Why Me? (3 page)

Eventually one of them told me to go to bed; then, finally, I was out of that room and away from them. My emotions were running wild; I didn’t know up from down or left from right. Lying on my stomach, I sobbed into my pillow. My legs were on fire and my rear end was numb. I felt betrayed. The night, which I had thought was going to be good, had turned into another night of terror.

I gritted my teeth and bit down on my pillow to avoid screaming out in anger. Then my mind went to Rebecca and how happy she must be at that moment with her family. She was probably getting presents and hugs and kisses while I lay on the bed covered in welts.

“Why does it have to be me?” I sobbed. “What did I do to deserve this?” Then I remembered. “I got a detention.” Immediately I felt deep remorse for hitting Michael. I had made him hurt like I was hurting now. I understood why I’d gotten in trouble and wanted nothing more than to run to Michael’s house and apologize for being so mean.

As I drifted off to sleep, I imagined that the next day was my birthday. I imagined waking up to a French toast and hot cocoa breakfast, and Mom dressing me up and combing my hair. I imagined a room full of friends and family, all there for me, happy for me, and loving me.

“Happy Birthday, Rebecca,” I said quietly.

Less than a year after they were married, my mother and stepfather had a child of their own, a daughter named
Rachel
Emily
. I loved
Rachel
Emily
, but I always felt jealous of her in a way. Mom was so nice to
Rachel
Emily
, really kind and caring at times. Mom would get mad at me and hold
Rachel
Emily
tight and say, “Well, at least I have one good daughter that I love so, SO much!” I began to grow quite resentful of
Rachel
Emily
and spent a lot of time distancing myself from her.

A few months after the belt incident, I came home from school to find Mom sitting with
Rachel
Emily
at the kitchen table. Mom was on the phone, and there was a newspaper open on the kitchen table. I glanced over Mom’s shoulder and saw that the paper was open to the real estate section and Mom had a lot of places circled.

“What’s going on, Mom?” I asked.

“We’re moving,” Mom said. “Some damn Mexicans are moving in next door, and we are out of here.”

Whether that was the truth or not, I was taken aback by my mother’s surprise announcement. Since
Rachel
Emily
had been born, things had gotten worse for me at home but better at school. I had made a very good friend named Debbie, and we spent all our time together. I had met Debbie while I was wandering around the neighborhood one day. A little girl with a hula hoop called me over, and we spent the next two hours hula-hooping and dancing to our hearts’ content. Since that day, we had been inseparable.

Debbie never made fun of me like the other kids did. I confided in Debbie the things that went on at home and didn’t spare details about the numerous beatings and other punishments I received. My mom and stepdad had moved on from the belt beatings to other weird forms of punishment. They still relied on the old liquid soap standby, but Mom moved on from slapping and whipping to choking and punching. There were many times that I wasn’t allowed to go to school because of fingernail marks and bruises around my neck. Mom had also purchased a horse right after
Rachel
Emily
was born, and she bought snappy little riding crops that she enjoyed smacking me around with. Talking to Debbie was my release—I could confide in her without worrying about someone calling the authorities on my mom and stepdad.

My eyes welled up with tears and I said to Mom, “What do you mean we’re moving? What about my friends? Where are we going?” The questions wouldn’t stop pouring out of my mouth.

Rachel
Emily
was starting to get fussy, and Mom picked her up. “Don’t ask me questions I don’t know the answer to,” she replied. “When we know—you will know.”

“Can I go to Debbie’s now?” I inquired. I had to get out of the house. I had to talk to Debbie and figure out a way that we could stay friends forever. Maybe I could live in Debbie’s basement and sleep on the pool table or something, or maybe we could pitch a tent in her backyard and just stay there.

“I don’t care what you do. Just be back at 4:00 to set the table and get ready for dinner.”

Mom had barely gotten the words out of her mouth when I was tearing out the door, running down the street, and cutting through backyards to get to Debbie’s house as soon as possible. It had been so hard for me to make a friend like Debbie; the prospect of starting over and finding someone else I could trust so completely scared me to death.

Bang, bang, bang! I pounded on Debbie’s front door. A few seconds later, Debbie was there, eating a bag of Doritos.

“What’s wrong?” she asked with a worried look on her face.

I unloaded on her. I told Debbie that my family was moving, but I didn’t know where and I didn’t know when. All I knew was that it was inevitable—and that I couldn’t live without Debbie. If I didn’t have someone to talk to, I was sure I would lose my mind. Debbie cut me off and said, “You aren’t moved yet! Come on downstairs and let’s play dress-up.”

Dress-up was our favorite game. Downstairs in Debbie’s basement were what seemed like thousands upon thousands of old dresses, shoes, and pieces of costume jewelry. I never wondered where they came from or why they were there. All I knew was that while I was at Debbie’s, I could be anything I wanted to be. Sometimes I pretended to be a beautiful princess like Cinderella, and other times I was a famous singer.

For the next 45 minutes, Debbie and I played to our hearts’ content. Then I heard the grandfather clock in Debbie’s living room strike four o’clock. “Oh, shoot—I have to go set the table for dinner,” I said.

Debbie grabbed my hand. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Sarah, I promise.”

But I never saw Debbie again. Mom wasn’t kidding about moving; we were packed up and moved out so fast it almost made my head spin. Mom kept me home from school to help pack up the house, and we moved out in less than a week.

I will never forget pulling up to the farmhouse for the first time. It had taken over two hours of driving to get there, followed by what seemed like an hour of driving down the long driveway, but finally my stepdad stopped the truck . I looked out the window and got my first glimpse of our new home. It was a large white house in the middle of two enormous farm fields. I had been in a barn before because of my mother’s interest in horses, but I had never been on a farm. There were about five barns on the property, most of which were full of old, rusty farm equipment and looked like they were going to fall down at any second. The house looked old and creaky, with no front porch steps and paint peeling off the sides. I could have made up a year’s worth of ghost stories to tell Debbie just based on my first impressions, but the thought that popped into my mind was “Oh, my God—there’s no one around to hear me scream.”

It wasn’t long before Mom had the farm filled up with all the animals she had ever wanted. We had two horses, a coop full of chickens, and a number of geese and goats that wandered around in the pasture. With these animals came a lot of work. Every morning at five o’clock, rain or shine, snow or sleet, I was up hauling buckets of water to the horse troughs, mucking out stalls, and cleaning up the pasture. I didn’t mind the work, and I enjoyed spending time with the animals. They listened to me talk and vent about Mom, and the big quarter horse Buddy was a solid shoulder to cry on when I needed it the most. In a way, the farm animals were my replacement for Debbie.

When I was about 10 years old  I fell in love with Indiana Jones. I had seen my first Indiana Jones movie and was immediately lovestruck by this man in leather saving the damsel in distress from the dangerous Nazis.  I adorned my room with Indiana Jones posters and decorated my notebooks with
I love Indy.
Right around this time, Mom and
Dale
Richard
  bought me my own goat. It was a sickly, ugly little thing, but it was mine and that was all I cared about. I named the goat Indy, after my beloved Indiana Jones. Every morning when I went out to do the chores, Indy was waiting at the electric fence, bleating for me and ready to chase me around the pasture. Every afternoon when I got off the school bus, Indy would be waiting for me again. When I went riding, he would follow behind the horse. Indy might have been just a goat to most people, but to me, alone in the middle of a cornfield, he was one of my best friends.

Although Mom had purchased the goat for me, she reminded me every day how much she hated that goat, how it ate her flowers and destroyed things in her garden. I would quickly defend Indy, using the argument “Well, he’s a goat! What do you expect?”

Mom’s response was to go out and buy a BB gun. She shot it at Indy during the day while I was at school. I knew in my heart that it was only a matter of time before Mom really hurt Indy or got rid of him, so every morning I would get on my knees and beg Indy to be good and stay in the pasture.

Indy would look up at me with his big eyes like he understood, but I could also see the glint in his eyes as he surveyed the yard around the farmhouse and decided what he was going to eat that day. And every day when I came home from school, Mom was at the door with the BB gun, aiming it and shooting at Indy when he got near.

One morning, I had done my chores, given Indy his pep talk, and boarded the bus to school. Then I looked out the bus window and saw Mom pumping up the BB gun. My heart sank. “Indy, stay in the pasture today, PLEASE!” I whispered. As the bus pulled away, I saw Mom step outside and head toward the pasture.

The entire day was a blur. I couldn’t stop thinking about Indy and wondering if he was OK. Usually, Mom would just hit him a few times in the hindquarters and he would go away. But this morning something had been different with Mom. She had smacked me around a few times for not bringing down enough hay bales for the horses and paced through the kitchen muttering to herself about how much she hated me and her entire life. “Stick me out here on this goddamn farm with this little bitch? Not if I can help it,” she had muttered. So I knew Mom was not in the best mood, and without me there to knock around, she would turn to the next best thing, my animal.

Finally, the school day ended and I boarded the big yellow bus to head home. After an excruciatingly long ride, the bus finally came to a halt at the foot of our driveway. I hurried off the bus and took a quick survey of the pasture. Indy was nowhere to be seen, but everything else looked normal. I walked up the long gravel driveway and went through the side door into the kitchen. Mom was in there, kneading bread dough and humming a tune that I had never heard before.

“Smells good in here, Mom!” I said cautiously.

“It does smell yummy, doesn’t it? Why don’t you go change and take care of the animals before dinner?”

Everything seemed normal, so I did as I was asked. I changed into my farm clothes, grabbed my work gloves, and headed down to the pasture. As I approached the barn that housed the horses and the goats , I heard a strange sound, like a whimpering cat

“Indy!” I called out. It was rare for Indy to not be at my side by now, nosing me around and head-butting me. Something was amiss.

I opened the barn door and couldn’t believe my eyes. There lay Indy, covered in blood, in the corner of his pen. He was still alive, but it was obvious that Mom had spent the entire day shooting him full of BBs. I picked up Indy’s head and noticed that several BBs had been shot directly into it, as if Mom had pressed the gun barrel up against his head and pulled the trigger until the clip ran out.

I tried to count how many BBs Indy had been shot with, but there were too many to count. Blood was pouring out of what seemed like every part of his body. Indy looked up at me as if to say, “I’m sorry!” I held his head gingerly and sobbed. I don’t know how long I sat there holding Indy in my arms, but when my tears finally stopped for a second and I could see clearly, Indy had died in my arms.

I felt a rage like I had never felt before in my life. Sure, I had gotten angry over the years after a night of beatings, but this was different. And Mom, standing in the kitchen humming like she’d just had the best day ever, was too much to bear.

I laid Indy’s head gently on the straw in his pen, wiped my eyes, and stood up. I wanted to hit something, hit something of Mom’s that would make her hurt like I was hurting. I curled up my fist and went looking for something to destroy. When I walked out of the barn, the first thing I saw was Buddy, my mother’s horse. Mom loved Buddy more than she loved any human being. She cuddled with that horse, slept with him when he was sick, brushed and primped him every day. The farmhouse was decorated with show ribbons she had won with Buddy and pictures of them together. It was impossible not to notice how much Mom loved that horse.

Without thinking, I marched up to Buddy with my fist curled. Buddy picked up his head from grazing and looked at me inquisitively, as if to say, “Are you bringing me a treat?” I only saw a blur of brown and black as I began punching Buddy anywhere I could reach. I kept punching until he ran away to the opposite side of the pasture.