived in a small home on Chain Street in Norristown, Pennsylvania. They lived largely on bare essentials; sometimes even those were lacking. Their row home was a run-down shack that appeared on the verge of collapse. The wood porch had rotted and its roof was supported by four-by-fours sloppily nailed in place to prevent it from crashing down. The floorboards creaked when walked on, their mushiness giving a bit beneath their feet.

Inside, the once white walls were yellowed from Pepper’s chain-smoking. The long shag rugs were old and so matted down with overuse that their fibers felt perpetually soggy under their bare feet. The furniture was secondhand with pieces of foam peeking out from the ripped upholstery in several places. The absence of adequate lighting made their home feel like the inside of a cave; but for the glare of the small television that stood on a battered table, there was almost no light at all.

Valerie and Pepper earned so little money that putting food on the table took great effort. The family rarely owned anything new and relied on handouts that were offered at local churches. Of the little that the couple earned, a major chunk went toward supporting Pepper’s addiction to booze. The financial strain that the couple lived under only brought more tension into the home. Pepper knew they were destined to be poor white trash and for this he despised his family.

Emma and Gracie were submerged in dreariness day after day. They didn’t enjoy the small gestures of affection like most other children that didn’t cost anything to give, like a hug or a tender pat on the back. With no relief from their dismal circumstances in sight, they clung to each other to save themselves from the misery that threatened to swallow them alive.

Over the next three years of Emma’s life, Pepper’s brutal beatings had become an almost daily occurrence. By the time she was twelve years old, Emma had suffered three concussions, two broken arms, three fractured ankles, and 250 stitches over her body. She bore several scars, all inflicted by her father, including the one on her left palm, a memento from the time he had held it forcibly against the hot burner of the stove when she was eight.

In that same period of time, Gracie had to be taken to the hospital twice. The first time was because she had left a dab of toothpaste in the bathroom sink. As a punishment Pepper bit the top of her hand until a deep purple bruise appeared. He was further annoyed with her when she wouldn’t stop crying because of the throbbing pain he had caused. As she descended the stair case, with Pepper closely following, he kicked her down the last three steps breaking her ankle. Gracie’s second visit to the hospital was to get stitches because he had shoved her into a wall face first with such force that her two front teeth tore through her lip. Other, less severe injuries sustained by Gracie and Emma were sneakily tended to by their mother.

Valerie was always ready with a stream of concocted explanations for the nurses and doctors who tended to her daughters’ frequent injuries. She claimed that her girls were little tomboys who liked playing rough. A variation of that lie was her argument that their innate clumsiness led to “accidents.” The most inventive fabrication of all was when Emma broke her ankle for the third time. Valerie insisted that the child had been playing dress-up and had fallen when she attempted to walk in her mother’s high heels. Valerie never took the girls to the same hospital within the same year. She would drive for hours, when it was necessary, to bring them to a different hospital in order to harness their dirty little secret.

The daily violence that Emma endured seemed all too normal, no more than a routine part of her life—until the night that changed her forever. It was Christmas Eve and their father was drunk, as usual. “Embracing the yuletide spirit,” he had slurred as he tried to coordinate his tangled feet into a celebratory dance. Their mother had made them TV dinners for supper and they sat in the living room, watching the blinking colored lights on their small aluminum Christmas tree. Nothing else mattered to the two little girls and for that night, at least, they were happy.