The Rules of Survival (8 page)

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Authors: Nancy Werlin

BOOK: The Rules of Survival
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I was ready to agree with that—it was true—when she repeated, “It’s not Daddy’s fault,” and the words,
Yes, it is! It’s his fault for not figuring out how to make things right! For not knowing how to stop her games!
almost ripped out of my mouth. Callie had talked too much, too fast—had been making too many excuses. Whether she knew it or not, she had doubts about her precious daddy. And blamed him. Oh, yes, she did.
But I managed to let it be. I don’t know if she went on thinking about it, brooding about it, the way I did. We never discussed Ben’s behavior again after that. To this day, we have not talked about it. But maybe it’s meaningful, Emmy, that
she
is the one who lives with him now, while I chose to be with you and Aunt Bobbie.
Even I must admit that Ben was right to be afraid; right to try to keep his distance; and yes, right to leave when he did, how he did, without looking back. I blame him still for all of that, but beneath the lack of forgiveness and the lack of respect I feel for him, I understand why he did what he did. It was about self-preservation.
The human instinct for self-preservation is strong. I know, because mine pulls at me, too, like the needle on a compass. And everybody—I’ve been reading some philosophy—everybody seems to agree that the instinct and responsibility of all humans is to take care of themselves first. You have the right to self-defense. You have the right to survive, if you can.
But how come there don’t seem to be any rules about when you ought to help others survive? Rules telling you when that’s worth some risk to yourself? Callie and I were working so hard for you, Emmy, but as far as I could see, nobody else cared at all. For any of us.
16
 
PRAYER
 
On a Saturday in late October, Nikki came up behind me in the kitchen where I stood at the sink. I had started washing the huge pile of dishes, but I hadn’t touched one in a couple of minutes. I was staring into space. I was thinking about Murdoch. Because of course, it wasn’t only Ben I brooded about angrily that autumn. I thought of Murdoch much more often than I thought about Ben.
Thinking about Murdoch was a bad idea, though, and not just because it depressed and angered me. Nikki seemed able to sniff it out like a shark smelling blood.
I was wondering what Murdoch was doing right at that moment. Was he at home on East Tenth Street? It was only four blocks away. What would he say if I called him? How would it be if we tried to revert now to the old plan, Callie’s old plan, of being friends with Murdoch? Would that be possible?
I jumped when Nikki spoke.
“Why are you so quiet, Matt? Don’t tell me, I know. You’re thinking about that loser again. Well, you know what? I think your precious Murdoch is gay, that’s what I think. It all adds up. Didn’t you notice the way he cooked? The way he always wanted things so clean? That’s a sign. You never see a real man scrub a stove that way. You can have grease an inch thick before a real man would even notice. It’s a good thing I got him away from you. I notice you doing more cleaning around here these days than you used to. Like those dishes. I didn’t ask you to do them, did I?”
She paused, waiting for a reaction.
“No,” I said. “I just noticed there were a lot of them. And none of Emmy’s favorite dishes were clean.”
“Hmm,” Nikki said.
I tried to ignore her. I picked up a dish and gave it a swipe with the sponge.
“Matthew?” said my mother.
“What?”
“Did Murdoch ever try to molest you?”
“What?!” I turned and stared at her, my mouth gaping open.
She smiled. “Should I call Social Services and report him? I could do that, you know. I could report Murdoch for child abuse.”
There was no way to reply to Nikki when she was like this. But at the same time, if I didn’t reply, that might be the wrong thing, too.
“He never did anything to me,” I said. “You know that.” Instantly, I realized I would have done better to say nothing. She put a hand on my shoulder.
“Do I really know that? You have to understand,” she said, sweetly now, “my first priority is protecting my kids.”
“I’m fine,” I said. I turned back to the dishes. “Nobody’s done anything to me.”
“I don’t know,” said Nikki. Something about her tone made me look at her again. A strange expression had filled her face; a kind of manic glee. “You don’t seem happy these days. You seem worried and anxious, and I saw on TV that that can come from sexual abuse.” She smiled again. “You might not even be aware. Sometimes kids repress these things.”
“I would be aware,” I said. I knew I should shut up, but I couldn’t. “First, Murdoch’s not gay. Second, even if he were, he’d never hurt a kid. You know that.”
“No,” Nikki said. “I don’t know it. He’s violent sometimes. Murdoch has a temper. He tries to keep it under control, but it’s there. And you’ve changed, Matthew. You’ve gotten all sad and depressed. Something must have happened. I have my instincts, like any mother.”
She sounded so reasonable. If I hadn’t known her, I would have believed her. A social worker would take her seriously.
“I think Murdoch is responsible for the change in you,” said Nikki, accurately. “Maybe I’ll report him.” She squeezed my shoulder, as if comforting me, and then walked away toward her bedroom, humming to herself.
I picked up another dish with some vague idea that I would at least pretend to work—and it broke in two in my hands. The pieces fell into the dishwater. I wanted to pick them up, but I couldn’t seem to move.
Now I would
have
to contact Murdoch. I would have to warn him about what Nikki might do. I would talk to him as soon as possible. I would call. Or, better, tell him in person. This wasn’t the kind of thing you could say over the phone.
I concocted an immediate plan to go ring his doorbell that night, once Nikki went out. But I didn’t. The reason was you, Emmy. You and a prayer.
 
 
That night, at bedtime, you knelt down by your bed in full view of Nikki, who had just read
Who Hops?
five times to you, with infinite patience and love. However, Nikki was also all dressed up to go out, and at this point, she was looking at her watch.
“You want to pray, Emmy-pie? Well, okay. Make it fast, though. Mommy’s already late. She’s going out.”
So am I, I thought, but kept my face blank.
You bowed your head. You were silent a moment while Nikki tapped her foot. Then you said, all in one breathless rush: “Dear God, please keep Murdoch safe and make him know I love him and miss him, thank you, God, amen.”
My heart stopped.
You peeked up from your hands at Nikki, half scared, half delighted, all determined. And for the first time, I realized that one day, you might be a formidable woman. If you could stay safe now. Now and the next ten years.
I snatched you up one bare second before Nikki could get to you, turned, and raced to the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind us and locking it.
Nikki smashed her fist into the bathroom door. “You let me in there! Matthew! You let me in!”
Despite the way my heart was pounding, my voice was calm, as if I were responding to a question about whether, say, I wanted a glass of water. “Go out like you planned, Mom, and have a good time. You deserve a night out. I’ll take care of Emmy. She’ll still be here later, when you come home.”
Silence. Then three hard bangs on the door. Slam. Slam. Slam.
You clung to me, your eyes wide and excited, absolutely aware of what was going on, and of your part in causing it. That meant we’d entered a whole new world. I’d worry about that later.
“Emmy will still be here later,” I repeated through the door, in between bangs. “She. Will. Be. Here. Later.”
I heard Callie’s voice, outside the door, saying something to Nikki.
Then the banging stopped. From the other side of the door, Nikki spoke, as calmly as I had: “Okay. I’ll be back later.” And I heard her move away.
I didn’t dare come out with you, though, until Callie told us Nikki had really gone out.
In silence, then, Callie and I put you to bed. You dropped right off to sleep like an angel, satisfied and exhausted by your work.
“What do you think she’ll do to her?” I asked Callie tensely, after we retreated to the kitchen.
Callie shrugged. She stuffed her hands in her pockets. “I don’t know. She might lock her in the hall closet for a few hours. She might not let her use the toilet. Or something else that she never did to me or you.” She paused. “Or absolutely nothing at all.”
I closed my eyes to rest them for a second. “We can’t go on like this, Callie,” I said.
“Oh? Do you have another idea?” said my sister.
I was silent.
Callie then said, apologetically: “Let’s go watch TV, okay?”
“Okay,” I said.
I thought:
Later, later, I’ll go tell Murdoch. I have to, now.
17
 
“TELLING”
 
Emmy, you have been living so safely in the suburbs with Aunt Bobbie and me these last years, with Callie not far away, and that’s all you really remember nowadays. So, right about now, you might be wondering why I didn’t “tell.” Why I didn’t go to a teacher at school, or to the police station, and report that we were scared to live with our mother and would somebody help us, please.
I suppose I could have done that, although I don’t actually believe it would have worked. I think Nikki would have convinced an investigator that things were okay enough in our home. I decided that early on.
When I was in the fourth grade, a social worker came to talk to our class. She stood at the front of the room and explained to us that if someone hurt you, or touched you in a private place on your body, or if you were neglected, or if other things happened in your life that made you uncomfortable or scared, then you could just tell any adult at school about it. That adult—a teacher, an aide, the principal, it didn’t matter who you told—would help instantly. That adult would talk to the other adults and they would contact state Social Services to investigate what you had said. Even if the person who had hurt you was in your own family, everything possible would be done to protect you.
“It’s the law to protect children,” the social worker had said. “It is also our sacred duty. We take it very seriously.” She walked up and down the aisles of our classroom. She looked each one of us in the eye. “Tell someone,” she said. “Always tell an adult here at school if you have a problem at home.”
I listened to her carefully and with great interest. But I was not an abused or neglected child. I was a loved child, and so were my sisters. Nikki said so all the time. She did the things she did because she loved us.
Years later, when I began to understand that Nikki’s form of love wasn’t exactly the standard one, I still never really thought much about “telling” anyone. Once, I did try to imagine myself talking to a teacher. But the conversation in my head didn’t get very far.
“Well, you see, our mother is weird and it’s crazy living with her and her temper—uh, no, she doesn’t hit us a lot. That’s only happened a few times, and we never really got hurt. No, no broken bones. No bleeding. Sometimes there are men in and out—uh, no, nothing happens like what you’re asking. We just have to hear what’s going on, mostly. But the thing is, we worry a lot.”
It didn’t sound serious enough.
Callie and I knew a couple of kids from school who had had to go into foster care. Foster care didn’t sound good, and it didn’t sound safe. They often broke siblings up, we understood, and sent them to different families. And then, in the end, the kids were just sent home again after the parents promised to do better, or had taken some parenting class or something like that.
We were better off just sticking it out with Nikki.
And you know what? I still think that, even now. I think that if Callie or I had told the authorities, even if we were taken seriously, even if there was an investigation as a result, it would just have been a detour. Our fate was our fate.
18
 
CALLIE’S PLAN
 
Callie and I stayed up that Saturday night, wanting to be awake when Nikki came home—she didn’t, by the way, until well into the morning—in case she was still mad at you about the prayer for Murdoch. And at the time we thought it was just as likely that she would
not
still be angry. She did have the capacity to forgive and forget completely. Or she could be distracted by other things—she might come home with a man, for example. Or a new pair of pants. But also, she could wait, sometimes, until you were sure she had forgotten whatever it was you had done. And then you would discover that she had
not
forgotten.
You just never knew.
We flung ourselves on the rug in front of the TV and channel-surfed until Callie found a movie called
Pleasantville
that she wanted to watch. It was about a brother and sister who are magically transported into the world of a black-and-white television show from the 1950s, where everything is nice and predictable and utterly good, and there’s nothing tricky to deal with like sex or imagination or fear. But the girl sets out to destroy Pleasantville because she doesn’t like things to be safe. She wants them messy and colorful and passionate and alive. The movie meant this to be a good thing, but I didn’t like it. Once I realized where the movie was going, I grabbed the remote control and changed the channel to a movie about college kids.

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