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  Aron opened his mouth to say something back to Mom, but I put my hand over his mouth. “It’s not worth it,” I said and shook my head at him.

  “You are damn right it’s not worth it!” Mom shrieked. “Come on, Emily!” she said as she stormed toward the front door, where Kent stood. She put her hand on the doorknob, paused, and turned to face me and my family. “You know,” she said, “I always knew you were messed up. Thank God I have one good daughter!”

  Emily pushed by me and glared at me before slamming the front door behind her and running down the driveway to her car. Aron, Evan, and I stood at the front window and watched them tear off down the road.

  “They forgot their gifts.” Aron laughed, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

  “Aron, you understand, right? You understand why I couldn’t do it; I just couldn’t sit there and do it anymore. I can’t forget the past because there is too much to forget and if she is just going to act like nothing happened…” My voice trailed off and I hugged Evan tightly. “Aron, the look in her eyes; I remembered that look and she hasn’t changed at all, not at all!”

  “Sarah, I told you I would support you in whatever decision you want to make, and I am so proud of you for what you just did.” He hugged me and held Evan and me tightly to his chest. “You are one of the strongest people I have ever met,” he whispered.

  Later that evening after Evan was sleeping, I sat and typed an e-mail to my mother and my sister.

  Dear Mom,

  I have come to the conclusion that I cannot have you in my life anymore. I have come too far over the years getting over everything you did to me to go back to square one. You seem to have forgotten everything you put me through as a child, so let me remind you of some things. Remember lashing me with a belt until I had welts—oh, wait a minute—you had Richard do that dirty work for you. Remember choking, scratching, beating, and hair-pulling? Remember mocking Emily at the dinner table until we were all in tears because she stuttered? Remember teaching me to shoplift and lie about your affairs? I could keep going—but what is the point? I can’t tell you how good it feels to get this off my chest. It is too bad it has to be over e-mail because I need to tell this to your face and show you the scars I have on my body from your fingernails digging into me.

  You were a terrible mother and you still are. You lied so much to me about everything in your life and in mine. I think you truly live in a fantasy world and you believe what you say! Emily said a few years ago that you are “a lot better than you used to be.” What the hell does that mean? Does that mean you aren’t hanging dead cats in a pantry anymore or shooting one of my animals to death with a BB gun? If that is the case—then BRAVO! Animals MAY be safe now.

  I realize that by writing this e-mail—any relationship with you is done. I have accepted that—I have finally accepted the fact that I have never really been a part of the family and never will be, and it really is a load off my shoulders. And it isn’t all your fault—I personally don’t want anything to do with the family and I don’t want Evan to be around someone who could hurt another human being so much. I pray something or someone can bring you the happiness that has been lacking in your life all these years. I wish you would get the counseling you so desperately need—just so you could once and for all admit to what you did to me growing up and come to terms with whatever you went through in your life to make you the person you are. I’ve been in counseling and could probably use more. But you know what every priest and counselor and family member has told me? “Forgive her, but keep her away.” I’m working on the forgiveness, but I’m not there yet. But I can keep you away.

  Face it—you were terrible to me, and what you considered in your mind as “punishment” was ABUSE, mental and physical. It wasn’t right and I’m not going to pretend anymore that it was. Do you know that I can’t remember a time during my childhood when you hugged me and told me you loved me? That’s sad and you should be ashamed of yourself. As far as Evan is concerned—his grandma lives far, far away and he won’t see her again. He’s young enough—he will forget you. I won’t forget you—because I know what NOT to do as a parent and I have you to thank for that. He will grow up never experiencing the horrors and torture that you put me through as a child.

  Good-bye once and for all,

  Sarah (a.k.a. Anorexic Annie, Kidney Kate, Bubble Butt, Thunder Thighs, Nigger Lips, Bug Eyes, Loser, Bitch, etc.)

  I had to accept the fact that it is what it is; yes, my childhood was rotten and my mother was absolutely terrible, but that was then and this is now. I could feel sour and miserable about the past or I could choose to use what happened to me in my childhood to make the lives of the people around me better. I could use my abusive past to help others and to remind me how not to parent my own child.

  The only thing that hurt me about that entire e-mail was that I had to cut Emily out of my life because if I didn’t, she would always be caught in the middle of Mom and me and she would never be able to move on from the horrors she saw as a child. I haven’t spoken to Emily since the day I threw Mom out of my house, but I still hold out hope that one day she will come back into my life.

  I showed Aron my e-mail before I clicked “send,” and chewed my nails nervously as I watched his eyes scan the screen.

  He sat back and smiled. “I’m so proud of you,” he exclaimed. “Do you want me to hit ‘send’ or do you want the honor?”

  I leaned over his shoulder, clicked the mouse, and the e-mail disappeared off the screen. “There,” I said. “It is what it is. It’s done.”

  Chapter 9

  Answers

  Once I cut Mom, Emily, and Richard out of my life for good, I felt like a giant weight had been lifted off my shoulders and I could move on and focus on my future with Aron and Evan. I spent every day trying to be the best wife and mother I could be, and I focused my energy on the good things I was surrounded by instead of spending my time regretting what I didn’t have in the past.

  I loved being a full-time mother to Evan and never once regretted giving up my career to stay at home and be with my child. I realized how lucky I was to have this time to spend with Evan, and I made sure to make the most of it every day. A day never went by when I didn’t tell Evan how special I thought he was or how much I loved him; I was not going to let him grow up like I did, wanting to hear those words so badly and hating myself because I could never do anything well enough to force Mom to say them.

  Ryan went off to military school and set me up on a popular social networking site so we could stay in touch while he was away. I found the site silly at first, but soon came into contact with people from my high school and reconnected with a lot of people in my life that I assumed had forgotten about me. I was surprised when I began to get private e-mails from people I knew from my childhood filled with apologies for never doing anything to help me when I was a child. It amazed me that so many people had known what was going with Mom and had never done anything about it or offered to help me. My first reaction was one of anger, and I wanted to e-mail each of these people back and make them feel terrible for the past, but I had grown and I knew that wouldn’t accomplish anything. The past is what it is; I can’t assume to know the reasons why these people from my childhood didn’t call the authorities or rescue me from my house. What I do know is that I could use my past to show all of these people how strong I was and how I had survived such a horrible situation on my own. I could prove to them that anyone could overcome any obstacle if they just believed in themselves and never gave up.

  One Sunday afternoon I was e-mailing one of my friends who had just had a miscarriage when I got a notification alert. I clicked on it and my jaw dropped open when I read the message. “Hi cuz! Is this you! LOL! Write to me!”

  It was Megan, my mom’s niece and my favorite cousin from my childhood.

  Mom was the youngest of three girls; her oldest sister, Denise, was an accomplished artist who lived in Virginia with her navy husband, John. Her other sister,
Janice, was a nurse and then left that field after a few years to start running her own elevator company in a city right outside of Chicago. I didn’t know much about Mom’s relationship with her sisters except for the fact that is was extremely volatile and one month Mom would be on the phone with them every night and the next, Mom would be running around the house calling them bitches and screaming that they could rot in hell.

  I remember being very little and living in Janice’s house for a short period of time. I know now that the time we lived with Janice was the period in between Arthur leaving Mom and her marriage to Richard. I don’t remember a lot, but I remember Megan, one of Janice’s four children. I remember that Megan made me feel happy, and I remember moments when I was sitting in Megan’s playroom and she was holding me and whispering that she was going to keep me safe. I remember holding her hand and walking down the sidewalk around the house, and I remember feeling love when I was around her.

  The last time I had seen Megan was when my Grandpa John, Mom’s dad, died. The entire family was at Janice’s house and I remember sitting on the floor in the living room with my head on my Aunt Denise’s lap. I remember Mom storming into the living room and yanking me up from Denise’s lap and Megan running over to me and holding me in her arms. Denise got up and took Mom out into the hallway, and I could see from where I was sitting, Denise gesturing wildly and pointing in Mom’s face. Mom came storming back into the living room, snatched me out of Megan’s arms, and dragged me out of the house.

  “What’s going on? I didn’t get to say good-bye to Megan!” I cried.

  “They are dead to you!” Mom sneered in my face as she squeezed my arm tightly. “Did you hear me, DEAD!”

  I hadn’t seen my mom’s side of the family since that day, and I just assumed that they wrote me off because of Mom. I thought Megan would have tried to find me at some point over the years and save me from Mom, but she never came and I began to believe that they saw me as tarnished because I was Mom’s daughter. I had talked to Aron about Megan and my aunts numerous times over the years and tried desperately to understand why my entire family turned a blind eye to what Mom was doing. There was no answer; we couldn’t find a logical explanation. “You don’t know the history between your mother and her sisters,” Aron would remind me. “You have no idea what really went down between them, so blaming yourself for anything is pointless.”

  When I saw Megan’s beautiful face pop up next to her e-mail I broke down into tears. “I missed you so much” I sobbed out loud, and just as I was about to reply and tell Megan how wonderful it was to hear from her and how much I missed her, I stopped. I had come too far and gotten over too much from my past to just open up and immediately accept someone from Mom’s side of the family back into my life. What if Mom is talking to them again? I can’t have her back in my life. I thought of Emily tricking me into picking up the phone the night I talked to Mom, and I immediately got suspicious. I’m not falling for this again. I shut my computer off and didn’t think of the e-mail again until a few weeks later when Aron was on the computer saw it in my message folder.

  “Is that Megan, Megan your cousin?” Aron asked as he read Megan’s short message.

  “Yeah,” I replied, “but I’m not going there. I’m not falling for it again.”

  “I’m going to have to disagree with you, Sarah.”

  I was shocked. Aron had always said that he would support me in any decision I made when it came to my family, so why would he start having an opinion about it now? “Why? Why in the world would I even start a conversation with her?”

  “Because, Sarah,” Aron said, “you talk about this girl all of the time and all I hear out of you is how much she meant to you and how she made you feel loved.” He stopped and looked closer at Megan’s picture on the computer screen. “Maybe this is your way to get your answers, find out what really happened between your mom and her sisters and maybe find out what’s wrong with your mom.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to know,” I said. “Aron, I’ve accepted the past and moved on. I—”

  Aron cut me off. “Don’t say that, Sarah, you haven’t accepted your past; you’ve learned how to deal with it and not let it affect your daily life, but you haven’t accepted it. I see how you act on Mother’s Day and how those stupid commercials make you tear up and get depressed the entire day. I know you don’t eat on your mom’s birthday, and I also know that you don’t trust people because you think everyone is out to hurt you.”

  I opened my mouth to argue, but Aron continued. “Honey, I love you and I hate your mom for what she did to you. But whether you choose to believe it or not, you are still carrying around the past and you feel that you can’t move on until you know for sure why your mom treated you like she did.”

  I think sometimes that I had to go through everything I did in order to get to Aron because we were always meant to be together. Or maybe God put me through my terrible childhood and allowed me to suffer for so long in order to fully appreciate what a wonderful man Aron is. Aron was my rock and my voice of reason when I felt like I was about to go off the deep end, and he had been protecting me from the moment he met me. He was one of the few people in my life that I trusted implicitly, and if he disagreed with me on something it was because he was only looking out for my best interests.

  “What do you think she could tell me?” I asked Aron. “She was just a kid at the time, too.”

  “She’s got to know something or have a piece of the puzzle that you are searching for. I think it’s worth a shot.”

  I knew Aron was right, and I knew that as long as he was by my side, I wouldn’t be hurt. “OK! Here it goes.” I clicked “reply” and typed, “Yes, this is Sarah. Long time no see!” and clicked “send.”

  “I hope you’re right and this isn’t some trick,” I said to Aron.

  He shook his head. “I really don’t think it is, Sarah. I think this is going to be something very good for you.”

  I got an e-mail back from Megan the very next morning and opened it fully expecting to see a letter filled with small chitchat and vague news about the family. I was shocked when I read her response:

  Sarah,

  Oh, Sarah, you have no idea for how many years I have wondered where you are and how to find you. Not a day has gone by that I have not wondered and worried about you. I don't have a lot of memories growing up, but I remember when you lived with us. That is when I grew closest to you and fearful of someone else but I won't go there. All I know is that I am so glad to see your beautiful face and especially to know that you are OK.

  Man, you and my sister, Amy, look practically like twins. So, tell me about you. What are you doing? How are you? I would really love to see you sometime. Would you be up for that? Oh man, I wish I could just jump through the screen and give you a big hug. I hope to hear back soon. Love you more than you know. Megan

  The thought of being hugged by someone in Mom’s family again made me break down into tears. I reread her e-mail and paused on the part where she said she had grown “fearful of someone else.” Aron was right! She does know things, I thought as I continued to sob and imagine Megan’s arms around me again. I had to talk to her if only to prove to myself that there were still people in my biological family who loved me.

  Megan had included her cell phone number at the bottom of the e-mail with the words, “Call anytime!” It reminded me of Aron’s little slip of paper he gave me before I went off to the recruiting office with Justin. Good things came out of that! Maybe this is a sign that good things will come out of this too. Aron was upstairs giving Evan a bath so I knew I had a few minutes to myself. I picked up the phone and dialed Megan’s number.

  Megan answered on the second ring, and her voice sounded exactly as I remembered it. “Hello!” she said sweetly.

  “Hi, honey! It’s your cousin Sarah.”

  Megan immediately starting sobbing into the phone. “Oh my God! Honey, I’ve missed you so much! I looked for you and tried to find out wher
e you were, but I just kept hitting dead ends! Then I found you online and I saw your beautiful face and your beautiful family and I couldn’t wait to contact you!”

  “Megan, stop crying. I’m fine, it’s OK! We are talking now, isn’t that what’s important?”

  Megan cleared her throat and her voice became sad. “Sarah, I have to say this to you. I’ve been waiting too long to get it off of my chest. I don’t know if you remember, but when you were three years old and living with us, Mom was at work and your mom got home and started chasing you around with a knife because you didn’t button your sweater right.”

  “Megan, this is the first time we’ve talked in years; we don’t need to talk about this right now. Trust me, it’s fine.”

  “No!” Megan said. “It’s not fine! I tried to hide you from your mom, but I couldn’t…” her voice trailed off and she broke down into tears again.

  I had no idea what Megan was talking about; I had no recollection of Mom ever chasing me around with a knife when I was three and I had no scars on my body to prove that Mom ever hurt me with a knife. But Megan was so obviously upset about what she witnessed that I knew whatever Mom did to me after she caught me must have been bad and hurt Megan deeply. I started to realize that I could be beginning to understand part of the reason why Mom hated me so much. Maybe that’s why Mom and her sisters don’t get along. They knew what she was doing to me and they tried to do something about it. I made her lose a relationship with her sisters.

  “Megan,” I said out loud, “honey, stop getting so upset. I don’t remember that at all so obviously it didn’t have an effect on me. Let’s not talk about this. I’m just so happy to hear your voice.”

  “We all want to see you, Sarah: Mom, Karen, Craig, Amy, everyone! Karen’s little boy is having a birthday party next weekend, maybe you guys could drive up here?”