And I Don't Want to Live This Life : A Mother's Story of Her Daughter's Murder (9780307807434) (10 page)

Unable to keep friends, Nancy began to take out her social frustration on Suzy and David. She was older, bigger, and smarter than they were and took advantage of it. She manipulated them, bullied them, tormented them, pitted them against each other and their own friends, often with ferocious meanness.

She particularly loved to make Suzy cry. One of her tricks was to exclude Suzy. If Suzy and David were, say, coloring happily on the living room floor, Nancy would come in, grab up all of the coloring books and crayons, and say “Come with me, David, we'll go color in my room. Suzy, you can't color with us. You smell.”

Off Nancy would go, little David in tow—leaving Suzy in tears.

Another of Nancy's tricks was to borrow some of Suzy's precious
Barbie Doll clothes (Nancy actually had no use for dolls herself) and fail to return them. When Suzy asked for them, Nancy would deny she had ever borrowed them and accuse Suzy of trying to call her a thief and a liar.

If Suzy brought a friend home Nancy would convince the friend to play a board game with Suzy, then tell the other girl how to win so Suzy would lose and go running upstairs in tears. Suzy fought back by no longer bringing her friends home. But if one of them called on the phone Nancy would stand next to Suzy and scream and holler at her to get off because she was expecting a call—even though she had no friends of her own who might call.

Though Suzy was her main target, Nancy occasionally went after David, too. Violently. Once David was playing with slot cars in the basement with his friends and she went down and took his car and hurled it against the wall, breaking it into tiny pieces. Another time she sneaked into his bedroom when he was asleep—on this occasion a reluctant but thoroughly intimidated Suzy in cahoots with her—and bopped David on the head with a weighted, inflatable plastic whiskey bottle. He got quite a shiner from it.

As for Nancy's tantrums, well, we were still living with them. In fact, our household had begun to form itself around her temper. Every Sunday, for example, the Spungen family took an outing. Sometimes we went to Independence Hall, sometimes to the Franklin Institute, sometimes for a drive in the country.

One Sunday we planned to go to a movie that Suzy wanted to see. Nancy flat out refused to go.

“I don't wanna go to the movies,” she declared at breakfast.

“We're going to the movies,” Frank stated firmly.

“I wanna go to the Franklin Institute,” Nancy countered.

“We went to the Franklin Institute last Sunday,” I said. “Now, Nancy, we went where you wanted to go last Sunday. This Sunday is Suzy's turn. Be fair.”

“I don't wanna go to the movies,” she repeated, dropping her spoon defiantly in her cereal bowl.

“We're going to the movies,” Frank repeated with grim determination.

“Then I'm not going!” she screamed.

“Oh, yes, you are,” Frank replied.

She stood up abruptly, knocked her chair over. “You can't make me!”

“Yes I can!”

She stuck out her jaw. “Then go ahead! Make me!”

“Nancy,” I said. “We're going to the movies today.”

“I'm not going!” she repeated.

“You're going,” Frank warned, “or it's no TV privileges for one week!”

“I already lost them for
two
weeks,” she sneered. “Big deal!”

“Then no allowance!”

“That too! You can't do a thing to me! I'll just stay in my room. Starting right now. And you can't do a thing!”

“Oh, yes, I can!” snapped Frank.

Out of sheer frustration he grabbed her and spanked her on the behind. It was always our own frustration that drove us to spank Nancy, since it had no impact on her except to make her angrier.

She screamed at the top of her lungs, outraged, then ran up the stairs to her room and slammed the door.

She would not come out until we backed down and agreed to go where she wanted to.

We wanted our family outing. We couldn't leave Nancy in the house alone. Frank and I exchanged a resigned look. I turned to Suzy. She was already crying. She knew we weren't going to see her movie.

It was this way with all things—Nancy's way. When she wanted something, no matter how big or small, she hollered and screamed and backed us into a corner until we were the ones to back down. We gave in to her. Why? Because there was absolutely no peace in the house until she got what she wanted. And she was impossible to discipline. She was not afraid of us, had no respect for us. Traditional channels like shutting off her allowance were far too puny. Smacking her was pointless and accomplished nothing except to make us feel terrible for losing control of the situation—and to make that situation more intense. So we gave in to her demands, one by one. It was easier that way. Was it really worth enduring a major tantrum just because she wanted to watch a different show on TV than Suzy did? It wasn't—believe me it wasn't, not day in and day out.

And that's how a seven-year-old ran our household. It was not pleasant. In fact, it was so unpleasant it took its toll on our marriage.

Frank's work was beginning to take him to New York two days a week. He would stay over for the night at a hotel in midtown Manhattan, and he would have fun. An old pal of his named Harvey was a talent agent. Harvey often had free tickets to Broadway shows
or passes to
The Tonight Show
. They would have dinner out. After the show they would go to a nightclub and listen to jazz. I cannot tell a lie—I deeply resented that Frank was allowed to do all of the things I wanted to do while I stayed home with the kids.

He always called me at six p.m. to see how the day had gone at home. One of the days had gone particularly badly. Nancy had a bronchial infection, David had an intestinal bug, and Suzy had let the bathtub overflow. The water had soaked through the bathroom floor and entry hall ceiling below, causing chunks of it to give way. By the time Frank called, it was raining in the hall and I was hating him for being gone. He was in a restaurant. I could hear music and clinking glasses in the background.

“What's new on Welsh Road?” he asked cheerfully.

“Fuck you,” I replied and hung up.

I immediately felt awful for having done that. I just felt so trapped, so lonesome. After the kids were in bed, I tried Frank at his hotel. He wasn't in yet. It was about ten o'clock. I tried again at eleven. He was still out. At twelve, too.

I couldn't sleep now. I phoned him on the hour. When he wasn't there at one, I was afraid he'd been run over by a taxicab. At two, I was afraid he was out with another woman. At three, I was sure he was out with another woman. I thought about grabbing the next train for New York and waiting in his hotel lobby to see who he came in with. I couldn't. I couldn't leave the children. At four, he answered.

“Where were you?” I demanded.

“What are you doing up so late?” Frank asked, confused.

“Waiting up for you. What are
you
doing up so late?”

“I was out with Harvey. We went to a show, got something to eat.”

“Are you sure it was Harvey you were with?”

“Who else would it be?”

“How would I know?”

“Can't I just go out and have a good time?”

“I'm home with the kids. I can't.”

“Look, Deb, I'm sorry you're stuck there by yourself. But I have to be here—it's my job.”

Frank wasn't sorry, though. I realized this a few weeks later. The morning after one of his nights in New York, I phoned his office in Philadelphia and asked his secretary to have him call me when he checked in from New York. I needed him for something.

“But he's here,” she said.

“No, he's not,” I corrected. “He's going to be in New York all day.”

“He's right here, Mrs. Spungen,” she said, embarrassed. “The boss called him yesterday. He had a meeting here first thing this morning. I'll … I'll connect you.”

I was mortified and humiliated. Frank could have come home the night before and been with me and had chosen instead to stay over in New York and drive back early in the morning. He had gone directly to the office. He preferred not to be home.

What was Frank's explanation?

“I'd already checked into my room when the boss called,” he said when he came on the line. “It just seemed easier to stay there.”

I didn't buy it.

On top of his one night a week in New York, Frank began to go out without me one night a week in Philadelphia. He called it a “boys' night out.” He went to a health club and played basketball, or so he said. I suspected otherwise. Sometimes he came home at midnight. Sometimes as late as two a.m. Sometimes we had sex when he got into bed, sometimes we didn't. Certainly, we had less than we used to. I resented his going out another night a week to have fun without me. I was bored and miserable and jealous.

“I want to go out with you,” I complained.

“Who's going to stay with the kids? We can't afford a baby sitter.”

“So why can't you stay home with me?”

“I'll tell you what,” he countered. “You take a night out a week, too, and I'll stay with the kids. How would that be?”

“What on earth would I do by myself?”

“Whatever you want.”

“What I want is to be with you.”

“Somebody has to stay with the kids,” he repeated. “We can't afford a baby sitter.”

Married women didn't go out at night without their husbands in those days. It didn't occur to us. We had no real social lives apart from our husbands. I had two old friends, Susan and Janet. Janet had three small children, Susan two. Our social life consisted of one of them coming over for the afternoon with her kids, or me going over there with mine—it all depended on whose husband didn't need the car that day. The kids would play together in the basement playroom and we'd stand in the kitchen drinking coffee and making tuna salad. Sometimes we went to the playground.

But Frank kept egging me to go out without him, so one night I did. I left him with the kids, took the car, and drove around the suburbs of Philadelphia for an hour. Then I went to see a movie by myself. I had a terrible time. I didn't want to be out alone. I wanted to be with my husband. I wanted him to pay more attention to me, listen to my frustrations and problems. I wanted him to love me. I couldn't understand why he didn't want to be with me anymore, why whatever fun he was having he chose to have without me. The only possible explanation was that he had found another woman. I believed I'd failed him as a wife.

Looking back, I now realize that Frank was staying away from home because it was so unpleasant there. Nancy made it so; her presence caused an unusual and intolerable amount of tension. But neither Frank nor I knew that at the time. If just one doctor had said to us, “Nancy is a disturbed child and you are putting up with a very difficult situation that will put a strain on your marriage,” we would have understood what was happening to us. But nobody told us that. The doctors insisted that Nancy was a normal child. As a result, Frank and I had no choice but to believe that our problems came from each other. And we did have problems. Both of us felt stifled, trapped, depressed. Both of us felt the pain of failed expectations. Life was not working out the way we'd hoped. But we suffered in separate spheres.

“I'm going to go out and play some ball,” he said one night at dinner.

“Why don't you want to be with me? What am I doing wrong?”

“You're not doing anything wrong—except bugging me.”

“Frank, are you seeing another woman?”

“No!”

“Why won't you admit it?”

He pushed his plate away. “How can you keep accusing me like this?”

“Because I think you're with someone else.”

“Deb, I love you. I just need to get out.”

“Where do you really go?”

“Stop keeping such close tabs on me!”

“I have the right.”

“Goddamnit, you're smothering me!”

He stormed out. I sat down and wrote him a letter. I apologized for getting on his nerves. I said I was sorry I wasn't a good enough wife and I'd try to be better. I said if there was anything I could do
to improve, I'd do it—all he had to do was tell me. I said I loved him. By the time I finished writing the letter it was thirty pages long.

He wasn't home when I got into bed. I left the letter on his pillow. I pretended I was asleep when he got home at two a.m. He sat on the edge of the bed, read by the light on the nightstand. I buried my nose in my pillow and fought back the tears.

He got undressed, turned out the light, and climbed into bed. I stirred as if I'd been asleep.

“I didn't realize you were so upset,” he said softly. “I'm sorry.”

He made love to me and promised he'd spend more time at home. He did skip his boys' night out—for one week. Then he started up again.

I desperately wished I had someone to talk to about what was happening between Frank and me. But I didn't discuss personal things with anyone then, not my mother, not Janet or Susan. I particularly longed to tell Janet and Susan what was happening—in the hope that they would have some insight, some advice—in the hope that they would say he probably wasn't having an affair. But I couldn't bring myself to air the matter. It just wouldn't come out of my mouth.

So I kept it shut. When David was old enough for nursery school, I began substitute teaching a couple of days a week. A mother's helper stayed with David in the afternoons. It was, on the one hand, nice to be doing something and bringing home that extra eighteen dollars for a day's work. On the other hand, teaching just seemed like an extension of my at-home confinement. Usually I taught at Nancy and Susan's elementary school. I drove them to school with me, waited for them after school in the parking lot to drive them home. I was spending seven days and seven nights a week with children, either my own or other people's.