Mom?” Aunty Laura asked, trying to lighten the mood that had suddenly become ignited with hostility.
We went into the house, and Aunty Laura looked around with interest as she went over to Grandma. Grandma was sleeping again with her head slouching into her lap.
“Hi, Mom,” Aunty Laura and Uncle Bill each lightly jiggled one of grandma’s shoulder. Grandma woke up and looked around blankly.
“Oh, Laura, honey.” She smiled and extended one of her pale, thin hands.
Uncle Bill took her hand in his giant one and patted it gently.
“How are you, Mom?” Aunty Laura asked from the wood chair in which she was sitting.
“I am fine,” Grandma responded in a shaky voice.
“Hmm…” Aunty Laura was not convinced. “How often has she been to the doctor since she has been here?”
“Don’t worry about that, Laura,” Mamma said in an it’s-none-of-your-business tone.
“Yeah, I know just how you handle things, Sue,” Aunty Laura snapped back. “However it suits you.”
“Now, listen here, Laura,” Brian piped up. “We got this handled. She is going to the doctor next week.” He frowned. “She is my mom too, you know.”
“Unfortunately,” Aunty Laura snapped. She looked very worried.
“Besides,” Brian said, standing a little taller and pasting a smug look on his face, “I have power of attorney over her, so legally you have absolutely no say.”
“Oh yeah, Brian? You really want to go down this road with me?” Aunty Laura got out of her chair.
“I don’t know what you mean.” Brian feigned ignorance.
As Mamma made sandwiches, Samantha and I showed Aunty Laura the farm. Some may wonder why we did not ask her for help, but as victims of severe abuse we were too scared. We had no idea if Aunty Laura would believe us. We did not know if she would take us with her immediately. We did not know if she would confront Brian but then be scared off by him. Brian had once said he could chop our heads off, bury us under a tree, and no one would know. It was too risky.
After the tour, we went back to the house for Mamma’s sandwiches. Everyone played nice as we ate, and all too soon, Aunty Laura and Uncle Bill were saying goodbye and preparing for the five-hour drive home.
Aunty Laura gave us a long hug goodbye and told us to write her. Grandma fell back to sleep as Aunty Laura and Uncle Bill disappeared around the bend in the road. I felt a tear roll down my cheek as I watched them go. An abuse victim learns to deal with the everyday torturous life because it is always the same, but when a breath of hope comes and goes, it feels worse than ever.
Later, people would ask why Samantha and I did not run when Mamma and Brian were in town. We were six miles out of town on a dirt road. The hills along the road were covered in sagebrush. If we took the road, we could be easily caught. Walking six miles into town through the sagebrush hills would have taken longer and we still risked being caught.
Mamma and Brian had conditioned us to think they were always watching. Sometimes, when we thought they were in town, they would suddenly be in the yard. They would park the truck around the bend in the road and sneak up the back of the hill to surprise us. This happened once or twice a year and each time we would get in trouble because we were talking or were both inside the house. We could not run; we never knew if they were watching.
That week, the weather became intensely cold, and I knew snow would soon follow. The cows and goats began huddling closer together, and in the mornings when I went to feed them, there was a thick layer of ice in their watering troughs.
We had been ordered by the doctor to give Grandma baths several times a week to help prevent the urinary tract infections to which she was predisposed. This proved to be challenging, since the house was cold despite the large barrel heater in the living room. The tub in the bathroom had no running water, so Samantha and I had to heat water on the stove to warm the bath for Grandma.
Still, Grandma cried and tried to cling to her sweater as we took her clothes off and lowered her into the tub. I felt sad for her but the doctor was adamant about reducing the risk of UTIs. He had put Grandma on antibiotics for ten days, but he warned that the more she took, the less they would work. Brian got on me about not letting her get an infection. While Grandma cried from the cold, Mamma’s voice would come from the living room, telling her to shut up and quit being a baby.
And Grandma’s Alzheimer’s was getting worse. Mamma and Brian knew Aunty Laura would not be coming back until the spring thaw. So Brian took Grandma’s trailer and sold it with all of her things in it; I was instructed to make dresses, aprons and head coverings for her. When Grandma first came to live with us, she had been on a strict eye drop schedule for glaucoma and was partially blind in one eye. Samantha and I had dutifully followed the instructions on the eyedrops bottles, but after Aunty Laura’s visit, Samantha and I were told to stop giving the eye drops.
“The sooner she goes blind the better,” Mamma said. “And the more she sleeps in her room, the happier I will be. I don’t want some Chatty Cathy sitting around here all day.”
At night, Grandma’s bedroom door was locked and no one was allowed to stay in the room with her. Each morning, when I opened the door to her room, I had a knot in my stomach. Most times, she was still in bed but, sometimes, we would find her on the floor. Mamma and Brian had no respect for anyone.
That winter, I turned sixteen. It was just another birthday. Another lonely wasted year in my life. That fall, when Samantha and I had gone to the eye doctor to get our prescriptions renewed, I looked around at other girls my age. They were so different from me, and as I stood off to the side and watched them with their families or friends, I could not understand why my life had to be so vastly different.
In December, when Mamma and Brian returned from Wenatchee, they were both yelling and upset. They called me into the house and showed me a letter from the government. I did not know what to expect. It stated that because I was now sixteen, Mamma could no longer collect a check for me unless I came into the office to discuss a work program. I was horrified to learn that Mamma had told them that I had run off to Canada with a boyfriend. They would not expect to hear about me again. I felt sick to my stomach and more forgotten by the world than ever.
Another letter had been sent for Fanny. The state was ordering Mamma to take Fanny in for a psychological evaluation. Mamma had orders from the government to comply by the end of January, and I could not help but hope that Fanny would be taken away from Mamma at that interview.
On Christmas Eve, a chilling and blinding blizzard had blown in, and on Christmas Day there were deep snow drifts everywhere. Samantha, Fanny and I spent Christmas Day shoveling snow away from the gates, the barn, and the house. As I shoveled, I sang a few Christmas carols under my breath. I loved the holidays, and whenever I was in town around that time of year, my eyes would look hungrily at all the beautiful decorations. I especially loved Christmas lights and would sometimes stand frozen in place, gazing at their beautiful colors.
The day of Fanny’s psychologist appointment I got up early to bathe and dress her in a new green dress I had made for the occasion. Brian had lectured me the day before: psychologists were all idiots who thought they were smart because they had a degree. They would try to play with our minds like all government employees.
We drove the entire three hours to get to Wenatchee in silence and, when we arrived at the doctor’s office, we had to sit in the waiting room. Fanny seemed agitated, and when I tried to keep her seated so she wouldn’t dance around, Mamma said to just let her be, because the less orientated she was, the less likely she would be able be to answer the psychologist’s questions coherently. When the psychologist came out for Fanny, he told us he would like to see Fanny alone.
This did not sit well with Mamma who stammered with a fake German accent, “Um… We don’t allow our women to be in a room with a man by themselves.”
The psychologist