What It Is Page 11

  Mrs. Peters picked up her clipboard and looked at her handwritten notes. “Yes, but the shape of the bruise looked like the end of a belt strap, and Ryan’s mother had mentioned that Aron liked to beat her with a belt when they were together.”

  “WHAT!” Aron screamed. “I’ve never laid my hand on a woman in my life! Sarah, tell her! Tell her that I don’t beat women.”

  “Ma’am,” I said, “trust me, I have been with Aron for a long time now, and he has never once laid a finger on me.” I paused. My blood was starting to boil and my blood pressure was rising. I started to think of all of the times I went to school covered in bruises and fingernail marks and how many times I had talked to agents from DCFS over the years. I thought of the woman who had visited me after Mom rubbed my face in urine and how she made me feel like a such a liar and so ashamed; I thought of the beating I received after the DCFS lady left and I couldn’t hold myself back any longer.

  “How dare you!” I said loudly.

  Mrs. Peters raised her eyebrows at me and sat back in her chair. “Sarah, there is no reason to get loud—”

  “Yes, there is!” I yelled. “You just sat here and told Aron and me that the doctor found no proof of sexual abuse! You said that you talked to Ryan and that he denied all of these charges!” I felt Aron’s hand on my arm but I brushed him away. This was starting to feel as liberating as the day I gave Arthur a piece of my mind. “Then you come in here and say that a nine-year-old boy has a bruise that looks like a belt mark? This is ludicrous!” I was furious, and without thinking I held out my arms. “Where were you when I was getting these from my mother?”

  Mrs. Peters looked at the fingernail scars on my arm and clicked her pen. “So you were abused as a child?” she asked me as she started to jot down some notes. I wasn’t stupid; I had taken enough psychology classes in college to know exactly where she was going with this.

  “Don’t even go there!” I snapped back at her. “I know what you are doing and it is not going to work. Just because I was abused doesn’t mean that I would beat Ryan.”

  Mrs. Peters stopped writing and said, “Well, we have found that many children who are abused have parents who were abused themselves as children.”

  “I’ve read the statistics,” I said, “but I’m not one of those parents!” I turned to Aron for his support, but he remained silent and I continued lashing out at Mrs. Peters. “How dare you! How dare you come into our home and accuse us of beating Ryan with a belt! My parents did shit like that to me; do you really think I would want to put another child through the pain I went through?” I sank down into the couch and began to sob. I felt Aron’s arms around me.

  Mrs. Peters spoke up softly. “Sarah, I understand you are upset, but you have to see it from my point of view. I am just doing my job; when there is a call like this we have to investigate, it’s the law. These were pretty serious things that Ryan’s mother was claiming.” She paused. “Things have changed a lot since you were a child, and there are different laws in place now…” Her voice trailed off and I heard her writing again on her clipboard.

  “How could someone do this?” Aron asked. “Ma’am, I don’t understand how someone can go into an emergency room and make such malicious claims. Do you know what this could do to me, my wife, and my job?”

  I looked up at Aron’s face and wiped the tears off of his cheek. Mrs. Peters put her clipboard back down.

  “Aron, like I just told your wife, we have to investigate every claim; we have to ensure that we aren’t letting a child come home to an abusive situation.”

  “I understand that,” Aron said. “However, isn’t that like making a false police report? If you find that these claims are completely unfounded, don’t we have recourse?”

  “Well, the state can press charges or file a complaint if we find the report was knowingly made under deceptive practices,” Mrs. Peters said as she stood up. “I need to do a quick walk-through of the house and see Ryan’s room, if you don’t mind.”

  “Why do you need to see our house?” I asked. “What are you looking for?”

  “It’s just part of my investigation,” she said, and Aron walked her upstairs to show her Ryan’s room and the surrounding bedrooms.

  While Aron was upstairs I stayed in the living room and paced back and forth. I felt like a caged animal, as if I was trapped in the corner again while Mom was beating me up. I went through hell to get away from Mom and now she’s back, in the form of Ryan’s mother! I can’t do this.

  Vicki had to be as sick as Mom; what kind of mother would put her child through a rape test just to get back at an ex? What kind of mother would hit her child with a flyswatter? A mother like mine. Oh, God, why are you still punishing me? Why would you put me in another situation like this?

  I stopped pacing when I heard footsteps coming down our stairs and saw that Aron’s face had a huge smile plastered all over it. Once Mrs. Peters had made it down, Aron turned to her and said, “Tell her what you told me, please. I want Sarah to hear it come out of your mouth.”

  Mrs. Peters gave me a smile and said, “Well, your husband asked me what Ryan’s mother had reported to them, why she would think that Ryan was being sexually abused. I told him that she told me that Ryan had yelled out, ‘No, daddy no!’ in his sleep on Thursday night.” Aron looked at me and waited for the light bulb to go off.

  “Thursday night?” I said softly, and then it hit me. “He wasn’t even there on Thursday night! We just took custody this week!”

  “She didn’t tell me that; she told me that it was joint custody and that she had him this week,” Mrs. Peters responded.

  “Why would she say that,” I asked Aron, “when Vicki knows that we have the documentation to back this up?” Aron shrugged his shoulders and looked at Mrs. Peters for an answer. Mrs. Peters shook her head.

  “I don’t know. Sometimes we see cases like this when there is a custody battle going on. It’s a way for one parent to get back at the other.”

  Maybe that’s why my real dad took off, I thought. Maybe Mom did something like this.

  A small beep broke my thoughts, and Mrs. Peters jumped and pulled a small beeper out of her pocket. She checked the screen quickly. “Oh, I’ve got to go. I have another call.”

  My heart broke for the child she was about to see. Would it be a child like me or would it be worse? I suddenly felt terrible for how I had acted toward Mrs. Peters; she was just doing her job and she was out there fighting the fight for kids like me while people like me sat there and screamed at her.

  “Mrs. Peters, I’m so sorry I snapped at you earlier. I just don’t have good memories of DCFS, and…”

  “Sarah, it’s fine. I would be the same way if I was in your shoes. By acting the way you did, you just showed me how much you care about Ryan.”

  She put on her sunglasses and reached for the doorknob. “I’m going to fill in another caseworker on what is going on because I have to take this, so you should be expecting her to be bringing Ryan home in about an hour.”

  “Wait, bring him home? You aren’t leaving him with Vicki? This is legally her weekend…” Aron asked her.

  “I understand that, but in the best interests of the child, I feel he needs to be back at home.” Mrs. Peters smiled at me. “Take care, you two. You will be hearing from me or my colleague in a day or so with my official report. I’ll also send you a copy of my findings in the mail.”

  She nodded her head good-bye and walked out the front door. Aron shut it behind her and whipped around to scoop me up into his arms. “Everything is going to be OK!” he said. “This was just some sick attempt by Vicki to get back at us for taking Ryan.”

  I pushed away from him and broke down into tears. “Aron, I don’t know if I can take this again! I don’t know if I can handle worrying every other weekend if DCFS is going to be knocking at our door because Vicki got a hair up her ass and wanted to cause trouble for us!”

  “What are you saying, Sarah?” Aron asked me rather angri
ly. “Are you saying that when the going gets tough and things don’t go smoothly you are just going to break down and want to leave, run away?” He shook his head at me. “That’s not the Sarah I know. The Sarah I know would stay and fight for that little boy with the man she married.”

  “You just don’t get it, Aron,” I sobbed. “I never thought I would be dealing with DCFS as an adult.”

  Aron smiled and stroked my hair. “Sarah, I think you dealt with DCFS just fine, and I was so proud of you for going off on that woman like that.”

  “Proud of me? She didn’t deserve that!” I was astonished that Aron supported my childish tirade.

  “No, she didn’t deserve it, but it just showed me how much you love us. That’s one thing Mrs. Peters was right about, you do care about Ryan, and that is just one of the many, many reasons I love you so much.”

  “Bless your heart, Aron,” I sobbed. “You were just accused of raping your son and here you are comforting me.” I felt so stupid for wanting to run away a few minutes ago. Aron was right, I don’t back down from fights anymore, especially when I’m fighting for something I care so much about.

  Ryan was home about half an hour later and came in through the door with confusion written all over his face.

  “What happened today?” he asked the moment he shut the door behind him. “Mom picked me up, took me to the doctor, she talked to him for a few minutes, and then the next thing I know he’s looking at my butt and I’ve got some lady asking me if Dad is hurting me.”

  Aron’s face crumbled and he knelt down and held Ryan tightly in his arms. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that today,” he said as he buried his face into Ryan’s shoulder.

  Ryan hugged him back and said, “Dad, it’s fine! I was just freaked out when a doctor wanted to look at my butt!” His bluntness and ability to make light of the situation made me laugh out loud, and I knelt down next to Ryan and Aron and threw my arms around them both.

  “I love my family,” I said out loud as I realized that the love we all had for each other could conquer anything.

  After we received the letter from Mrs. Peters stating that all the charges were unfounded and a notification that the state was pursing charges against Vicki for filing a false sexual assault report, Aron and I went back to court and got all of Vicki’s unsupervised visitation rights with Ryan taken away. Any visitation Vicki had with Ryan had to be supervised. Ryan was upset with the supervised visitation at first because he still loved his mom regardless of the terrible things she did to him, and he didn't want it to be uncomfortable every time he visited. But after the first few visits, Ryan told us, “It wasn’t that bad,” and we haven’t had any problems since that terrible day.

  Ryan showed me throughout this entire process how much stronger he is than I am. Even after Vicki hit him, yelled at him, and even took him to the doctor for a rape test, he was able to forgive her, and he still loved her because he was supposed to.

  “That’s my mom,” he would say. “I can’t help but love her.”

  I don’t know if I was put into Ryan’s life to get him out of the situation with Vicki or if he was put into my life to show me how to forgive my mom; all I do know for sure is that Ryan and I have a very rare bond and we understand each other, which is a wonderful thing for a stepmother and stepson to share. The entire experience with Vicki and DCFS taught me that there are many more women out there like Mom and that I can’t run away every time I come into contact with someone who reminds me of her. I was a fighter, and as weak as I was as a child, I am that much stronger as an adult.

  Chapter 7

  Evan

  “I’m pregnant!” I ran down the stairs waving my pregnancy test excitedly. “Emily, Aron, Ryan! It came out positive!”

  Emily ran over to me and grabbed the test out of my hand. “It’s true!” she exclaimed and threw her arms around my neck. “I’m going to be an aunt!”

  Aron pushed Emily aside, grabbed me up in his arms, and swung me around the living room. “I love you so much!” he cried.

  Aron had wanted children with me for years but never pushed me to have his child because he knew I was terrified of having a child of my own. I had a list of reasons I had compiled over the years as to why I shouldn’t have a child: I only had one functioning kidney, I was anorexic and couldn’t handle the baby weight, I was in college, I was trying to further my career; the list went on and on. But the biggest fear I had and the real reason I was afraid to have a baby was because I was afraid to turn into Mom.

  I had spent much of my life trying to figure out why Mom was the way she was. I prayed to God for answers, I read thousands of articles on mental disorders and tried to diagnose Mom on my own, and I spent numerous nights reliving abusive experiences with Aron trying to figure out what may have set her off. After Aron and I met Arthur and the doubts about him surfaced, I was content to accept the fact that maybe Mom beat me because I was a lie from the moment I was conceived and I had been a daily reminder of that terrible lie she told.

  But once Aron and I took custody of Ryan and I became more than just a babysitter in Ryan’s life, I began to question Mom’s behavior again. It never crossed my mind to treat Ryan the way Mom had treated me; I never once felt the urge to beat him or kick him or mentally abuse him. I could have held a grudge against Ryan because I could see Vicki’s features every time I looked at his face, but the thought never crossed my mind because I knew that Ryan was an innocent child who couldn’t control the parents he had or the situation he came from. Why couldn’t Mom feel that way about me? I would wonder. Even if I look like my real dad, it’s not my fault they had sex and made me. I couldn’t control what two adults did. I was back at square one and still struggling to understand why Mom didn’t love me.

  Emily got engaged and moved out of Mom’s house to a town located about forty-five minutes north of my house. The distance from Mom and the close proximity to me made it very easy for us to start to build a sisterly relationship. It was so wonderful having Emily back in my life and I was so proud to bring her to my home and introduce her to Sam, Carol, and the rest of Aron’s family. I felt proud because it was the first time I was able to introduce Aron’s family to anyone related to me and it showed them that someone in my family still loved me.

  I got to know Emily as an adult and became impressed with the innate qualities she possessed: she was warm, kind, and would go out of her way to do anything for anyone; she was the complete antithesis of Mom. But what impressed me most about Emily was her ability to remain so beautiful on the inside and out and maintain a healthy relationship with Mom. She still talked to Mom on a weekly basis, saw her for holidays, and called her on her birthday. It still hurt me deeply to hear Emily talk about her latest visit with Mom and the food they cooked or the shopping trip they took together, but I put my hurt feelings aside because I did not want to lose Emily again.

  Emily and I rarely talked about our abusive pasts with each other; most of the time, we acted like it didn’t even happen, and I think we were both scared of going back to such a dark time in our lives. Emily admitted that Mom was “messed up” but swore she wasn’t the same person anymore. She said that she had caught Mom on more than one occasion looking at my picture and crying by herself in her bedroom, but instead of feeling sorrowful for Mom, I would feel a surge of happiness that she was upset and start gloating about it to Emily.

  “Good, let her cry!”

  Emily would shake her head sadly. “I hate being in the middle sometimes,” she’d say. I didn’t want Emily to feel as if she had to choose between her mother and her sister so I stopped trying to bring up the past and stopped gloating about Mom’s misery.

  One evening Emily and I were sitting down to have dinner together at a local Italian restaurant. Emily had called me earlier that day and wanted to talk to me about “something important” and refused to tell me anything over the phone, so naturally I thought she was going to tell me that she was pregnant. I had an entire congratula
tory speech ready to go when she shocked me and said, “I talked to Mom about what she did to you when we were kids.”

  I sat back in my chair and crossed my arms. “You did, huh?” I asked, trying to act like I didn’t care about it one way or the other when in reality waves of hope were surging through my veins. Maybe she feels really bad and apologized for everything! I suddenly thought of having a mom in my life to cook, shop, and gossip with and the thought of it made me tremble on the inside. “Well,” I continued, “what did she say?”

  Emily leaned forward in her chair and said, “That’s why I wanted to talk to you in person. Sarah, it was the craziest thing. She acted like I was crazy and had no recollection of anything I was telling her!” Emily leaned back and took a sip of water. “Sarah, it was so weird! I mean, I even brought up her shooting your goat and she didn’t even remember that you had a goat!”

  I couldn’t believe that Emily remembered Mom shooting Indy, and my heart began to hurt. She has so many bad memories, I thought sadly

  “Sarah, she just kept saying, I don’t know what you are talking about, over and over! I wasn’t being mean, I just…” her voice trailed off and she started to stutter nervously, “D…d…d…o you th…th…th…think I did the r…r…r…ight thing?”

  I sat up, reached out, and grabbed Emily’s hand. “I think what you did was very brave,” I said with a reassuring smile on my face, “but, what I don’t understand is why you did it in the first place.”

  Emily took another sip of water and took a deep breath. “Because,” she said without stuttering, “Mom has said such horrible things about you; she said you were just terrible to her and that you ruined her life and that she gave everything up for you and all she got in return was a bitch of a daughter.” Emily cringed as the words came out of her mouth. “I believed it when I lived with her, but knowing you now…” her voice trailed off again and she looked up at me with tears in her eyes. “I know you aren’t the person she describes.” I squeezed Emily’s hand and the years of resentment I had held toward her melted completely away.