Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland (17 page)

The garage door opens, and he comes in carrying a Georgio’s pizza and a bag of candy. When he opens the van door he cringes from the smell and takes the bucket, dumps it out in the yard, then brings it back. It still stinks because he didn’t bother to rinse it out. Even with the fan there’s no circulation, and we’re all feeling sick, so we ask him for some air. He cracks open one of the little sliding windows.

“Keep your heads down,” he says.

He opens the garage door for a few minutes while he putters around near the front of the van. He’s obsessed with making the house look normal so the neighbors don’t suspect anything. The people on one side are from Puerto Rico, and he’s always speaking Spanish with them. Usually on summer days he’s out in the yard or the garage working, so he says they might think something is strange if the garage door stays closed for days at a time. He doesn’t miss a detail.

He tells us Emily just arrived at the house.

Gina

I’m lying here, hot and sweaty, trying to think about anything but the heat.

Whomp!

What the hell? Somebody just smacked me with a pillow.

“Michelle!” I shout.

“I didn’t do anything!” she says. “That was Amanda!”

I look at Amanda, and she’s cracking up.

“Okay, girl!” I say, and I swing my pillow right back at her.

Whomp! Whomp! Whomp!

It’s a full-on pillow fight now. All three of us are slamming one another with our pillows and laughing like crazy.

“We better be quiet,” I warn.

But it’s no use. This is too much fun. I can’t remember the last time I had fun.

Whomp!

I hope he doesn’t hear us.

August 29

Amanda

I wake to the sound of the garage door. He opens it just enough to duck under and then pulls it shut again. I pretend to be asleep. I can’t tell if Gina and Michelle are sleeping or not, but they don’t move.

When the door was open I could see light, so it must be morning. He slips into the van quietly, crawls up next to me, and says, “Take your clothes off.”

“Please, they’re right there,” I say, nodding toward Gina and Michelle. “Please, no.”

“Just shut up and do it.”

He yanks at my sweats and is on top of me. It’s such a small space, and I know Gina and Michelle have to be hearing this.

I think of his daughter. She’s now sleeping comfortably in the house while he attacks me fifty feet away.

When he’s done, he’ll probably go inside and cook her breakfast.

 • • • 

We’re watching afternoon TV when the garage door opens again.

I guess it’s time for the daily show for the neighbors.

But instead he unplugs our TV and fan from the garage wall, gets into the driver’s seat, and puts the key in the ignition. What’s he up to?

“Okay, I’m going to take the van out of the garage for a couple of minutes,” he says. “Get under your covers. Don’t get up. Don’t move. Don’t do nothing.”

He starts the engine and pulls the van ahead just a few feet until it’s completely out of the garage. It’s so bright out that after all the darkness my eyes hurt.

He gets out of the van and leaves the engine running.

I peek out and see him go into the garage. Was the van blocking something he couldn’t reach?

Then I have an idea.

Gina

Amanda whispers that she thinks she can reach the gas pedal.

Her chain is too short, so she can’t actually sit in the driver’s seat, but she thinks she could probably press the gas pedal with her hand and ram the van through the gate across the driveway and out into the street.

Somebody would have to notice that!

“Do you think we should?” I whisper.

She’s never driven a car. I wonder if she even knows how to do it.

This is terrifying. We’ve been fantasizing in the garage about how we could escape. He has a lawn mower, a snow blower, and some tools there. We’ve been talking about how we could attack him with the lawn mower or hit him with a shovel.

But it’s just talk. We couldn’t reach anything because of the chains. And what if we hit him on the head with a shovel and didn’t kill him? Then he’d be so mad that he’d kill us.

But Amanda looks serious. She’s staring at that gas pedal.

“That’s crazy,” I say.

Amanda

I can do this. But I have to move, now.

I have to stretch myself into the front-seat area, put the car in drive, and push that gas pedal. I think the chain is long enough. If I can make a big enough crash, somebody will come to see what’s going on.

But what if nobody does?

I’m trying to get my courage up.
I can do this. I have to do this.
I’m breathing harder. All I can see is that gas pedal. Gotta go now!

Just then the driver’s side door opens, and he hops in and reverses the van back into the garage.

“Good job keeping quiet,” he tells us.

I feel my whole body deflate. Did I just miss our best chance of escaping? Maybe our only chance?

He plugs in the TV and the fan, locks the van, and closes the garage door. We were outside for maybe five minutes. Now we’re back in the dark.

Why did I hesitate? I keep replaying it in my mind, again and again and again.

August 30

Amanda

He’s back. It’s dark outside, and he’s in one of those nasty moods where you have to be extra careful.

“Emily’s gone, so you’re going back inside,” he says.

He unchains us, and we pick up our pillows. The only sound is the clinking of the chains as we walk across the yard. When we’re back in the house he tells us to fill the laundry baskets with our stuff. We’re all moving to new rooms.

I’m going back to the big room with the yellow walls that Gina and Michelle have been in together for a while. And they’re being put into the tiny room next to it, which is not much bigger than a closet. The only way into their room is through my room, which has the only entrance to the hallway. So by bolting my door, he has all three of us trapped inside. It’s simpler for him.

I don’t know why he put the two of them in the smaller room, and me by myself in the big one. Just when things are getting a little better between us, I’m afraid this is going to make Gina and Michelle resent me. When we have so little, it’s easy to get jealous over even the smallest things.

When we walk in, we see the chains waiting for us. He locks my ankle with one fixed to the big steam radiator. He links Gina and Michelle together by the ankles, and they sit down on one mattress.

I hope they keep their promise and don’t tell him anything that we talked about.

September 6

Amanda

Everyone in this house is a liar.

He just yelled at me for telling Gina and Michelle that he forces me to have sex, and he’s furious that I was thinking about trying to escape in the van.

I’m scared about what he’s going to do to me. Sometimes he hits me across the face. Sometimes he won’t feed me, or gives me only the worst leftovers. Other times he unplugs everything for days: my TV, my radio, my fan.

How could they have told him those things?

Maybe they didn’t. Maybe he was spying on us.

I go to their door and ask them why they talked. They claim they didn’t. They say he knows things about them that I must have told him, so they’re mad at me.

I don’t know what to believe, so I don’t believe anyone. I’m done trusting anybody in this house. The only person I can rely on is me.

Gina

I don’t know what Amanda is so angry about. I didn’t say anything to him.

He told us that she thinks we’re stupid, and that she’s helping him watch us. I can’t believe that’s true. She seemed so nice in the van, but I don’t know what the truth is anymore.

I’m so annoyed that he moved me and Michelle into this tiny room. It’s completely unfair. I guess I’m not the new girl anymore.

“Why does she have the big room, and the two of us are stuck in this shoebox?” I ask him.

“She has more stuff than you,” he says.

“You’re putting us in a shoebox!” I say, but he doesn’t care.

I just want to go home. I already missed my fifteenth birthday. I want out of here.

Christmas Day, 2005: Broken Heart

Amanda

My third Christmas here.

I wake up chained next to him, just as he’s leaving to go to a family Christmas party. At least I have my tree. It’s a little plastic green one from the dollar store that he bought for me. It’s about two feet tall, and it came in a box with some ornaments and a string of different-colored lights. I set it up on my dresser in early November to add a little cheer to this dull room.

I try to go back to sleep because at least when I’m asleep I don’t feel lonely.

When I wake up hours later it’s quiet in the house, so he must still be out. I plug in the tape I’ve been making of all the newscasts about me. My TV has a built-in VCR, so I can use it to tape over old movies. I record everything I can about my family on the news, so I can see them whenever I want.

I start writing in my diary, and note the time: 2:57 p.m.

Hi Mom! How are you? Are you having a good day? I hope you all are! I’m sitting here crying. I miss my life! We’re so close! I’m so lucky for that. I always had someone to talk to. Just the little things now are such big things—saying good night or good morning or I love you.

He comes in from his party. I think he’s been drinking.

“Merry Christmas,” he says.

“It doesn’t feel like Christmas. I’m in prison.”

I’m usually careful not to talk back. But I can’t help myself today.

“It’s not a prison,” he barks. “You have it good.”

“It’s worse than prison,” I tell him. “If I were in a regular prison my family would know that I am alive and they could come visit. Prisoners get to go outside for an hour a day. I can’t do anything. I can’t even feel sunshine on my face.”

I’m making him mad.

“You have TV! You have food!” he shouts. “If you were home you would be slumming. You would be still working at Burger King.”

He storms out, slamming the door, and bolts it from the outside.

I’m going to forget him and focus on happier things, like what’s happening at my house right now. It’s almost dinnertime, so I imagine my mom roasting a turkey and making ham and mashed potatoes. I bet she has music on. I wonder if Beth let Ry and Rissa open one present on Christmas Eve like we used to.

I start writing again:

This has taught me a lot—like NEVER take life or anything for granted! Sitting down and eating dinner with your family or watching TV with them and talking and laughing!

At six o’clock I turn on the television, and there is breaking news: my mom is in the hospital. She has some kind of pancreatic illness. She’s lost a lot of weight and is in bad shape. Here I am feeling bad for myself, and suddenly everything is worse! Maybe I should be grateful for what I have, like he says.

Please Lord, make her better. Don’t let her pass. Especially while I’m here. I need to see her. She’s my everything. She’s gotten me this far. If something happens to her, I don’t know what I’ll do.

I cry for hours, flipping around the channels for more news of her, but there is nothing.

I light my candle for Mom.

I put her picture on my bed and lie down next to it. It’s the only way I have to be close to her.

December 26

I’ve been up all night crying and watching the candle burn.

I’m wearing my glow-in-the dark plastic rosary. He had been keeping it in the bathroom as a kind of night light, and a few months ago I asked him if I could have it.

He’s not really religious anyway, so he doesn’t care. He goes to church sometimes, usually St. Michael’s, which has Mass in Spanish. But I think he goes mainly to get the free food they give away. He says his mother joined the Jehovah’s Witnesses and doesn’t celebrate Christmas anymore.

This is all my fault. If I hadn’t gotten in that van and been kidnapped, my mom would be healthy. I’m sorry for everything I put her through.

I keep having this dream: I’m free, I get to my house and run up the stairs and open the door, and my mom is sitting there watching TV, and I run to her and hug her so tightly.

December 29

Finally, on Channel 3 at six, Mom is back on the news. She has an infection called
C. diff
because some doctor didn’t wash his hands before doing surgery. They don’t say why she had the surgery, or when, but she had to have another operation today to stop the internal bleeding. I can’t believe what I’m hearing.

“If my mom dies, will you let me go to the funeral?” I ask him.

“Sure,” he says.

Maybe he’d let me go in a disguise or come up with some other plan so that I could go out and he wouldn’t get arrested.

Hours pass until I hear another news update. It’s worse. Now they’re saying she’s in critical condition! There’s Beth at the hospital. She has a baby boy! I didn’t even know she was pregnant. I wonder when he was born. I have my candle burning for you, Mom. Hang in there, and when I get home I will take care of you.

December 30

On the news I hear that my mother went in for yet another surgery today. That’s two surgeries in two days.

I’ve heard her tell TV reporters that not knowing what happened to me is the hardest part. I understand exactly how she feels, because it’s terrible not knowing how she is doing.

December 31

It’s New Year’s Eve.

I have a little tape recorder he gave me, and I’m making a tape of Aerosmith songs Mom likes so I can listen to them and think of her.

All of a sudden the flame on my candle just got a lot stronger. I hope that’s a sign. Maybe it means she’s doing better. I keep watching the news, but they don’t have anything about her.

I miss my sister and can’t wait to hold her new baby. I don’t know his name, so I call him “Little Man.” I wish we could all be together on New Year’s, eating great food. We always have Tennessee Pride sausage, the roll that you slice into patties. Just thinking about it is making me hungry.