My Fraudulent Life

Preface



*Entwined within this book are letters I wrote over time addressed to my Great Grandmother. Not being an experienced writer, they were a way for me to convey memories, mostly fond ones of my childhood, especially the time spent with her, as well as being a bit of therapy. They are not necessarily in order, although I have tried to place them so. They are just a bit more insight into our lives and how even though there was this sad and frightening undercurrent; there was much good and happiness. 
*My hope for the reader is that if you are a victim of abuse you may possibly glean some hope and healing.  If you know someone who has endured it, you may understand how deeply and lastingly it can affect them.  I encourage anyone to seek help in healing; I did not, at least not on any regular basis. Had I done so many years earlier, I am certain much of my life would have been very different and the choices I made throughout life would have been saner.
*This book is a true story, with the exception of a few minor details.  All of the names, places and logistical information in this book have been changed to protect the innocent and also to protect the guilty. At no time is any part of this book meant to be disparaging to anyone in it except for the perpetrators of the deeds, one of which at the time of this writing is diseased, one which remains a scourge on the earth.  I have no forgiveness in me for them, but I do forgive myself, and that is all that is necessary for peace. It has taken me nearly 50 years to come to that end. 












A FRAUDULENT LIFE

Introduction

      I learned to lie when I was six years old. It was summer just before the start of first grade. I was going to meet kids, kids that were normal, whatever normal is.  It’s important to fit in. I was different and I knew it, but I had to fit in with the rest. You have to lie when you are different to appear normal. The difference is at six years old you don’t know the difference between normal and not normal. You don’t know what lies make you fit in, and what lies just make you a liar…

Abby and I had been climbing trees before lunch. We went to her grandma’s house to eat and afterwards she had to go home and so did I.  But first, I was to learn how important it was to protect the ones you love, and how the only way for me to do that was simply to lie.          
































The life I remember started out and took place in a rural setting in the mid-west, not far from a town of about 65,000. It wasn’t much different than a good percentage of the country, except for a few minor details…….
My parents divorced when I was about 3 yrs old. My sisters were a few years older than I.  The divorce would make a tear in our lives that would take years to rectify.  It would be hard to say that I suffered much from it, being so young, not really understanding it. Even the logistics of it when my sisters were shipped off to Dad’s mom, 400 miles away were beyond a three year old’s comprehension. 
In the beginning Dad tried to keep us kids together with him and so had rented a single room from a cross and hateful woman just down the road. We all slept in the same room, Dad, my two sisters and I.  One day I took it upon myself as a wise 3yr old to pick up her cat by the tail.  This did not sit well with the old bat and she decided the best way to teach me a lesson was to pick me up by my hair, clear off the floor. I have a vague memory of it and remember kicking her.  My oldest sister sat up that night, waiting for Dad to get home so she could tell him what happened. Thus the girls were sent to Dad’s mother’s in another state.
Dad took me and together we stayed with my great-grandmother. She sort of collected the children from broken homes within our family. She already had possession of three of my cousins. Two brothers and ‘the stray’, boys who would become more like brothers to me than cousins. Had any of them, including my dad, known what lay ahead for me, things would have been much different.
Life as a young child living the way we did was wonderful. At least I remember it that way. All together there was Grandma, Dad, Daniel and David (brothers), James and me. Well, that was just the humans. There was always an assortment of critters. We had a very old dog; he was blind and deaf and always dirty. Grandma had trained a crow (I know) to come to her and she would feed it by hand. Guess who had 3 chipmunks in a bird cage who owned the obligatory names of Simon, Theodore and Alvin. The boys kept cats.  There were always a couple of cats around. My particular favorite was a huge, nearly 100 lb orange tabby with long hair. Ok, so maybe 5 lbs., but, it was huge. Oh, and David had a beautiful German shepherd. He was beautiful and I loved to watch while he taught him tricks.
        We lived in a 4 room house.  I believe they were each just about 10 x 8. A room for the ‘boys’, a room for Grandma and me and then Dad slept on the couch in the living room. There was a very small kitchen, no running water except a hand pump at the sink. No indoor plumbing existed. We had electricity, but no central heat or air conditioning. A small upright pot belly stove graced the corner of the living room and always supported a kettle of water. In the winter it would not prove adequate for keeping the cats milk from freezing in the bowl in the boys’ room.  The floors were non-insulated wood covered with whatever linoleum was on sale at the hardware store. In the winter we would staple thick plastic to the window frames and borrow Aunt Arlene’s hair dryer and heat up the plastic. It made everything outside look as if there was a heavy fog. It was like getting glasses and being able to see for the first time when spring came and we could remove it. Mostly though, it was just there to help keep ole man winter at bay.
        We did have something quite special. In the corner of the living room, at the end of the couch was a television. Not just any television, it was a portable, approximately 13” screen, black and white and probably a Zenith or Admiral. Regardless it was like watching outer space in a box. We had layers of Grandma’s hand made quilts for keeping warm in the winter, and an electric fan for smoldering summer nights.  We had it made.


Laundry day was a lot of fun. All the sheets were white. I didn’t see dyed or printed sheets until my first soap opera. All the sheets having been through the ringer washer that sat on the back porch, still steaming from the boiled water, floated on the lines with the breeze.  You could run down the line, in between the sheets and take in the humid and scented air. Sheets, towels, clothing all basked in the sun, fresh and ready for another week.
We ironed everything, and I mean everything. I was in charge of pillow cases, t-shirts and anything else that was ‘flat’ and not too big. I stood on a stool and would have to use both hands to sprinkle the clothes with the Coke bottle with the cork lid. I think I started ironing clothes and sheets when I was about 5. I know that sounds young, but it really was okay. That was our life and I still love ironing. I have never once picked up an iron and placed it on a piece of cloth without thinking of Grandma.
The sun shined, the clouds rained, the crickets chirped and Abby and I played from sun up to sun down, nearly every single day.

The house was till sparkling from Grandma Emma’s last trip up for ‘spring cleaning’. My uncle would drive her the few hundred miles up to our house and all the ‘boys’ would be summoned (for the larger jobs), and the coal soot and all related nasty things were expelled from the house.
The outside of the house would get washed, the screens, window ledges, porches and patios were cleaned and sterilized and repainted if needed. I use the word patio loosely. We had a small ‘stoop’ in the front with 3 steps up into the house, and the back was a house level concrete porch without the benefit of a roof or sides. It just had steps and you had better not walk backwards because it’s a 4ft drop.


The ripe old age of six was reached that summer. It was such a big deal that I was two months older than Abby. I used to tease her and tell her I was smarter and more mature because I was older. She teased back saying because I didn’t have an immunization scar that I was adopted. I actually believed that. But nothing changed really. We made tents to sleep out all night, only to run back in the house after seeing a stink bug in the tent. We climbed trees and got dirty and came in late for dinner. We shopped together at W.T. Grants on Saturdays, ran through the woods and hid from any known adult with a switch in their hand waiting until we emerged to receive our punishment.


1960 Summer
        One particular day after lunch Abby had to run home because her father had been drinking and she did not want to get into trouble.  I didn’t really understand the drinking thing, but I knew it meant if she was not home when he said, she would be in it big time.  I started out for home when Pops, (Abby’s grandfather) started waving a chocolate bar. “You want one?” he teased as he walked toward the back door. “Uh huh”, I replied. “Well c’mon then”, he said. I remember following him out to where the bee hives were kept. I was always afraid of them, having stepped on more than my share of bees.  He led the way as we found ourselves out of sight.  There was some fumbling, some resistance, “what?” I cried. “Hush now” he said.  I wasn’t sure what was happening, all I knew was that I had just let him put his hand under my shirt and into my pants. “Now”, he said. “You best not let anyone know what you did or your Grandma will be so disappointed in you, she’ll likely have heart attack and die.
I didn’t know I was about to become such a dishonest child. I didn’t know how easy it was going to be to lie. I had done a horrible thing that day and when I told the first lie; whether I knew it then, he owned me from that moment on. He had something on me. Something a six year old has no idea how to deal with.  I only know now the control he would wield over me for the next several years.

What do we say about a time when taboo things were just that? Was it so long ago? Were we that ignorant? Did we just not know that we could talk about these things? Everyone knew it would be wrong. Everyone knew it was against the law, and everyone would keep their mouth shut. Not because they didn’t care. Not because they didn’t believe it, but maybe didn’t want to. It was simply not knowing how to handle it, and not wanting to ‘rock the boat’.  There is also the likelihood that certain people would have killed or seriously harmed others and their punishment would be on me. 
I should have ran home and told someone. I should have screamed it everywhere, what is the worst thing that could happen? They could punish me and try to shut me up. They could call the authorities which would have made it stop. They could have not believed me and eventually put me in a ‘state run facility’, you know the place, the place where they put the ‘crazy’ people. The crazy people that say so and so did this thing to me, when everyone knew that good old so and so would never do such a thing and how dare you make such a statement. But….that would also have made it stop. I was so desperate, so afraid.  I saw the inside of my mind and it was getting very dark and very, very lonely. But I couldn’t tell. I couldn’t tell anyone because Grandma would die. If I had only known that I could have trusted her and that I could have told her anything. You have to let your children know they can always tell you everything and anything. They can tell you their worst fears and most unbelievable nightmares. They have to know that they can trust you to believe them and love them no matter what.

        I didn’t cry.  I didn’t panic. I ran home and into the house. Grandma said “What’s the matter with you?”  “Nothin’” I said.  And with that, my fraudulent life began.





It wouldn’t be long until I was to go and reunite with my sisters and my father with his new wife Peggy. If there was anything stressful or there were any anxieties about, I was unaware of it, or at least I don’t remember it.
        I know we moved into a small cottage out at the lake. We lived there year round as we would do all of our years there. I remember two things about that time, one being the day our step-mother set the kitchen on fire. This was the 60s don’t forget, and not only were we not as savvy as we are now, appliances and safety were not priorities. I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but suddenly the stove and all the walls and ceiling around it were on fire. She mistakenly then threw flour on the fire, no doubt hoping to smother it. Alas, flour not only burns, it explodes. There are no memories of getting out of the house or what all ensued afterward. No memories of moving or being put out while it was all repaired; I had other things on my mind by then.

 
First grade was awkward for me. I knew I was different than other kids. If you think you are different and behave that way, even when you can’t control it, others will realize you are different as well.
I didn’t have most of the social skills other kids had. My only playmate at that age was Abby and we just had each other. Throw in the fact that we were basically poor and lived in rather dysfunctional families and you have two kids who don’t adjust well. Abby did better than I; at least I think she did.
The teacher was a very short and rather rotund older woman with a nasty demeanor and a very short fuse. I supplied her with the fodder that fed her obsessions.
In those years, at my school, there was a ‘water closet’ in the back of each class room. I was sitting near the back and the urge came.  Up went my hand and the rest of my body began to wriggle the way it does when trying to express your anxiety. “Yes, Miss Fairbanks?” she acknowledged impatiently.  “I need the restroom” I whispered like a mouse. She shook her head. WHAT? Oh no, she is going to make me wait…but I can’t. Up again went the hand with great gusto and desperation. “Class, it appears Miss Fairbanks doesn’t want to obey the teacher”  Gasp, I was mortified. Everyone had turned in their seats to stare and sneer at me.  “Please” I squeaked.  “Maybe you don’t know what it means when I shake my head, I tried to spare you embarrassment, Miss Fairbanks, but clearly you want our attention.”  “Class, what does it mean when I shake my head?”  “NO” shouted the entire class in my direction. The tears began to well up. I tried not to succumb. With the first sob I lost my control and wet the seat, my clothes and ultimately the floor. The class exploded in laughter and nasty remarks. I was mortified.  The teacher now decided that the only recourse was to complete my humiliation and make me go to the sink and get a rag and clean it up. Then she dragged me down to the office and announced she couldn’t have the likes of me disturbing her class.
My parents were called. My step-mother was at the hair dresser at the time and could not be reached, so they called my father, something they and the teacher would later regret.  It would have taken him about an hour to get there from his construction job, but come he did.  When he arrived I was sitting on a stack of mimeograph paper on the floor. My dress was wet, my face was a mess and I was sobbing so hard my entire body was jerking. I looked up when he came in. He took one look at me and walked back out of the office. The commotion that followed resulted in several teachers, the principle, the nurse and me running down the hall to find out what was happening.  My father was nearly twice her height and a couple times bigger around.  She was shaking as he stood over her and explained life.  “You ain’t going to ever have the opportunity to hurt my daughter again. You’ll be lucky if you even get to keep your job.  I don’t know what all happened here, but I know it wasn’t good and I know it was all your doing.”    Now, I don’t know how my father knew that, that she was a nasty thing. Maybe something else had happened before. This was the first last and only memory I have of that teacher, that class room and that school.  I know he had them put me into another class, but other than that…nothing.

1962

There was always some contention when it came to gifts from our mother.  Once a few years later, she had bought each of us a chiffon dress, each in a different color. I don’t remember what color mine was. I only know I had it on once for a very short time.  We had received the dresses and determined we were going to wear them to school the next day. Wholly inappropriate for a school day, but we were little girls with pretty new dresses and were anxious to wear them and show them off.
Not so fast, our step-mother announced, and she wasn’t happy. But Dad had said we could wear them this one day to school.  I don’t really know if she was just mad because our mom bought them, or if she was just being difficult. Was it really that big of a deal if we wore the dresses? Was she going to be embarrassed?  My memories of the exact sequence of events are foggy, but there was a threat of physical punishment which sent me right to the bedroom and out of the dress. My middle sister, argued a bit, but then she caved. Not so fast, the oldest sister was not so easily going to surrender. Mom bought the dress, Dad said she could wear it and wear it she would.  There was a struggle, lots of fabric flying. At one point my sister kicked our step-mother hard in the chest. The last thing I remember was our step-mother chasing her down the drive with a yard stick in her hand. The bus driver, quite mortified, let her on the bus and they were off, wicked step-mother still standing at the bus stop.  There was never any mention of the incident. No one talked, Dad never said a word. I think at this point he was discouraged with their marriage. He just trying to keep us safe, she, not having kids of her own and very rigid in many ways likely felt the same.


1963
Moving back to Grandma’s

No air was moving. It was hot and wet. Everything supported a film of wetness. Grandma Emma was there. I couldn’t translate the adult mumblings from the kitchen. But I was pretty certain that I was in big trouble.  You know that about yourself after you have let happen what I did. You are always going to be in trouble, having become a liar, as well as not knowing what the details of the web are; too young to control it.  In later years you will pause occasionally and go through a list of problems you could have and check them off to know that everything is ok.  All I knew then was that it was cool in the car with the air-conditioning. The little man that sat behind the console knew exactly what the temperature in the car should be. Yes there were little men. One little man was in the gizmo on the dash that dimmed the lights for you if another car with little men in it approached. Another little man sat behind the console and read the dial displaying your temperature preference. I know this for a fact, you see Dad told me so, and therefore it was truth.
I never even saw them put my suitcases in the car. It was beyond reasoning to have sat me down and explained how once again my life was going to change, drastically. So, it was left for the car ride. I didn’t want to leave my sisters or Dad. I knew however, where I was going and somehow it was ok.  I sat there, in the back staring out the window. My ironed cotton dress with the little metal threads caressed my knees. My big crossed eyes counting the milestones of fields and bridges and bent trees that marked the way to Grandma’s house.
Grandma had lost an argument with her heart and was not to be left alone in the house. Our family did not use nursing homes, not that she was in a severe enough condition to need one. It was just that she should have someone around, and the best person for the job would be me, it was decided. What brought them to that conclusion? What made them think a nine year old child was the best choice for a companion/watch dog for an elderly woman with a heart condition?  But…She was like a mother to me and we knew each other well. My bags were unpacked and soon I found myself curled up on the couch watching TV, somewhat worried how soon I would have to see Pops, yet giddy and anxious to see Abby. We could play again. There was still time left in the summer for climbing trees and saving the world as the Girls From U.N.C.L.E.

Death 9/22/67

I had dreams, night sleeping dreams and then day dreams about the dreams. They were strange and cloudy.  I was standing at the corner of the house on the south side peering around looking toward the drive. An ambulance pulled up. They were strange looking things back then.  It was a station wagon.  It was big and round and had room in the back for a gurney.  I didn’t see anything else happen.  I’ve always thought it was some sort of premonition about your death. I had the dream a couple of times before it became a reality.  My grandmother’s heart had finally given out. It was only a few days later when I found myself sitting on the edge of a hospital bed………..
Letter to Grandma No. 5
I was just thinking the other day about the day you died. The hospital wouldn't let me come to your room, as I was only 13 and you had to be 15 to go to a room. I knew it was going poorly because they let me come see you. I think dad or the boys talked to them and told them they had better let me go. I was intimidated and overwhelmed. Hospitals were dark and gloomy in those days. There was a light over your head, and you were so, so pale. You patted the bed, beckoning me to sit with you. I thought my clothes would fall off from shaking so bad. From that moment everything went into fast forward and slow motion at the same time. You wanted me to tell you that I remembered everything you taught me. I told you I remembered the important stuff, but I couldn't remember how to chain stitch in knitting. You said that it was ok, I could learn that later. You wanted to know if I remembered the things you told me about singing and being happy, that if I was sad to sing a song and I would feel better, and if I thought I was sad and found myself singing that I wasn't so sad after all now was I?
You told me you wouldn't be coming home again and that I had to be very strong and remember how you told me this was going to happen. I already knew that, see, I knew you very well. I knew by the way the back door opened if I was in trouble. I knew that when you called me by my full name that you were being silly, because you never called me that. I knew that everyday that I came home from school you would be there, weather permitting, rocking on the front porch. I could just barely see your head over the railing as I walked up the street from the bus stop. And, if the weather was bad, you would already have the door open so I could run in. I remember cream of wheat or rolled oats every cold morning of our life together and how you told me neither one was worth eating if you didn't have brown sugar.
I remember sitting on the linoleum floor in the living room with my face as close to the black and white TV as I could get. Jack Parr was it, Andy Williams or maybe Bonanza. You would tell me to 'slip' back from the set, threatening blindness by 15. I remember when Grandma Emma would come up every spring. Uncle Lee would drive her in that little VW Beetle. They would unpack, and the spring-cleaning would commence. I remember on cold winter nights when you would let me sleep with you in your bed and we would to 'back to back' we curled in backs together and fought ole man winter. My little grandson and I did that, only he called it bac a bac.
I also remember standing in front of your casket, knowing that my life would never be the same again. I stood there while they read from the bible and talked about your life, but I didn't really hear any of it. I was too busy grieving and trying to make sure that I as you told me to do. Later at the cemetery, still concentrating making sure that I followed your instructions. That has been one constant in my life....that I did that one thing that you told me to do with your dying breath...and I do grandma, I do remember you.










1967  Fall
Transition after Grandma’s death.

When Grandma died, I returned to my dad and to the house at the lake.  I was devastated of course, but I was also finally free. Even though I had managed to avoid Pops the last couple of years, there was always a tension when I was near him. He, likely afraid I would finally tell someone; me, afraid he would try something again. I avoided him and Jackson as much as possible.
In some ways I was very happy to be going back to live with dad, even though I didn’t like my step-mother. My sisters were about to make their own transition. They would be leaving and going to live with our mother. She wanted them to come and they were anxious, no doubt to get away from Peggy. It was not ‘in the cards’ as they say for the three of us to rekindle our old ways and life. But, never the less, I was back.
I want to say I was home, but it really was no more home to me than Grandma’s was. I had, when all was counted, lived almost the same amount of time with each.  Still, it was my favorite place in the world and even though I cherish the years with Grandma the house at the lake was home and  I loved my father tremendously and now after losing Grandma was very anxious to cling to him, step-mother or no. I also loved being at the lake full time. The summers I spent there were never enough and when I was first sent to Grandma’s at nine years old, I wasn’t happy about leaving.  Looking back it was really damaging.  Here and there and back and forth, it really was a mess. I seriously think that my father’s mother was mostly responsible for sending me, to begin with. I loved her, but she was a force and a stronghold and no one would cross her.
As much as it was devastating losing Grandma, it was just as much so to be leaving Abby. We were inseparable.  What was I going to do without her? I would be at the lake and she would be where she always was. It was like ripping a piece of my insides out.  No one made any effort to get us together. I don’t think I saw her more than once or twice a year after that. We went from every day, nearly all day, to a couple times a year.  I lost my surrogate mother and my surrogate sister at the same time. It would be almost three years before I would see her on any regular basis, but I didn’t know that then.

       

The addition
Dad wanted to add on to the house. The house at the lake was really just a cottage, small, two small bedrooms, one bathroom, an eat in kitchen and the living room. There was to be a two story addition off the kitchen. Downstairs would be a ‘formal’ dining room with a small alcove where Dad could sit with his record player and listen to Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs or any of his collection of country and western music.  The Hi-Fi in the living room was reserved for Peggy’s collections of Patty Page and such.  Upstairs would be discussed over and over. My idea was a bedroom for me. Dad was more interested in a room for a pool table. I ended up liking that idea a lot. Dad and I played pool quite a bit. Well, maybe Dad played pool and I did something clumsily with the pool cue and then would squeal for another try.
Building the addition ran the gambit between awful and awesome. Awful standing there holding up yet another piece of paneling while Dad nailed it to the supports and awesome spending every single free minute with him.























Fall of 1968 Dad’s death

Who could have seen this coming? It’s nearly one year later and all hell breaks loose, yet again.  I was just starting to find my place again at home with Dad and Peggy. We did alright. I was a ‘troubled’ child, so I gave them pause on more than one occasion, but all in all I think it was pretty good.
Lyn and Jean were both married now; young but girls were marrying young around that time. I was busy in Jr. High School. I loved it. I had a best friend; I had my Dad and I had a brand new, lime green, gold buttoned, big collared mini dress. It was groovy man.
Gym class was a torture camp and Mrs. Martin the dictator. I was thrilled to be called out of her class to go to the office. It didn’t matter what it was. I was pretty sure I wasn’t in trouble, but I was out of class and that was cool. I hadn’t had to lie or make excuses, they came and got ME.
When I got down the hall toward the office, I saw Jean and her husband Paul standing there. Jean was crying and Paul was visibly upset. I could not imagine what could have been so bad they had to come crying to my school and get me.
“Now listen, I have to tell you something’ Jean warned. “What?” I looked at her. She sobbed out some incoherent words…..’At work’, ‘collapsed’, ‘don’t know’, ‘nothing to be done’, and finally; “Dad died, he’s gone” she choked.  Dad? Dead? I couldn’t breath. All the air was forcibly taken from me by some unknown force of alien origin. But, I just got back.  We were just getting started on the rest of our life. My Dad was dead. I sobbed, somehow without the benefit of air, I cried, and then I finally I breathed  and didn’t stop crying for days. He was only thirty nine years old, and he was gone and really, there was absolutely nothing left for me in this whole world, nothing.
At the funeral a woman put her hand on my shoulder as I stared into the casket at my father. “God needed another angel, he took your father because he was such a good man” she proclaimed.  I think I hit her, and then someone dragged me away. ‘God took my dad?  He’s not very powerful if he needed to kill my father to get a new angel, I thought. I sat down and kept thinking about that, about what kind of God needed to kill people, little babies, moms, dads, sons and daughters, all because he couldn’t manage to make his own angels. Mostly I just sat there and though about the fact that my life was over. Uncle Lee sort of took me under his wing and stayed with me throughout the entire process of visiting hours, funerals and the buffets. I really needed that. I needed someone to be like my dad and take care of me. He worked out just fine. We rode together to each event. I didn’t want to be around anyone else, not anyone but him. I could trust him. I could cry or laugh and he didn’t judge me.
The funeral procession was deemed the longest caravan of cars the funeral directors had ever seen. This was an unassuming man, thirty nine years old, from Minion W.VA.  He was a simple man who worked hard and played hard. He had, over his short lifetime amassed such a long list of friends, friends who considered themselves close enough to him to need to be a part of his leaving.  There were so many people, they just kept coming and coming and I wanted them to all go away. But, they loved him and needed to say goodbye, and share their story of him with us.

I could no longer live in the house at the lake. Everywhere I looked I saw my father. My step-mother was getting increasingly short with me and doubtless, I with her. She probably didn’t want to be straddled with his child now that he was gone. At some point it was decided that I would go live with Lyn and her husband Rick.  I couldn’t have been more relieved. So I packed up and said goodbye to the place I still consider home.



















End of book……..
So, you see, although much of my life felt and was fraudulent, it was at last and most importantly, an extraordinary one.
                                                That’s it…..  For Now