Don't Call Me Mother (45 page)

As we moved to leave, I couldn’t help but notice that Davie Dee had the angular face and look of Blanche and our older relatives. I wondered what Charlie, his brother, looked like now. If he knew anything about what had happened. How he could love Vera.

The moist Iowa air, replete with summer scents of the river and the fresh earth, wafted around us as we said goodbye. Suddenly, Bobbie stopped, threw her arms around me, and burst into tears. “I’m so sorry, Linda Joy. I have to tell you—it’s burdened me my whole life. I knew what Vera was doing to you; I visited once and you were so unhappy, just a little pathetic thing. But I said nothing. I should have done something to rescue you. I’m so very sorry! Will you please forgive me?”

Shocked, I held the frail old woman in my arms, dazed by the new information I was getting about her and about myself. I started reassuring her—she was so unhappy, and she’d carried this for so long. I couldn’t blame her for anything. My mother and my father should have seen what was happening to me. I patted her and told her I forgave her and not to think about it again, and I felt somewhat lightened of my own burdens in doing so.

That day I realized my nightmares were based on reality. Another human being had seen what was going on, someone who knew Vera well—her own sister. It was reassuring and surprising to me, and to Aunt Edith as well, who had long known what had happened when I was little. Edith had mothered me the best she could to make up for it, but there was another element in Edith’s family that countered the effect, a confusing dynamic that was neither light nor pretty, but sorting that out would come later.

The story about Vera and my year with her is one that fits the pattern of a trauma story: a place in the psyche where the pain of the past gets dammed up behind the rocks in the river of life. During the years I was writing my memoir, I wrote the chapter about Vera over and over again—I was back in the basement, being punished for getting sick, getting spanked for being late and lying to her about eating sugar bread when I was hungry. I could hear the clanking of the belts fall to the floor when she whipped the boys; I could see her face and feel the desperate child within me who felt so powerless. I remembered my mother and father not noticing my troubled eyes. I thought of Betsy and wondered why she had to kill herself. Did Vera abuse her like she did me? Why didn’t anyone notice her pain and save her? Sometimes people can’t be saved, and sometimes they can. I don’t know what happened with Betsy, and I never will. But it still feels too close to home that another little girl in that house was so emotionally injured that took her own life.

For decades, Wheatland and Vera appeared in my dreams—train tracks bisecting golden wheat fields; the dank, scary basement; Vera’s glittering eyes.
If I were to go back to Kansas, if I were to see the town again, if I saw Vera’s children, perhaps then I could put the past behind me,
I thought. I had confronted other bad memories by going back to the places where the traumatic events had happened. I visited the house on Park Street in Enid, hoping to get rid of the ache in my gut as I revisited the years; I visited the town over and over again until it no longer hurt to walk the streets and see the places where I lived as a child. I got to the place in my healing where being there barely raised a reaction in me at all. It was just a small, run-down town with too many churches and hypocritical people. It had been fifty years, after all—but then again, there is no statute of limitations on trauma. It lasts as long as it lasts. When I was in Enid, though, everything began to feel like just an old story—with no more sound or fury.

By now I was sure Vera was dead, so I thought maybe I could face further investigation. I focused my research project on Vera’s family history as I sought out details for my memoir. First, I wanted to know where the house was located in 1950—if the geography of my memory was correct. Did any of the family still live in Wheatland? The Internet didn’t yet have the searching capabilities that it does now, so I used the old-fashioned method of finding information: I contacted a research librarian. “Yes,” she said, “here’s the address of that family in Wheatland in 1950.” I asked for the location, and saw that there was in fact a train track not far from there—so my memories of a train whistling by were accurate. What a relief! Then the long-distance operator gave me a phone number for Ernest, the nicest kid in the bunch.

Now that I had his number, I didn’t know what to do with it. When I’d last seen him, Ernest had been a grinning six-year-old with his two front teeth missing. A year older than I, he was probably a grandfather by now. When I thought of going to Newton again, I still froze at the idea. What good could come of it? What would they say to me? Maybe they’d still be mean! The fear and the memories kept me in their grip, but as I continued to write my story, the ice began to thaw. I had written my way past the roadblock of the terrified little girl that I had been, moved her into adolescence, made her grow up, and figured out the larger story to tell in the memoir that would become
Don’t Call Me Mother.

As it turned out, I didn’t call him. Instead, I followed my own advice: I wrote my way to a greater freedom of thought, memory, and feeling by getting the story down, by wrestling it to the page word by word. I strengthened my voice, my will, and my confidence that I was okay. Finally, I was okay as a person. Finally, I had a right to be who I was.

Three years after I found Ernest’s phone number, I decided to combine a trip to Kansas with attending my high school reunion in Oklahoma. It was June, and I longed to see the ripe wheat waving in the fields, golden against the azure sky. I created a sentimental trip plan: fly to Kansas City, rent a car, and either follow the route through southern Kansas that Gram and I used to take when we went to Iowa each summer, or go across the state to Newton. I was eager to set my eyes on the waves of golden wheat—provided that it had not yet been cut. I tracked the harvest season online, hoping that my timing would be just right. There was something about the wheat and the landscape that had a power to comfort me better than words ever could. I had never forgotten standing in the wheat fields, surrounded by the aroma of earth and the nutty smell of grain, being caressed by the wind—but did I remember everything correctly? Could it possibly have been as beautiful as the images in my mind?

Most people enhance and change their memories based on emotion and need, and trauma can affect how intense our memories are. What if I had tweaked all my memories of Vera and her family? What if my memoir was inaccurate—what if I’d made up my story? Would I get my courage up to call Ernest? Even as I landed in Kansas City on a warm summer day near the June solstice, I had no idea what I would do.

The warm, moist heat of the Great Plains swept over my body as I exited my plane and entered the Kansas City airport. I kept repeating to myself, “You don’t have to call him; you can decide later.” The map indicated where I would have to turn off the turnpike to either go south or go on to Wheatland. I pointed the car west and opened the windows, inhaling the sweet smell of earth. This was home, this wide sky and huge landscape. The sky was edged with blue and hazed over in pink-gold. As I approached the haze, I saw that combines were biting off the wheat, leaving only stubble and empty fields. The wheat was being cut—I wouldn’t get to see it swaying against the sky! Tears pricked my eyes, but I drove on—just a little over the speed limit—and soon there were fields of wheat still swaying in the breeze. A golden blanket of delicate fronds stretched all the way to the horizon, dusted by pink mist that rose from the fields. It felt like some kind of heaven, and my heart soared.

Finally, I reached the point on the map where I had to make a decision. I pulled over the car and took out my cell phone. I paused, heart pounding. It was silly to be so frightened; after all, what could anyone do to me? When I thought of backing down, a new courage arose. I really
had
to do this—I had to confront the dragons and terrors of the past so I could go on. I would survive it, whatever it would be, and my intuition told me it would bring me freedom—I just couldn’t know in what way, or what it might cost.

I punched the buttons, and a man answered; I asked for Ernest. “Yes, this is Ernest,” he said. I swallowed and went on, “I don’t know if you remember me, but my name is Linda Joy Myers, and I lived with you, your mother, Vera, and your father, Charlie, when I was five years old. We are related—Blanche is your great-aunt, and my grandmother Lulu was your father’s cousin. Your father’s father was Blanche’s brother.”

I gave him all the family names and held my breath. He breezily said, “I don’t remember you, Linda Joy, but yes, I’ve heard those names. Come on by!”

Cheery and brave, I drove into Wheatland. When I was five, I’d departed in a sick, crumpled heap—but in some ways, I’d never left—the nightmares and fears had followed me all my life. I wanted it to stop. Would this encounter help?

In somewhat of a surreal daze, I found Ernest’s home on a nice cul-de-sac street in the new part of town. A tall man in his fifties and his wife greeted me, smiling. I looked at Ernest carefully, trying to find the little boy in the man. “Welcome, Linda Joy. I began to remember who you are. I called my brother Bruce, and he’s coming over!”

I broke into a sweat, though the evening had turned cool. As we entered the pleasant, spacious house, I had a moment of panic about Bruce. I wasn’t sure what to do with myself—he was the bacon-and-eggs boy—but before I could worry too much, a red-mustached, thin man wearing a straw farmer’s hat and a big smile came knocking on the door. He looked and sounded like a grandfather from
Petticoat Junction:
“Linda Joy, it sure is good to see you again. I have thought of you a lot over the years.” He beamed at me, nodding in a friendly way. Where was that twelve-year-old boy I had known? This old man smiled benignly at me, reaching for me with his blue eyes, and introduced me to his wife, Sharon.

I felt like I was in a dream as we all sat down in the L-shaped living room, nicely furnished in a typical bland but comfortable Midwestern style. I kept narrating this bizarre reality—no longer a dream—to myself:
I’m in Ernest’s house. There’s Bruce, an old man who seems harmless. These are Vera’s children.

We chatted about children—theirs and mine—and my mother, and Gram, and the Iowa relatives. I asked about Aunt Pearl, their grandmother, who had been so kind to me, and I found out when Vera and Charlie had died. We had so much in common—Charlie and Gram were first cousins, and all their relatives were my relatives. Bruce kept looking at me and smiling. He leaned over, elbows on his skinny knees. “Sure is good to see you, Linda Joy. I’ve thought about you a whole lot.”

What had he been thinking? I was stunned that he remembered me at all. Ernest’s wife talked about Vera: “She loved kids. We always had other kids living with us.” They were smiling and nodding at what I suppose were happy memories, but I shivered in the summer heat. Why did she take in children? Did she treat them like she did me? Were there other lost, unhealed souls out there? Doubt crept in… was I wrong about Vera?

Bruce’s wife said, “They had this funny story they’d tell about you. It was about breakfast—you didn’t like eggs…” I knew what was coming. Sharon went on, “They thought you were spoiled because you asked for breakfast cereal…” The roll on her stomach jiggled as she laughed. “But all they had were eggs, and you were, well, a little spoiled. Special, living alone there with your gram.”

Aha—the bacon-and-eggs story! Family lore handed down these fifty years. “Yes, I remember that very well,” I said. “I put it in my memoir.”

After a slight pause, Bruce took up the story. He shook his head. “I’m afraid we really teased you, Linda Joy. We pounded your head with our fists… bacon and eggs, bacon and eggs, you got to eat your bacon and eggs.” He chuckled in his aw-shucks way. “I guess we weren’t very nice to you, were we?”