Back in Arizona, my grandmother was still searching for my brother. Sometime between 1984 and 1985, my brother became one of the first missing kids to have his picture on the back of milk cartons. A few months later, a neighbor lady thought my brother looked like the boy she had seen on the back of her milk carton and called it in. Not long after, the FBI stormed our apartment and took my brother out kicking and screaming. Thirty-one years later, my brother would tell me what I could not remember at such a young age: that he was being badly abused. The stories he would tell me of our time in Topeka would cause my eyes to well up with tears; the severity of the abuse was heartbreaking.
On that day, this terrified little boy was sent back to live with our grandmother, a woman who would convince him she was his real mother. He would end up leading a life apart from us, but his supposed rescue from an abusive home would have its own path littered with fear and sorrow.
Soon after this incident, my parents divorced. My mother took my sister and me back to northern Arizona to live with our grandmother, so she could be near my brother. My father was sent to prison for a few months for kidnapping my brother, and he then moved to Phoenix. My parents shared custody of my sister and me, although we ended up living with my father most of the time.
Even though I would later learn that my father had been abusive to my brother, for the most part, I felt safe living with him. I can recall his small, yellow house that sat on a busy street. The smallest bedroom had two twin-size beds with matching bedspreads—one for me and one for my little sister, Samantha. I can remember my father taking us to the local swimming pool and letting us float around with floaters on our arms. Those days were fun for us. My sister and I would laugh and splash each other in the warm Arizona sunshine. Little did I know that happy days such as these would soon disappear like the leaves falling from a tree in autumn. I would always remember those days with tears in my eyes. If I could have talked to my four-year-old self, I would have whispered,
“Run! Run like hell and don’t look back!”
But of course, this is only wishful thinking. No one can turn back the hands of time—no matter how much one may wish to.
One afternoon, when I was nearly four, I was sitting on the sidewalk in front of my dad’s house. My two-year-old sister was sitting nearby, tearing up grass by the roots and eating the dirt. I had a headache and was holding my pounding head, watching her. A few weeks earlier, I had been attacked by a dog at my aunt’s house. The giant Great Dane had taken my entire head in its mouth and had clamped down on it. One eye tooth had narrowly missed my right eye by less than half an inch.
As a result, I had spent some time in the hospital and, after my release, I can vaguely remember looking in the mirror and being startled when I saw the wounds that would eventually heal into scars. There was one under my right eye, one long scar that went down my left cheekbone and a few other small ones.
On that particular morning, as I sat there, I watched a yellow Jeep pull up into the driveway. My mother was in the passenger’s seat, and in the driver’s seat was a man with long, gray hair. I smiled and waved a tired wave; their radio was blasting rock music and I remember how much it hurt my head. My father yelled for my sister and me to go into the house. I grabbed my little sister and started walking to the house. The man in the Jeep frightened me with his intense gaze. I hated how he was staring at me—it was very unsettling, so I ran toward the house with my sister, but the man jumped out of the Jeep and grabbed my arm.
“Where are you going, gorgeous?” he asked with a grin.
“My dad is calling me,” I stuttered.
“That’s okay,” the man said. “My name is Brian, and you are going to be my daughter now.”
I looked at him in confusion. Why would I be his daughter?
My dad was yelling at my mother and pushing past her toward us. She was holding papers that I assume were custody documents. Brian pulled me and my sister over to the Jeep and pushed us inside. My mom got into the front seat and Brian started the engine. I watched in confusion as my father went over to Brian’s window and yelled at him to let us out, but Brian drove past him into the street. I waved to my father and he waved back. That would be the last time I saw my father.
I was frightened and confused, but there is no way that I could have known at that time how bad my life was going to get. There was no way that I could have known that my mother’s new forty-seven-year-old boyfriend had been wanted for child molestation back in the seventies. There was no way to know that he had escaped by fleeing to Alaska and working on fishing boats before circling down to Arizona and becoming a gold miner in the hills. I could not have known this then as I clung to my frightened sister.
For the next three hours, we drove north into the Bradshaw Mountains of northern Arizona. When we arrived at the mine where Brian lived, Mamma got out and opened a heavy metal gate. We crossed a creek and then drove about a half-mile up a hill to a small flat place in the road. There I saw a tiny thirteen-foot trailer sitting next to a tall mine shaft. I woke Samantha and apprehensively followed Mamma and Brian inside the trailer. It was so small, there was barely enough room to stand. After a minute of everyone just standing in the middle of the room, Brian picked Samantha and me up and set us on the top bunk.
“Okay girls, go to sleep,” he said.
Still in my day clothes, I fixed my sister a place and then lay down myself. My stomach was all knotted up, and I had an uneasy feeling about what was happening to us. I could hear Mamma and Brian talking outside as I drifted off to sleep. My life was about to become a living nightmare—one from which I would not be able to awaken for many years.
Life with Brian was a rude awakening for me and my sister. He believed in the strictest discipline and held to the notion that children were to be seen and not heard. He was very confusing at times. At night, he would read us stories. Samantha and I loved stories, but we always listened tensely, knowing the slightest thing could send him into a wild rage. Sometimes we would all go on mining excursions or hike to the lake behind the mine, but all of this was laced with an undercurrent of fear as Brian began laying out one rule after another. One of the worst of his rules was that my sister and I were not allowed to talk to each other, or to strangers. The only time we were allowed to talk was when we raised our hands and were given permission. We were also not allowed to play with other children who might accompany their parents on the mining expeditions that we sometimes went on.
The days would draw out, sad and long, and I would find myself jumping at the slightest touch or sound. Every tiny mistake, whether it was forgetting to close a door, dropping a dish, not coming immediately when called or talking without permission, would earn us a severe switching or belting. I had learned to count and would sometimes count the blows when we were punished, to keep my mind off the pain; usually, the average was fifteen licks. If Samantha and I cried, Brian or Mamma would beat us until we stopped. Many times we merely collapsed. Brian’s favorite stance for us when he beat us was to have us bend over and touch our toes. If we fell over or stopped touching our toes, the beatings would continue until we complied.
These punishments took place about three times a day for each of us. The worst part was that my mother would either participate in the punishment or stand by and watch. Sometimes I would run to her for help, only to have her shove me back at Brian, who would angrily grab at me.
Sometimes I would still be shaking from a recent beating when Brian would start reading us our nightly story. I would listen to the story and wish he were like that all the time. It almost seemed like he thought that the stories could absolve him, but they didn’t; a story could never wash away the pain that we suffered on a daily basis.
Brian forced us to call him Dad. I hated it, but