And I Don't Want to Live This Life : A Mother's Story of Her Daughter's Murder (9780307807434) (6 page)

BOOK: And I Don't Want to Live This Life : A Mother's Story of Her Daughter's Murder (9780307807434)
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Exhausted and frustrated, I poured out my failure to her before she had her coat off. I think I may have even whined. Mrs. Taylor immediately went into action. Off went the coat and hat. Into her arms went Nancy. She began walking her around the room and humming.

Nancy magically stopped screaming.

“I
did
that,” I complained. “It didn't work. She hates me.”

“No, she doesn't. She's been this way all week,” Mrs. Taylor said.

“She has?” I'd been so busy with school I hadn't noticed.

“Sure. A lot of babies fuss at first, until they get settled. And her having all that trouble her first day, it's taking her a little longer. It's just her way. Don't you worry.”

“I thought it was me.”

“Maybe a little,” she admitted.

“What am I doing wrong?”

“You're not comfortable. She senses that. As soon as you relax with her, she'll relax with you.”

“Makes sense.”

It did make sense. Perfect sense. Unfortunately it never worked out that way.

I did get my diploma that June. And we did move into our own apartment, a small two-bedroom duplex at the end of a block of row duplexes. It was on the other side of Philadelphia in Mt. Airy. Right across the street was a playground with swings and merry-go-rounds, and a bus stop so Frank could get to work easily.

But Nancy didn't stop crying and screaming. She screamed all day and all night. She never slept for more than an hour at a stretch, awakening with a scream. I would go to her, cradle her, walk her around. She would stop bawling and eventually fall back to sleep. But as soon as I put her back in the crib, she would start up again.

Babies do cry. But Nancy did nothing
but
cry. She would not be diverted or pacified. Her crying was shrill and constant—twenty-four hours a day. She cried while we ate, talked, watched TV, made love, tried to sleep. We were always aware of Nancy crying. I did everything I could. I checked to see if she needed burping, if she was wet, if a pin was sticking her. I got so frustrated I begged her to
tell
me what was wrong,
willing
her to speak. There was nothing I could do to make her stop.

She began to wear us down, make us irritable.

I described the situation to her first pediatrician, whose office was around the corner from Mother's house. He said she was probably crying because I didn't have enough milk for her. I stopped nursing her and put her on formula. She didn't stop screaming. He said maybe she was still hungry and suggested I try giving her some solid food. I did. She ate everything and began to put on weight. She didn't stop screaming, though.

As soon as we moved into our new apartment, I drove Nancy to a new pediatrician. She loved being in the car and slept peacefully—as long as it was moving. As soon as I stopped for a red light, she awoke screaming. It was as if she had antennae all over her, alert to any slight change in the environment. I was sorely tempted to run every red light in Mt. Airy. It's a wonder I didn't.

The new doctor was young, soft-spoken, and friendly. He examined Nancy, listened to my complaint about her, and said, “First off, you're overfeeding her.”

“But the other doctor said—”

“She's eating too much food. Way too much. As for this continuous
crying, let me ask you something, Mrs. Spungen. What do you do when she cries during the night? Do you go to her, comfort her, sit with her?”

“Of course.”

“That's your problem right there.”

“What is?”

“You're spoiling her.”

“Spoiling her? How?”

“You're conditioning her to believe that all she has to do in order to get food and love is to cry. She does it to get your attention, and you reward her by giving it to her.”

“You mean I should just leave her there in the crib screaming?”

“Exactly. Ignore her. Let her cry herself out. As soon as she realizes she's not getting any attention, she'll stop doing it.”

His diagnosis fit what I had privately suspected right off—that Nancy's bawling was my fault. I drove her home and told Frank that night what the doctor had said. We vowed not to go to her when she screamed that night.

She cried for two hours after I put her to bed. I fought my desire to go to her. It was hard.

“Maybe she's in pain,” I fretted.

“Leave her,” Frank said. “The doctor said to leave her.”

So I did, and she finally stopped. But she started again when we went to bed—turning off the light switch in our bedroom awakened her. It took her two more hours to cry herself out. Her screaming cut through me like a knife, but I followed doctor's orders.

This went on for a week. Since the sound of a light switch was enough to awaken her, we learned to sit in the dark after I'd put her to bed. My friend Janet and her husband lived nearby. They came over to visit one night and sat with us in the darkened living room, afraid to utter a single word or use the bathroom. We tiptoed around in stocking feet. We served them iced tea without ice because we were afraid the noise from cracking ice would awaken her. Janet and Myron accepted all of this as normal business with someone who had a new baby. We were the first people they'd ever known who had one. At first I accepted it, too, though I was beginning to wonder if all babies were so sensitive and cried so much, if all parents never went to the movies or out to dinner. I did wonder how anyone survived being a parent.

After a week of this “don't spoil her” strategy Frank and I were
beginning to snap at each other. He kept complaining that he couldn't stay alert at work because he was so sleepy from Nancy's middle-of-the-night, two-hour screaming sessions. In desperation I called the doctor and complained that his strategy wasn't proving effective. He prescribed liquid phenobarbital to help her sleep.

I kept a baby book for Nancy, in which I noted all of the important days and events in her life as they occurred. I noted the first time Nancy smiled—it was when she discovered that the toy birds in the mobile over her crib would move if she touched them. I pasted in the book a snapshot of Nancy eating her first ice cream cone—most of which ended up on her nose. I noted her first trip to a restaurant—she and I took Frank to Sunken Gardens for Father's Day (though we had to leave before finishing the main course because she wouldn't stop screaming). For Nancy's first birthday I pasted in a snapshot in which she sat with her proud parents watching, a delighted smile on her face and both her hands in the birthday cake.

I didn't note, however, that day in the third month of her life when she took her first drug dose. I should have. It was the most significant occasion of them all.

This doctor, who gave Nancy a drug to control or mask her problems, was the first in a long line. Actually, I think now he prescribed it to her to shut me up. I don't think he believed me when I described Nancy's condition. He probably thought I was a selfish, annoying mother and that the phenobarbital would stop my complaining. Phenobarbital was an easy solution. Unfortunately it also covered up whatever the real problem was.

From phenobarbital to heroin, the road was not paved with good intentions.

It was a red liquid that came in a little amber bottle. I gave it to her on her tongue with an eyedropper. She would scream for twenty or thirty minutes, then fall asleep for an hour, sometimes two. Then she would wake up and scream. I would give her more every four hours according to the directions.

The phenobarbital seemed to have no effect on her activity level, which was increasingly high. Technically, Nancy didn't fall under the category of a hyperactive child. She had no learning disabilities. Far from it—she was tremendously bright and verbal at a very early age. She had a twelve-word vocabulary before her first birthday, including
please, thank you
, and
airplane
. Complete seven- and eight-word sentences quickly followed. Her first was “Fee-Fie-Foe-Fum, I
smell the blood of an English muffin.” But she was restless. There was discomfort inside her. She was never content, never relaxed. She had an unbelievable amount of energy, most of which she consumed by crawling.

Once she began to crawl, at six months, she crawled every waking moment. She hated confinement and refused to stay in her crib or playpen. She wanted to crawl. She crawled in and out of rooms. She crawled up onto furniture and down off it. Nothing stopped her, not even the heavy metal Dennis-Brown splint she had to start wearing to correct the angle of her legs, which were growing out abnormally. She just dragged the splint around behind her.

When the weather became nice, I took Nancy to the playground across the street in her carriage. Five or six other mothers took their babies there regularly. They sat in a row on the park bench and talked about shades of lipstick, styles of clothing, and hair while their babies dozed contentedly in their carriages or played with little toys. I read a book while Nancy crawled furiously across the playground in her overalls, exploring, getting covered with wood chips.

One time my friend Janet brought her new baby along and we went to the park together. Like the other babies there, Janet's gurgled peacefully while Nancy crawled around like a demon.

I went over to Nancy and picked her up. “Don't you want to sit nice like the other boys and girls, Nancy?” I murmured in her ear.

I began to carry her to her stroller. In response she screamed at me angrily, her face turning bright red. I cuddled her. She reacted by suddenly stiffening her body like a board, arms and legs thrust out straight, head thrown back. She screamed even louder. I tried to relax her limbs but she fought me.

“Is something wrong with her?” gasped Janet.

“I … I don't know,” I replied, frightened.

I tried to get her into her stroller—
bend
her in, really. She continued to fight me. I finally got her in, so stiff she was almost standing. The other mothers were looking at us now. Again I tried to cuddle her. Again she wouldn't let me.

“What should I do?” I asked Janet.

She said she had no idea.

I pulled Nancy out of the stroller and put her back down. She sped away instantly, blazing a path across the park. I watched her. So did the other mothers, clearly wondering what was wrong with her.

This was my first awareness that possibly Nancy was different from other babies. I was concerned and bewildered. Her pediatrician, however, was not.

“She is a very curious little girl, I'll grant you that,” he admitted as he watched her crawl around on the floor of his examining room. “Very active. But not abnormally so.”

“What about the way she stiffened up?” I asked. “She keeps doing it. She won't let me hug her anymore. At all.”

He shrugged. “That's just her way. She's not affectionate. Don't take it personally.”

Nor was he concerned about two physical symptoms from birth that were becoming more and more pronounced. One of her eyes was beginning to cross, and she seemed unable to keep her tongue in her mouth. He said that, taken together, they
could
suggest neurological impairment. But he said she was much too bright for us to worry about that. He said she would outgrow both, no problem.

“How's her sleeping?” he asked me. “Is she still having trouble? Screaming?”

“Yes.”

“Let's increase her dosage then.”

He gave me the instructions for how much phenobarbital to give her, and I left his office with the distinct impression that he thought I was exaggerating Nancy's problems. I wondered if he was right. I certainly was the only one who was worried. Frank wasn't. But Frank wasn't with her all day like I was. He left her in the morning and didn't come back until evening. She was always on her best behavior then, waiting anxiously for him on a chair by the window, watching the street. Whenever a bus stopped, she clapped her hands and looked for Frank. When he got off the bus, she crawled excitedly to the front door to wait for him. She sat like a little angel on his lap while he ate dinner. Afterward he played her folk songs on his guitar. She seemed to love music.

No, Frank wasn't worried about her.

I decided that the problem was with me. I was fretting unnecessarily because I was bored. I had no activities except for cooking and cleaning and following Nancy around. Everything I did was in response to what she wanted. I needed intellectual stimulation. The only adults I saw all day were those mothers at the park. Suddenly I desperately wanted to get out of the house. I was cut out to do more than this. I decided I would go back to school and get my master's degree. That was the answer.

The trouble was that we couldn't afford a baby sitter. My mother was only working part-time then and still lived near Penn, so I asked her if she'd mind taking care of Nancy if I went back to school. I could drop her off on my way to class. She said she wouldn't mind at all—she was anxious for me to resume my career plans.

Since I had never left Nancy with anyone, I thought a test visit was in order. So I dropped Nancy off at Mother's apartment one afternoon while I picked up some catalogs and applications on campus. I left her there for an hour. Returning, I was still half a block away from the house when I heard her hysterical screaming.

Nancy was squirming in my mother's arms, yelling like I'd never heard her before; there was an animal-like intensity to it. Her body shook. To this day I've never seen another baby cry with such ferocity.

“When did this start?” I gasped at Mother.

“As soon as you left,” she replied, shaken.

I took Nancy in my arms and tried to comfort her, but it was no use—she didn't seem to recognize me.

“Mommy's here, Nancy!” I cried. “It's Mommy!”

But she didn't stop.

I held her close to my face. “It's Mommy, Nancy!” Still she didn't stop. In desperation I took her to the hallway mirror and pressed her face to mine, in the mirror right before us.

BOOK: And I Don't Want to Live This Life : A Mother's Story of Her Daughter's Murder (9780307807434)
2.16Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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