Dale
Richard
’s mouth dropped open, and I saw tears in his eyes. “Not once,
Mary
Nancy
, not once did I ever stray from you or even think of cheating on you for the twelve years we have been together,” he said.
Mom just stood there and stared at him with a look of shock on her face.
Dale
Richard
looked at me, looked at Mom, and then turned around and went into the bedroom he and Mom shared and shut the door. I felt a rush of pride. I had finally done it! I had exposed Mom to
Dale
Richard
. I had put my fear aside and gotten Mom where it really hurt.
Mom turned back to me, and in one fell swoop she was punching me in the stomach. I doubled over in pain, and Mom knocked me to the ground.
“Fucking bitch, fucking mistake, I SHOULD HAVE ABORTED YOU!” Mom screamed in my face. She grabbed my throat and started choking me and banging my head into the floor over and over and over. Then Mom started crying, “I hate you so much! I hate you so much!” and her grip grew tighter around my throat.
I was struggling to breathe, struggling to get Mom’s fingers off my neck, and trying to wriggle my way out from underneath her. I looked up at Mom’s face and felt pure hatred pulsing through my veins. I had never seen Mom cry before, but here she was, sobbing over me as she choked me, trying to kill me and end the mistake she had made sixteen years ago.
My fists balled up. All the years of beatings and mental abuse had finally caught up to me. My fist came up and connected with Mom’s jaw. Mom’s grip loosened from my neck and she fell backwards, clutching her face and screaming.
“SHE’S CRAZY! OH, MY GOD, SHE’S GOING TO KILL ME!
DALE
RICHARD
!” Mom wouldn’t stop screaming and clutching her jaw, her eyes wide with feigned terror as she stumbled backwards on the floor away from me.
I stood up and looked down at my mother writhing on the floor. I felt tempted to kick Mom in the sides and in the stomach and make her feel a taste of the pain she’d put me through my entire life, but then
Dale
Richard
came out of the bedroom.
“
DALE
RICHARD
! CALL THE POLICE!” Mom was still screaming.
I looked at
Dale
Richard
and pointed to the blood dripping down my neck from Mom’s fingernails. “I have a lot more marks, and I will press charges,” I said to
Dale
Richard
.
“Get out,”
Dale
Richard
said. “We are done here.”
I searched his face for understanding. “So you mean I can just leave, just like that?” I asked.
“Get out. It’s what everyone wants,” he replied rather calmly.
All of a sudden, I got scared: scared at the prospect of leaving home, scared of going through my senior year of high school without my parents, scared of being sick. But then I looked down at my mother again, and my mother stopped screaming for a moment, cleared her throat deeply, and spit at me.
“Do what he says. Get the fuck out of my life!” she said. She got up off the floor and screamed “GET OUT!” before tearing off to the bathroom and slamming the door.
That was all I needed. I shook my head and picked up the remaining trash bags from the top of the stairs. Then I heard a small voice behind me.
“Bye, Sarah.”
I turned around and saw
Rachel
Emily
standing there in her frilly pink nightgown, with a confused look on her face. I put the trash bags down and knelt before
Rachel
Emily
.
“I love you,
Rachel
Emily
, but I can’t stay here anymore. I have to leave,” I said quietly.
Rachel
Emily
didn’t say a word, but she threw her arms around my neck and kissed me on the cheek. Fighting back tears, I squeezed her tightly and then stood up.
“See you,” I said to
Rachel
Emily
as I hoisted the trash bags up into my arms.
I kicked the front screen door open and walked down to the street. Then I turned around and took one last look at my family’s house. The years of abuse in that little house flashed through my head, and suddenly I wasn’t scared of leaving anymore. I walked to Billie Jo’s house that night with my head held high, anticipating the future.
“No regrets?” Billie Jo asked me later that evening.
“No regrets,” I replied before I turned out the light.
Epilogue
That was the last time I ever stayed in the little house in Walnut. I ended up staying with Billie Jo for a couple of days, and then I moved in with Matt. Although he was much older than me, he provided me with a place to stay and was kind to me. I was never called in as a runaway again, and I didn’t see Mom or
Dale
Richard
again for many years. It was as if I’d been thrown away and forgotten about by both of them, which at the time was just fine with me.
Mom and
Dale
Richard
ended up divorcing, and
Dale
Richard
got custody of
Rachel
Emily
. Mom quickly remarried and got divorced and then remarried again, this time to one of the men she’d been cheating on
Dale
Richard
with.
I stayed with Matt until I graduated from high school. I realized that everyone expected me to drop out of high school, get pregnant, and get married to this much older man—but I promised myself I wasn’t going to be a statistic. I was going to prove Mom wrong, try to be the best I could be, and succeed in areas of my life that she never did.
I graduated from high school in 1996 with a scholarship to a small business college. I broke up with Matt, moved out of his house, and moved to Central Illinois with some friends in the hopes of finding a better life than little Walnut had to offer. I got a job, put myself through college, and graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in business. And, although finding a man was the last thing on my mind, I ended up meeting my future husband.
My husband, Aron, saved my life in so many ways. He cried with me as I relived my abusive childhood, reassured me and supported me when I fell back into my anorexic ways, and stayed up many nights keeping dinner warm while I was in school. He was the driving force behind my writing this book and sharing my story with others. Without his love and support over the years, I am not sure that I would have been able to accomplish so much in my life.
I kept in contact with
Dale
Richard
over the years, primarily to stay in touch with
Rachel
Emily
and get updates on how she was doing, but I still harbored deep resentment toward
Dale
Richard
and kept him at a safe distance. As of today, our relationship doesn’t go deeper than one or two phone calls a year, which is OK with me.
I didn’t talk to Mom again until 2007—after Aron and I had our first child, Evan. I felt that it was important for my son’s sake to give Mom the benefit of the doubt, see if she had changed, and allow her back into my life to be a grandmother. Aron had deep reservations about this, but he promised to support me. I just wanted to try. I was an adult now, and I thought maybe I could have a more positive relationship with Mom now that I was all grown up.
I will never forget seeing her for the first time in sixteen years that April day in 2007. When I opened my front door and laid eyes on her, I felt as if I were twelve years old again and she was in my face, beating and berating me. I wanted Mom to hug me that day and say she was sorry for everything she had done to me, but she didn’t do either of those things. I remember sitting there the entire day, watching Mom and getting angrier every time I heard her laugh or saw her touch my son. I couldn’t do it. It was too painful to have her around me and my family, too painful to just push everything aside and act as if I’d had a normal childhood.
So, after Mom and her new husband finally left our house that day, I decided to cut her off. I e-mailed her later that evening and told her that I couldn’t get over what she had done to me. I explained that I had initially wanted to try to put the past behind me, but after seeing her, it was just too hard. This was the message I sent:
Dear Mom,
I have come to the conclusion that I cannot have you in my life anymore. I have come too far over the years getting over everything you did to me to go back to square one. You seem to have forgotten everything you put me through as a child, so let me remind you of some things.
Remember lashing me with a belt until I had welts—oh, wait a minute—you had
Dale
Richard
do that dirty work for you. Remember choking, scratching, beating, and hair-pulling? Remember mocking
Rachel
Emily
at the dinner table until we were all in tears because she stuttered? Remember teaching me to shoplift and lie about your affairs? I could keep going—but what is the point? I can’t tell you how good it feels to get this off my chest. It is too bad it has to be over e-mail because I need to tell this to your face and show you the scars I have on my body from your fingernails digging into me.
You were a terrible mother and you still are. You lied so much to me about everything in your life and in mine. I think you truly live in a fantasy world and you believe what you say!
Dale
Richard
said a few years ago that you are “a lot better than you used to be.” What the hell does that mean? Does that mean you aren’t hanging dead cats in a pantry anymore or shooting one of my animals to death with a BB gun? If that is the case—then BRAVO! Animals MAY be safe now.
I realize that by writing this e-mail—any relationship with you is done. I have accepted that—I have finally accepted the fact that I have never really been a part of the family and never will be, and it really is a load off my shoulders. And it isn’t
all
your fault—I personally don’t want anything to do with the family and I don’t want Evan to be around someone who could hurt another human being so much.
I pray something or someone can bring you the happiness that has been lacking in your life all these years. I wish you would get the counseling you so desperately need—just so you could once and for all admit to what you did to me growing up and come to terms with whatever you went through in your life to make you the person you are. I’ve been in counseling and could probably use more. But you know what every priest and counselor and family member has told me? “Forgive her, but keep her away.” I’m working on the forgiveness, but I’m not there yet. But I can keep you away. Face it—you were terrible to me, and what you considered in your mind as “punishment” was ABUSE, mental and physical. It wasn’t right and I’m not going to pretend anymore that it was. Do you know that I can’t remember a time during my childhood when you hugged me and told me you loved me? That’s sad and you should be ashamed of yourself.
As far as Evan is concerned—his grandma lives far, far away and he won’t see her again. He’s young enough—he will forget you. I won’t forget you—because I know what NOT to do as a parent and I have you to thank for that. He will grow up never experiencing the horrors and torture that you put me through as a child.
Good-bye once and for all,
Sarah (a.k.a. Anorexic Annie, Kidney Kate, Bubble Butt, Thunder Thighs, Nigger Lips, Bug Eyes, Loser, Bitch, etc.)
Mom’s one-line response was this:
God you are nuts
.
I had spent many years feeling angry and playing the victim. I was angry at the world for not helping me, angry at God for making that woman my mother, and angry at everyone else who’d had a better childhood than I did. Every day I would see the scars on my arm from Mom’s fingernails and rage would fill my body. I would spend nights crying on Aron’s shoulder. I would spend Mother’s Day starving myself out of guilt for not calling Mom. I would cry every birthday when I didn’t get a birthday card in the mail from Mom.
I know it must sound silly, after everything Mom did to me, that I had feelings of guilt or expectations of love from her, but for a long time I still had hope. I needed a mom: someone to call for cooking advice, for housecleaning advice, and for help when I needed it. I felt ashamed and embarrassed when a holiday or my college graduation rolled around and no one in my family showed up or called to congratulate me. I started to think I
was
the problem; maybe I was as bad as she had said for all those years.