Nine Lives (6 page)

If I could believe Tom did this, I’d be naming him too. Maybe Cult Leader or something like it. Faith would love that! Knowing he didn’t do it, I can’t even joke about the Nelson case. Instead, I lie awake at night thinking of Heather and her anger toward the girls and Tom in his cell. As Oliver bats pictures off my walls, I toss and turn, trying to find ways to help them. Or, on worse nights, trying to get myself to believe the girls. It never works. Like it or not, destructive or not, they’re lying. No matter how much time I spend worrying, there’s not a thing I can do about it.

Last night, I sat up for hours researching how common it is for children to lie about sexual abuse. I found that it’s not common at all, at least, not according to those of us who work in the field. That’s what scares me. I watch the workers at DCYF rolling their eyes at parents before the parents have even said hello. How accurate can statistics reported by opinions of social workers who have seen too much be? I know that we come to cases with a bias. I try to remind myself we aren’t just coming into cases, we are coming into people’s lives and homes and have as much power to destroy them as Laina and Faith and any other child for that matter. It’s a lesson the girls have taught me that I’m thankful for. I’ve vowed to go into homes now with a more open mind.

I’m not like the other social workers I know. They’ve never had a case like the Nelsons either. Their minds are made up. “The father did it, why else would two of the girls be running wild like this? You have to admit, Juliet, there was a change in behavior and it was pretty startling. And what’s with them always wanting older men? Daddy issues much?” they say, or some version of it. I see their point, but again, I’ve also heard too much. Until you meet a family like the Nelsons and get in there and see how things really work in the home, you just can’t fully understand. It’s hard to be open-minded.

I avoid the office now. I can feel the eyes of other caseworkers on me. I know they’re thinking I’ve lost my mind and have turned to the dark side. They view me as another Heather, enabling a pedophile, and wish I’d resign. I wish I could resign. I can’t do it, though. Not just yet. I often fantasize about selling clothes at the mall or going back to waitressing. But allowing something like this to happen and walking away feels to me as bad as allowing someone to hurt a child. I can’t do either one. And so, I pop Xanax in a way that would make Face Plant jealous, and I get up and go to work each day. Luckily, most of my time is out of the office and in my car. I’ve found all the hotspots for web access: McDonalds, Subway, Panera. I post quotes to my Pinterest account screaming things like “If one person stands up and says ‘hey, that’s wrong,’ other people will listen” and “You’ve got to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.” It helps on days when I don’t feel strong. Laina and Faith take a lot of energy, and I’m tired. I can’t imagine where Heather must be. Nine kids. Nine lives. Nothing left to give.

Chapter Seven

An Eye For An Eye

Laina

I’m sitting in a shrink’s office waiting to be called. I’ve been here twenty minutes. Mom just dropped me off. She can’t be bothered to stick around. My name isn’t Jeremiah or Mary. I’m supposed to call her when I’m done. She is at the pharmacy picking up Jeremiah’s ADHD medicine and doing some other errands. She’s close by and made me promise to wait—“ten minutes tops, Laina”—or call. She’s not supposed to leave me alone, especially in the community. She agreed to it when she agreed to let me go on house arrest for probation violations. Thanks, Mom, but I can walk home. I’m tired of being babysat.

I love how Faith got to bow out of this whole therapy thing. I can’t. It’s part of my probation. I’m in trouble because I always sneak out. If they would just let me see Tyler, I wouldn’t have to sneak out. I wish someone would tell me what they think a shrink’s going to do for me. Unless she can make it so I can see Tyler, I’m not interested. The only reason Mom didn’t have to physically drag me here is that if I look like I’m doing what they ask of me, I’ll get off probation sooner. For now, I’m technically on house arrest. If I sneak out or get caught with Tyler, they can put me in a girls’ home for thirty days to straighten me out. The last time that happened, I ran away. Sadie came and picked me up and let me stay with her and Slash for a few days. It didn’t take them long to find me.

If people would give Tyler a chance, they’d see he’s not so bad. He does things for me all the time, and he worries about me. He told me seeing a shrink might not be a bad idea. He said she might be able to help us. I’ve had shrinks before, and they’ve never helped. I don’t even see the point of therapy. You go in and tell someone your problems. They nod at you and put on fake smiles and voices and act like they care. They bill you and rush you out. They tell you to come back next week and to “cheer up” and “believe in yourself.” Thanks. That helped. Tons. I’m cured.

Here she comes. I wish you could see her. She looks like a cross between Cher and Whoopi Goldberg. That hair! My gawd! Someone give her a flat iron.

“You must be Laina,” she says, in that all-too-smiley shrink voice. “I’m Abigail. Nice to meet you.” She extends her hand but I don’t reach for it. I look at the floor, scuffed with other people’s anxieties about being here too, I assume. “Why don’t you follow me?”

I walk behind her, watching how she uses the hallway wall for balance as she almost trips over her own feet. I want to laugh but cover my mouth. I can’t have her telling DCYF and the JPO that I’m not taking this seriously. I remind myself that this will get me one step closer to a life with Tyler and inhale sharply as I follow her down a long corridor.

Her office is Christmas green and I can’t help but notice the emotions poster plastered on the wall. It boasts a variety of faces, some smiling, some sad, some puzzled. I wonder what retard needs a smiley face to figure out how they are feeling. Are people really that stupid? Does this poster make her—Abigail—feel important? Is this something they hand out to all therapists or does it come free in the mail with a subscription to Ima-shrink Magazine? She points to a loveseat and tells me to make myself comfortable. I sit, back straight, on the edge.

I tune her out as she goes over introductions and the reasons I’m here. I don’t care what is and isn’t confidential. I care that I can see Tyler. I’m tempted to fiddle with the sand in a tiny sand tray on the coffee table to my left. The Kleenex box is empty, which tells me she doesn’t really care about people. If she did, she’d make sure that was good and ready to go. I hate her. She reminds me of Mom. All show. No follow through. Constantly whining, “I’ve been a good mother, Laina. Why did you do this to hurt me?” Fuck you, Mom. Get a grip. Dad’s dinner’s getting cold. We wouldn’t want that, would we? Don’t you have some stupid rule to enforce? I hear there are killers living down the road! They have—oh no!—tattoos! Disgraceful! Definitely serial killers. Lock us up! What will Jesus think of them?

“…see as your greatest strengths?” she asks.

Because I’ve done this before, I know what she’s asking. I shrug. “I guess I’m smart.”

She nods in an exaggerated way, like a starving animal happy to get any morsel of nutrient out of me. I hate her more.

“Good. Good,” she says, typing into her computer. She turns the monitor so I can’t see what she’s writing. “And what else?” Her knees bump together under her desk.

“I don’t really know,” I say, refusing to feed her need to feel wanted.

“Well, what do you think your mother would say are your strengths?” she asks.

I laugh, out loud. “My mother pretty much wants me dead.”

She gasps at my bluntness. I want to laugh again at the deer-in-headlights look on her face. She pushes her glasses to the top of her bulbous, pelican nose and pauses. I wish I could read her thoughts. Finally, she says, “Why would you think that? No mother would wish that on their child.”

I answer immediately, without thinking. “You haven’t met my mother.”

“But she sounded very concerned when…”

I cut her off, having had a chance to collect my thoughts. “If I was dead, she could pretend this never happened. Well, Faith would have to die too. But I can see it. My mother likes pretending things never happened. She’s probably plotting our deaths right now. I should watch what I eat, right?” I joke.

Shrink lady stares at me, and I lean back into the loveseat. I’m starting to enjoy this. We spend thirty minutes going back and forth on mothers and their unconditional or not-so-unconditional love for their daughters before things get real.

“And what about Tyler?” she asks.

Tyler is a subject I can’t play with nor joke about. Tyler is important. “What about him?” I ask.

“Well, he must be very special to you. Tell me about him,” she says.

“He is. He’s my life. He’s my heart. He’s why I’m here,” I say. It’s important that I stick with my story. Sure, our sessions are confidential, but that doesn’t mean I trust this woman to keep her mouth shut. I don’t even trust priests for that. Being seen as a victim has helped me more than once. I need her on my side. She doesn’t bother to ask about what happened to me, though. Typical adult. They say they care, but the truth is they care about feeling like they are doing something, not actually doing it.

“What do you mean, he’s why you are here?”

I want to tell her to be serious. She knows the answer to this. But I humor her. “I have to get off probation so that I can finally be with him. He’s the only one who understands—or cares—about what happened to me,” I say.

“And he’s how old?”

I want to leap over her desk and punch her. I want to break her glasses. I tell myself that won’t get me closer to Tyler. What it will get me is locked away—exactly what Mom wants. “He’s older.” I shrug. “So?”

She stops typing and looks at me, sliding her glasses down her nose. She peers at me over the tops, and says, “I’m not judging you, Laina. This is a safe place. You can trust me.”

Again, I suppress my desire to laugh in her face. “Okay.” I wonder if she realizes they make foundation for the dark patches under her eyes, like Mom’s. Does she just not care? Or am I supposed to feel sorry for her? Working too hard to help people and not getting anywhere? I bet she takes Xanax like candy too—they all do.

“I’m just trying to learn more about you,” she says.

I wish she would stop staring at me. I bite my nails, waiting for her to say something else. She says nothing.

“Well, Tyler’s my world and that’s pretty much everything there is to know,” I finally say.

“But what about friends? Do you have any other friends? People you like to hang out with? Girlfriends?”

“I’m friends with Faith and Sadie, my sisters.”

“What about people who aren’t in the family?”

I wish I could throw Harley’s name at her, just to shut her up, but Harley hates me now. She’s the last person I should bring into this. She could ruin everything. We never should have told her we made it all up. I miss her, but Harley’s like a narc now.

“I was homeschooled! Nelsons don’t do friends. I don’t need other friends. I’m fine,” I say, as I picture punching her in the nose. As Faith would say, the bitch needs to do some cult research. We weren’t allowed to make friends like normal people. I want to tell her to get her shit together before asking more stupid questions. She’s smart enough not to press me and changes the subject.

We get through the next twenty minutes with small talk. Somewhere in there, she asks me about Dad. Again, I stick with the story. I’m no dummy. I find it comical that someone would believe that just because they have a lot of fancy degrees they can trick me. I warned her, I’m smart.

***

By the time I leave, I’m exhausted. I text Tyler but don’t get a response. I tell myself he’s probably working but know that I’m being like my mother. I pretend he isn’t seeing another girl. I know he is, but I try to put it out of my mind. It’s not his fault I’m not able to see him. It’s not his fault he’s horny. It’s normal for a guy to need sex. If I wasn’t on lock down all the time, I’d be giving it to him and he wouldn’t need other girls. Those girls aren’t important to him. He only wants me. I know that, and I remind myself of it as I begin my walk home.

It’s times like these when I miss Harley. She would know what to do about Tyler. Harley was always great for a shoulder to cry on. I try to talk to Faith, but Faith is so caught up in Hunter that she doesn’t really pay attention. I can’t blame her. It’s not like I listen to her about Hunter, and she’s living the same hell I am.

I didn’t lie about that part. I don’t lie about everything. I don’t have friends. Harley is literally the only real friend—outside of family—that I’ve ever had. Mom and Dad were so busy sheltering us that they forgot to let us be normal kids. Even in the neighborhood, we weren’t allowed to play with other kids. “We have several acres, Laina, stay home and play with your sisters. Make a fort. Play light tag. But don’t go down the street. Those people aren’t in the faith, Laina.”

I lucked out that Harley happened to be Catholic. It meant I had a chance at getting Mom’s approval. I met Harley when I started taking guitar lessons. I knew I liked her immediately when she told the guitar teacher he sucked and she wanted a refund. I like people who speak their mind. Mom didn’t totally approve of Harley. She was what they call a C and E Catholic. It’s the kind of Catholic I want to be—Christmas and Easter. It means you don’t go to church except for on major holidays, if even then. But we finally won Mom over when I explained that Harley’s grandparents are too old to take her to church every week. I lied and told her that the priest comes over to give them weekly communion. Harley went along with it.

That’s the thing. Harley wasn’t some goodie-goodie. She didn’t care if I lied or stole or snuck out to see Tyler. She even worked as an alibi. I’d tell Mom I was sleeping over at her house and would instead get a motel room with Tyler. I guess I can kind of see why this lie was different. I mean, it triggered her. I get that. She really was abused by her father and her brother. So she had a problem with me using her story to fix the crap going on with me. But isn’t that what friends are for? I mean, it’s not like I wanted her to be hurt. And I was the one who listened to her all those nights, who helped her. I was the only one who really cared. It bugs me that she doesn’t care about me back.

Harley is the only person I ever trusted besides Faith and Tyler. Lately, I’m not even sure I trust Faith. She’s constantly rethinking if we should go down to the police department and take back our stories. I don’t see any point in it. I think Faith’s too easy. She’s willing to let Mom buy her off or something. I bet I’d be the same way, though, if I was in her shoes and still had three or four years left at the Nelson family hellhole.

I wish Tyler would answer my texts. He knows I get anxiety when I don’t hear from him. He knows I had an appointment today. If I wasn’t on probation, I’d hitch a ride to his house. The problem is that if we get caught together, they are sure to send me away.

Oh! Check this out. Did I tell you that Mom and Dad tried to press charges on Tyler? They wanted to get him for statutory rape. That’s ironic, isn’t it? Karma’s a bitch. Or to be more biblically correct, “an eye for an eye.” Anyway, now Mom’s big plan is to get him for corruption of a minor or something like that. It won’t happen. All I have to do is lie and say Sadie bought me the cigarettes or something. She’ll do it. She understands. She went through it all with Slash. The whole minor thing is crap anyway. I’ve been raising myself since I was Mary’s age. Do you really think a Stepford mother of nine has time to pay attention when she has a husband to serve? When she wasn’t busy getting pregnant, Mom spent every second cooking Dad’s meals and making sure he was happy. I haven’t been a minor, a kid—in terms of responsibilities—for years. Being an instant caregiver to a herd of siblings simply because I’m a girl? Isn’t that corruption of a minor? Why weren’t Mom and Dad charged with that?

The walk home takes twenty-eight minutes. I’m sweating by the time I reach my driveway and still haven’t heard from Tyler. I’m tempted to text Harley, just to see if she’d respond. I make it to the living room just in time for a knock on the door by the JPO’s office. They’ve come to collect a urine sample. Mom must have called again. She loves to stalk the JPO with every little suspicion she has. I don’t mind giving them a sample this time. It’s been weeks since I’ve touched anything and I know I’ll come up clean; more fuel to get me off probation.