Daddy's Girl and Mama's Little Helper

There was a time I felt free. As a little girl I wandered the Redwoods in the little piece of heaven my father secured for us in Monterey, California called Jacks Peak. We had 9 acres of forest and my father built a house and a horse farm where we raised Arabians and German Shepherds. Kim Novak and Clint Eastwood were common names in my household and Ms. Novak was our neighbor up the road.

I remember my mother speaking of Ms. Novak one time and called her a “people hater”. Anxious to see what a “people hater” looked like, I remember sneaking up our hill to her property to try and catch a glimpse of her. I never was able to catch find her at her property the many times I tried. She was a famous movie star; I thought maybe she was just busy being famous and hating people. Once I caught a glimpse of her at a horse race we would frequent. “There she is”, my mom pointed her out. I had my chance to get up close. I remember slipping away from my parents and walking right up to her. I looked her square in the eyes, smiling at her to see if she would hate me too. Instead she just smiled back. If that’s what a people hater looked like I guessed it wasn’t so bad.

I loved my forest and dogs and horses. I spent hours alone climbing trees and speaking with the animals. I can remember feeling very connected back then. There were hours my father would leave “for business” during the day and I always was anxious for him to return. I had a hot pink big wheel which I would race down our steep driveway over the asphalt that wasn’t quite finished and whose bumpy surface always made riding on it an adventure. Up and down, up and down, I would fly on my big wheel all the way down our long driveway; push it back up and then ride down again. As my dad turned the curve on our land when he would arrived back to our property, I could hear the engine in his V-8 Chevy Camaro ahead of him and would wait with excited anticipation on that big wheel right in the middle of the driveway. “Hi Kitty Kee” he would greet me as he would peak out of his window as pulled up past me to park. I was always hopeful he would be happy to see me but that wasn’t always the case; not on the days he was feeling anxious.

I remember feeling confusion (although I couldn’t label it then) when instead of his normal greeting and sparkle in his eyes for which I was in such hopeful anticipation, it was as if I was an annoyance or he barely acknowledged me. I could never figure out what was wrong or right with me. Like most little girls, I loved my daddy. Once he came home I was his shadow. I followed him inside and would just sit anywhere near him for a little attention. I wanted to soak as much up of him before he would leave again and I never know how long he would be gone. When he was home it seemed as if the telephone receiver was glued to his ear. Once when I was sitting at the table eating cereal getting very frustrated at his long phone conversation, I remember interrupting him several times in futile attempts to steal some of his time. He kept ignoring me and I continued to persist; “Dad” “DA-AD” I need some more milk. Can you get me some more milk? It wasn’t the milk I needed it was him. It seemed like just when I would feel connected with him and safe again he would leave. I remembered questioning to myself; where did he have to go that was so important all the time? How come when he would come home I had to share him with people on the phone? If he wasn’t on the phone, he was in his room lying on his bed with his shot guns or sometimes in a bath tub full of water always in the dark, not wanting to be bothered. Sometimes he would sit in that water for hours.

I wasn’t having it today. I wanted more milk and that was more important than this phone call. The next thing I new I was bleeding. I had suffered a severe contusion to my forehead right above my eye. He had gotten so upset from my interrupting him that he grabbed the closest thing which happed to be a metal can opener and flung it in my directing in an off the handle approach to get me to shut up. It was like I was this annoying object he had to destroy in the moment to keep focused. The pain was not coming from my head but my heart. My heart had just been shattered. This man I looked up to so much had just hurt me so much I wouldn’t even realize to what extent until nearly 30 years later. He had just taught me a valuable lesson. It was okay for men to abuse me when I wanted there attention.

Mom was sad a lot. She would sing sometimes and the sun would be shining and other times the house became very quiet and melancholy. She always kept busy decorating or cleaning. Sometimes we would do craft projects together and I can remember feeling so connected to her when we were creating something special together. Sometimes she would dress me up in little dresses and girly outfits and take hours of photos of me on our land. I felt so pretty and special in those moments. I was so proud when she would shellac those pictures and send them as gifts to our other relatives. Sometimes when he would come home we would go for horseback rides on various trails on ours and adjoining land sometimes into dark. We would collect wild mushrooms to fry up later with breadcrumbs and garlic that were always so wonderful. Sometimes when we would ride we could catch glimpses of deer and other animals who shared the land with us. Those were my happiest memories.

Other times when my father was feeling especially agitated he would take his bow and arrow and shoot them at raccoons. Sometimes when he would shoot one, always aiming at their “ass” he would just watch as I stood there petrified as they would suffer and cry for what seemed like a lifetime to me. He would laugh. He got so much enjoyment out of making these poor helpless animals suffer I hated him and felt like part of me was suffering with those creatures. How could someone do that? I was so confused. Years later after my mother left him I would visit him on my great aunts farm and he would make me watch as he shot legs off of prairie dogs and let them run around until all the blood would drain from their bodies. I felt so helpless. I just wanted to run but he wouldn’t let me. Those poor little animals would just cry as they were being tortured. One time one ran up to us almost pleading for him to stop and when it looked at me I felt ashamed of myself for being a part of this. How could God let him do this? How could God make him my dad?

When mom got sad I felt helpless. Nothing I could say or do would make her better. Sometimes she was depressed for days. Sometimes he was gone for days. If he wasn’t home at night she would put me to bed and stayed with me until I fell asleep. I could feel her restlessness as she lay with me but these were the times she stayed near; when he was gone. “Kara”, “Kara”, come on, we have to go for a ride. She would awaken me just past midnight. “Get your sleeping bag; we need to go find your father.” As she fired up the two tone green Ford, she would make me a bed on the front seat and we were off on our mission to go get dad. We would drive from bar to bar and house to house looking for him. I would wait in the car while she went in. I would search her face as I saw her walking back to the truck with the shadows and streetlights holding her expressions. The worry in her eyes grew with each new location and finding him to no avail. Finally after hours she would give up, crying all the way home and then she would shut down as she turned off the ignition as we would arrive back to that driveway, defeated.

I didn’t find out where he had been until I turned 36 and asked my mother after all those years did she ever find out where he a had been? It turns out that he admitted to her years later that he was at his girlfriend’s house. Beth was years younger than my mother. Maybe 18 or 19 my mother was an old maid at 27. Used up. My mother used to vent her pain in poems. When I read what she had written, mostly poetry, it was very evident to me that she had a lot of anger toward him for demeaning her, especially her appearance. It was apparently the stronghold he had on her. She was his model. He was always taking pictures of her and I and I think she thought that was her main value. When other women started coming around she must have thought that he didn’t find her attractive anymore.

The women he cheated with were always beautiful. Once “Beth” came to our doorstep crying. She was looking for my father. She had an abortion and he wouldn’t come with her and she was distraught. I remember the kindness my mom showed to her even while I could feel my mother’s hidden pain as she listened to Beth’s story. This was all very confusing to me but I just stood there and watched, listened carefully and felt helpless again. As my mother wrote she could express her inner feelings. I don’t remember ever hearing her stand up for herself. Sometimes I would have to search to find mommy. She was hiding again. I could feel her pain in my heart. One time I found her alone in our neighbor’s horse barn so detached and hopeless. He was gone again. I started to get angry and wanted to make her better. I felt so bad for her. “I love you, mom” “I will be here for you”. She just looked at me and kept crying not saying a word. I remember hugging her and just knowing my love was never going to be enough.

Eventually, my mom left dad while he was away in Utah on a hunting trip. It was a dramatic and carefully planned event. She called the Prom King hero. He was her ex-boyfriend from high school who was the nice boy her parents always “liked”. He had been the prom king when she was the prom queen while she was a senior in highschool in Belleview, Nebraska, one of the many places they had been stationed during my grandfather’s service in the United States Air Force. This new man was coming to get us and he was going to be our new dad. My little brother was only just months old.

As she packed our things to prepare our final departure from my home in the woods, she put me on the phone with my dad who called long distance the night before we left. I was not to tell him we were going to leave she warned me as she handed me the phone. I remember feeling excited by the drama of our escape, and horribly guilty because I was going to betray him. I was scared and I missed him but she had decided she had had enough. This time when she fired up that Green Ford pickup with all our belongings in the back and my brand new baby brother, we weren’t looking for Dad anymore. We were going to try and find mom.