Walking on Eggshells: Discovering Strength and Courage Amid Chaos (17 page)

The program was centered around a huge house on Cushman Street with a welcoming front porch. Upstairs there were several large bedrooms, with boys rooming on one side of the house and girls on the other. Each bedroom had four to six bunk beds. I had never had the opportunity to go to camp, or even go to or have sleepovers with friends when I was growing up. This was my opportunity to catch up on those missed experiences. The other girls and I stayed up every night talking and talking. It was so much fun. One girl even gave me a pair of shorts that I have to this day. I keep them as a reminder of that stable time in my life.

One day during our free hour I went across the street to the park with another girl who lived in the house. We each found a swing, and as I toed the gravel under my feet we began to talk. Her problems, I found, were far more normal than mine. She was
a runaway who was having problems with her parents. I found myself really interested in her life and in her perspectives. I felt so free sitting there. I had no responsibilities other than to get back to the house in time for dinner. It was the first time I had ever experienced that kind of freedom.

The problems of that girl were typical of most of the people in the house. While the other girls were worrying about their friends and school, I was worrying about diapers and rent. It was interesting for me to listen to their concerns and compare them to my own. And while I desperately missed Abbie, I enjoyed sleeping in and not having to worry about where my next meal was coming from. My concern over Abbie aside, it was a time of rest and no stress.

The place was very nice. Downstairs there was a game room and a TV room. We all had daily chores, and as long as we did them and followed the rules we were allowed several hours of free time every day. If anyone broke the rules, however, they were asked to leave . . . and they could not come back. In my case that meant I would have to go to juvenile jail, so I was sure to do everything asked of me.

After I settled in I saw a probation officer, and he was so concerned with the extent of my beating that he got all the charges against me dropped. I thought I’d be free to go after that but for some reason I had to stay. It might have been because the people there knew I had nowhere else to go that officials thought was suitable for Abbie and me. My mother had also told the people that
she did not want me to stay with her or in her house. The news that I had to remain at the group home did not sit well with me, mostly because I was frantic with worry. I had just learned that temporary custody of Abbie had been given to my mother.

I loved my mother, but the reality was that there was no way she could safely care for a young toddler. Plus, right after Travis was born she chose to move in with her boyfriend who lived ninety miles away, rather than stay at home with her pregnant daughter and week-old grandson. That said a lot to me about my mother’s interest in being a grandmother. I pleaded with everyone I could and finally convinced them of the seriousness of the situation in which they had placed my daughter.

Words cannot describe how happy and relieved I was when Abbie was brought back to me. I think the best way to convey my emotions was that with Abbie in my arms I felt complete. I never wanted to let her out of my sight again.

I knew that Family Focus had made a unique exception in bringing Abbie in. Normally young children were not allowed. In fact, I think I was the first teen mom in the home. To accommodate Abbie, and still keep as many of their rules as they could, they put Abbie and me in a special room downstairs. That was fine, except that we had to stay in that room or in the game room. Plus they would not allow me to put up a baby gate to either room, as a gate was deemed a fire hazard. Abbie was both walking and running by this time, and it was next to impossible to keep an active little girl like her confined to such small spaces.
She was used to having the run of the house she lived in and didn’t understand why she had to stay in those two rooms. It was a frustrating time for everyone.

In addition, the Family Focus staff was interested to see that Abbie was well cared for and took time to assess my ability as a parent. Somehow that meant they forbade me to discipline my daughter. Not that I was a cruel or inhumane parent by any means, but toddlers need boundaries. Toddlers keep busy exploring their world, and if they are not admonished from time to time can get hurt. I have known some toddlers who like to climb shelves, or squeeze under low beds. Both of those activities can be quite harmful if the child is not corrected, and Family Focus did not allow me to do that.

Before my beating, Abbie and I had loved watching the new movie
Finding Nemo
. We also loved the Wiggles series and television episodes of
SpongeBob SquarePants
. In fact, Abbie’s first birthday party had a SpongeBob theme. After the party my mother offered me my first experience with meth, but that is another story altogether. Now, at Family Focus, we were even prohibited from watching the shows that Abbie loved.

For the second time in as many weeks, and for entirely different reasons, I became frantic about Abbie’s well-being. Fortunately, Allen called not too many days later to tell the staff that he had arranged for me to stay with Jimmy. The organization felt that with Jimmy I would be under the proper care and supervision of an adult, and released me. I was checked on for a time, but not too
closely. After Abbie and I had been at Jimmy’s for a short while, we moved back into Barbara’s Section 8 housing.

★

While the entire experience was traumatic on many fronts, after I was released from the shelter I came to a new realization. It was the first time in my life that it struck me in a clear and present manner that I might be heading down the wrong path. That probably was an obvious observation to everyone else, but it was an eye-opening realization for me. I don’t know if it was the three square meals a day, the life skills classes, the conversations with my bunkmates, or my ongoing fear for Abbie’s safety, but something inside me said “enough.”

While it’s true that normalcy is an entirely foreign concept when all you know is dysfunction, one day the sixteen-year-old me looked at my mess of a life and knew that a better way of living had to be out there. I longed to go back to the safety of my special tree in Hawai’i where I had done all my television “shows” and in the sanctity of its comforting branches ask God where the life I dreamed about was. Where were all the wonderful things I envisioned when I used to ride my bike around town?

I remembered many of the Bible stories that Dad had read to us, and I remembered many of Pastor Jeremiah’s sermons. In those stories were truth and promise, and I badly needed both of those things in my life. I also had a daughter and wondered what role
God would play in her life. I remembered my churchgoing days and wondered if my child would be God-loving.

Even though I was questioning God and His role in Abbie’s—and in my—life, I wasn’t yet ready to follow His plan for me, or even seek it out. I didn’t know what or how or where, but I knew without a doubt that I had to do something big that would permanently change things for the better. I didn’t get there right away, but change was on my radar and would soon make its presence known. But first I had to hit rock bottom.

★

A
s an adult I
understand that even though your heart wants something it is not necessarily the best thing for you. Brendan is a prime example of this. I rationalized every part of our relationship to make it seem right. When Brendan was in prison, he snuck letters to me. A mutual friend was our go-between and gave the envelopes to me. Brendan even sent Abbie a birthday card. I turned these rare bits of communication into proof of Brendan being a responsible father.

In another instance, Brendan told me his job was to detail cars. I took this to mean he painted fancy designs on the vehicles when in reality Brendan cleaned car interiors. I so wanted Brendan to be in Abbie’s life that I let my heart take over any bit of common sense
that I had. In fact, as Brendan’s release neared, he became all I could think about. Brendan, Abbie, and I could finally be a family!

Abbie was just over sixteen months old when Brendan became a free man. By this time she had grown into a happy little girl who loved playing with her cousin Travis. She never got upset when he took away the toy she was playing with. She was so patient with him then, and still is today.

To his credit, Brendan was clean and sober when he was released. He even bathed regularly, something he had not done before. I have since learned that not bathing can be signs of either mental illness or addiction.

I, too, had changed a lot during that long, long year. I had grown up in many ways, and it wasn’t so easy for other people to take advantage of me now. I wasn’t quite as confident in the abilities of others as I used to be, and I had even developed a little bit of self-esteem. That’s why Barbara was just one of several people who were amazed that I had let Brendan back into my life. “Why?” she asked. “He causes so many problems for you. Why bother?”

The simple answer was that I loved Brendan. But it was more than that. He was Abbie’s father, and I wanted her to have a dad. It was also the Svengali-like effect he had over me. I’d had Brendan in my life too long not to have him there, if that makes any sense. As Barbara would not allow Brendan in our house, even though he often brought us food and other necessities, Abbie and I moved with Brendan to a small room in a set of construction barracks.
The room was about the size of a bathroom. Really, I kid you not. The place was beyond tiny.

Construction barracks are set up as temporary housing for construction workers. Each “room” was stacked either on top of or next to another unit. The room provided shelter, but just barely. Our unit was reached after walking down a long center hall that had rooms on both the left and right. In the room was a double bed, and across from the bed was a bench with a microwave on top and a small refrigerator underneath. There was barely enough room to squeeze between the bed and the bench. A tiny window completed the room.

The transition was hard for me on several accounts. First, the Section 8 housing that Barbara had was roomy and nice, and it was difficult to get used to living in the small, dingy efficiency. Second, unbeknownst to Brendan, I was still seeing Allen, and Allen was quite upset that Brendan was back in my life. Although I was living with Brendan, several nights a week I stayed out all night with Allen. I wasn’t sure whom I loved more. “Neither” should have been the easy answer to that problem, but I was not yet healthy enough emotionally to go that route.

The end result was that Allen moved to a place just two blocks from us. While I understand now how unfair I was being to both men and to myself, I was so engrossed in my own drama that I couldn’t see how dysfunctional the entire situation was. Of course I should have stopped seeing Allen, because he was married. And
I should have stopped seeing Brendan because of the age difference and because he was a sex offender.

To complicate matters, my old boyfriend James Jenkins also lived within blocks of us. On a typical day I’d leave Brendan, go to McDonald’s, and spend a dollar fifty on two double cheeseburgers. This was all I could afford to eat for the entire day. Then I’d often wave at James as he passed by in a car with his mother as I headed to Allen’s. I couldn’t choose between Brendan and Allen, but fortunately fate stepped in and forced me to decide.

Even though I tried to be secretive about where I was going and what I was doing, one day Brendan discovered the truth about Allen and me and made me choose. I found I didn’t have to think long before I chose Brendan. I really still was in love with him. Shortly after that we moved in with Brendan’s dad, Ken, because we had been kicked out of the tiny, crummy barracks we had been living in and had nowhere else to go.

★

With Brendan’s dad able to take care of Abbie during the day, I lied about my age and got a job—or, I should say, lots of jobs. I moved from job to job roughly every two weeks. That’s because most of my employers required me to take a drug test when they first hired me. By the time the results of the test came back it was roughly two weeks later. I knew I’d never pass the test, so I’d collect my one paycheck and move on. I was a housekeeper
at about six different hotels and was at the Days Inn the longest because they didn’t drug-test at all. I also had a job for a while at a great coffee shop on Cushman Street in Fairbanks called McCafferty’s. I love coffee, so it was a great fit for me. Besides, McCafferty’s is a very cool place. If you are ever in the area you should check it out.

One day I came home from work to find Abbie’s private parts bright red. You can imagine my shock and outrage.

Abbie was about two, but not yet verbal enough to tell me what had happened. I had to know the truth, though, so Brendan and I took Abbie to the hospital. Once we got there they put Brendan in one room, me in another, and Abbie in a third room.

A thousand thoughts were going through my head as I sat in the room by myself and waited. I also knew that by taking Abbie to the hospital there was a possibility that Child Protective Services might step in. But I had no choice. Abbie was not old enough to tell us what happened, so I had to be her voice. I knew I had to do the responsible thing for my daughter, and this was it. If I lost her in the process, at least it was better losing her because I was trying to do the right thing than because someone thought I was not attentive enough as a mother.

When the doctor examined Abbie he found that her hymen had been broken, but he could not determine if she had been sexually molested. Sometimes a girl’s hymen will break if she is active, and Abbie was certainly an active little girl, but I was told that usually happens when the girl is much older than Abbie was.

Oftentimes not knowing the truth is worse than knowing, and this was one of those times. How I wished I had a definitive answer about what happened to Abbie. I didn’t know who to trust or who to believe, and that made me so confused I didn’t know which way was up.