Betrayed: Powerful Stories of Kick-Ass Crime Survivors

by Allison Brennan

  My dad appeared about then, and I saw he was scared. He watched as his 18-year-old, athletic, strong, angry son got angrier and angrier at his drunk mom. He saw me changing. He saw me walking towards a cliff ’with no easy climb back up. I’ll never forget how he looked at me that night. I had never disappointed anyone like that before.

  But I didn’t have to listen to what she was saying, and I used what I learned. I screamed at her. I didn’t just yell. I screamed so loud I lost my voice for the majority of the next day.

  This time, she wasn’t buying it, the volume didn’t matter, and she pressed deeper into my small room until I couldn’t back up any further, until my back was against the window, and things escalated. I reacted physically.

  I took the power back the only way I thought might work.

  I put my fist through the wall of my closet. I remember the wall was made of 1x4 or 1x5 planks painted white. My dad built it for me. Put my fist straight through one of the boards and broke it, jagged wooden edges and all. The punch went no more than ten inches from my mom’s head and that was it. My knuckles hurt for weeks.

  I leaned in and bellowed, spittle flying everywhere and she backed into the hallway where my dad put his arms around her and ushered her away. I remember the shock on her face. I feel no disappointment over making her feel that way. I had won. I still feel like I won.

  I didn’t see her again for… a long time.

  Later that night I got in my car and drove to one of my best friend’s place. I asked his mom if she was using her spare bedroom, and she told me I could move in anytime I wanted. She’d met Mom #2. She knew. On my lunch break the next day I returned home to talk to my dad, and I packed up all my meager earthly belongings, and was gone.

  My mom soon after left my dad to live with her drunk friend, and my dad moved into senior housing. They eventually worked things out a year or two later, and moved back in together until he died, but that’s a different story.

  My journey… well. After my mother did a number on me, I’ve spent my entire life dealing with the fallout, though it’s only recently through therapy I’ve digested the amount of work that needs to be done. The cliff my dad watched me jump off truly has no shortcut back to the top and the bottom makes for miserable living.

  Mom #2 taught me that when I felt powerless, I wasn’t unarmed. I still had my voice, and that voice could get real loud.

  Mom #2 taught me that when that voice doesn’t get loud enough, I still had my fists, and my size, and I haven’t met a single person yet that didn’t back down from some combination of the above.

  Now let’s take a step back and analyze that last idea. I’ll repeat it for you so you don’t have to: I haven’t met a single person yet that didn’t back down from some combination of the above. That means that I’ve been in more than one situation where I felt powerless. More than one situation where I felt powerless, and unheard. More than one situation where I felt powerless, unheard, and had to take that power back by threatening, or using force. Right or wrong, I’ve felt that way many times.

  You’ll be glad to know that I only used force while under control, professionally. Those are different stories, too.

  But I have yelled at people I love, and I would wager that just about every single time I’ve done it they didn’t deserve to be yelled at. I need to be a better person. I need to learn better ways. I need to be patient, and kind, and calm, and find strength for my loved ones so they don’t have to experience me powerless.

  I never forgave my mom for what she did to me. I never forgave my mom for what she did to my dad. I think I might’ve had she ever taken responsibility for her actions. Maybe if she’d apologized for all the things she said, or for how I was scared of never being able to please a woman I loved for… well, my adult life to date.

  But she never apologized, and I never forgave her. To the day she died she maintained that she had always been a good mom, even when she drank. I’m not sure she ever remembered how she was when she drank. I’ve also moved on from the expectation that she ever could’ve said she was sorry.

  I have a daughter now, and a wife I’m not sure I deserve. I’ve yelled at my wife, and I’ll never live that down, no matter how much therapy I go to. She understands though. She’s seen nights like the ones I experienced when I grew up. Understanding doesn’t make it okay.

  Can you see how the cycle starts? Can you see how it perpetuates? Can you see how it’s insidious, and seems benign until one day you sit up, and look around, and realize you’re just like that person who you hate, who treated you like shit when you didn’t deserve it. Or worse yet; you’ve learned how to cope with that nightmare in a way that makes you into a different kind of monster?

  I miss Mom #1. I miss her every single time I think about my mother. I think of the unending amount of things she taught me. How to talk, how to walk, how to hug and laugh. God, the list is so long I can’t even hope to finish it.

  I hate Mom #2, and all the things she said, and did, and the things she taught me.

  I hate myself when I realize I do the things that Mom #2 taught me. Every time I raise my voice, or feel like punching a wall, or throwing something across the room, or slamming a door. I hate it. I can’t explain enough how much I hate it, or how much vigilance and presence of mind it takes when I’m really emotional to keep those terrible, awful habits in check.

  But mostly, mostly I sit and wish and work hard to make sure that one day, my daughter never tells anyone she had two dads.

  Because I’ll never be able to apologize enough for making her say that.

  # # #

  THE OTHER WIFE

  By Kate Pilarcik

  I was here and she was there and never our twain did meet . . .

  Well, until he shot her.

  He told me it was an accident, not a gun-cleaning cliché, but a real accident. I was still rather hung up on the new fact that her existence was an old fact, but I kept my face all arranged pretty and pert as if avidly interested. At the time I thought it in my best interest to explicitly show him all I could muster up in avid interest. To sit tight and listen close. To anything and everything he was hot and heavy to tell. Ya never know where a tip-off clue might be hidin’ and sneakin’ in for you to find it.

  Smooth-talkin’ Zebediah Branchworth always could swig out a rather swell tall tale. Besides, after the initial shock, my survival skills kicked in. Full force. Jolt-like. I sure didn’t have no wishin’ to be a mate of the same late fate. So I jes’ lissened—I let Zeb jaw on.

  On and on Zeb jawed on, of another life with another wife, when all’s the time I thought he really was out on what he called his “regular field trips,” fixin’ this picker or that harvester, gone awry of how it was catchin’ in the rye. I even believed he was combining some weekends into gathering new gazmo-gidgets for the combine—well, guess it suited me fine to think that way. To believe what I wanted to believe. The truth, I was learnin’ . . . really could hurt ya.

  It sure hurt Eloise. It killed her dead.

  I mentioned that sad fact of non-life already, didn’t I? Sorry, kinda preoccupied. Zeb’s takin’ one of his lengthy afternoon naps now and I’m hushed up, hustling around as quick as I can jigger in another room.

  Packin’ a bag.

  ~ Chapter 1 ~

  HOW MRS BECAME MESSES

  It was a quiet wedding. Shotgun affair. No real flowing tulle and white roses hoopla. My daddy got Zeb Branchworth into the church on time with buckshot aimed pretty much straight up his butt. Zebediah, normally a prominent man, a man out standing in his field, had to leave alfalfa and turnips, cabbage and lima beans when Daddy said “HAY”—I mean, “Hey!”

  Hay was whut got us into each other in the first place—all that rollin’ ‘round in it. The last straw though, I never saw comin’, but I don’t wanta get ahead of my own story tellin’ here. First, we said our “I do’s” and then there wasn’t much to say whut with goin’ at each other with wet, sticky tongues, lingerin’ f
ingerins, graspy giggles and warm snuggles into all the places we fit just right. After that rollickin’ rollin’ about pretty much commenced a lot o’ hoppin’ and jumpin’ in and out and out and in and then we got back at it all over agin. Me and Zeb? We were real good commencers.

  My new hubby seemed pretty durn happy with pancake mornings and apple dumplin’ suppers and all the places we dribbled our syrup later. Man oh man, could that man lick more ‘n a spoon clean. We nestled and cooed ‘bout every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and every other weekend, and baby Betty arrived one Thursday when Zeb wasn’t there at all.

  Zeb was a travelin’ farm equipment sales and service man, and our fledgling family got by on the profits he made sure he got harvested. I didn’t mind all that much his goin’ away absences, what with this buddy or that of Zeb’s—Harvey, Billy, Mutt or Jeff—stoppin’ in to see if the West Bend silver coffee pot was perkin’ up good and robust. A body doesn’t have time for no lonesomes when it never gets to feel left alone. Zeb’s gregarious gang would sit a spell and tell a tale to keep me and baby Betty perked up too. Oh those boys, those jostlin’ buds of Zeb’s—they were such characters. More ‘n a hoot, ‘cause that’d be a cliché too. They were the real deals when it came to dishin’ tales of their vivid getaway capers . . .

  Take the time the boys made up that they were bank robbers up Charleroi way. Tole me things went tits up when Jeff recognized the teller was the same sweet Suze he took to the double-feature to see Lady from Shanghai and Mildred Pierce a coupla Saturday matinees ago. Guess a double dose of Rita Hayworth and Joan Crawford inspired Miss sweet Suzie to get frisky naked with Jeff after all the final credits ran up the screen. He told her he’d call, but he hadn’t got around to calling yet. So he thunk it over fast and turned tail faster. The boys claimed they were left lopsided without the stand-alone-man keepin’ a sharp eye on the people on the floor wit’ their hands curled in over their heads. I played along with their game, holdin’ my Maxwell mug careful so it didn’t spill none when I passed baby Betty over to Harvey’s outstretching arms.

  How Harv liked to tickle Betts under her chin, bounce her on his knee, make her coo—the whole nine yards. Clichés. These fellas were made in the shifty shade for clichés.

  “So what’d all y’all do then?” I knew my part was to egg ‘em on when they started sizzlin’ their tall tales. Jes’ like in the picture shows, I played my part swell. They saw me as a slow farm girl become a soft wife, but I was a smart cookie, I was. I could assess better ‘n most folks could cliché. Yep. I sure could. I knew they jes’ liked spinnin’ their yarns into outlandish tangles on my porch. ‘Specially on the days they smelled my baking sheets laden generous with walnut apple crisp bars when they came in the back-kitchen way. That was funny too. How they’d burst the door, tumble in right after and on top of themselves. Always pretendin’ to be surprisin’ me.

  “Put our hands in our pockets,” Jeff answered.

  “Put your hands in your pockets?”

  “Yep. Best to be clean-handed when folks go to tellin’ later what they saw and where they thunk they saw it. No need givin’ ‘em the tellin’ of shiny grey metal swingin’ out over black and white diagonal linoleum. Nosirree, Jenny June, nosirree,” Harvey confirmed. He was bent over the porch boards, watchin’ baby Betty’s fingers all curled tight over two big hairy index fingers he’d plumped out, tryin’ to get her to walk a step or two. She weren’t ready yet, and I glanced ‘em both over solid. All was OK. Mine and Zeb’s little girl was safe in Harv’s strong hold. He showed a sweet spot for little girls and she musta sensed it the way trustin’ babes do, deep within. Baby Betty shot baby blues at hunkered down Harvey. The big lug? Mesmerized.

  They tole me they shuffled on all jiggly-like and set to hootin’ and hollerin’ and guffawin’ and wallopin’ each other with thumps on their backs as if they were good ol’ boys pretendin’ to be prankin’ the whole time and it kinda eased folks to movin’ ‘round and refocusin’ on their findin’ where they’d dropped what they’d carried in. Even disturbed crowds split and settle into what matters to ‘em most personally. Divide and conquer. Some clichés present themselves universal handy through the ages. Boys tole their story that this breezin’ strategy gave ‘em move-along time to act natural and skedaddle out the brass and gold painted door. Billy even helped prop the grizzled geezer guard Gus back up against the Second National wall sign next to the door. Said he grinned ‘neath his Lone Ranger-like black eyehole mask, dusted the feller’s shoulders with one hand and disarmed him of his .38 Special wit’ th’other. Spun it ‘round off his index finger and thumb, then plunked it back in his special pocket. Tole’ grizzled Gus, “Here’s lookin’ at you, Kid.” Guffawed and skedaddled.

  Oh, those boys. That crazy bunch o’ boys. Shame Zeb was always off workin’ so hard, missin’ bein’ part of their hijinks and shenanigans. They were fond of Zeb though, always tellin’ me they were sorry they happened to just miss him by a day and could they leave him a message instead? One of ‘em would rumble round in his rumpled jacket pocket, find a pencil stub, then Ticonderoga up a bunch of numerals on a little white pad. Tear it off, fold it over, and pass it on to me, askin’ if I’d hand it over to Zeb once he came on home. Amazing how many phone numbers the fellers could hold in their noggins betweens just the four of ‘em. Well, that’s what they tole me they was passin’ on. Farm-needs leads. And wherever he was sittin’ right about then, Jeff would usually reach over, rub a circle on my knee, range me in the peepers, exaggerate his slow wink like he thought it sexy ‘n all, then out-and-out drawl, “You tell Zeb to call, Jenny June. Jes’ tell him to call.”

  We’d polish off the walnut apple crisp or gooey cinnamon buns or Mutt’s favorite—the

  peanut butter oatmeal raisin cookies, and they’d all yip and yammer delicious ‘bout what their mommas baked ‘em back in the summertimes when boys were best being boys. You know—jumpin’ swimmin’ holes, breezin’ hand-me-down Schwinns, and gettin’ into adventure troubles the folks back home never knew none that much about.

  Oh, those boys.

  They burst the back-kitchen door down. Toppled themselves in on a Tuesday night when I’d gone to bed after watching the Philco Goodyear Television Playhouse. One at a time they raped me. Well, three of ‘em. Harv took baby Betty outta her crib, creaked the maple rocker, tickled hairy fingers under her chin and watched. Real close, he watched. I felt that most of all.

  Billy put a hand over my mouth that stank of Schlitz piss. Mutt ripped my pink baby doll nightie right down the middle while unzipperin’ his business and jabbed his hard, bony cock hard and harder still into where I had no intention of gettin’ juicy for any of those low-down dirty scum dogs that I used to sit and visit with out on my porch, waitin’ for the oven timer’s beep. And Jeff kept rubbin’ more than circles on my knees pushin’ ‘em up higher while he gnawed my nipples raw. There was blood on my J.C. Penney daisy sheets and I hated that. And I hated them. I hated them past hating. I hated them where it goes dark and dirty past seeing straight. And I discovered those bad goodtimes boys hated Zeb. All along. They done me in to do him wrong.

  He’d double-crossed ‘em one too many times.

  So, they triple-crossed me.

  ~ Chapter 2 ~

  SLOWLY I TURNED

  Zeb’s dented red Ford pickup rumbled our gravel driveway ‘bout lunchtime on Wednesday. Zeb took his time rifflin’ somethin’ inta a shiny metal box in the backseat from what I could see by holdin’ aside the chenille curtain at the upstairs hallway window. I root-toot-scooted down the stairs and found him fillin’ a glass of water from the kitchen spigot. Actin’ regular, like every time, I came up from behind, snaked my skinny freckled arms around his brawny, pompous chest, rested my cheek into the muscles of his back and breathed. This time I breathed twice as hard. Mebbe three times.

  Zeb turned. Ruffled every one of his fingers through my light brown curls and tangles. Way he liked it. He bear-hugged me before gruffin’ his customary
, “What’s for lunch, woman?”

  Over bologna and cheese sandwiches on Wonder Bread with potato salad and cinnamon apple sauce heaped on his blue plate special, Zeb told me tales from the road. Stubborn farmers. Recalcitrant crops. Irritating irrigation. Gears that shifted funny.

  Yeah, yeah. I knew all about funny shifty shiftings.

  I held baby Betty close on my lap. Slurped Maxwell House from my coral polka dot mug and let avid interest explicitly show. I’d been learnin’ in bits and pieces and pieces and bits, a lot more ‘bout gears that shifted on the alternator’s nights. While Harvey rocked Betty . . . and Billy, Mutt and Jeff fucked me, they’d mumbled on all smirky ‘bout slim, dark Eloise. Another pert cottage. Another picket fence. Pink roses rambling up Connellsville way.

  Potato salad with pickle bits and radishes, like Ma taught me to make, slid over Zeb’s slick forked tongue of tales. Applesauce slopped ‘longside bologna lies while I slurped and nodded. Nodded and slurped. Quiet like. Avid interest like. Explicitly. Only other kitchen sounds besides the Sunbeam’s steady tick, slick timing was when I shifted sore knees and baby Betty burped. The Maxwell House was percolated way I like it, hot and robust. It warmed me swell, that trusty cup o’ joe. Kept my face aligned up into eyes I kept shining on Zeb’s every jabbered sentence and paragraph. The kitchen stayed sunny. The radio played good ol’ Johnny Mathis on the croon— “Chances Are.” I realized I was considering mine, more and more. And then some.

  Bitter darkness illuminated hidden agendas inside though. Bitter, like not wantin’ to swallow what ya knew was there and never wanted to be predicamented to have to get out of. But I knew I was gettin’ ‘round to manifesting power struggles over control issues. I mentioned I detest clichés, didn’t I?