Katie Beers (38 page)

Derek and I decided that we would make his home town my home town, and I needed to find work. I was the manager at a small second hand retail shop and I liked the job but I was suddenly managing employees who were my age as well as existing employees who had been with the company for years and who thought that they should have been promoted to the management position. The store owner didn’t give me the support or authority I needed to be successful, so after seven months, I quit.

My second job was working for a cleaning company. I was supposed to be the office manager, but I ended up being a highly paid cleaning person. The owner of the company hired me without consulting with the company vice president. She would refer to me as a bimbo, for no reason, just in the course of a normal conversation. She told me that the only reason the owner had hired me is because I looked good in a skirt and was constantly cutting me down, not allowing me to do my job, nor teaching me how to effectively do the job. I was miserable, not because I was cleaning more than I was office managing, but because I didn’t like failing, and at this particular job, it seemed I was given no other option than to fail.

I started my third job right after Derek and I got married. It was in the customer service field for a small custom label water bottle company. I did data entry and fielded calls about products and pricing. I loved customer service. I loved dealing with clients and developing
relationships with them. It was a nice Monday through Friday day shift with mandatory overtime in the busy months. I was quickly asked to take on more responsibilities, learning new job functions, such as calculating large order shipping fees, credit, and accounting. And I helped to fill in at the art department—I processed and checked the art that people wanted to put on their bottles. I did everything I was asked to do with enthusiasm. This is why I was so upset and confused when I was laid off, just as I discovered I was pregnant.

It took me over a year to conceive, so I worried there was something wrong with me, perhaps from the abuse I suffered as a child. But that changed one Saturday morning when Derek and I were getting up early to go kayaking with friends. The plan also included drinking that night. Since I was trying to get pregnant, I would take a home pregnancy test at least once a month, so I would know if I could have a drink. My cycle was irregular, so I tested often. On this morning, I felt hopeful.

The test came back with two pink lines. Positive! I ran upstairs to our bedroom and woke Derek. I showed him the positive test, and his response was tempered.

“I’ll believe it when we have a doctor’s confirmation.”

I took another test that morning, just to make sure it wasn’t a false positive, and the second test had the same two pink stripes. I was elated! But the thought of motherhood also scared me to death.

My pregnancy was bittersweet and endless, as I was anxious and unemployed the entire time. The human resources manager at work had known that I was pregnant because we were changing health insurance carriers and I had asked if my doctor would still be in-network. But there was no mercy. I was told business was slow and I would have to go.

I hated being unemployed. I had been working since I was fourteen years old, first as a cashier at Barefoot Contessa in East Hampton, the gourmet food shop, then at the YMCA at the front desk, and later in college, teaching in a computer lab. Being out of work made me feel useless. I hated the fact that I was not able to rely on myself. My whole life, I was self-reliant, until now.

I was nervous to tell my parents that I was pregnant and unemployed. Derek and I had a trip planned to visit East Hampton to share the good news, but cancelled because money was tight. It was on a webcam that I
broke the news that a baby was on the way.

Logan’s due date was May 30, 2009, but ten days later, there was no sign of labor. My doctor didn’t feel comfortable with my pregnancy lasting any longer, and I was ready to meet my little man. But I was terribly afraid of the delivery. My fear of needles still intense, I avoid any and all things that can cause pain, both physically and emotionally. I had more than nine months of built up anxiety about labor and delivery, and I prayed that I would go into labor on my own, but contractions never came.

Labor was induced and I was unable to get an epidural. I had put off the inevitable needle plunge into my spine for so long, it was then too late. Instead, I received an IV of Stadol, which did little to ease the pain. But that was nothing compared to the emotional pain that followed.

Logan’s head was too big, and his umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck. I don’t remember much about the panic in the delivery room, because I was wearing an oxygen mask and couldn’t see, but Logan’s heart rate dropped precipitously and there was a frantic effort to get him out. Derek looked grim. I was losing my baby. There was no controlling this situation. There was a mad rush to vacuum extract his head. I was told to push and push and I knew his life depended upon it.

Then, finally, there was a baby’s cry and sudden calm.

I was holding my baby boy in my arms. My life had just changed and it would never be the same. I had a little person who was going to rely on
me
to teach him what was right and wrong. And I knew the difference all too well. I had a beautiful son, and suddenly being out of work didn’t sting as badly.

The euphoria was short-lived. Even after we brought Logan home, motherhood was a struggle for me. Logan wouldn’t latch on. I knew it was important to nurse him to develop a bond with him that I never had with my mother. I tried everything to get Logan to nurse, but nothing worked. He cried miserably and I felt like a failure. Sadly, I resorted to pumping, and Derek would give Logan breast milk from a tiny medicine cup. I was jealous that Derek was able to develop that bond before I was. I couldn’t even feed Logan from the medicine cup because I was still in so much pain from delivery and a deep fourth degree episiotomy. It was difficult for me to get in and out of bed, to sit down, to stand, to walk. I was so out of control. Derek, it seemed, was the only one who could calm Logan down,
and this was hard to handle. I was the mother, but it was as if no one had told my child.

My parents came to visit us to meet their new grandchild. My mother and I talked about the difficulty that I was having nursing and how quickly I would get frustrated. She assured me that it takes time, it is a skill that both Logan and I needed to learn, and that if nursing was something that I really wanted to do, that Logan and I would need to work on it as a team.

Finally, on a Saturday afternoon, his tiny lips figured out what to do and a burden of guilt and shame melted away. Logan nursed in my arms for nearly an hour. It was the greatest feeling I ever had. I felt one with Logan and knew that I would never let anything or anyone cause him pain. Now, more than ever, I have no idea how anyone can hurt a child.

I stopped by Marilyn’s taxi stand about a year later. I had Logan with me. I didn’t warn her that I was coming. She wasn’t there; she was out on a call. So we waited. I hid behind a door and Logan was running around the dispatch office in toddler circles. Marilyn walked in and grinned, “Who’s this little one?”

“Your grandson,” I said, as I moved out from behind the door. She had a big smile on her face and tried reaching out to hold Logan but he squirmed out of her arms. She gave me a hug. The visit was brief. I try to be as civil as possible to her; I don’t think she is a bad person. She just never learned how to care for children. Grandma Helen gave me hugs and kisses, but it seems to have skipped a generation. As Uncle Bob told me growing up in that house was awful. I don’t know what went wrong. Maybe Helen resented not being able to have biological children of her own.

It took me a very long time to admit that Marilyn neglected me. She wasn’t there for me until it was too late.

Now, I live in fear of becoming like her. I used to watch Marilyn work countless hours at dead-end jobs, just to get nowhere; I watched her in very few relationships; I watched her struggle to make money and not make ends meet. I don’t want to worry about making our next house payment, affording new clothes for the kids, or birthday presents, and yet I constantly worry about our finances. I saw Marilyn struggle with money, and I could see the emotional toll that took on her. She couldn’t afford her
own house, so we were forced to live with our grandmother and Sal and Linda, in the house that my grandfather built. My entire life may have been different had Marilyn been able to buy her own house.

Just about the only thing that I would not mind having inherited from Marilyn is her ability to put other people’s needs ahead of her own. Marilyn always did put everyone ahead of herself and that is why it was so easy for Sal and Linda to take advantage of her. Sal and Linda were not only predators to John and me, but they abused Marilyn’s kind nature. I strive to not be as gullible nor someone that can be easily taken advantage of. It’s a trait that, when taken advantage of, can be disastrous.

People have told me that I look like Marilyn, and each time they do, I get defensive. To me it is an insult because of the weight. Concerns about my weight will be a constant fear and battle as I know that my genes contain that disposition. I have never been fat, but there was a time I would look in the mirror and see Marilyn. I’m certain that good eating habits are established when you are a child. This is why my eating habits are horrible. Growing up, an acceptable lunch was a candy bar or ice cream. My children will have a mother who knows about nutrition and realizes how vital it is.

Worst of all, I fear being short with Logan. I don’t know why, and it kills me that I get frustrated with him so easily. Toddlers don’t automatically know things. They need to be taught, and I need to teach. It breaks my heart that I have a temper with him. I want to give my kids the best childhood that I am capable of and I don’t want them to remember me being short with them. I don’t ever want my kids to look back on their childhood and think about how angry mommy got with them. Logan is my life. He is the sweetest little boy ever. He is an adventurer, gets into everything that he isn’t supposed to, and doesn’t listen. He is being a normal little boy. It is I who needs to learn, from scratch, how to be a mother.

I also live in fear of my family’s safety. Financially, I am unable to be a stay-at-home mother. I went back to work at an insurance company before Logan’s first birthday. Not being with Logan all of the time, I constantly worry about him. I try very hard to not be cynical, but it is very difficult to not immediately suspect the worst in people. I try to give people a chance to show me that they are not bad —but it is difficult for me
not to have my guard up. I find, as a mother, I am always looking at ways that my family or I can be physically or emotionally hurt. I am cautious about the people that I bring into my life, and that of my family. People are not what they seem. I have had so much hurt and pain that I don’t know if I can endure any more, and I don’t want to subject my family to even an ounce of that.

One day, I hope to be able to forgive the people who hurt me, but I’m not there yet. I still suffer effects of the abuse. I love my husband more than words can describe, but I care little if we are intimate. I would rather express to my husband that I love him by snuggling on the couch, enjoying a conversation over dinner, cooking dinner together or sharing the joys of parenthood. These are things I never knew could bring such pleasure. For the first ten years of my life, I never saw any adults being caring or loving toward one another.

As I tell this story, I am nine years old again. And I hurt very deeply for my nine-year-old self, mourning my lost childhood. But I have gained so much since then.

I celebrate January 14th each year like a birthday. It is the anniversary of the day I moved in with my parents. It is the day my life truly began. From the little girl that inched way from Tedd during car rides and lied to Barbara about the smallest things, I grew up to be my mother’s best friend and Daddy’s little girl. I owe them my life, and I know they feel just as deeply for me. I only remember my father crying twice since I have known him: first when he dropped me off at college and later when he walked me down the aisle. I hope the tears came from being proud of the work he did and of what I have become.

While I kept my silence for twenty years, I have been able to anonymously live a life more normal than I ever dreamed possible when, as a little girl, I was curled up in a ball, sobbing to my captor that my future was slipping away.

I gained precious parents and siblings; I was the first person in my immediate family to graduate from high school, and then college; I have a husband I tell I love each night before I go to sleep and mean it, and a home we own. I have had several productive jobs and years of life-saving therapy. I am a loving and learning mother, and I continue my recovery every day.

I am awed by the soul’s capacity for recovery. The most traumatic experiences unquestionably alter perspective, yet the original DNA that determines human grit appears to remain intact. My father called that “constitution.” A person is either born with thick skin or pulp. Katie has the leather-tough variety. Whether it was bestowed on her by virtue of her unidentified lineage or was the result of unremitting conditioning, I do not know. Add to the mixture dashes of love from Little John and Grandma Helen, and the end product was unyielding courage and a coat of emotional armor that shielded Katie until far better parenting came to the rescue. And it came in abundance in various forms.

This is not unlike the resilience of broken skin. Even the worst wounds heal. When ripped apart, jagged edges come together gradually, each day another band of tissue grows until a scab forms to protect the body from an invasion of germs. It’s a fascinating orchestration of biochemical events, but it’s also a fragile process susceptible to failure. Even after the scab falls off, the skin is never exactly the same and can remain tender for a long time, vulnerable to the elements. This is where I found Katie, healed but justifiably altered.