You’re Not Taking My Daughter Away.
Mr. Hyde hadn’t always turned back into Dr. Jekyll by the time we called home to see if the coast was clear.
On another escape, we hid out at a family friend’s. Their trailer, like ours, was drafty and filled with pot smoke. It sat on the property of the friend’s parent’s farm. The chaotic farm house always smelled of baby chicks and stressful work. I didn’t like it there.
The friends were counseling my mom, listening to a summary of the argument that compelled our escape.
This was one of the worst ones. He put his hands around my neck for a second. I told him ‘get your hands off my neck.’
Then he stopped?
It took a second but he did.
They talked about some self help book they read or some conference they been to and how his behavior would obey whatever these new tools were.
Well maybe we could talk to him.
It won’t do any good. He doesn’t hear anything when he’s drunk.
Well let us try. Can we try?
They called my step dad.
Hello?
Hi Jeff, it’s…
Is she over there?!
Well, slow down, let’s talk about this… Hello? Hello?
He hung up.
He’s probably on his way.
Don’t worry we’ll talk to him, it’ll be okay.
My guts churned for the next twenty minutes. I was sitting on their sticky black leather couch when the trailer door flew open.
Always trying to appease him, I did the exact opposite of how I felt. I sat up straight, smiled, raised my eyebrows, and with my most optimistic, chipper voice said:
Hi dad! 🙂
But I was not on his radar. My sister was.
I heard him lament many times about the two kids from his previous marriage that he was no longer allowed to see. On the surface he spoke bitterly about it, as if he was the victim. But it wasn’t hard to see it was very painful for him. It was painful for me too—they lived with us for a time. As far as I was concerned, they were my brother and sister.
He lunged in and grabbed my sister. His biological daughter.
This is MY daughter. You’re not taking away my daughter.
On his drunken drive over, he must have decided that our escape was not because of his drunk yelling, intimidation, belittling, or terror, but a sudden conspiracy to take his daughter from him. It was so infuriating to be dressed up as monster of his insecurities, when he was the fucking monster.
He had my sister wrapped up in both arms, like a hostage. She was scared and crying.
I was so scared. I thought he was going to take her outside, into his car, drunk, and drive off into the night, and I’d never see her again either.
But the husband-friend blocked the door and my mom and the wife-friend urged at him from the kitchen.
Jeff, let go of her.
You’re not taking her away.
No one’s taking her away.
Bullshit.
He pulled her in tighter. My mom came in closer.
Jeff let her go, no one’s taking her away from you.
You want her for yourself. You want to turn her against me.
He eventually calmed down enough to let go of her and the adults moved out into the yard to continue discussing. We could still could hear through the window.
I don’t want to talk to you, I want to talk to my wife.
You are Jeff, she’s here talking to you.
I want to talk to her alone.
Why?
I want to talk to her alone. Come here. Come with me.
No Jeff, I’m not going anywhere with you when you’re like this.
Come with me.
After hearing her describe how earlier he put his hands in her neck, my ten year old mind believed he wanted to get her alone to kill her. To choke her to death. It was not fair for a ten year old to contemplate his mother being murdered. From the sticky black leather couch my guts still churned.
Please don’t kill her, please don’t kill her, please don’t take my mom from me.