Chapter 1

Today I was told to write.  I was told it was my destiny.  This may be my most self-absorbed moment.  I was told I have a story to share.  I’ve thought this for most of my adult life, but again, would never presume I was important enough to write about myself.  Or more importantly, that anyone would care to read about me.  I am not famous.  I am not rich.  I do own several pairs of Manolo’s, so I guess I have reached a modicum of success, at least in the world of us girls.  A book seemed a bit ambitious, being my first day as a writer and all.  So I’m starting here, the same place that discovered Justin Bieber.  My story is a bit different from his, but just like “the Beebs”, I came here to help people.  My story is one of survival.  Not from cancer or some flesh-eating virus.  No.  I survived childhood.  I survived a childhood with a mentally ill mother and an extremely abusive stepfather.  But then again, who didn’t?  I not only survived, but also found the strength and the means to thrive.  I decided today to share my story with you.  Maybe it will help you.  Or someone you know.  Maybe it won’t help at all, but make you feel better about your own life.  Kind of how I feel when I watch the “Real Housewives”!  See you soon…

Chapter 2

“How are you so normal?”  This is always the first response when someone hears my story.  My flattered reaction is always a smile.  Normal.  High-functioning member of society, maybe, but normal?  Let’s not get crazy.  I don’t have a lot of memories of the time before I was born, but the one thing I do recall is how my mother felt about being “with child”.  According to my maternal grandmother, my mother wanted to end my life before it even began but my grandmother wouldn’t let her do it.  Sweet story, Granny.  Any other bedtime tales for me?  I’m not sure how many times Grandma shared this little nugget with me, but enough for me to always be grateful for her heroic efforts.  Go ahead, Granny ~ the schnapps is in the fridge.  You deserve it!  So born I was ~ feet first, from what I’ve been told.  Shortly thereafter, my father and mother divorced.  They were only married a short time, so I never knew him.  I know nothing of him or the Utley side of my family.  I do know he passed away when I was about 23 years old.  Kidney failure brought on by liver cancer.  Hmm, he might have also been fond of schnapps.  Anyway, my birth brought on my mother’s very first nervous breakdown.  Or that’s what we called them in the 70’s.  She was diagnosed with Paranoid Schizophrenia and continues to live with it today.  I’m not sure if she was medicated at the time or not, but I am sure she didn’t stay on any meds.  When my parents divorced, we moved in with my grandmother.  Until my mother married the man who would become my stepfather when I was three years old.  Thanks for reading ~ see you soon…

Chapter 3

Today I went back to Iowa to see my family and to see my mom.  I knew I would be writing about the apartment we moved into when my mom married Phil so I decided to drive by and take a picture to share with you.  It doesn’t look 36 years older as I do; it looks exactly the same.  I didn’t need a picture.  That entire building is permanently engraved on my memory.  The smell of wet cigarette smoke so embedded in my mind that I smell it now.   I can see the dark walls of cheap, lead-based paint and peeling wallpaper, the bathroom with no door, and my bedroom directly across from where he and my mom would sleep.  In my bedroom was a large, dark closet where I would often find the only quiet of my childhood.  This home also had a great big coffee table that when I stood on it, I could see myself in the mirror.  Thus began my love for dancing on that coffee table pretending to be Shirley Temple.  Also born was my love for looking at myself in the mirror.  I remember having a nice friend named Michelle and a mean, older girl named Renee as my neighbor.  She would only be my friend if her other neighbor, Donna wasn’t around.  When Donna was around, which was too often for my taste, I would have to settle for Renee’s little brother, Terry.  Terry had a penchant for human flesh and would bite me at every opportunity.  I can only hope he is enjoying “Twilight” as an adult.  I once retaliated by pulling his pants down and laughing.  He had the last laugh when the next day he punched me in the nose whilst holding a golf ball.  I will continue to blame him for the slight bump in my nose for the rest of my life.  One thing I don’t remember is any feelings of love either for or from my mother in my early childhood.  I do recall feelings of embarrassment whenever I was with her in public.  She just was never “normal”.  She didn’t do normal things.  She drank coffee.  Only coffee.  Never Pepsi.  My cool Aunt Peg and Uncle Doug drank Pepsi.  I just wanted her to drink a Pepsi.  She had normal brown hair, which never saw the light of day.  She only wore platinum blonde wigs, which were clearly wigs.  She was not fooling anyone.  And lots of makeup.  She was really a beautiful woman, but it was clear that she didn’t know it.  My mother struggled with eating disorders her entire life.  It is still all she thinks about.  It is the last thing she said to me today as I dropped her off at her residential facility for the mentally ill.  “Debbie, none of my clothes fit”.  Her eyes are filled with a sadness that is difficult to describe.  She is trapped.  Trapped in her own mind with no way out of the thoughts that plague her everyday.  Her eyes long for escape.  “What about the clothes you are wearing, I think you look great” is my only response.  And of course, “I love you” and “I’ll see you soon.”

Chapter 4

Did you ever see the movie “The Kid” with Bruce Willis?  Don’t deny it, Demi, you know you saw it!  I came across it channel-surfing one night about 10 years ago and had a very strong reaction to it.   Bruce’s adult character was able to talk to himself as a kid.  I suddenly had a longing buried so deep I could hardly contain it.  I so desperately wished I could’ve met my adult self as a child.  “You’ll be okay” the adult me would say.  “You’ll have everything you’ve ever wished for.  Just hang in there.  Stay strong.  You can do this.”  That would have been very comforting.  But the adult me never showed up.  I had no comfort.  I had no end in sight to my silent torture.  I’m not exactly sure when the abuse began, but let’s put it this way, I have no memory of a time when I wasn’t afraid.  Would he come into my room and wake me today?  Would my mom maybe stay home today to protect me with her presence?    How can no one see what is happening to me?  Clearly I was a great actress long before my days in the actual theater.  Just to inform you, I’m not going to get excessively graphic in the description of my abuse ~ I’m saving that for the book!  Let me start today by introducing you to my stepfather, Phil.  Phil was an uneducated man, so uneducated that he could not read a word.  Phil’s life’s work was for Blackhawk Foundry where he was a manual laborer.  Phil stood about 5 feet, 2 inches tall and could swing a belt with such force it could take down an elephant.  All that manual labor was not lost on his upper body strength.  I have no idea where he met my mother and I have no idea why she chose him to be her husband and father to her only child.  A little more about my mother, Martha ~ she has never worked a day in her life.  I’m certain anyone with a job and a car would have sufficed.  So she chose Phil.  She unknowingly married a pedophile.  A pedophile who now had 24-hour access to a sweet little girl.  And from what I remember, there were few hours a day when I didn’t have to service him in some way.  To be honest, one of my least favorite services was rubbing his feet.  I had to rub each foot for one hour each night while we sat and watched TV.  Now, I understand that this may be starting to sound a bit unreal or overdramatized.  Believe me, I have no intention of going through what James Frey went through on Oprah when his writings in “A Million Little Pieces” turned out to be “less than true”.   I’m here to write my truth and share it with you.  See you soon…

Chapter 5

“Why are you wearing pants?  It’s like a hundred degrees outside!”  Because I have welts on my legs the size of watermelons! Any other questions?  “I’m always cold” I would instead reply.  Which was true and still is, but I would have rather had my cut-off jean shorts on like Daisy Duke and everyone else in the late 70’s.  But I didn’t want anyone to see my raw legs because then the real questions would begin.  I can’t really recall what my stepfather did to keep me from telling our little secret.  I don’t remember any threats on my life or my mother’s life.  I think what kept me from telling anyone was my own inner fear.  I just wanted to be a good girl.  And on the inside, I was.  But not on the outside.  I remember always being in trouble.  I just could not behave.  I would throw temper tantrums in the store if I didn’t get what I wanted.  I would run up and down the aisle of the public bus that would take my grandmother, mother and I to either downtown Davenport or Northpark Mall.  I would also pull the overhead dinger (I’m certain that is the official name for the thing you pull to alert the bus driver to stop) at every corner.   We had to take bus, you see, because my grandmother and my mother never learned to drive.  Another thing I loathed about my mother.  Everybody’s mother could drive a car!  Not mine.  I must have only been in first grade, but I have a strong memory of being spanked by Sister Catherine at my school, Holy Trinity.  School had been let out and there was a crosswalk with a light right in front of the school.  Now, the school was just across the street from our apartment.  I remember pushing the button to get the Walk light and then running back and forth across the street to see how many times I could do it before the light switched to Don’t Walk.  I’m certain I did this several times and with great speed and agility (I may be remembering that wrong).  But I could not outrun Sister Catherine.  She came down the steps of the school, grabbed me by the arm and dragged me kicking and screaming into the main office where she commenced my spanking.  I was furious!  I marched home to tell the tale of my injustice only to get another spanking.  This one by a stronger arm and a thick, leather belt.  Now remember, this was Iowa in the 70’s.  Attached to that belt was a buckle the size of a plate!  Looks like I’ll be wearing pants again tomorrow.

Chapter 6

My mother married Phil when I was three years old.  I lived with fear, hatred and self-loathing until I made my bold escape at age 11.  By now, quite a lot of damage had been done not only externally but internally as well.  Everything was dark and bleak.  This sounds so cliché, but it was dark and bleak.  I saw the world though critical and distrusting eyes.  I still managed to do well in school ~ again, I just wanted to be a good girl.  But I didn’t have lot of friends.  Just one more thing I could blame on my mother.  I had a sparkling personality and was a wicked tetherball player so that couldn’t have been the reason why.  It had to be how I looked.  My Aunt Peg and I always laugh when I talk about this now, but back then, it was horrifying.  In the early 80’s, you had to have Lee jeans and Nikes.  Well, my mother would only buy clothes for me from Kmart, so I had Wranglers jeans and Macgregor’s.  This combination along with my hideous boy haircut and cavities in all my teeth was a friend repellent.  But I did have one good friend, Missy.  I would spend a lot of time at her house where the world was normal.  One night, back in the land of my torture, my mom, Phil and I were watching a TV movie called “Something About Amelia” starring Ted Danson.  The movie was about a young girl being sexually abused by her stepfather.  I watched the movie as if I were in a trance.  I couldn’t believe we were watching this!  Isn’t he going to change the channel?  How could he sit there and watch this?  This movie was very different from my life.  In the end the mother saves Amelia.  That was not going to happen for me.  I knew I was going to have to save myself.  But I didn’t know how.  The next day, in Art class, I told my friend Missy about the movie.  I then told her the same thing was happening to me.  She told me she didn’t believe me.  How could she not believe me?  Wasn’t she my friend?  Then she said she would believe me if I told her mom.  So after school, we went home to Missy’s house.  I told her mom.  I told her every gruesome detail about my life.  She told me I was going to stay at their house that night.  That was not out of the ordinary for me, so I called my mom and told her I was staying at Missy’s.  Little did I know I would never sleep in my mom’s house again.

Chapter 7

I will never forget the first day of the rest of my life.  It was March of 1984.  “The Wizard of Oz” was going to be on television that night as it was every year in March.  However, I would not see it this year.  Sometime during the morning, I was called down to the Principal’s office at school.  I went tentatively as one often goes to the Principal’s office.  I was met by the Principal, Missy’s mom and a social worker.  Missy’s mom had called the school that morning to report my story and the school acted quickly.  I was ushered into a large conference room where we sat around a large table.  I had to tell my story again.  I had to tell every detail.  I was mortified.  I feared they wouldn’t believe me.  I feared what would happen if they did believe me.  The social worker asked me very specific questions.  I gave very graphic answers.  I was told I was going to be taken to a foster home and may need to stay there for a while.  The social worker drove me to my house along with a police escort.  When we arrived, I would not go up to the house.  I begged the social worker to let me stay in the car.  She finally agreed which I can’t believe to this day.  I could have run, but where?  I was paralyzed by the picture that was unfolding.  The social worker and policeman knocked on the door and it was answered by my mother.  I have no idea what they said to her, but she disappeared into the house and returned a few minutes later with a bag for me.  The memory of those few moments haunts me to this day.  What must my mother have felt to have her daughter taken from her?  Did they tell her why they were taking me away?  Did they give her an explanation?  I certainly didn’t care back then, but it shakes me to think of it now.  The social worker then drove me to my first foster family.

Chapter 8

“There’s no place home.  There’s no place like home.  There’s no place like home. “  We pulled up to a beautiful house in Blue Grass, Iowa at about dinnertime.  I remember that day like it was yesterday.  We knocked on the back door and were greeted by my new foster mother, Ruthann.  I noticed immediately she was wearing Lee jeans and a white sweatshirt with their painting company’s red logo.  She had a red bandana tied around her neck and I instantly wanted to dress just like her.   She was so cute and bubbly.   She also talked very fast.  My head was already spinning with the events of the day.  This was information overload!  Her husband Jay, the quiet one, was sitting at the dining room table.  The sun was shining through the big picture window just behind him and the light made it seem as if he was glowing.  He was a very tall blond man with a smile that made me like him straightaway.  My social worker didn’t stay long as my new family and I apparently had somewhere to be.  My only tie to what had happened that day was disappearing.  I’m not sure why, but I felt like I was being abandoned.  I had yet to speak a word and I was now living with these strangers.  They were in a hurry and so we said goodbye to my social worker and off we went.  I can’t really remember the car ride, but we ended up at a daycare center.  Ruthann and Jay had volunteered to help out there that evening.  I was sat down in front of a television set just in time to see Dorothy click her red ruby heels and mutter the words that would bring her home to Aunt Em and Uncle Henry.  She was right.  There is no place like home.  But I wouldn’t know the meaning of home for many more years.

Chapter 9

My mother was scared.  I could just sense it.  But she wasn’t scared for me; she was scared for herself.  She thought I was a liar.  My grandmother thought I was a liar.  I was sitting on the floor of her living room with her and my mother on the couch, scolding me from above, sternly instructing me to tell the truth.  We were going to court that day and I had clearly made a mess of my mother’s life.  I needed to tell the truth and go back home.  My grandmother had always been protective of my mother.  She always treated my mother like a child, which I now believe truly stunted my mother’s emotional growth.  When we arrived at the courthouse, my social worker was there to greet me.  The day was a blur of people and information that I didn’t understand.  My mother and grandmother went into the courtroom, but I stayed in another room with my social worker.  She explained to me what was happening in the other room.  I don’t remember what I felt for myself that day.  I was mostly worried about what would happen to my mom when Phil was sent to the electric chair.  I imagined we would move back in with Grandma and life would slowly get back to what it was before she chose to marry Phil.  They would have to forgive me eventually for causing all this trouble.  I’m sure you realize Phil was not given the death penalty for his crimes against me.  As I’ve said, I’m not going to get too descriptive in this venue, but you can be certain ~ my little body and my mind suffered greatly at the hands of this man.  For these crimes, Phil was handed two years probation.  He and my mother went home.  I went to therapy.

Chapter 10

I was now an official ward of the state.  Iowa would now have to pay for me to live.  I’m not sure how it is now, but at the time, the goal of everyone involved was to get me back in the home of my mother.  But my mother chose to stay in the home of my abuser.  My mother chose him.  Him.  With each choice we make in life, we leave another option behind.  I was the other option.  I was left behind.  I was left to fend for myself.  I had a few group therapy sessions with other young girls in my situation.  We would sit in a circle on the carpet in the therapy room.  I remember thinking “I’m not like these girls.”  They seemed beaten, broken.  I was certainly not broken.  I was ready to fight.  Fight anyone and anything that might stand in the way of my one day being normal.  I was going to be normal.  I was going to be happy.  I was going to be successful.  I was going to be rich and have all the Lee jeans and Nikes a girl could have!  One of the counselors always felt it was important that we girls knew the statistics of our situation.  Statistically, I should have become a prostitute, or had a child of my own before my twenties.  At 11, this information infuriated me.  How dare you seal my fate with your statistics!  After group therapy, I had to have individual sessions with Phil.  This was truly beyond belief for me.  I was very uncooperative.  Going back to that life was not an option.  I could not have been more clear with you people.  Now that I had finally found a way out, I was NEVER going back.  And I never did.  But as Dr. Seuss says, “Oh, the Places You’ll Go”.  Doctor, what an understatement!

Chapter 11

 It took me a very long time to understand my mother’s choice.  Once I was removed from her home, I didn’t look back.  She may have been my biological mother, but she wasn’t really my mom.  I would see her on the weekends I would spend with my grandmother or major holidays.  She was invited to my graduations and my wedding, but she was never in the central role of my mother.  That spot was reserved for my Aunt Peg.  As I’ve said, my mother chose to stay married to Phil and deny what had happened.  So I chose to barely acknowledge her existence.  That is until I was forced to.  That happened in the winter of 2009 when her husband of 33 years passed away.  She called me on Thanksgiving Day and told me Phil was in the hospital and he might die.  “I’m sure he’ll be fine, Mom.  I’ll call and check in on you tomorrow.”  This news sent me into a mental tailspin.  What would happen to my mother if he died?  Would I have to take care of her?  Would she have to move in with me?  I was in a deep panic as I sat stone-faced at Thanksgiving dinner with my husband and his family.  The next day when I called, she said he was doing much better and would be going home soon.  Thank God.  I let out the first breath of relief in the last 24 hours.  The relief didn’t last long.  A few days later, I was checking my home voice mail from work.  The message was from one of Phil’s sisters, Sharon.  She relayed the info that Phil had passed away and my mom was staying with her.  I called instantly and said I would be there the next day to come get her.  I hope you all don’t mind I’ve jumped ahead chronologically, but I felt it was time I told you the whole story of who my mother is.  I felt you needed to know why she chose to let her child go.  I needed to know, as well.  But I had to wait about 25 years until I really understood.  You just need to wait until Monday.

Chapter 12

I felt nothing when I heard of Phil’s death.  Over the years of my abuse, I had trained myself to feel nothing about him.  But I did feel fear that day.   Fear for my mother and selfishly, fear for myself.  How was I going to take care of her?  I knew I would need some help with this situation, so I asked my friend Vicki to come to Iowa with me to start the process with my mother.  I needed someone who would be levelheaded if I got too emotional and couldn’t think.  When Vicki and I neared Iowa, I called Phil’s sister Sharon and told her I would be at her house in about 30 minutes.  This is when the fun truly began.  Sharon said they wouldn’t be home.  What?!?  I just drove for two hours on the winter highway!  “You’ll just put her in a home and leave us to bury Phil” she hissed into the phone.  I had to pull over I was so enraged.  She hung up on me several more times as I attempted to make arrangements to pick up my mother.  The last time we spoke I calmly assured her that I would make whatever arrangements for Phil’s internment that my mother saw fit.  And if she didn’t turn my mother over to me in 30 minutes, I would show up with the police.  When Vicki and I turned onto the snowy, gravel road that would lead to my mother, the theme song from “Deliverance” played in my head.  I started singing it to make us laugh through our fear.  I was crying, but I’m not sure it was from the laughter.  This was Iowa, folks.  I envisioned we’d pull up to someone holding a shotgun to our faces.  What had I gotten us into?  When I pulled up their driveway, the entire family was standing there.  It was a very surreal scene.  I pulled halfway up the drive (in case we needed to make a quick getaway!) and left Vicki in the running car.  My mother looked so emaciated and weary I barely recognized her.  I hugged her and held her for a moment in the cold.   I collected her things from Sharon and again assured them I would be in touch regarding their brother.  I put my mother in the backseat and with relief, pulled away from the house.  “Is that my blood pressure?” my mother asked.  “What are you talking about?” I asked in return.  She was referring to the lights on my dashboard.  Oh, boy ~ here we go.  We started at the DMV.  I knew she would need a state ID for all the paperwork we would need to fill out regarding bank accounts, etc.  She was very intrigued by all the wall postings.  She thought they were all about her.  “That’s me” she would say and point to a picture of a missing child.  I was more concerned with making sure she didn’t run away from me.  We got the ID and went to lunch.  At one point during our meal, my mother was staring intently, her eyebrows knitted together in worry.  “What are you looking at?” I asked her.  “I’m just watching television.” she replied.  There was no television.  We all went into the restroom.  My mom and Vicki went first and as I was going to the bathroom, my mom bolted from the restaurant out into the parking lot.   We caught her and were able to coax her into the car.  I just wanted to get everything done.  Our last stop for the day was the county courthouse.  We were going to apply for state aid for Phil’s burial as suggested by the funeral home.  As we were filling out the first form, my mom got up from her chair and screamed at a wanted poster.  “That’s her!!!” she shouted with fear in her voice.  “Who?”  Again, she attempted to escape.  I could barely hold her.  She is 4’11 and maybe 90 pounds but man, was she strong that day!  “That’s the girl they killed!” she screamed.  “Who killed her?” I asked, trying with all my might to hold her.  “Sharon!  And then they took my blood in my sleep and put it in her body and then gave me her blood.  Let me out of here!”  I threw the clipboard with the unfinished forms to the poor girl behind the desk and Vicki and I were able to get my mom back in the car.  It was clear it was time to get her to the hospital, but how?  I had taken her to the hospital before and she didn’t go easy.  I knew we were in for a fight.  Then I had an idea.  “Mom, should we go to the hospital to get your blood put back in your body?” I asked.  “Yes.” she replied.  “Okay, Mom.  Everything’s going to be okay.”  I prayed I was right.

Chapter 13

We got to the hospital and spoke with the check-in nurse.  She seemed to think mom should see a doctor.  Thank God.  So she admitted my mother and asked us to have a seat in the waiting room.  My mother wouldn’t sit.  She kept looking at the pictures on the wall, moving quickly from one painting to the next.   We were looking at a serene, yellow meadow and she said that it was a picture of Phil.  That was the color Phil was when he died.  My mother had been in the hospital room with Phil when he passed away.  I’m told Phil did not go easy into that goodnight.  And my mother watched him suffer into death.  She watched as his organs failed one by one.  She watched him turn yellow as his liver died.  She watched him grasp for each breath until his last.  She is now trapped with that image for the rest of her life and on this day she cannot seem to escape it.  We were finally taken to a hospital room in the emergency center.  Someone came in and began asking my mother questions.  My mom answered her questions and then she left the room, leaving my mom alone with Vicki and me.  Suddenly, my mother’s entire demeanor changed and she became lucid for the first time in my adult life.  “Why aren’t I normal?” she asked me, looking into my eyes as if I had the answer.  “I just don’t want to be a burden to you.”  At these words I let out every emotion I ever had about my mother and just cried.  It was finally clear to me that my mother was never capable of choosing to leave Phil.  She needed him for survival.  She was sick and couldn’t ever take care of herself, let alone her child.  I felt all my hatred for her leave my body as if it had been possessed all these years with an evil spirit.  Then panic set in.  What if she was lucid when the doctor came in?  Then they wouldn’t keep her.  Then as if someone flipped a switch, she jumped up and lunged for the door screaming she needed to go see Phil.  The hospital staff heard the commotion and came in to help hold her down.  Finally, they had to shoot her with a sedative and down she went.  She wouldn’t wake again until the next morning.

Chapter 14

The next day at the hospital, my mother seemed a bit more at peace.  This is the magic of medication.  While my mother ate her breakfast, we met with the hospital social worker.  She was a very kind woman in her mid-forties and had a comforting disposition.  I asked Vicki to take notes for me so I could just sit with my mother and help her answer any questions.  Somehow my childhood and our relationship came up in the conversation.  My mother told the social worker that they took me away from her because she didn’t have enough money to keep me.  Tears sprang to my eyes and I saw Vicki write something down to show the social worker.   “Abuse” was the succinct and accurate note for her to read without my mother knowing.  So there it was.  My mother had wiped all my truth from her memory.  I decided on that day that I could live with that.  She had enough in her head to darken her thoughts; she didn’t need my darkness too.  The social worker said she would look into a residence in Iowa that housed the mentally ill.  I was so grateful for her on that day.  She saved both me and my mother in one fell swoop.  After our meeting, we walked my mom back to her room.  My mother asked if Vicki and I would go to her house.  She had about $2,500 in a gym bag buried in her closet.  $2,500 seemed too much for me to leave behind, so off we went to my childhood home to collect it.  When I was 8 years old, we left the apartment and moved into a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom house on Indian Road in Davenport, Iowa.  It sat in a row of other small homes that sat at the top of a steep hill.  You had to climb about 25 steps to get to the front door.  Phil loved lawn decorations and barely a foot of grass was left uncovered by some adornment.  It was quite the sight.  After we climbed the stairs, we got to the front door.  The outside of the house was in great disrepair.  That was nothing compared to the inside.  As my luck would have it on this journey, the key my mother had in her purse would not open the door.  Seriously, you have got to be kidding me.  I turned to Vicki who suggested maybe the kitchen window was open.  “Vicki, I am NOT climbing through a window in…” I couldn’t even finish the sentence and Vicki had catapulted through the kitchen window.  That’s friendship.  “Okay, meet you at the front door” was my quick-witted response.  She let me in and I immediately had Viet Nam flashbacks of my life here.  Only now, the house seemed uninhabitable.  There was dust an inch thick on every surface in the tiny living room.  It was obvious Phil spent his last days on the couch.  There was clutter and junk everywhere.  There was food on the floor and on the counters.  I walked into the hallway that faced my bedroom and suddenly felt the panic overwhelm me.  “Vicki, I can’t be here ~ I can’t do this” I whispered.  Vicki had already begun climbing the piles of clothes that had once been my bedroom searching for some kind of gym bag filled with money.  I saw mold covered the wall next to the bed I used to dream in.  I never dreamed this is what would become of my mother.  No one deserved to live like this.  Suddenly, the sight of the bag in Vicki’s hand brought me back to the task at hand.  Inside was approximately $3,000 in crumpled cash.  Mission accomplished.  Now get me out of here.

Chapter 15

When I was 11 years old and freed from that house, I never looked back.  That time was over.  I had escaped.  I chose to leave it behind and with it, my mother.  That is why I wanted to jump ahead in time and let you know what happened to the people that never escaped that house of my horror.  Phil smoked packs and packs of cigarettes a day.  He worked in a dark, dank foundry until he was laid off a year before his death.  His end was not pretty.  He suffered into death and I wish I could say this made me feel for him.   I did not.   However, for my mother, I made his funeral arrangements and saw to it he had a proper funeral with his family.  It was difficult speaking with the reverend about his life and hobbies.  I chose fishing and painting.  I had to fight my gut to tell the reverend what his real hobbies were.  My mother’s mental illness struck her with breakdowns about every 8 years.  Her first followed my birth.  Her second I witnessed at about age 8.  I remember visiting her in the same hospital I took her to almost 20 years later.  I remember her screaming at us in the bright hospital hallway.  She was in her nightgown and bare feet begging us to take her home, holding her empty suitcase while it fell open.   When I was away at college, my grandmother called to tell me she was in the hospital again.  I did not care to visit her at this time.  I was too caught up in the selfishness of late adolescence.  Her next breakdown occurred in November of 2007.  I was now a full-fledged adult and had to decide the path I was going to take.  I was her only child whether I liked it or not.  She still had Phil at this time, but he was not capable of dealing with her health in the right way.  I did not trust him to take care of her.  That feeling was my answer.  It was time for me to step in and care for my mother.  The past had to be the past.  She was sick.  She was always sick, but as a child, I just knew she wasn’t a good mother.  I didn’t know she had a good reason for her lack in parenting skills.  I headed to Iowa and I got my mom to the hospital.  I got her checked in and the déjà vu was unbearable.  There she was again, screaming at me from the same hospital hallway, being pulled away by the nurses.  “Don’t leave me!  Debbie, please!” she pleaded.  “Mom, I have to.  I’ll come back and see you tomorrow.”  In a few days, she was released to her husband with a prescription she would never fill.  She went back to her life until the last time she would breakdown over Phil’s death.  My mother now lives in a state-run facility for the mentally ill in Davenport, Iowa.  She is medicated and monitored on a 24-hour basis.  She is safe and well fed.  I talk to her weekly and visit as often as I can.  I am her power of attorney and handle all her affairs and finances.  She is my mother and I am her only daughter.  This is where we are today.  Tomorrow, I’ll go back to 1984. 

Chapter 16

There was a lot of love in my new home with Ruthann and Jay.  They had two daughters of their own, Jaime and Erin, both younger than me.  Like Jaime and Erin, I decided I wanted to call Ruthann and Jay Mom and Dad.  It was difficult at first and I felt awkward, but it locked in within a few weeks.  I shared a room with Jaime, their oldest daughter.  Each night we were taught to say our prayers.  Ruthann would come over to each of our little twin beds to tuck us in and say our prayers.  It would start with “Jesus, thank you for this day and thank you for everything you’ve given me.” Then we would list the people and things we were thankful for.  I was just thankful to be safe.  I felt safe for the first time in my life.  Safety is something a lot of us take for granted, but to me it was worth all the Nikes in the world.  I started going to a new school in Blue Grass, Iowa and made new friends.  Ruthann and Jay bought me some new clothes.  Not Lee jeans or Nikes, but we were getting warmer!  I was at the end of 5^th grade and would stay with Ruthann and Jay through the end of 6^th grade.  That was when Ruthann would hit her limit with me.  As I’ve told you, I really wanted to be a good girl, but for some reason, I just couldn’t do it!!!  Ruthann and Jay were very young, only 18 years older than me, so I was a lot to handle for young parents.  I had been acting out for most of my youth and it didn’t end just because I had a new home and parents that were trying to love me.  I was a brat.  I would torture Jaime and Erin, mostly with the silent treatment.  That was my specialty.  I became a great manipulator at a very young age, not something I’m particularly proud of, but it comes in handy on occasion in adulthood.  One of Ruthann’s boiling points was reached when she parked her manual-transmission car at the Casey’s General Store to run in and pick up some milk.  She left me in the front seat and Jaime and Erin in the back.  I was intrigued by the gearshift and decided to practice my stick-shift skills from the passenger seat.  Just so you know, I can now drive a stick shift with great ease and I’m sure this was a helpful lesson for my future.  As I’m sure you have guessed, I put the car in neutral and we rolled right into one of the gas pumps.  Ruthann ran out of the Casey’s and for a Christian woman, her language was quite sinful.  There was only a slight dent in the bumper, but I’m sure her anger was more about our safety.  Here I took something so precious to me, safety, and denied it to my foster sisters and myself.  We could have been hurt, but that never crossed my mind.  We drove home, had a tense dinner, and went to bed.  I was the one on the receiving end of the silent treatment that night.

Chapter 17

I’ve recently been told that all kids shoplift at some point in their life.  It may be something innocent like a pack of gum or a candy bar.  It’s a right of passage for an adolescent.  This new information made me feel a lot better about my past as a 12 year-old thief.  I only had one target ~ the Walgreens a couple of blocks away from my grandmother’s house.  And being a pre-teen, I was only interested in beauty products and jewelry.  I remember specifically the L’Oreal blush in Bebe and my first set of Lee Press-On Nails.  The day I got caught I had in my possession a cheap pearl necklace and some earrings.  I walked out of the store triumphant, excited to don my new loot while I looked in the mirror and sang along to my grandmothers Judy Garland record.  But about five steps into my victory, I was halted by the voice of the store manager.  “Young lady, I need you to come back in the store, please,” he ordered.  I did as I was told.  I knew I was collared.  We went to the back of the store to a little office.  The manager asked a young sales girl to join us.  “Please empty your purse,” he said calmly.  I calmly obliged, but I was a nervous wreck inside.  Out fell the necklace, earrings, and my awesome yellow comb that I usually wore in the back pocket of my Kmart jeans.  The next thing I remember was being downtown at the police station with my grandmother.  I was so scared.  At that moment, I was certain I had ruined my life.  I would never be able to go to college and I would never get a job.  I had become a statistic, just like the counselor from group said.  This would be on my permanent record.  I would have no future. Or so I thought.  My grandmother was angry with me, but we went back to her house and that was that.  We made popcorn and watched TV.  For the rest of the weekend, I could think of nothing but my stupidity.  What would Ruthann and Jay think?  They could never know.  They could never know that I was a thief.  I’m certain this was a turning point for me and for my life.  I felt I had something to prove to everyone who had pity on me and my situation.  I was not like my mother.  I would not live the life she did.  I wanted to be special and I had to make sure no one ever knew what I had come from.  On Sunday night Ruthann came to pick me up and take me away from what I had done.  I never told Ruthann and Jay of my time in the big house.  All 30 minutes.  They would never know and therefore would still be able to love me.  A few weeks passed until one night Jay and I were in the living room watching TV when Ruthann came in fuming.  “What is this?” she asked waiving a piece of paper at me.  “You were caught stealing?”  The words pierced through me with a chill.  That was it.  I knew she didn’t love me anymore.  To this day, I have no idea what that piece of mail said or what she had to do because of it, but I do know it was the final straw.

Chapter 18

Fourteen months.  That is how long Ruthann and Jay lasted before the destruction I brought to their home was too much for them to bear.  I was removed from them in June of 1985.  I reconnected with them while I was in college through Christmas cards and the occasional letter from Ruthann.  Ruthann was a big fan of the Christmas newsletter, so I was always up to date with their family.  They actually came to my senior vocal recital my final year in college.  It was really wonderful to see them.  Ruthann was a little rounder and Jay was much balder.  But the smiles I remember from that first night I was brought to their house were the same.  It’s funny, but when thinking about my time with Ruthann and Jay so many years ago, the realization hit me that I was the only foster child they didn’t keep.  They ended up adopting their next two foster children.  It’s strange how this never occurred to me before now.  It made me a bit sad, but I don’t blame them for their choice.  They were truly wonderful people who had to do what was best for their family.  I will always think of them with love.  And I still start my prayers the way Ruthann taught me.  The first thing I learned about my next foster family was that they had an in-ground pool.  This was pretty much all I needed to hear ~ I was in.  Sandy and Larry were my new parents.  I also got a big brother, Brad, and a big sister, Karen.  Trisha was my new little sister, but she was tough.  I couldn’t torment her.  The roles were now reversed ~ I would now be the tormented.   But I wouldn’t make it fourteen months.  Here I would only last twelve.