Why Me? (4 page)

Mom came tearing out of the house, eyes blazing and oven mitts still on her hands. She ran into the pasture and pushed me down onto the ground.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, you piece of shit? You goddamn no-good piece of shit!” This tirade of name-calling was nothing new to me—in fact, the moment Mom opened her mouth, I tuned her out. I remained on the ground, trying to dodge Mom’s boots kicking me in the side and covering my head with my hands to protect it from the blows coming from all directions.

“Mommy!” I heard.
Rachel
Emily
was at the kitchen door, looking out into the pasture. Mom stopped kicking me long enough to turn and look at her, giving me the opportunity to roll as far away from her as possible before she turned back around.

When Mom turned back to me, she spoke through gritted teeth. “I’m going to kill you! You know that, right?” she said. “Get your fat ass in the house, NOW!”

Mom stepped aside so I could walk to the house in front of her. I got up and scurried around her, walking as fast as possible toward the electric fence surrounding the pasture. In my haste to get to Indy, I had forgotten to switch the electric fence off, but I didn’t remember this. Mom did, though.

In the blink of an eye, Mom ran up behind me and pushed me into the fence. Instinctively, I reached out my arms to stop my fall and ended up grabbing the live fence. My hands clamped around the thin wires, and my body collapsed to the ground as the electricity coursed through it. I opened my eyes and saw my mother standing over me with the strangest smile on her face. “Oh, my God, I’m going to die!” I thought in panic.

Through the grace of God—or maybe with the help of Mom—I pried my hands free from that electric fence. Then I just lay on the ground, looking up at the sky and shaking. I kept seeing Indy’s face looking up at me, and rage seethed in my heart.

Mom looked down and said, “I need to get inside to my daughter. Get your ass up!” So I got up, crawled under the electric fence, and wobbled into the house, all the while fighting the urge to turn around and shove Mom’s face into a steaming pile of her beloved Buddy’s manure.

While I sat on the pull-out couch in my room, trying to recover emotionally and physically from the day’s events, Mom and
Rachel
Emily
happily stood in the kitchen making homemade bread for dinner. Eventually I cried myself to sleep. I missed dinner that night, but I didn’t care—at least I was left alone to mourn the loss of my best friend on the farm.

The next day when I got up to do my morning chores, I saw that my stepdad had thrown Indy’s lifeless body behind the barn. Flies were swarming around it, feasting on every hole Mom had put into Indy’s body the previous day. I went to the tool shed, got a shovel, and buried my best friend under a tree behind the horse barn. I even carved a little headstone out of a piece of bark and shoved it into the ground. For the first time in my life, I felt true hatred toward my mother.

Chapter 4

Behind the pantry door

Life on the farm didn’t get any easier for me after Indy died. School was nothing to talk about. I had no friends to speak of, and I lived too far out in the country to be involved in anything in town. School was just a place I went because I had to—and because it was a way to escape the house for six hours every day.

Mom was obviously losing her mind in the farmhouse. She didn’t work, and my stepdad’s job was a 45-minute drive away. Once
Rachel
Emily
started going to school and Mom spent more and more time alone, the situation at home went from bad to worse.

One day when
Rachel
Emily
and I got off the school bus, Mom was sitting in a chair in front of the pantry.

“What are you doing, Mom?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she said. She got up quickly to check
Rachel
Emily
’s book bag and get her an after-school snack.

I walked toward the closed pantry door. As I got closer, a foul smell overwhelmed me. I put one hand on the pantry doorknob and covered my mouth and nose with the other hand, just to have some sort of fresh air entering my body. Then I slowly opened the pantry door.

Immediately I noticed a strange thing dangling from the ceiling. I flicked on the light and saw that it was one of the neighbors’ cats. Mom had killed it and strung it up in the pantry. Although the cat was dead, terror shot through my veins. I stood there thinking that the cat was going to come back to life and claw my eyes out.

I couldn’t speak; I couldn’t move; I couldn’t even breathe. I was in complete shock as the cat swayed back and forth from the ceiling. I couldn’t even wrap my mind around this horror. I knew that I would never forget the sight of that cat or the awful smell emitting from the pantry.

Finally I turned and walked back into the kitchen, where Mom was fixing
Rachel
Emily
a snack of bread and homemade apple butter and talking cheerfully with her about her day at school.

“Mom! Why did you kill that cat?” I asked in a shaky voice.

Mom didn’t even answer; she just kept on making
Rachel
Emily
’s snack as if there was nothing strange about a dead cat hanging in the pantry. I glanced at
Rachel
Emily
, who didn’t seem to notice that there was a problem.

“Isn’t it time for you to go out and do your chores?” Mom asked me.

I rushed out of the house and into the horse barn, where I took a quick survey of the animals to make sure no others were hurt. Then I ran around to the back of the barn and threw up my lunch from earlier in the day. I couldn’t get the foul smell of dead cat out of my nose and throat. As I was kneeling there, wiping the vomit from my lips, another cat from the neighboring farm came over and rubbed against my leg.

“No, no! Run away! Get out of here! Don’t let her see you!” I whispered in panic to the little tabby cat. The tabby cat looked at me and meowed, as if to say, “I’m OK! Don’t worry about me!”

I picked up the cat and ran deep into the cornfield that separated our farmhouse from the neighbors’. “Get out of here! No one wants you here!” I said angrily, dropping the little cat. I didn’t want this cat to meet the same fate as the one that was dangling from our pantry ceiling. The little cat looked at me, then turned and ran toward its home.

I slowly made my way back through the cornfield and took an extra long time doing my chores. The horses got extra hay and especially clean stalls, and the chicken coops were cleaned to perfection. I didn’t want to go back into the house and smell death again. I stayed out in the pasture until my stepfather pulled into the driveway. After he  had gone inside, I followed to see his reaction to what Mom had done that day.

“Sarah, get in here and hold this bag open.” My stepfather was in the pantry. He had the dead cat in his hands and was gesturing toward a large, empty horse feed bag. I was terrified. Not only did I not want to see the cat again, I didn’t want to be anywhere near it.

“No, Dad! I don’t want to!” I sobbed.

“What the hell are you scared of? The cat is dead! It won’t hurt you!”

“I don’t want to!” I sobbed again.

“Jesus Christ, Sarah,” said
Dale
Richard
, “just get your ass over here and hold the bag.”

There was no point in arguing. I was going to have to hold that bag regardless of my feelings or my fear of the dead cat.

I walked over to my stepdad, picked up the bag, and opened it wide. Then I turned my head and squeezed my eyes shut so I wouldn’t see the cat go into the bag. As
Dale
Richard
began to put the dead cat into the bag, it rubbed against my hands. I cried out and backed away, dropping the bag.

“Goddamn it, Sarah! What the hell is wrong with you? Get over here!”

I desperately wanted to run away—away from that horrible smell and the vision of that dead cat dangling from the ceiling. But where would I go? I had no choice; I had to go back and hold that bag open.

I walked back over to
Dale
Richard
and took the bag. I held my breath to avoid the smell and shut my eyes tightly again to avoid seeing the dead cat.
Dale
Richard
dropped it into the bag, and the weight of it surprised me. “Do cats weigh more when they die?” I wondered.

“Seal the bag and take it out back behind the barn,”
Dale
Richard
ordered.

“Then what?” I asked.

“Leave it,”
Dale
Richard
said. He walked over to the kitchen sink and washed his hands. Then he went into the living room, as if throwing a dead cat into a feed bag was a normal, everyday occurrence.

I ran out of the house, holding the feed bag far in front of me. Instead of leaving it behind the barn as
Dale
Richard
had instructed, I took it to Indy’s gravesite under the tree. There I dug another hole and buried that bag deep in the ground. Somehow, as I was digging the hole, my fear of the dead cat went away. All I felt for this helpless cat was sadness. I also felt as if I were doing something right by laying it to rest.

I patted the dirt down over the bag and then noticed something moving by my feet. It was the little tabby cat I had let loose in the cornfield, rubbing itself on my legs again. I picked it up and sobbed into its soft fur, apologizing for what Mom had done.

“Why, little kitty? Why did my mom do this? What did your friend do to make her so mad?” Of course I knew the cat wouldn’t answer, but I had no one else to ask. This was one of the most horrible things I had ever witnessed, and what shocked me more than anything was that I was the only one upset about it.

“At least I can protect you,” I said to the little tabby cat. I carried the cat through the long cornfield to the neighbors’ farmhouse and knocked on the door. When old Mrs. Hopkins answered the door, she was clearly relieved to see the tabby cat.

“Felix!” Mrs. Hopkins exclaimed. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you! Now where is your brother?”

In that moment, I felt such guilt and shame that I couldn’t even look Mrs. Hopkins in the eye as she took the cat in her arms.

“Sarah, thank you for bringing Felix home, sweetheart! Do you want Mr. Hopkins to give you a ride back?”

“No, but thank you! It’s too nice out!” I said, forcing a smile onto my face.

“Well, if you see our other cat, Toby, will you send him on home, too?”

“Sure will!” I said, turning away. I couldn’t stand there and lie anymore. It was too hard.

I made the long walk home and went back inside. Mom had dinner on the table. She and
Dale
Richard
and
Rachel
Emily
were talking and laughing like they’d all just had the best days of their lives.

“Sit down, Sarah, you must be starving!” Mom greeted me.

“Mrs. Hopkins called to let us know that she appreciated you bringing her cat back,”
Dale
Richard
said.

“Really?” I replied. “That was nice of her!”

“I dare her to let one of her stupid cats loose again!” Mom exclaimed. She and
Dale
Richard
laughed out loud as I sat there in shock.

From that day forward, I never went into the pantry again—and I always made sure to do a head count of the animals before and after school. I felt that I was their protector, and I promised that none of them would meet the same fate as that poor cat or my beloved goat, Indy. I also looked at Mom and
Dale
Richard
differently after that day. They had changed forever in my eyes. Now they were murderers.

Chapter 5

Uncle Bill

Life on the farm didn’t change much after the incidents with Indy and Toby. Mom was still abusive,
Dale
Richard
was at work most of the time, and
Rachel
Emily
was the beloved daughter. I was twelve years old now, and my life consisted of going to school every day, coming home, doing my chores, and trying to avoid Mom at all costs.

One day I got off the school bus and was greeted at the door by a man I had never met before in my life.

“Hi! You must be Sarah!” he said.

I looked him up and down and immediately felt disgust in my stomach. The man looked like a complete bum: long, unwashed hair, unshaven face; dirty clothes; and sandals on his feet.

“Hi?” I said, with obvious confusion in my voice.

Mom came up behind him, and her face was glowing. She was well dressed, her hair was all done up, and her makeup was flawless. I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen her look so good.

“Sarah, say hi to your uncle Bill!” Mom said.

“Oh!” I said. “Whose side of the family is he from?”

“He’s not really your uncle, Sarah. Just a friend that you can call Uncle Bill.”

Rachel
Emily
was standing behind me, unsure as to whether she should enter the house and come close to this unfamiliar man.