Blackbird: A Childhood Lost and Found Read online

  I told her I had lived alone at the commune and dropped out of school but Peggy did not believe me. She made calls over the course of many days but found nothing. I tried to tell her, one more time, how I had only done a smattering of education—here and there. Again, Peggy rolled her eyes. She said I knew how to read and write. That kind of thing didn’t come from magic. There was no use in telling Peggy I taught myself to read and write. She wasn’t much for paying attention.

  After taking some tests to place me in sixth grade, a full year behind kids my own age, Peggy and Richard became my legal guardians. In a few weeks, my bedroom set arrived from L.A. Deb had sent it.

  My new life in Stead began.

  ELEVEN

  THE LITTLE BOAT

  WHEN A HOLIDAY came around the calendar—Labor Day, Memorial Day, Fourth of July—Peggy and Richard cut themselves out of Stead and set up an exact duplicate of their life in the woods. They brought their trailer, a cook stove, coolers of food, packs of cigarettes, and pots for making coffee. Kimmy came too and with her came all her baby stuff: playpen, diapers, high chair, and toys. The only thing they left behind was the TV.

  IT WAS LABOR Day and we were out in the woods. Richard was wedged in a fold-up chair, his foot near his nose. The canvas of the chair strained against his bulk and he carved at his big toe with his pocketknife. Kimmy was down for a nap. Peggy played solitaire at the picnic table.

  There was nothing for me to clean or cook. The campsite was all picked up. And for a change, they weren’t bossing me around to get cigarettes or make a pot of coffee.

  I pushed my hands into the pockets of my shorts and wandered toward the creek.

  Richard called out, “Don’t go far.”

  “All right,” I said.

  I had adapted by doing what I was told, keeping my mouth shut, and just getting along. For the most part, it wasn’t so bad and Peggy was kind to Kimmy. I admired her for that.

  A few feet down the trail, I spotted a pinecone the size of a football. I kicked it with the side of my foot and it rolled a few feet ahead. I caught up to the pinecone and kicked it again—harder this time—and it splashed into the creek.

  The forest smelled like pine and earth and things that grew and died all at the same time. The ponderosa pine trees stood tall and solid and their high branches held firm to a bounty of pinecones and long needles.

  ABOUT THREE MONTHS earlier, at the end of sixth grade, Peggy sent me on a trip to San Francisco to visit a distant cousin I didn’t know. The woman had a little girl, maybe seven years old, and I got the feeling that maybe, just maybe, I was being sent away—or perhaps the trip was a little test to see if another family would take me. I’m sure, given the right situation, Richard and Peggy would have passed the responsibility of raising me to someone else—like tired runners eager to pass off the baton. I was like a package no one had sent for. At least with Bud and Janet, they wanted a little girl. But Peggy and Richard? I sensed that the primary incentive for my presence in their home was as domestic help and there was a pretty good chunk of change that came in my name. My Social Security and Veteran’s Administration benefits added up to a third of Richard’s earnings.

  Before being sent to San Francisco, I questioned Peggy about the trip—the why and the what—but Richard yelled, “It’s none of your damn business why you are going. Just do what you are told.”

  I WENT TO San Francisco, stayed a few days, and in the night my cousin’s boyfriend crawled into my bed.

  It wasn’t intercourse but he did things a grown man had no business doing to a little girl. When I tried to get away, he pinned me down and told me to enjoy it. “You know you want it,” he said. “Come on baby, relax.”

  Enjoy what?

  I told my cousin what her boyfriend had done and she sent me back to Stead. My cousin told me not to tell but I wasn’t loyal to her. I told Peggy and Richard right away.

  Richard said I was lying and Peggy just rolled her eyes. They both said I was quite a little storyteller.

  I was blunt. I was full of questions. I had a way of talking about things no one else wanted to talk about—but frankly I remember a lesson from when I lived with Janet. She told me, “Just don’t lie, Jenny. Lying is like a trap and you always get caught.” Her words stuck with me, that and the fact that she told me that if I ever did lie, she’d wash my mouth with soap.

  Fear and some good common sense were enough to sway me off the liar’s path.

  But Richard and Peggy—perhaps because they were accustomed to being dishonest—were suspect of me as well, in the same way Peggy did not believe my story about missing school and learning to read. Richard did not believe this story. They had no idea that I had also been raped before—at a summer camp while living with Deb and that there had been another molestation when I was six.

  If I wanted to lie, I would have conjured a really good one about rescuing kittens from drowning or helping an old lady across the road. My foundational identity was to be a divine hero. I would not, under any circumstances, lie about something as nasty as a man messing between my legs. “Why?” I wanted to scream at them. “Why would I lie about this? ”

  THE PINECONE BOBBED down the fast-moving creek and I kneeled on the soft edge of the bank. I plunged my hands into the icy clear water and dug my fingers into the soft creek bed just to feel the sand and mud and rocks. I pulled up a few stones and they were smooth and round, worn that way by being in the creek. I built a little stack of the rocks, the way you do to mark your way on a hiking path. The stacks of stones said, “I was here,” in case anyone wanted to know.

  A wedge of driftwood floated past and it was wide at one side and narrow at the other.

  I forgot the rocks and snagged the driftwood. I turned the wood this way and that and it was shaped almost like a boat with a rudder.

  At my back, Richard was still crouched over his foot and Peggy dealt herself a new hand.

  I got an idea.

  I went up the dirt path that ran along the creek and climbed a small rise. At the top was a still pool and I released the driftwood. I jogged downstream again.

  In a few minutes, the driftwood floated down and the top was still dry, even after its journey. I decided it was a boat. I went back up the trail with the little boat in my hand and on the way, picked a few wild flowers. I laid the flowers on the flat surface of the boat and released it once more.

  The boat bobbed on the current, safe and sound. “Such a good boat,” I said to the wood, not realizing I was talking out loud.

  I added some pine needles, a rock, and a leaf and did the same trek up the side of the creek.

  Up and down I went. I don’t even know how many times. It was that little hunk of wood, water, and sun. It was good. I felt happy in a way that was unfamiliar to me.

  Eventually, inevitably, I named my boat.

  I called it Catherine and felt so proud of myself for coming up with such a good name, all on my own. I said it over and over again—chattering to myself—Catherine, Catherine, Catherine.

  WHEN WE WERE done camping and driving home, I sat in the back seat of the car and looked out the side window. Packing to leave a campsite was one thing after another—Richard yelled and Peggy bossed. He called me “no-neck” and “good for nothing.” She rolled her eyes and sighed a lot. Between the two of them, it was like being in a blender. My nerves were shot.

  Richard and Peggy were up front and Kimmy was on Peggy’s lap, asleep or on her way to sleep. She sucked her thumb—content.

  Afternoon sun split light through the forest, making sideways streamers, and that’s when I realized that I had left Catherine at the side of the creek.

  I patted at my pockets to make sure and yes, it was true. I had left my boat.

  I put my hand over my mouth but not before I said, “Oh my god,” out loud.

  Peggy jumped a little and twisted her head around to look back at me.

  “What?”

  I almost said, “I left my driftwood boat at the
side of the creek,” but I didn’t. It sounded so stupid. Peggy was never going to understand. Richard would say something mean.

  I started to cry instead, with gulping, hiccupping sobs that made it one hundred percent clear I was a bigger baby than Kimmy.

  “What’s the matter?” Peggy asked.

  I shook my head since there was no way I could talk.

  Richard adjusted the mirror to look back at me. “Shut up already,” he said. “You’re going to wake Kimmy.”

  “Richard, enough,” Peggy said, and when she spoke like that he would actually do what she said. She reached over the seat and touched my knee. “Are you hurt?”

  I shook my head to say no and swiped at my drippy nose with the back of my arm. I looked out the window like changing my view might help me stop crying but then I just thought about Catherine again and how she was at the side of the creek, alone in the dark. I could see her in my mind, surrounded by leaves and daisies and rocks. She had been my boat. My good, sturdy, wonderful boat, with the best name in the world, but I had left her. I had abandoned her.

  Richard finally said I had better shut up or he was going to give me something to really cry about.

  I wanted to tell him to go ahead and hit me because, frankly, a blow from him would have been a merciful relief from the way it felt to know Catherine was back there, alone in the dark.

  WHEN WE GOT home, I went to my room and closed the door. At my desk, I pulled out a sheet of paper and wrote: All time favorite girls name: Catherine. I put the sheet of paper into my Columbia Viking Desk Encyclopedia under the letter C, so I’d never forget.

  TWELVE

  FREE WILL

  MY CHILDREN WILL TELL YOU many things about me—they will say I have been sad, I have been frustrated, I have been confused and even full of doubt about the right way to parent them—but they will never tell you I have silenced their dreams or stifled their full expressions of curiosity, sorrow, frustration, anger, confusion, or joy.

  Josephine needed to change her name to Belle for a year. Okay. I’d say, “It’s your world, girlfriend,” and did my best to call her Belle until she was ready to be Jo again. She also had a phase where she wanted to wear every pair of pants, every pair of underwear, and every princess dress to preschool. Okay. “It’s your world,” I’d say while wondering if the child had been a refugee in a past life.

  When Spencer needed to dance in the kitchen, doing an imitation of John Travolta—that was fine. When he wanted to do Tae Kwan Do, learn the drums, take up rollerblading—okay, okay, okay. He wanted to read Japanese comic books, study Japanese animation, and eat sushi every day. Okay. Okay. Okay.

  These children of mine are not mine. They are themselves. I just kept them as safe as I knew how and said, “It’s your world.”

  If expression, a full wide range of self-expression is all I give to my own children—as a result of my own childhood—I consider the adventure of motherhood to be my greatest success. And if that is what I was being taught by the experiences I endured, then I can say I learned. Oh yes, I learned.

  IT WAS ANOTHER day in Stead. I rode the bus, went to school, fell asleep on my desk, rode the bus back to the house, and walked into the front door.

  Peggy was watching Donahue while she folded laundry.

  “How was school?” she asked, looking up from her task.

  “Fine.”

  Kimmy sat on the floor, surrounded by Tupperware containers in shades of pastel. She popped up, containers rolling in every direction, and toddled over to the front door. Like I was a moving object she needed to catch, Kimmy lunged at my legs and squeezed hard.

  Kimmy was always happy to see me. She was the same with Peggy, Richard, Grandma, Grandpa, and the mailman. Kimmy loved the world.

  I shoved the door closed with my hip, careful not to knock Kimmy over.

  “Hi, Kimmy, hi, hi,” I said. I made my voice bright and happy, being nice to Kimmy because she deserved kindness. “Let me go now, Sweetie. Let Jenny go.”

  Kimmy opened her arms and grinned up at me like a happy fool. I wanted to tell her to wise up and stop liking me but I figured she’d get the hang of it soon enough.

  “Why don’t you put that stuff into your room and come help me,” Peggy said. “I need to talk to you.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  I carried my schoolbooks into my room and Kimmy followed like a pup. On my pillow, was a slip of unfamiliar paper.

  “Ba ba?” Kimmy pointed at a stuffed lamb also on the bed and I nudged the lamb her way.

  “Baby,” she said, grabbing it with both hands. Kimmy hugged the stuffed animal as if it were the most important toy on the planet.

  The page had an official-looking blue seal and read Non-Identifying Information. Further down it read, “Mother,” and there were details: blond hair, blue eyes, fair complexion.

  My eyes went out of focus and I swayed a little.

  I went back to the living room and Kimmy followed.

  “What’s this?”

  Peggy did a fast glance over her shoulder. “Oh, that was in Bud’s legal papers.” She waved her hand like it was nothing. “I finally got around to sorting that stuff out.”

  I felt like I was rising out of my skin and away. I was smoke, mist, wind.

  “Is this what you wanted to talk about?” I heard myself ask.

  “Huh?”

  I waved the page at Peggy. “This paper? Is this what you wanted to talk about? ”

  Peggy shook her head. “No, no, I thought you’d want it, that’s all.”

  Kimmy held the stuffed animal up for Peggy’s inspection.

  “Oh, Sweetie, you have a new baby,” Peggy said. “Did Jenny let you have that?”

  Kimmy lifted her huge blue eyes as if to ask the question and I nodded.

  “Baby,” Kimmy cooed.

  “That’s so nice,” Peggy said. She went back to folding and watching her program. Kimmy dropped to the floor with the lamb. She shoved the stuffed animal into a bowl—trying to make it fit.

  ONE TIME, AT the grocery store, Kimmy got lost. She had been toddling next to Peggy and wandered away while Peggy looked at the ingredient list on a box of Hamburger Helper.

  “Well, let me tell you, my heart just sank into my shoes,” Peggy said, her hand clutching her chest.

  Kimmy had made her way over to the produce section, all alone and then started to cry.

  The manager of the store, bag boys, checkout girls, and other shoppers were all frantic trying to help Kimmy but she couldn’t talk.

  Peggy was at the other end of the store, going crazy too. She was crying as she searched through the cereal aisle, the dairy section, and the bakery.

  Kimmy wasn’t lost for more than ten minutes but those ten minutes were so hard on Kimmy, she almost passed out and Peggy was sick for the rest of the day. Mother and child separated created trauma in both of them.

  I WENT BACK to my room and this time, Kimmy didn’t follow.

  Sitting down on the edge of my bed, I read out loud: “Mother: 17, blond hair, blue eyes, 5’ 8.5”, 128 pounds, English, Scottish, German, and Irish ancestry. Father: 17, brunette, brown eyes, olive complexion, 5’ 11”, 160 pounds, German and Irish ancestry.”

  I waited and waited, as if I had just spoken some magic formula and now my true parents would appear. Nothing.

  I read the page again.

  Mother, father, German, Irish, 5’ 8.5”, 5’ 11”, blond, brunette.

  My hands, arms, and body got very cold from the shock of memory or perhaps the tripped wire of amnesia.

  All I could think to do was to fold the sheet of paper in half, in half again, and then in half one more time as if to make the information as small as I was becoming in my own mind and I whirled back to the beginning when I had been separated from my mother.

  I put the page into my Columbia Viking Desk Encyclopedia, right next to the sheet that read, Catherine: All time favorite girls name, and then I crawled into bed.

  “HEY! WH
AT ARE you doing?” Peggy bellowed. The doorway framed her solid body. “Are you asleep?”

  I sat up in bed and the covers fell away.

  “It’s not bedtime,” she said. “What in the world is wrong with you? Get up!”

  Peggy retreated down the hall, talking to herself. “Geez Louise. I need help with dinner. Richard will be home soon.”

  A slash of light from the overhead in the hall cut into my room. The smell of ground beef hung in the air.

  My mind was tied to the sheet of paper folded away in my encyclopedia. Was it still there? Had it been real?

  I felt as if I existed in two places—the displaced alternative Jennifer who adapted to exist in Richard and Peggy’s world and the original baby born to the strangers detailed on that small bit of paper.

  Rather than examine the sheet again, I stumbled out of bed and into the kitchen.

  Kimmy sat in her froggy high chair, bits of cheese, cheerios, and olives were scattered over her tray as snacks.

  Peggy jostled past, making a big deal of gathering a brick of cheese, a head of lettuce, and a bag of tomatoes from the refrigerator shelf. “Oh my god, we have so much to do. Cut up these tomatoes, then grate the cheese. Come on, chop, chop. Richard will be here any minute.”

  Peggy always got into a fever before Richard came home, as if her value was tied to making a meal and having it on the table at the moment he walked in the door.

  She stomped to the stove and used a spatula to push around the ground beef in the pan.

  I picked up a knife and a tomato and this brought more rage. “Oh my god, don’t cut before you wash your hands! You know better.”

  Kimmy shoved a Cheerio into her mouth, blue eyes wide in the way of small children. Silent witnesses, omniscient observers, pure beings of awareness. She was perfect presence in the room.