LITTLE GIRLS SHOULD RIDE PONIES
A Novel By: Jeannine Vegh
Published by Jeannine Vegh at Smashwords
Copyright © 2008 by Jeannine Vegh
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Gratitude: This book is written for all the survivors of abuse, that I have had the pleasure of working with, growing with and leading them toward more productive and successful lives.
Part One: Blood
Chapter One
You wouldn’t call my family abnormal; they’ve just been under a lot of stress for many generations. Growing up in the Midwest, living your life in denial is the way to keep up appearances. In the sixties, my parents were in their late twenties and not caught up in the hippy scene, since they were raising children. They were too old for Vietnam. We didn’t listen to the Beatles, and, quite frankly, I didn’t even know who they were until I went to California to stay with my Aunt Josie when I was fifteen. Living in Wapaetki, Indiana, a small town outside of Indianapolis, Mitch Miller and the “Sing Along Gang,” Bobby Sherman, David Cassidy, Donny Osmond, The Lettermen, were the people we listened to. The adults in the neighborhood weren’t interested in your family’s business, like they are today on Jerry Springer and all those other hick shows. The women would discuss recipes, get together to dye someone’s hair or cut it. The men would drink beer and talk about women, the weather, sports, or whatever it was they did when they got together. Getting together in your gender or cultural group, pretend life is good, and everything will be all right.
I have written this story about my family in an attempt to try to balance out the good and bad in my mind. I don’t live in Indiana anymore. After I moved to California to live with my Aunt Josie, I stayed. My therapist Linda Glassman, here in Encino, thought it would be a good idea for me to write this. She said, “It’ll be a cathartic experience for the soul. You will get naked, shiver down to your core each chapter, each sentence, and each word. For your audience, you will become an exhibitionist. Only this time, you are in control.” She told me this as if it were something everyone did, and no different then undressing to take a bath after you have been on a long bike ride and have mud and sweat all over your body. It has taken me about five years to jot all this down. It isn’t easy trying to write your life story, so that everyone can read and examine you. It wasn’t easy being in therapy either, but I did it.
* * * * *
“Isabel.” Linda always started our sessions, or headed into a serious point, by saying my name as if it were a sentence. “You were rather vague when we spoke on the phone to set up this interview. You mentioned that you were confused and sometimes depressed and needed to talk with someone. Can you tell me more about what you want from therapy?” Linda was an attractive woman, with long black hair and a very thoughtful smile. She was a little older than me. I was in my forties, and she was probably in her fifties when we met. I figured she might have been one of those hippies, and I could imagine her with braids and flowers in her hair and t-shirts with fringe cut into the bottoms. Maybe she even wore those ugly tie-dyed fashions. I remembered seeing these styles on “Gidget,” with Sally Fields, when they were showing old reruns on “Nick at Night.” These shows were fun to watch; the characters seemed as innocent as freshly picked fruit.
“It’s hard to say really. I’ve only been to therapy once before, and it was when my sister died.” That therapist was named Evelyn, and she hadn’t been strong enough to handle my problems. She was much older than me at the time, probably about Linda’s age now. Evelyn, I figured, had been burned out from the profession and probably had no other choice, but to continue doing what she knew. We met for three long months. There were times when I felt like I was helping her, rather than the other way around. I finally told the woman that I was feeling better; because that was the best line I could come up with for walking away. She tried to find excuses for why I needed to stay, but I held firm.
“I am so sorry to hear that. When did your sister die?” Linda asked.
“My sister was 20, and I was 26. It happened on May 24, 1986.” That was the day that I began closing up my emotional shop and taking in strangers to fill in the gap. “I really don’t want to talk about my sister right now. I’m not ready. I want to have a child, well… not give birth to one, but adopt one. I’m single, and a successful businesswoman. I run a number of fine women’s clothing stores. I’ve so much love to give it and no concerns about money. But I want to be a good parent and there are other things that I need to talk about first, before discussing my sister’s death.” Wow, okay, I got all that out without taking a breath. Therapy done! Walk out now before she kicks you out!!
“I see. Well, maybe one day you will want to talk about your sister. In the meantime, we will discuss what you are ready to talk about.” Linda said to me with an inquisitive look on her face as if she were studying me.
Okay, maybe therapy is not done yet.
“I mean there are things that I’ve done in my life that I’m not proud of. I want to be a good parent, but I don’t think I can do that until I work out some of my demons.”
“You feel you have demons?” she said, her eyes piqued with interest.
I knew I must have said some therapeutic buzzword. Her mind was probably racing with thoughts of “crazy” or “weirdo” or, better yet, “give this chick some medication, lock her up and throw away the key. “I don’t mean to scare you. It’s just what I call it. The nightmares, my life… do you understand?” Hopefully that made sense. How do you tell a complete stranger, a woman whom you don’t know, yet whom you pay $100/hour to listen…ummm… here is my life story? No, she probably wants a brief summary for the time being. How do you sum up your life? Do you give bullet points, like in an annual report?
o Sister is a murderer.
o I got pregnant at 15, gave child up for adoption.
o Mom hates me.
So this is what happens. You become successful, start thinking that you’d like to have something more than money in your life, but to do this you gotta sit here and dredge up all the shit in your closet. Yes, there were demons all right, but I didn’t know where to begin.
“Isabel, it sounds like there are a lot of things you are going to want to tell me. I have a sense that, whatever it is, it’s probably very painful and will take some time to process. I don’t want you to feel as if you have to tell me everything right this minute. We’ll go at your pace, and we can continue to meet for as long as you need to.”
“Whew! Okay, thanks.” What a relief. I don’t know why it felt that way, right at that moment, but suddenly I could breathe just a little bit more.
* * * * *
What followed were intense sessions, during which I began to unlock the door to the closet where my family stories were kept. Like sifting through undigested food particles gathering mold and beginning to smell, we began the process of deep cleaning. It wasn’t like talking to a friend who couldn’t relate and might abandon me. This time it seemed as if I would not be alone. Linda would be right there with me, as if she and I were watching from a distance. Don’t get me wrong, therapy wasn’t easy. I struggled with the details of my past. At first, I talked quite a lot about my work and building my business. After several sessions, it dawned on me that I was paying her by the hour, and my goal was not career counseling. I knew what had happened to me. I was just afraid to say it all… so openly, so completely.
I started by telling Linda about my nightmares.
“It starts with an old man whose face I can’t see. He’s chasing after me. I’m a little girl again. He pushes me down and falls on top of me squeezing me into the ground. There is a hand which has no body attached to it, coming from the sky. It shakes as if it wants me to grab onto it, but I can’t quite reach it. I wake up and I can’t breathe.”
Linda listened intently to my dream. Then as if a light bulb went on inside her head, she shook her head with a wrinkled face, and her finger tapped against her nose. “We’re going to try hypnotherapy, Isabel. Have you ever done this before?”
“No, sounds a little weird, but I tried yoga once and liked that. I am willing to try it.” So she taught me the breathing process. Hypnosis brought the past out very vividly, yet safely.
“Okay, Isabel, I want you to take some long deep breaths. We have practiced getting ready and letting go. This time we’re going to actually do the hypnotherapy. I’m going to count from ten to one, and through each number you’re going to go deeper into your mind. You will remember that we are still here in the office, but your mind will begin to focus on another time and place. Does this make sense?”
“Yes,” I murmured in between breaths.
“I will let you know when it is time to stop. I will ring this bell.” She jiggled the bell, “And then we will count from one to ten, and with each number you will start coming slowly back into the room and away from the past.”
As she said this, I began to feel a bit drowsy from all the deep breathing. It was so comfortable to do this hypnotherapy thing, especially since she had this great big “Lazy-Boy” with soft corduroy upholstery that had been worn in over the years. I could lay here forever. I loved this office.
“Ten…nine… let your body relax into the chair and take a break, eight…seven… your mind is drifting into a peaceful state, six…five…four… relax, breathe deeply, three…two…one… Isabel. I want you to go back to a time when you were a young girl. Tell me what it was like at that time.”
Before she could even get the words out of her mouth, I was already beginning to see the basement of our church, kids in rows talking to each other, people up at the front. The soft lines of corduroy no longer made an impression on me, as the stone-cold metal of those cold basement chairs began to take over. And there was my best friend sitting next to me.
“Elizabeth, why do we wear crosses around our neck?” I said as I passed the cookie tray to the minister’s daughter. I was back in my childhood, while in a trance, walking down memory lane. It was nice to be this twelve year old once more.
“Father says it’s to remember that Christ died for our sins,” she replied.
“Yeah, yeah, I know that part, but doesn’t it seem silly?”
“Everything Father says seems silly to me. I mean sometimes I wonder what planet he’s on.”
“Yeah,” I replied indignantly, as if I understood what she meant. In fact, at the time, I had no idea what she meant. I just thought her father, the minister, was weird.
Bible School was always the same. Class discussion on a particular parable, church games outside in the minister's backyard, followed by a cooling off period in the basement with chocolate milk and cookies. My sisters and I went every year, because that’s what you were supposed to do in those days. Go to church on Sundays, choir practice on Thursday nights, and Bible School for two weeks in June. I could never understand the importance of a two-week Sunday school. I felt there was more to learn about Jesus, and this was just a brief extension of Sunday school. We should study all summer. Of course, it was also an excuse to hang out with my friends, even if only for two weeks.
This was to be the last time I got to be with my friends or, it should be said, would want to be with my friends. The time before things changed, before Momma and Daddy lost the boy, the only boy who would have been a part of our family. He might have changed our family’s fate. The time when Daddy’s drinking began to escalate and take a turn for the worse. The last summer my sisters and I were going to be children, before we had to grow up.
“My Aunt Josie wonders if Jesus would have been shot with a gun, would people be wearing bullets around their necks,” I reported to Elizabeth. I slurped the last bit of my chocolate milk and made that swishing sound with my straw around the bottom of the pint that lets everyone know you have emptied the container. Elizabeth laughed at my remark, prompting me to slurp louder. Meanwhile, Momma was looking at me from the piano with one of her, “Is that very lady like?” looks that said you were getting out of hand.
“I know,” Elizabeth said, after she coughed out those last bits of laughter. “How morbid it is to walk around with a dead man hanging on a cross. I mean, knowing something in our heart makes more sense than wearing it around our collar.” She had changed her tone of voice to a more serious and intellectual version, the kind that showed how smart she was. “Some people wear those things, and they don’t even go to church. Some people wear them while they’re…oh, never mind. I think praying to God is the most important thing a true Christian can do. And being a good person.”
“Yeah, I think that’s what Aunt Josie meant.” Of course, I had only met the woman once when she and Uncle Lew came to visit us on their way to a convention in Chicago. I knew she was Momma’s sister and she was different from Momma. She had different beliefs. I wasn’t really included in the conversation, anyway. I was eavesdropping on her and Momma while they were talking.
Off cue, and just beginning to understand the relevance of our conversation, Elizabeth’s younger brother Chucky, who had been listening to his sister and me, interrupted everyone with his own theory, “She’s funny.” He pointed to me and said, “Bullets,” then he bent over and made a weird sound that was an attempt at laughter. His timing was generally off with his jokes.
“You can sit down now, Chucky,” his father replied. “We will now sing a song that Blanche will play for us.”
I looked over at Momma who nodded at the minister and then slipped her fingers over the keyboard to play. The teachers and students all began to sing.
“Jesus loves the little chil-il-dren. All the children of the world, ‘of the world,’ red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world.”
I liked to sing this song the best, because it made Jesus and God sound like good people. Momma always played it first; she knew it was my favorite. Momma once told Aunt Josie that first-borns were always special, she loved me the best and that I was the most beautiful child she had ever seen. She had tried very hard to be a good Momma and loved brushing my long, playful curls out every day. I smiled at Momma and shook my head to show how pleased I was that she chose that song first. Then my baby sister Camille did a little solo. A tiny little girl with brown hair and freckles, she wore a green dress that day that matched her green eyes and she sang so sweetly. People always stopped what they were doing to pay attention to Camille.
After her song, a speaker from each class did a report on what they had learned that day in school. Elizabeth and I took turns rolling our eyes at each other as we listened to the kids regurgitating phrases they didn’t understand. Except the little kids, who were cute, and had a hard time speaking their Bible tales.
After recital was over, we all prepared to leave. Some girls ran up to me.
“Did you see how Beth Anne is dressed today? I swear she looked like a big, fat, porky pig,” one of them said.
“Yeah” said another, “What do you think, Isabel?” I hated these girls, but they were the socialites who invited you everywhere. Luckily, at that same moment there was a little fight between the minister’s children, and their dad was getting really upset. He scared me and I always hated to see my best friend being yelled at. You never knew what he would do next.
“Elizabeth, Chucky, over here right this minute!” The minister grabbed his children by the ears and banged their heads together. “Now let’s see you two get into any more trouble this week. You should set an example for the other children, and here you two are fighting as if you owned the place.” Elizabeth and Chucky stood there, side by side, holding their breath and pressing their lips tightly together, but they refused to cry as they stared at their father. “If that happens again, you will stand in the corner in front of everyone.” He wagged his finger in front of them, and I imagined it getting longer and crooked. I’m glad he isn’t my dad. Whenever I saw him being mean to my friends, I imagined a funny scene where his extremities elongate and had no control over themselves.
I ran up to my friend, as soon as her father had walked away, and stroked her hair. “I love you,” I whispered in her ear. “No matter what, I’m your friend.”
To divert the situation, Momma yelled out to us, “Come on, girls, I have to get supper started.” My sisters and I got into the car, and Momma turned to look back at the church, before giving us the once over. “Did you see what the minister did to his children? It will happen to you, too, if you ever get out of line.” Of course, Momma didn’t hit us. She was too busy trying to make a nice house to cover Daddy’s weakness. We all knew this, too, but we always tried to act nervous anyway. Poor Momma would get so sad when it was time to go home.
* * * * *
That night Momma kept another late supper for Daddy, and we were in bed sleeping, supposedly, when he came home drunk. My sister Dom and I came out of our room and watched around the corner, because Daddy would always act funny. He walked silly and bumped into things, so we would giggle and make jokes. We didn’t tell these jokes to other people, because it wouldn’t be funny to them. During these moments, we tried to amuse ourselves at the tragedy that was in front of us.
This night was different though, from any other night. Daddy and Momma began arguing about something that we didn’t understand. Momma wasn’t giving enough of something that Daddy wanted, and he was going to get it whenever he wanted. Momma was yelling that she couldn’t take his drinking anymore, and if he didn’t stop she didn’t know what she was going to do.
“The Bible doesn’t say that a good Christian comes home drunk every night to his wife.” Momma reminded him.
“I don’t give a damn what the Bible says. This is my house, and I will do what I want to in my house,” Daddy shrieked with a hiccup, as he tried to stand up straight. “I put a roof over your head and feed and clothe you and the children, and the Bible says that’s what I am supposed to do.”
“You’re supposed to be a good husband, too,” Momma stated.
“Yeah, well, you are supposed to be a good wife and give me what I want.” Daddy turned to sit down to dinner and saw us standing over in the corner. He jumped up from the table and ran after us as we raced back up to our beds. “You girls are supposed to be in bed! It’s none of your business what grownups talk about.” Daddy slammed our door shut and stomped back down into the kitchen. He and Momma continued arguing, and some plates fell on the floor.
There was a loud thump and a rip as Momma yelled “No! No!” and “Stop, not again!”
“Dom, you stay here. I’m going back down,” I said. I slipped back down the stairs on tiptoe and into the hallway just outside the kitchen. I was worried because of Momma’s yelling. I had heard her yell at Daddy before, but this time something seemed different to me. I sensed danger, as my skin prickled and I shivered. This time when I got near the kitchen, I stayed out of sight, peering around the corner. Momma was leaning up against the kitchen table and her dress was ripped. Her underwear was pulled down her legs and Daddy was leaning into her, pushing her on the table.
What is going on here? Why is he doing this to her?
I couldn’t move. I just stood there staring. Then Daddy stopped and made some weird sound. He lay there on top of Momma. Momma just started sobbing. I wanted to go in there and tell her I was there and would help her. But Daddy had been mad at me before, and I knew not to bother him twice when he had been drinking. He wasn’t a silly drunk person anymore. I was angry. I wanted to cry. I tiptoed back upstairs, after it seemed that it was safe. I had heard Daddy throwing up in the kitchen and knew he was preoccupied.
“What happened?” Dom asked.
“I don’t know. Can I sleep in your bed?”
“Sure,” She lifted the covers.
I climbed into bed with her and wrapped my arms around her. I began crying, and my body was shaking as if the heater had broken and ice had formed on the windows.
“It’s okay, Izzy, I’m holding tight.”
* * * * *
The next morning at breakfast, Daddy fixed us some oatmeal and told us Momma was sleeping in. “You girls leave your Momma alone. She isn’t feeling well, and I’m going to get you off to Bible School.”
“Is everything okay, Daddy?” I asked, trying to start a conversation.
“I don’t have a job anymore, so it’s going to have to be tight around here for a while.”
“I could take up that paper route, Daddy, and help bring home some money,” I said, as I got up to help him bring the food to the table. Something bad had happened last night, and I didn’t know what, but now I realized that the family might need my help, and I would do whatever it took.
“That’s a nice idea, Pumpkin. But that won’t be enough. There’ll be another job somewhere.”
Pumpkin sounded really gross to me after last night. I don’t think I really like Daddy anymore either. I was really confused.
The four of us sisters got in the car with Daddy and drove to Bible School. Daddy had some words with the minister and started back to the car. “I’ll see you girls later, okay?”
“Bye, Daddy!” we all waved, and my sisters raced inside to their friends and classes. I stayed outside and watched his car squeal off. That old station wagon kicked up a lot of dirt as Father hit the accelerator. A trail of dust followed behind.
The next week, Daddy got up every day and went out to look for a job. He drove to different cities, and each night he came home drunker than the night before. He did manage to show up for our final day at Bible School, when we did a performance for our parents. We held a recital based on the last two weeks, with songs and memorized verses of text to blurt out before the audience.
Daddy had that same sweet smell of whiskey on his breath, and on top of that I could detect his after-shave. It was an odd combination of smells, but he dressed very nicely and brought Momma some flowers that he had picked from a neighbor’s yard. “You play the piano real well,” he told Momma, and she gave him that same slight smile, which was only meant for him, that one she tightly wove across her lips to be polite.
All the girls came racing up to me as I went to speak with Elizabeth. She had this red mark on her face, and I went to give her a hug. “I like the way you did your hair,” I said. She had it in braids and clipped to the top of her head, the way “Heidi” wore her hair in the movie. “It’s really pretty.”
“Thank you, Izzy,” she said with false confidence and a smile that reminded me of my Momma, just then.
“What’re you going to do this summer, Elizabeth?” I asked, before one of the socialite girls interrupted.
“Elizabeth is going to her grandparents for the summer, aren’t you?” a nosey girl named Stacey said as she crooked her head in a matter-of-fact way.
“Yeah, I’m going to see my grandma and grandpa,” she reported quietly, looking down.
“Izzy, you just have to come to my birthday party next month. All the girls are coming.” Stacey continued.
“I wish you were going to be here, Elizabeth. It won’t be the same without you.” I said
“Well,” she said with her hands on her hips. “Don’t you worry. We’re going to have a wonderful time with cake and ice cream,” Stacey said. The rest of the girls giggled and chatted about her last wonderful birthday party. Elizabeth couldn’t go that time, either, because of something to do with her family. She later told me that she had gotten in trouble and had been grounded that week.
* * * * *
That night we all went out to Dino’s Pizzeria, our favorite family restaurant. A square establishment with a few tables in the middle, outlined with booths that led to the kitchen. The floor was a black-and-white checkerboard that shined. My sisters and I would always slide in, as it was quite slippery after a nice wax job. The tables had red-and-white tablecloths that were worn in some places, so that you would see white smudges where the red had faded away. Dino had worked in Hollywood as a cameraman for a few years and had signed photographs of movie stars around the walls.
“I got a job over in Etna,” Daddy announced. Etna is a small town about forty miles away, so he would be up earlier and home later. He said he was going to get a raise and we would have a nice picnic some weekend out by the lake.
Momma announced that she was pregnant. “This time, I think it’s going to be a boy.” As she turned to look at Daddy, she smiled a little proudly. Camille knocked over the saltshaker she had been playing with, and the cap fell off, dumping all the salt on the table. I didn’t know what to think about the baby, but maybe Daddy would be happier now and not drink as much.
“Why do you think that, Momma?” Jeanne asked.
“Well, this one feels different then the rest of you did, plus I keep feeling as if I want to play a game of baseball!” she said, as she laughed.
We rarely saw Momma laugh, but this time she laughed so hard there were tears coming out of her eyes.
“Well, it’s about time,” Daddy said.
“We’re havin a ba-by, we’re havin a ba-by, Yippee yi yeh!” Dom said, as Camille just sighed. I guess she was concerned about not being the baby anymore. “Well, Daddy, there will be one more person to take down to the fishin’ hole! But he’d better be quiet and not scare away the fish!”
“Yeah, it’s going to be a fun time for us, Dom,” Daddy said.
“Well, Momma, I’ll take care of Camille, while you take care of the baby,” Jeanne decided. “I can’t wait. I’ll be your little Momma, Camille,” then Jeanne reached over and pinched her on the cheek.
“OW!” Camille said with a frown, and she crossed her arms.
“And I will take care of Momma,” I told them, as I strutted over to the jukebox to play “Yo-Yo,” by the Osmonds. I waited for it to come on and then I did a dance back to our booth. My sisters and I continued dancing in our seats, snapping our fingers in the air and pretending to know the words to the song.
I think this was one of the first happy evenings we had had in a long time. From time to time, we had good days or good evenings, but they always seem to last such a short time. How come good times are shorter than bad times, I wondered to myself as we were leaving the pizzeria. I looked around the restaurant before stepping out the door; staring back at me were the faces of movie stars with perfect smiles on their faces. Something had happened tonight, but it was all surreal. I knew that Daddy couldn’t cope for very long without his alcohol, and Momma wouldn’t tolerate his drinking. I knew there would be more fights and other things broken, followed by apologies and flowers. I had tried to block that night in the kitchen out of my head, but it kept returning to haunt me.
At this point, I prayed that God would bring us a lot of money, so we would be filthy rich. I didn’t know how He would make us rich, or how He would make sure we got this money, but I prayed anyway. Wouldn’t life be different if all we had time for was to spend money? Momma and Daddy could buy a huge house, and Daddy wouldn’t have to worry about the bills. We would all get new clothes, and everyone would be happy. Life would be happy. Momma used to tell us that she knew a little girl who had a pony that she rode to school everyday. She said that this girl had the prettiest dresses and wore a little bonnet on her head with a lovely bow under her chin. The pony had been brushed, so that it looked clean as could be, and his tail was braided with ribbons to match the little girl’s bonnet. Momma said that this little girl had everything she could ever want in the world, but all she ever wanted was the pony. She loved that pony as if it were her best friend. I longed to have a life like this. No worries. All I would want would be for Daddy and Momma to be happy.
* * * * *
I heard a bell somewhere in the distance. My mind raced as I drew myself back into Linda’s room, with the countdown from one to ten, into the year 2000, and I felt those corduroy lines edging up against my adult legs.
“Linda, when you do this hypnotherapy thing, I feel like a child again. I can see it all, just as if I was watching a movie of my life,” I told my therapist as I shook my head and returned to my forties.
“Yes, that’s what happens when you’re in this state of consciousness.”
“Will I feel pain again as well?” I wondered out loud, a little cautiously.
“You will, but I’m going to be here with you. We can stop whenever you like, Isabel.”
“It’s going to get pretty ugly. Are you sure you can take it?”
Linda smiled at me and I suddenly felt very silly. Obviously, this was her job.
* * * * *
That night I went home to think some more about that time when Momma got pregnant with the boy. He never came, because she had a miscarriage a few months later. I wondered if things would have been different if he had been born.
“Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda.” An old boyfriend’s chant came popping into my head. I guess I can’t sit around feeling sorry for myself. It didn’t happen, case closed. Time to shut my eyes and sleep. Okay, go to sleep. Sleep didn’t happen, so I got up and put on a CD called “Angels,” that had been given to me as a promo when I purchased some lingerie at Victoria’s Secret. The synthesized “New Age” music was light and refreshing; an adult lullaby; great for the insomniac.
The next morning, I went down to Choices, an adoption agency in North Hollywood that I found in the phone book. I did not realize that it had many branches and the agency brought back many memories from when I dealt with them in San Diego. The first time I went to Choices was when my own child was put up for adoption. Okay, another moment to discuss in therapy. Not now, I need to think about the future.
“I want to get some information on adopting a baby,” I said to the young receptionist sitting at a cheap, white Formica table in the waiting room. She was on the phone, and, as usual, I turned on my typical impatient self and began to sigh. She held up her index finger for me to wait a minute. There was a blue couch with fluffy pillows and a rusty colored chair to the side of me. In the corner between the two was a glass table that held magazines with kids on their covers and there was a flower arrangement, but I couldn’t tell from where I was standing if they were fake or not.
After she had put the phone down, the receptionist said, “Just fill out this intake form, and I will have Ms. Sanchez come to speak with you.”
I took another big heavy sigh, as thoughts from the past flooded into my head, I used the room to stabilize me and concentrated on the vase. “Are those real or fake?” I said to her, as I pointed back at the flowers, to try to say something to deal with my nerves.
“Oh, those are a silk arrangement that my mother made for our office.”
“Oh, I see. That’s nice.” Nice was my secret code word, which meant in a very sarcastic way that something was really tacky. I hated anything fake. Of course, being near Tinseltown didn’t help my attitude very much, but that’s the way it goes.
“Ms. Hamilton?” Ms. Sanchez, a heavyset Spanish woman came out of a back office to greet me. She had short hair and no makeup and reminded me of someone in my past, but I couldn’t remember who. Well, that will probably come out in some hypnotherapy session, too.
“Isabel Hamilton,” I replied, as I gave her a firm handshake.
“Right this way,” she said, and she took me down the hall.
* * * * *
That night, once again I lay awake in bed, thoughts about the past had re-surfaced and I began to grill myself once more. I recalled my own pregnancy as a 15 year-old and the way my mother had treated me when she found out. She rushed me off to California as fast as she could in order to hide her shame. What would the young girl be treated like who would carry the baby I would wish to adopt? What would her parents be like?
Chapter Two
In my next session with Linda we did not use hypnotherapy. Instead, we just chatted about my past.
“Let’s continue talking more about your childhood. Why don’t you tell me about your parents?”
This led me into more memories. Even though I wasn’t in a trance, thoughts of Father filled my mind. I had stopped calling him Daddy when I was 15 years old. Father’s name was William or “Will” Hamilton, he was short for a guy, actually shorter than my mom by a few inches. He wasn’t heavy, but over time grew a beer belly that hung over his pants. Father had red hair that was naturally curly, and when he was in a good mood, he seemed jolly and handsome. When he was drunk, he would sweat and his hair would get oily and he looked like a fat pig. He did dress nice, though. When he was going to work, he could make a cheap suit look presentable and stylish. He favored pin-stripe suits and wing tip shoes with white cotton socks and always wore a flower in his lapel.
Mom once said that Father lost his parents when he was sixteen years old. Their house burnt down for some unexplainable reason, while he was out with a girl. He and the girl had stayed out very late, drinking and having a good time. When he drove home, the house was in flames. They were too late to help. My grandfather was a drinker, too, and was most likely drunk when it happened and no one knows why they didn’t escape. Both burned in their bed. Father always had a hard time dealing with grief, and I imagine it began at that time. He had no other family to turn to, so he set out to find a job and live on his own.
In Indianapolis, he met the owner of a used car lot who offered him a job if, by the end of the day, he could sell a car that he had been trying to get rid of. Well, Father never did sell that car, but he sold four others in the meantime. So the owner gave him a job on the spot and sent him over to the YMCA to get a place to spend the night. The man paid for the room, and gave him a few bucks in advance to get something to eat.
Father was very successful at selling cars, but not off the lot. He went out drinking every night to soak his sorrows, and returned home late. He didn’t care much whether he lived or died; he just wanted to forget the pain. There were a lot of women who helped him drink up his money and his whiskey, but none that really cared much about him. One woman, Thelma, hung around him too much and ended up pregnant. He didn’t want a baby when he wasn’t married, so he paid for her to get an abortion. In those days abortions were illegal and not always performed by a doctor, so the conditions weren’t very sanitary. Thelma died that night, driving home with Father. Momma didn’t tell me all this, Aunt Josie told me about Thelma and his other women, when I was older.
In his twenties, he must have realized that he had a choice to live or to die. If he kept up this drinking and hanging around with different women, there was bound to be another Thelma. He couldn’t handle death, so he must have decided that if he settled down with one woman, things would get easier. The dealership owner kept harping on him about becoming a decent man anyway, so Father began to take him more seriously. Father dated a few women, but wasn’t really that interested. They were all society dames who were stuck-up and wanted a guy with a lot of dough. He made good money, but he knew that he would never have enough for them.
The day Blanche Avril, my mother, arrived at the shop was a special day. She came in to help pick out a car for her father. Father told us later he thought she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Momma was a striking brunette with long hair that curled up at the ends. She never wore make-up but she had the bluest eyes and naturally pink cheeks. Her father was a very tall, stocky gentleman who made her seem shorter and thinner than she really was. He had money, but Momma was different. She was not a snob, nor did she expect anything. She just wanted a simple life. Momma had lost her mother, too. Her mother was in a psychiatric hospital, but they did not like to talk about her being there, so they told everyone she had died. Mrs. Avril, my grandmother, had been depressed for a long time, but got to the point where she could not do her normal duties. Grandfather had her committed, and he had raised his two daughters on his own after that.
My parents went out a few times before he proposed to her. They were at a restaurant, and he told my mother he wanted her to be his wife and have some kids. He had gotten her a ring at a Sears and Roebuck, and she thought it was perfect. Grandfather did not object really, as he was just happy she had found someone. His other daughter Josephine (my Aunt Josie) had married sometime earlier and moved to England with her husband. Grandfather was feeling pretty overwhelmed with a twenty-two year old daughter, and he didn’t want her sitting around his house the rest of her life. So he threw them a nice wedding in the backyard of his home and sent them off to Niagara Falls for their honeymoon.
Aunt Josie could not make it, on such short notice, but she sent them money to buy a washer and dryer for their new home. Father had actually managed to save some money, as he had been cutting back somewhat on the alcohol. Times were good in the car business, so they set up their new home.
By the end of the first year, it became obvious that they really had nothing in common. Mother liked to read literature, play the piano, and sing in the church choir. She was a good wife though, kept a clean house, and cooked very well. Father liked to drink and play poker with his buddies. He didn’t like church, but went with my mother for about a year. After that, he went occasionally. He was there for the children’s baptisms. The problem was that Father did not know how to act around women. He had spent too much time in bars with women who practically lived there and gave him whatever he wanted. Mother was one of those “good girls,” and she had not had the good fortune of having a mother to teach her about men. Aunt Josie would write to her from time to time, but the two sisters were as different as night and day.
Aunt Josie was a free-spirited woman who did as she pleased. She had gone to college at Ohio State and met a British professor who taught Religious Studies. Lewis Whately, or Uncle Lew, as I began to call him when I went to live with them, was twenty years older than her and enjoyed her tenacity for life. She was spiritually poetic and longed to travel around the world to learn about every religion and every culture known to mankind. She kept his old body in shape by bringing him an added zeal for sexuality he hadn’t enjoyed in many years. They loved each other, and he moved her back to his homeland, so that he could continue research on the Celtic people, for which he had finally received funding. Uncle Lew published a few pieces in some scholarly journals like The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory. He was then asked to speak in several countries about his research as well, and this paid for all of their trips abroad.
Not surprisingly, Momma couldn’t understand the intimate details her sister tried telling her in those letters they exchanged after the marriage, and grandfather couldn’t teach her anything either. Momma tried discussing intimacy with the ladies at the church, but found from these conversations that she just really didn’t enjoy having sex. The problem was, her husband did. He was a man with a very healthy sexual appetite and found that this, like alcohol, numbed the pain of life. So he struggled with her, and she was patient, but the more they had sex, the more Father thought he was inadequate, and the more Momma felt she couldn’t stand the sight of him. Of course you did not talk openly about those things in those days, not to your own husband! Luckily for her, though Momma became pregnant with me. She used this as an excuse not to have sex with her husband; for fear that it might hurt the baby. He was patient for a while, until he began to look elsewhere.
I was born, and a year went by before Dominique came along. After our births, which brought much joy to Momma, came the conclusion of a happy time. Grandma died, for real this time, in the institution. Momma took the two of us and went to stay with her dad for a while. Father had thought about not being there when she got back, but he wondered where he would go. He had no real intentions about what he wanted to do in life, except sell cars and wake up another day. Two major events had turned his life upside down; watching his parent’s house burn down and having Thelma die in his arms.
Of course, life scared him, too, and he was filled with anxiety. He constantly had nightmares and would wake up in a cold sweat. Momma would comfort him and sing him to sleep, and that was probably one of the reasons he stayed with her. She had become his mother, and he needed her. I think this bothered him though, and he resented her for this. He hated the fact that she didn’t act like a woman in bed. When we returned from the funeral Momma found that our time away had not made him better, but worse.
Aunt Josie said my parents stayed married because Father was too weak to leave and it was against Momma’s principles to get a divorce. So she poured herself into church and the teachings of that ruthless minister, Reverend Stocker, at the Protestant church. She realized that her life was no different from anyone else’s around her, except for Josie’s, but Josie was not there. Her sister was living in a fantasy world, and Momma could not relate to her. One morning a call came to say that Grandfather died after a stroke. Momma sank into a state of depression, just like her very own mother. Father wasn’t going to raise us kids himself, as much as he loved us, so he made his own rules. Those were the ones he made up after having a spin with the bottle.
Momma told Aunt Josie of a night when Father came home drunker than he had been in a long time. Momma was in bed, and he came in and turned on the lights. “I am a man, and you are going to make me feel like one!” he told her, half stumbling across the room. He ripped off the covers and threw up her nightgown and raped her. Unfortunately for Momma, he wasn’t satisfied with just one time. He went to the bathroom to urinate some of the alcohol off and came back with a burst of new energy. He saw her lying there, naked on the bed, and felt no remorse. Instead, he must have thought he saw one of the girls from the bar and began talking to her the way he did with them. He pushed Momma’s head down on his cock and forced her to suck it. They had never done this type of thing before, and Momma just gagged. Father pulled her off and pushed her down on the bed where he sodomized her. Momma screamed and Father put his hand over her mouth to shut her up. She bit him so hard that he began to bleed.
A couple of months later, Momma found out she was pregnant with Jeanne. It wasn’t Jeanne’s fault; still mother hated the baby and what her conception had meant. To top it off, Jeanne was born with little red curls, the only one who looked very much like our father. Momma refused to even hold her for an entire week and she told the nurses she did not want the baby. Surprised, they thought that maybe she had taken a turn for the worse, and the doctor ordered bed rest in the hospital. Finally, the nurses got a break when Jeanne began crying very loud with colic. Momma suddenly realized it was not Jeanne’s fault and felt sorry for her. They went home the next day.
Momma had told Father that she would kill him if he ever tried to touch her again as he did that night. So he stayed away from her bed for over a year, and it was a couple more years before Camille was born. This time though, Father wasn’t drunk. He had gotten a promotion to Sales Manager at work and he had been treating Momma real special. My sisters and I stayed with a friend from church, while Father took our Momma back to Niagara Falls for the weekend. He told her life was going to be different this time, and she gave in.
* * * * *
Thus the William Hamilton family was born, as strange as you can believe. Marriage for Father was a realization that promotions, like drinking and sex, didn’t take away the pain-they just made him feel better for a while. There were pressures with these promotions, as well as with the four girls who were growing up and needed more things. Father soon lost his job, partly because he couldn’t handle the responsibility of manager and partly because he wanted to lose it. The owner caught him with the new secretary, in Father’s office where she was conveniently sitting in front of him upon his desk. Father’s hands were under her dress, and his face was pressed against her breasts. He was careful not to make other girls pregnant, so he taught them new ways of enjoying sex. Father had worked with this owner for ten years, and he had made a lot of money for him. The owner in return had dealt with his hangovers, his temper, and now sexually harassing the help. The owner told Father he ran a family business, and this was the last straw. It wasn’t too much longer before Father landed another job at the competition across town. But he was back to his original position as a regular salesman. He did well, as before, and was back to his old ways. Although this time, the dealer was no family man, and it seemed as if the two had a lot in common. Father’s temper at home became a lot worse, and there were a few more times that Mother had to endure the stress of his late-night rapes. It wasn’t she who would put an end to this misery though, but one of his children.
* * * * *
“Isabel. How did you learn all these things about your family?” Linda asked me as I snapped the photograph in my mind, put it way back in my head, and came back into the room, mentally.
“Well, my mother has spoken with Aunt Josie over the years since Father died. She won’t speak to me, because she hates me. But she felt a need to explain some things to my aunt. Some things you just hear around town. Father is a legend in the bars and now that I am an adult, people don’t always recognize me when I come in.”
“Your mother hates you?”
“She rarely speaks to me anymore. She used to call Aunt Josie’s house when I lived with her, but she won’t call me. She just thinks everything is my fault.”
“How do you know that?”
“Doesn’t it seem like that to you, since I never hear from her?”
“No. It seems like she probably doesn’t know what to say. Maybe she feels guilty.”
“Yeah, I suppose so.” My head began to throb, and I bent over to massage my temples.
* * * * *
The session ended, and I went home to make a call to Dom. She wasn’t home, so I left a message. She was probably out with one of her girlfriends. She hardly ever called me back, or she would wait for a week or two before returning my call. Later that night, I turned on the television. I sat glued to the Sony as a reporter was talking about yet another child-molestation murder.
“Three weeks ago, Mrs. Simpson came home to find that her husband was missing. Today, Oregon State Police were led to a state park and found a body amongst some trees. Prosecutors believe this murder is somehow linked to at least a dozen other murders across the country. Each victim is located in a state park, found shot in the head.” The announcer turned to his sidekick and her comment was, “You know Tom, I wonder why someone would want to kill all these men.”
“Well Jane, it turns out all these men are said to be child molesters.”
I turned the television to another station, and this announcer said, “Women are turning up in droves, once again, claiming to be the murderers of this last victim, also said to have molested his daughter at the age of fifteen Prosecutors say...”
That was enough for me to hear to know it was Dominique at it once again.
Chapter Three
During the next week, before our session, there was too much to do at work, as it was time for inventory. I owned several stores throughout California, named “Christine’s,” after my niece. I had managers who had to do the real dirty work in the store, pulling a twenty-four hour day on the actual day of counting, but for several days before and after, there was a lot of set-up and then break-down. Meanwhile, I was analyzing our statistics and trying to put together a plan for the next year. On my last trip to New York, the “DKNY” label had fascinated me on the runway. I thought that it was unique and would create a stir in the stores this year, but it was going to put me over the budget if I brought another new line into the store. I had an eye for fashion and was generally known to take risks with new labels. Not that Donna Karan was a new label. Certainly she was well known and a very successful designer in her own right, having separated from the Anne Klein label in 1985 to form her own business. While this does not imply success with every line a designer creates, there are times when a fashion buyer like myself knows when you see a hit and when you don’t. Clothing took my mind off of my life, and out of my past. When I worked long hours, it was as if nothing existed except my stores and the people who shopped there. It wasn’t very healing to be a workaholic, but it took my mind off the sleepless nights and lonely beds. I want all this to change now. I want to raise a child and have something more than work in my life.
When I went in to see Linda at the end of the next week, she was sitting with her usual confident smile that brought me back to reality. There was life outside of work, and it was mine. Back to bringing it all into balance, like my New Age friends are always reminding me.