Chapter 1
Chapter 1
Samantha was born at the tail end of the post war baby boom. She grew up in an era when things were much different than today. She was a small shy reserved teenage girl who was on the tomboyish side. She liked being a girl but wasn’t always fond of primping and preening other girls did. She also didn’t like the demure or subjugated role society expected girls to adapt. She was quiet, unassuming and she usually tried to go as unnoticed as possible. She was an only child from a very broken home and her parents bounced her around for most of her brief life.
Unfortunately, the bounced aspect went beyond more than just frequent moving. Because she was an only child and moved often, she didn’t have many friends and was close to no one, including family. This also led to an inability for her to trust others. The few times she dared to get involved with anyone, her parents would move and rip her away from everything she grew close or loved, leaving her emotionally scarred. From that, she learned not to get close to anyone due to knowing the relationship could end an instant.
Many times, her parents whisked her away from family and friends without a moment’s notice or any chance to say goodbye. She had moved countless times and been through more than a child her age should ever have to experience.
Presently, Sam was nearing the end of her last year of junior high school and lived in a modest house with her mother, Sue.
One afternoon, she was in her driveway with a few neighborhood friends when she saw a strange car pull up to her house. Suddenly, her mind drifted back to a time when she was younger. Sam was lying on the floor of her parent’s room. She had gone in there seeking her mother and interfered between her parents. As she picked herself up off the floor, she wiped the blood that trickled from her nose. What could she have done to send her large hulking father into a fit of rage so intense that he struck a small child in the face with his fist? It was yet another lesson for the young girl to learn. She would learn never to get in the way of her mother’s attention for her father so she went quietly to her room to recover her wounds. Everyone else would see punching a small girl as abusive but for her father, Frank, it was his child, and no one was going to tell him what to do regarding her; not even her mother was to intervene on Sam’s behalf. Sue often felt Frank’s response to challenging him. Anyone in his house would always know the rules and who ruled his house.
For most of Sam’s early life, she experienced the distress of two terrible parents. Her father was horrible violently abusive man who terrorized his both wife and his daughter constantly. He took out his rage on them in every manner imaginable. Both knew how to make excuses for their many bruises and injuries. Sam learned how to tell others a blackened was from walking into a door and bruises were from falling off her bike. She always would explain how clumsy she was to excuse the various marks on her body.
This was a time where very few questioned or intervened in domestic issues. Neighbors ignored the screams and pleas from Sue and her daughter for Frank to stop his abuse. Teachers rarely questioned marks and bruises on children and even if authorities did come to the house, they never did anything more than issue a warning for Frank to keep it down. In addition to the physical beatings she took, there were endless verbal assaults as well.
Her father was a master manipulator in guilt because to him, nothing was ever his responsibility. If something didn’t go his way, it was always Sam or Sue’s fault. Sam did not hold the flashlight correctly or Sue did not hand him the right tool quickly enough. He would scream at his daughter for being stupid, silly, or just under foot. Heaven forbid if she needed anything that drew her mother’s attention away from him. He would not stand for it if the world did not revolve around him. He was always to come first in his house and Sam’s bloody nose was a painful reminder of that lesson. Frank once stabbed her with a fork for taking food from his plate.
He made her do things for which she was entirely too inexperienced and then humiliated her when she failed at them. Nothing she did was ever good enough for him. A good grade wasn’t enough unless it was the best grade in the class. A hit in softball wasn’t good enough unless it was the game winning homerun. The fear that she would strike out paralyzed her so badly that she would not swing the bat. Both of her parents instilled such a fear in her that she gave up playing sports, wouldn’t try out for any activity and gave up attempting anything. She had an amazing imagination, which her father hated, but she felt it best to keep everything locked in her head being fearful others would mock her if she ever shared any of it.
Making Sam’s life more unstable, her parents were also terrible with money. By the age of six, she knew about repossession and lying to bill collectors on the phone. She knew what it was to live without utilities, heat, food, or to pick up and move quickly to avoid bill collectors.
She knew what it was like to face significant discomfort at a young age. Near the end of her first year of school, Frank moved the family south and once again, her parents tore her away from her extended family with no notice and forced to her begin over again. They moved around a few times while she was in elementary school. Even though they stayed within the same general area, it still meant any new friend she might have made was gone she had to new friends again.
As the time passed, Frank’s abuse worsened towards Sam and her mother. Sam couldn’t stand the screaming and pleas from her mother for Frank to stop but they always went unheeded. Frank had no conscious or regret when it came to his abuse of either of them. Any time she tried to intervene on her mother’s behalf, she paid the same price.
The rotten bastard, as Sam had named him, began to be in and out of the house as her parents’ marriage was in shambles. He rarely hid his cheating on her mother and when she was ten, there came his despicable talk about the birds and the bees. The talk was so horrific and demeaning to females, she lost any remaining hope that he had even a single redeeming quality. While he gave her the talk, Frank admitted that he was cheating on her mother with another woman.
One day, without warning, he took Sam with him when he went go to see her. She wasn’t sure why exactly he did that. She protested when she learned about what he was doing. He took her with him a few other times as well but she decided that there was no way he was going to convince her to go with him when her parents finally separated.
The woman had a daughter who was about year younger than Sam was but she appeared much further advanced physically and socially. Sam never wanted to go with Frank because it felt like a betrayal to her mother and she didn’t like the domineering attitude her younger stepsister exhibited towards her.
Even though Frank was cheating with this other woman, when Frank would return home, Sue would take him back and every time she let him back in the house, the abuse and violence continued. Her daughter hated that her mother allowed it to continue too many times. His abuse continued until finally Sue had enough and struck back. It took her physically punching him back, which left Frank with a bruised face and ego. When he saw that she was no longer going to stand for his s**t, it convinced Frank it was time to leave for good. He finally packed his things, moved out and he was out of their life for good or, so they hoped.
Sam’s mother was not that much better a parent. She was not very attentive to Sam’s needs. Sam’s father took most of Sue’s attention leaving little left for her daughter. When not busy attending to Sam’s father, Sue was extremely self-involved. She wasn’t a naturally caring and compassionate mother. She tended to lean on her daughter for support and told her daughter things about her marriage that was far too inappropriate.
She also had a drinking problem. When Sue would drink, she would often use her daughter as her therapist, somehow thinking a young child knew how to solve adult issues. Sam tried the best she could to help her mother but there was often little she could say to help.
After Frank left, it was a struggle at first but Sue had a good job and with assistance from the government, she was able to buy a house. Sue was involved with Sam’s father from a young age and became pregnant soon after. Once Sue was free of her husband, it was as if she wanted to experience her lost youth. Sue dated, ran around, drank, stayed out late and neglected her young daughter at home. Many times, the bills went unpaid, utilities turned off and Sam left alone or sent her to stay with others. Many times, Sue forced Sam into the role of being role of the more mature of the two.
Sue grew up in a dysfunctional family with great deal of alcoholism and she often turned to Sam for advice dealing with family conflict and other life issues. It was insane to believe her daughter could fill all the roles Sue depended on her daughter to fill.
Life was a little less chaotic the next couple of years. There was that incident with one of her teachers that she never told anyone about what he did. It only happened once and not long after it happened, other students accused him of inappropriate behavior and he lost his job. She thought it best for it to remain her secret.
After the rotten bastard left, they hadn’t heard from other than through the court regarding child support. They assumed it was possible they would never hear from him again, which was something that suited both Sam and Sue perfectly. Sam would have been happy never to see Frank ever again because he had done more than enough damage both physically and emotionally.
Suddenly, Sam heard one of her friends call out her name as she snapped back to the present. She had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach as she saw the ominous car sitting there; she knew the identity of the driver before anyone emerged from the vehicle. As he exited the car, one of the kids asked who the large intimidating man was. It was Sam’s worst fear as she saw the rotten bastard was walking towards her standing there in the driveway. Why, after all this time, had he returned other than to make her life miserable?
Sue wasn’t home, so Sam couldn’t go get her and her friends were there, so she couldn’t just run in the house and hide. Frank walked over to Sam as he asked her how she had been and commented on how much she had grown since the last time he saw her. He told her about where he now lived, that he was married to that woman and lived with her and her daughter. She listened to his bullshit but wanted him to hurry up and get to what he wanted. Frank never did anything without an agenda, as he always wanted something. Correction, Frank always wanted everything and it was always someone else who paid the price.
What she truly wanted to do was to scream, “Get the f**k out of here and never come back!” because she hated him and never wanted to see him again. However, she knew if she did that, it could mean a beating right there in front of her friends. Well, it was possible he wouldn’t be that stupid to start beating on a teenage girl out in the open with that many witnesses.
Frank told her he missed her and he wanted her to come for a visit next weekend. She was standoffish with him and told him that she would have talk to her mother about it when she got home. She could tell how pissed he was at her but there were too many eyes for him to get away with one of his usual “confrontations” with his daughter. He glared at Sam, got back in the car in a huff and drove away.
The other kids noticed how much Sam’s demeanor changed after his visit and they asked about the man they had never seen but she was reluctant to say anything more than he was “the rotten bastard” and by her tone, they knew not to push the issue any further.
She did not want him in her life again and she definitely did not want to go stay with him in the middle of goddamn nowhere. She wasn’t sure how she could get out of going to stay with him for any amount of time.
When her mother got home, she told her about Frank’s visit and that he wanted her to come for a visit with him next weekend. Sue wasn’t happy that Frank showed up at the house, without notice, when she was not there and she knew that he somehow planned it that way. He was the master manipulator and he would think it easier connive his daughter without her mother there to protect her. He didn’t realize that his daughter was long since impervious to his bullshit as well.
Sue also was not pleased to let Sam go visit Frank but she couldn’t prevent it due to his visitation rights to her every other weekend as long he continued to pay support. He had never sought them before so they both were unsure why he suddenly chose to desired them now. Sue reluctantly told Sam she didn’t thing there wasn’t anything she could do to prevent it. Sam yelled, “What about my rights and how come I don’t get a choice in this?” She stormed off to her room and slammed her door behind her.
