Chapter 13: Escape

Part II: Janet Anderson’s Story

JANET:

I sighed when I heard Marilyn’s story. We all glanced toward the kitchen to see if any of ‘the kids’ had heard her heart-rending confession. Danielle was the only one in sight and if there was ever a woman who knew how to keep her mouth shut, she was it. If she’d even heard. She was checking the oven and we could all smell the cinnamon rolls.

“It was my fault,” I whispered into the quiet. “I had no idea what my daughter was training to do ... or teaching Brian.”

I’m sharp as a tack and dumb as a rock. That’s what I’ve believed since the day I married that despicable man the week before college graduation. How could I graduate summa cum laude and still be so stupid?

I already had a job offer at a financial firm in New York and we moved the week after graduation, combining the move with our honeymoon. I thought he was smart and clever and would have a job soon after we moved. But he didn’t. He made an effort, I guess. He even went out and picked up temporary jobs, but no one was spoiling to hire a Humanities major. And I’d only been on the job two months before I found out I was pregnant.

I was thrilled. Derek, not so much.

“How are you going to keep working with a kid? You don’t think we can live in New York City and raise a kid on what I make as a bartender, do you? We should head down south where I’d have some opportunities. There’s no work for me in New York.”

He was right about that, but we also needed the health insurance provided by my company—at least through the birth. And we had a year’s lease on our studio apartment in New Jersey. I got up early in the morning and caught the train into the City and got home late at night. Derek went to work at the bar at six and got home after two, stinking of stale cigarettes and booze. And when he got home he’d wake me up to do my wifely duty, even though I had to be up in three hours to go to work.

“Why don’t you try getting into sales? You always were able to convince people of anything.”

“You want to be married to a used car salesman? Maybe I should go door-to-door selling Fuller Brushes or Hoover vacuums. It could be months before I even got a commission. Don’t be ridiculous, bitch.”

Now I was a big-bellied ugly bitch. He’d liked me originally because I was tall and elegant. He was six-three and I was nearly six feet tall myself. I was eight months pregnant and felt like I was six feet wide, too.

My job gave me three weeks off when I went into labor in order to arrange for childcare. I figured Derek was home all day until I got home. Certainly, he could take care of our child during the day.

He flat-out refused. I needed to hire a babysitter if I wanted to have a fucking kid around. Better yet, give her up for adoption and let’s get back to fucking.

I found a daycare near where I worked and took Whitney with me into the city on the train each morning and back to Hoboken in the evening. I spent my lunch hours visiting my daughter like she was in a prison. I hated my life. I wanted to spend my time with my precious little girl and instead I carted her off to a bunch of strangers and visited her.

Nothing breaks apart all at once. I wish it did. Derek not only tended bar, he drank at them, too. I kept believing he would get a real job, but he couldn’t even keep a job in the same bar for more than a few months. I managed to get birth control so his nightly demand of his rights as my husband didn’t risk another pregnancy. And if I wasn’t ready and willing, he got angry. In fact, he got angrier and angrier the longer I worked and the more he drank. It was little slaps at first, ‘to get your attention.’ Then complaints about how the house was kept, how noisy the brat was, why I didn’t ever cook, and why I wasn’t getting a promotion again. The answer to that last question was easy. I was a clock-watcher because I had to pick up my child on time. My manager said I wasn’t willing to put in the effort it took to excel in my career. I would never get promoted.

Whitney was in first grade when the shit hit the fan. He beat me badly enough to put me in the hospital. I’d come home to find my daughter home from school and my husband making her run around the house naked as he had her do chores for him. I screamed at him and snatched Whitney away from the bastard. He hit me repeatedly while I continued to scream. A neighbor called the police. They called an ambulance. I had a concussion, broken ribs and a twisted arm.

I pressed charges.

I was lucky. I got a dynamo of a lawyer who encouraged me to file for divorce and get a restraining order at the same time. There is no faster way to get a divorce in New Jersey than to have your husband convicted of felony assault and child abuse. He was sentenced to ten years with no opportunity for parole until he’d served five. I changed my name back to Anderson and changed Whitney’s name as well. We headed west.

I didn’t even have a car. We caught a train for Chicago. Grand Central was only a few blocks north of my office and I had Whitney by the hand pulling a little trolley with our worldly possessions in it. My final paycheck was in my purse and I wrote a check for our ticket on the Lake Shore Limited. It seemed awfully expensive, but we needed a sleeping compartment.

I picked up every newspaper for towns we’d pass through on the way to Chicago to search the want ads. I didn’t know what I’d be doing but I’d need a job pretty quickly. I’d broken the bank to get my divorce and had only a few hundred dollars to my name.

When I saw the ad for a manager of a bookstore, I gathered our bags, took Whitney’s hand and got off the train when it stopped in South Bend, Indiana. I’d had it with the big city and needed to find a place where we could live in peace. I suppose it was stupid to just get off the train but, like I said, I’m sharp as a tack and dumb as a rock. I just knew that this was going to become our home.

It took a few days to get things squared away. I discovered the bookstore was quite a way east in Mishawaka. But I got the job. I started looking for a place for us to live and discovered a run-down two-bedroom bungalow just outside the city limits. It was furnished and I took it. Whitney was enrolled in school to start second grade in the St. Joe Valley School District.

Managing a newly opened bookstore in a large nationwide chain suited me well. I had good work credentials and knew I had good management skills. It was a great place to meet people and Whitney was always welcome to come to the store and read after school. There was just one thing. Whitney was tall and some of the kids made fun of her. I knew what that was like, having been the tallest and gawkiest girl in my elementary school. I needed some way to give her confidence to stand up for herself.

And a way to protect herself from the stupidity that I’d fallen into.

“Honey, I’m pretty sure that the proper way to use your chopsticks is not to stab your food with them,” I laughed.

“I can’t get them to pinch together. Show me again, Mommy.”

“May help young student of Chinese?” an old Chinese man asked as he approached our table. We’d seen him in the restaurant before but I didn’t know if he was a customer or part of the family who owned the restaurant. His charm and broken English were disarming.

“My daughter hasn’t quite figured out how to use chopsticks,” I said. “I’m sure she’ll get the hang of it eventually.” He glanced at my own awkward grip on my chopsticks but was kind enough not to mention it.

“You write with pencil?” he asked Whitney.

“Uh-huh. I mean, yes, sir,” she answered.

“Hold first kuài zi like pencil,” he instructed. He took one chopstick from her hand and she gripped the other like a pencil. He pushed the stick through her fingers so a couple of inches stuck out instead of just the point. She looked at him curiously. “Can move peanut with pencil and not hand?” he asked. She flicked the chopstick and a peanut went flying off her plate. He laughed. “Very strong girl. Need a stopper.” I was intrigued and tried holding my own chopstick like he said instead of having it between my fingers. “This kuài zi stopper,” he said holding up the other stick. He slid it into the cradle of her thumb and forefinger and braced it against her little finger. “Put stopper on plate and push peanut to it.” It took her a couple of tries but she managed to push a peanut between the two sticks. She got excited and squeezed. A second peanut went skittering across the table. I was too busy trying the technique myself to laugh at her awkward effort.

“Too slippery,” he said. He went to the counter and I thought he was leaving us but he quickly returned with a spoonful of little mint pillows that were given to guests when they paid their check. “This not run away.” He checked her grip on the chopsticks and then directed her to pick up a mint. Again, she had to try a couple of times but managed to lift one of the candies. “Practice here,” he said pointing to the mints. “Fill belly here,” he added, handing her a fork and pointing to her food. We both laughed and the old man bowed to us and backed away. Whitney tried the technique a couple more times and managed to get a mint to her mouth.