by Amanda Berry
I lick it; it tastes salty.
“What are you doing?” Michelle asks. “Stop it.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I tell her. “It’s none of your business.”
• • •
I’ve discovered that little white plastic knives from McDonald’s are perfect. Their edges are just sharp enough to break the skin.
Just a couple of quick cuts, and I draw blood. I’ve been doing this every once in a while for months now. Michelle hates it and always tells me to stop. But she can’t make me.
My mom used to tell me that if I saw anyone at school cutting herself, I was supposed to say something right away. She said it was a cry for help.
I don’t think I’m crying out for help, I’m just trying to have a few minutes of peace in here. But I don’t know. I just saw a show on TV about cutters. They said it’s dangerous and that the only way to stop is to deal with your problems directly. Instead of cutting, they said it’s better to talk to whoever is making you so sad or mad.
I can’t talk to him about this. But maybe I should talk to Amanda. She’s making me feel bad, too. He says she can’t stand me. Why?
So I push open the door between our rooms. She’s sitting on the bed, alone. I guess Jocelyn must be out with him. I stand in the doorway and look at her.
“I have something to tell you,” I say. “I cut myself, and it’s because of you.”
Amanda
Gina’s at the door, and I wonder what she wants. Usually she wants to play with Jocelyn. That’s fine, as long as I don’t have to spend too much time with her.
She and Michelle are such liars. They’re always complaining to him that I’m not nice to them, so he yells at me. He’s always putting me down. I’m so tired of being screamed at and called names all the time: stupid, fat, dork, retard, bitch, pendeja—a bad word in Spanish. Nothing I do is good enough: the fire on the stove is too high, or too low, or I used too much soap. He’s always finding fault and always yelling. It’s so demeaning and depressing and endless, and I hate that he does it in front of Jocelyn.
So that makes me mean sometimes. Most of the time I don’t even talk to Gina and Michelle, or I snap at them about any little thing. They make being in here even harder. I wish it could just be me and Jocelyn trying to get through this together, like a tough little team.
But now Gina is staring at me, looking serious and sad.
“I cut myself,” she says, “and it’s because of you.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
She shows me the marks on her arm. Some of them look fresh. As I feel myself starting to well up with tears she tells me that I’ve been a real bitch to her, and that I tell him lies about her that get her in trouble. That isn’t true, but I know I haven’t been nice to her.
“I don’t want you to do that because of me,” I say.
“I’m so sorry. I don’t want to hurt you. We get enough hurt from him.”
It’s like a slap in my face: I realize that there’s no reason for us not to get along better. He did all of this to us. Having us not like one another is all part of his game.
“You have to stop doing that,” I say, telling her that I read someplace that if you have a bad habit, you’re supposed to find something else to do instead. I suggest that maybe she start wearing a rubber band around her wrist, and when she feels like cutting, she can snap herself hard with the rubber band instead. That way she can get a little bit of pain, but she’s not really hurting herself.
She says that sounds like a good idea.
We talk a little more, and she tells me how hard it’s been for her all these years. We’re not different. It’s not easier for her. She’s not trying to make my life harder, no matter what he says. We’re the same. She’s going through exactly what I am.
I suddenly see her as another me. I’m sorry I didn’t see it sooner.
I realize now that I can play an important role in this house. I’m a little older than Gina, so I think I can help get her through this, and maybe Michelle, too. Gina liked my rubber-band idea, and I bet I can think of other things to make this easier for her. It feels good to help. I’m becoming sort of the Mama Bear, and everybody needs help in here.
Gina
Amanda seems like she’s sorry about me cutting myself.
And I like her rubber-band idea. I’m going to find one and wear it.
I go back into my room and lie down on the bed, feeling better.
I still think we are going to have problems. This place just makes you hate everyone and everything. But talking felt good.
February 10, 2010: Jane Doe
A man collecting recyclable cans in the desert outside Barstow, California, found a human head in a backpack. Forensic scientists determined that it belonged to a Hispanic female between fourteen and nineteen years old. Since it was discovered not far from several truck stops, they figured the girl could have come from just about anywhere.
The police contacted the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in Virginia and then the Cleveland police to see if the Jane Doe might be Gina DeJesus, now missing for almost six years.
Detective Laura Parker took the call from the California police, and when she heard about what was found in the backpack, she buried her face in her hands and broke down crying. She prayed that the remains were not Gina’s.
Police wanted to check dental records, but Gina had never been to a dentist, so there were none on file. They checked DNA samples that Nancy and Felix had supplied to police and discovered that the dead girl was not Gina. The head has never been identified.
March 25, 2010: No Simple Label
Amanda
At first I thought I could be nice to him just to get better treatment. When you stare at the same four walls day after day, any little thing is a big deal, like getting warm French fries instead of cold ones. But it turned out I needed more than that. I needed somebody to talk to. I remember the time I asked him for a hug and it actually felt good. I needed so bad to feel that.
I saw an Oprah show about a boy in Missouri named Shawn Hornbeck, who was kidnapped in 2002. They were saying he had Stockholm syndrome, a condition that made him start to identify with his abuser. Until someone has gone through this, they don’t know how they would react. They can’t understand that there is no simple label for what it feels like. You do what you have to do to survive, and it’s multiplied by a million when you have a baby to worry about. I don’t “identify” with my abuser. I have just done my best to cope, every day, for thousands of days in a row.
I don’t think anybody is only one thing, and I don’t think he is only evil. He can be a loving man and father. And if I can find warmth in him, I’m going to take it. Before he locks our door each night he gives Jocelyn a big hug and says he loves her. Then he kisses me good night, and it’s okay.
I hope Beth will forgive me someday.
May 28, 2010: Ice Cream Truck
Amanda
We hear the ice cream truck again.
“I want to go get ice cream! Please! I want to go see the ice cream truck!” Joce keeps asking over and over.
“You have to ask Daddy,” I tell her quietly.
Joce had been with him in the living room last summer when she asked him about the music she heard outside. He pulled back the curtain and pointed to the brightly colored truck and told her about the man who sells ice cream cones and Popsicles. But he didn’t take her out to get one because he didn’t want the neighbors asking questions.
So she stood inside watching a girl get ice cream until he closed the curtains. Then she gave a little wave and said, “Bye-bye, little girl! Bye-bye, ice cream truck!”
She never forgot that music and now, whenever she hears it, she starts jumping around and begging to go out. But he always has an excuse.
She’s starting to get restless in this house. He
began taking her outside last year when the next-door neighbors moved away. He told me I could watch from inside the back door when he took her onto the driveway. I cried as I saw the sun touch my baby’s face for the first time. She was two and a half years old.
Now she’s always asking to go outside. Sometimes he lets her ride her tricycle or run around near him when he works on his cars in the backyard. She copies everything he does, even pretending to shave. I’m worried about her copying too much from him and tell him not to say bad words around her. And I want to make sure that she says “please” and “thank you” and “excuse me,” things he never does.
She’s learned that if she wants to go out she has to get his permission, not mine. Even if she wants to leave our bedroom and go downstairs, she knows we have to wait for Daddy to unlock our door.
Now she’s trying to be patient, waiting for him to come upstairs so she can ask him about the ice cream truck. It’s probably on the other side of Cleveland by the time he finally climbs the stairs and unlocks our door. As soon as she hears his footsteps, she starts jumping around the room.
“Daddy, Daddy, I want to go out and get some ice cream!” She’s begging him.
“No, Pretty,” he says. “We can’t go out right now. Maybe later.”
June 18, 2010: Emily’s Baby
Amanda
He’s taking a bath when he says he wants to tell me something.
“Is it bad?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says, “and you have to promise not to hold it against me.”
This can’t be good. He’s never said anything like that before. And what could he possibly tell me that I would hold against him more than kidnapping me for seven years?
“Okay, I promise. What is it?”
“It’s my daughter Emily,” he says. “She sliced her baby’s neck and tried to kill herself.”
“Is the baby alive?” I ask. How could Emily have done that?
“Yeah,” he answers. “She’s okay. It happened a while ago, but now Emily is going to prison for twenty-five years.”*
He’s told me before that Emily’s had lots of problems with depression and mental illness. But I can’t believe she would do something like this.
“I’m sorry,” I say. I can’t think of anything else.
“Maybe this is God’s way of punishing me for doing this to you guys,” he says.
He thinks everything is about him.
August 4, 2010: Police Next Door
Amanda
It’s ninety degrees. He’s outside working on his motorcycles, and Jocelyn is next to him playing with the dogs. Gina and Michelle and I are sitting in the little room off the kitchen, near the back door, which is open. This is as close as he’ll let us get to fresh air on this hot day. Even though we’re inside, he still makes us wear disguises—hats and wigs and sunglasses—just in case someone can see us in the doorway.
Suddenly he’s hurrying back in with Jocelyn, warning us, “Be quiet!”
Over his shoulder, in the yard next door, I can see a bunch of cops with their guns drawn. It looks like they’re raiding the neighbor’s house.
Standing in the doorway, blocking us with his body, he calls out, “What’s going on, Officer?” He wants to seem like he has nothing to hide. He’s too smart to rush inside and shut the door, in case that looks suspicious.
We’re so close to the police. They’re just over the fence. I think about screaming, but he’s right next to me. I’ve never seen him so nervous, and it terrifies me. I’m paralyzed.
Gina
I’m in a long black wig and sunglasses when he comes in and tells us all to be quiet. From where I’m sitting, I can’t make out what’s going on out in the yard, but I can see that he looks scared.
“Shut up and go upstairs—NOW!” he orders. “And don’t make any noise!”
As we run upstairs to our rooms I ask Amanda, “What’s going on?”
“There are police in the yard,” she says.
I wish I had known. Maybe I would have screamed. But then again, maybe not. If I had tried to yell and it didn’t work, I don’t know what he might have done. I don’t need any more punishment from him.
November 19, 2010: Slap
Gina
He brings home a couple of packages of sliced ham from his mother’s house. The expiration date has passed, and she told him it was too old to eat, but of course he thinks it’s fine for us. I heat up the meat in one of the bags, and it’s actually okay.
When he comes back into the kitchen I ask him, “Do you want me to cook the second bag?”
“Where’s the first bag, dumbass?”
I’m sick of being called “dumbass” and “retard.” I’m sick of him calling me prima, which means “cousin” in Spanish, because I’m not related to him. And he’s always pushing and poking me, shoving me and touching me. He loves to smack me with whatever’s in his hand, like a newspaper or the cardboard tube from a roll of wrapping paper. He’s like a fly that keeps landing on me that I’m not allowed to swat. He thinks it’s funny, but he’s pushing me over the edge. Being called “dumbass” again finally makes me snap.
“I cooked it, dumbass!” I shout at him, surprising even myself.
He slaps me in the face. And then I shock myself at what I do next: I smack him hard in the face with the bag of ham, and the slices fly all over the floor. He grabs my wrist and slaps me harder in the face. This time it really hurts.
“You have to learn not to talk back to your elders,” he says.
“I don’t care how old you are,” I answer.
“The next time you do that,” he warns me, “I’m going to punch you in the face. Now pick up that ham and cook it.”
I take the ham from the floor and wipe away the dirt before I throw it in the pan. I’m smiling to myself. My face stings, but it felt so good to hit him. I’ve been dreaming about doing that for six years.
Christmas 2010: Nothing Normal
Amanda
“Look at the camera, Pretty. Over here!”
He’s standing in the corner of the living room shooting video. On special occasions when Jocelyn is all dressed up, like today, he gets out his old video camera and films her.
Joce is a little confused about where she is supposed to look, then covers the lens with her fingers, and we both laugh.
The living room is usually dark, but he put up a six-foot white artificial Christmas tree with blinking white lights, and a disco ball that casts multicolor reflections all over the room. He brought Joce a birthday cake with coconut frosting, and we decorated it with little candy canes and four candles on top. He went crazy buying candy and snacks. We put Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Tic Tacs, Oreos, and cheese puffs out beside the cake.
I’ve tried to focus on making this the best birthday party ever for Jocelyn and I have to admit, he has been a big help. He bought her a lot of toys and even got me wrapping paper.
We sing “Happy Birthday” to her, and she blows out the candles.
“Are you ready to open your presents?” I ask her as he keeps filming.
“Yes!” she says, and runs over to start ripping the wrapping paper off the old cardboard box that we filled with presents. She pulls out a big coloring book.
“Look, Daddy!” she says, walking it over to him and holding it up for the camera.
Then she takes out a box of graham cracker treats.
“Look, Daddy!”
She likes this game of showing all her presents to the camera and finds some Barbie clothes, a paint set, and some treats.
“What do you have there, my love?” he asks her. “What is that, strawberry granola bars?”
She walks back and forth from the present box to the camera, showing him her Elmo book, and her VTech V reader, a small toy computer that helps kids learn to read.
“Put on
your Santa hat,” he says, and she does.
Gina and Michelle are watching from behind him. He doesn’t allow them to be on camera, and he usually doesn’t allow my face to be on, either, but he’s in such a good mood today I guess he doesn’t care.
“Pretty! I love you, my love!” he says. “Birthday girl!”
He walks around with the camera and focuses in on family photos on the walls. There’s one of his four kids, and another one of his grandkids.
I get a knife to cut the cake, but I should have known better.
“Go put that knife away,” he snaps.
He is obsessive about knives—but does he really think I’m going to stab him in front of Jocelyn? There have been so many times when I’ve wanted to kill him, but right now is not one of those moments.
He hands me the camera and he sits on the chair with Jocelyn in his lap eating an ice cream sandwich. He’s wearing a black fedora hat and the red long johns that he gave me to wear right after Jocelyn was born. He’s smiling and snapping his fingers to “Feliz Navidad” on the radio.
Then they both sing along with José Feliciano: “I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas, I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas, I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas from the bottom of my heart.”
There is nothing normal about this. But at least Jocelyn is happy.
February 9, 2011: A Talk
Amanda
He wakes me up before seven. He’s usually gone by now, but I guess there’s no school today or something—why is he still here?
“C’mon downstairs for a while so we can talk,” he says.
Jocelyn is still sleeping, so I pull the blanket up over her, put on my slippers, and follow him. It’s still dark out. He gets orange juice out of the fridge, puts some old doughnuts on the table, and tells me to sit. He has the strangest look on his face.
“I want to tell you why you’re in this situation,” he finally says. “I just want to explain it to you, so someday you won’t have to wonder why.” He pauses for a moment and then continues: “I have a sexual addiction. I’ve had it since I was a kid.”
