Chapter 1: Awakening

I think I have always loved her. My parents brought her home from the hospital on my birthday, June 21. I was turning four. Maybe I thought she was my present because I didn't get much else. That was standard fare in my house though, any celebration was done as an afterthought at best. Usually, a belated "Happy birthday" that evening was the usual route accompanied by something picked up at a convenience store or in the check out isle in the grocery store. I didn't know any better until years later.

My name is Brett Hutter; I was born in 1975. My sister, Jane, was born four years later almost to the day. We grew up in southwestern Idaho where Jane was born; I was born in Arizona. My mother, Michele, was a high school drop out, no she didn't get pregnant, just general laziness. She was a stripper until she got pregnant with me at twenty. She married my father, John Hutter, a construction worker. Life was good for the Hutters for a few years then they both found the bottle. I don't really remember first hand, but my Dad abused my Mom and me when he got drunk. The real problem was he was getting drunk more often. She left him when I was three.

My Mom was always a beautiful woman. It didn't take her long to find a new man who would overlook me because of her good looks. Seems Mom had a thing for strong, mean, alcoholic construction workers. I do have a couple of good memories of her new man though. He took me to the job with him one time, and I felt safe and loved that morning. Of course, that feeling was soon a memory when he and the guys starting drinking that afternoon. Things took a turn for the better when mom was pregnant with Jane. Seems Gary had some rich uncle who left him some money. We moved out of the trailer and moved into a small two-bedroom in an older neighborhood. The houses were old and so were the neighbors. It was a baby-boomers' neighborhood, but the babies had grown up and moved on and all that was left was the aging parents. It was quiet, and it was safe. A definite move up in the world for us. Gary also bought a new truck and that was about as far as the money went. I am sure the got other stuff but that was all that lasted. I am actually amazed they had the good sense to spend it as well as they did.

After Jane was born things went back to normal fast and kept that downward momentum until November of 1984. I was in 4th grade, and Jane was in kindergarten. We walked home from where the school bus dropped us off a couple of blocks away to find Gary's truck in the driveway. When we got inside Mom was screaming at Gary and he was standing next to his bags. He never came back. Seems he was going to Nevada for the winter construction season, which is slow here in town. He met a younger, newer, childless version of Mom there and filed for divorce there. We never got much support from him after that. Seems most of his work paid under the table and it's hard to collect child support or alimony that way. Mom changed her name back to her maiden name, and now there were three of us under one roof, all family with three different last names. That is not all that uncommon today, but it was then.

We soon settled into a routine. Mom got a job waiting tables and worked 2 to 11; Jane and I became latchkey kids. I always looked after Jane, even before Gary left. She was my only friend outside of school really. There just weren't any other kids around our neighborhood. On the upside though we had about a dozen adoptive grandparents who gave us the attention they would their own grand kids, from snacks after school to birthday cards. As a matter of fact, they made a bigger deal out of our birthdays than Mom did. After school I would get us something to eat, then we would watch cartoons on TV until they went off about four. Then we would play. Mostly it was silly kid games, make believe role-playing type games, explore the creek behind our house, and try to build a fort. Mom did not get us cable with Nickelodeon, and we did not have a Nintendo. We were not allowed to leave the yard, a rule which we paid little attention to when it suited us not to, and we rarely went in the front yard. Luckily our backyard was very large and had large hedges surrounding it which were never pruned, at least on our side of the fence. I am sure our neighbors trimmed what grew over to their side. That creek was a constant source of entertainment for us. It was deep enough to swim in when we were small. In the winter, it froze and was good for sledding on. All our activities kind of enlarged it all along our property. I was an industrious boy and wanted the creek bigger. I saw part of the bank collapse when the water was high and thus started my project of making our little creek into a river. I suppose it's a good thing Mom never went back there of I would have caught hell I am sure. But, our backyard never saw a rake or mower that I can remember. The trees were overgrown, and there was a raspberry thicket that was approaching monstrous proportions.

It was as if Jane and I were on our own. It was our house and our yard to do with as we pleased with no supervision of any kind. Many a night Mom would not come home until two in the morning, having gone out for a drink after work. During the school year there would be times where we didn't see her but maybe once, on her day off. That wasn't always a good thing though. She would invariably be drunk or on her way there. Most times she took off on a 'date' only to return long after we're in bed. The only reason we even got up to go to school was the breakfast and lunch they served, and as much as we liked our private world, we both liked school too. At home, when we got hungry I would make us dinner. It wasn't much when I was 9, but I got better at cooking as the years went by. We lived a sheltered if neglected life. Neither one of us had any friends we saw outside school very often, and we didn't really know what a family was supposed to be like. We didn't know that somebody tucked you in at night and that Moms and Dads read bedtime stories, not big brothers. More often than not we slept in the same bed. Having fallen asleep talking or reading a story to Jane. We cuddled and kept each other warm on winter nights.

Oh how I loved to hold Jane even as a boy and her an infant. I felt safe somehow. She was so trusting and affectionate. She was my responsibility as soon as I could pick her up properly. I changed her and fed her. Her crib was in the same room as mine and she would wake up crying and wake me up, but Mom and Gary in their drunken slumber seldom woke up. I would wake up and get a bottle out of the fridge and get Jane and get back into my bed where we would sleep the night. Mom never said a word the few times she was up before me and found Jane in bed with me. I think she was just glad she didn't have to deal with her being hung-over. She soon was putting Jane to bed with me and not even bothering with the crib.