Chapter 20 #2
But there’s no mistaking what she did to Cassi, my role in it haunting me to this day.
I won’t forgive Lenore’s inhumane treatment of a ten-week-old creature that was completely helpless.
As bad as Lenore had been our first stay with them in 1966, she was ever so much worse this time, her rage uncontrollable.
On one memorable occasion her older son came home briefly from Princeton Theological Seminary.
He was driving the family Buick while having a discussion with his mother.
She didn’t like something he said and slapped him hard across the face.
It’s a wonder he didn’t swerve off the road, and I was shocked, shrinking in the backseat.
I made myself as small and quiet as possible while watching him clam up, his cheek bright red.
Around this time, John was just as afraid of Lenore as I was even if he later blocked out much that happened.
But he remembers getting a bad grade on his report card.
Terrified of incurring her wrath, he changed the D to a B and wasn’t a good forger.
She found out and hauled him to Calvin Thielman’s house to be whipped with a belt.
That’s one trauma John hasn’t forgotten, and I was aghast that our minister would do such a thing or be Lenore’s confederate.
She warned us to keep our mouths shut. Never were we to talk about what went on in her home.
Once again, I was drinking honey and vinegar multiple times daily. Not allowed to shower, I looked like a “greaser,” as one of my classmates put it. I used Psssst! dry shampoo to clean my hair, turning it a vaguely dull chalky white. Lenore insisted on looking at every test I took.
If the score wasn’t perfect, she’d sit me down in the living room after dinner.
She’d make me take the test again and again until I got every answer right.
I started pulling out my hair, creating a sizable bald spot on my crown that the other kids pointed at, whispering, snickering.
I’d sit in the back corner of my eighth-grade home room hiding from everyone.
I was outgrowing my clothes and had holes in my underwear.
Worst of all, Lenore was teaching at my elementary school in Black Mountain.
I had to ride with her every morning and afternoon, cowering in the backseat, hoping she’d forget I was there.
But she didn’t, berating me nonstop throughout the entire drive, but never a cross word to my brother John.
I couldn’t escape her on any front, her verbal attacks extraordinary.
“Put that in your pipe and smoke it!” was the typical coda of her abusive comments.
It would turn out that she was disparaging me to my teachers.
One morning when I walked into math class, Mrs. Brown sternly moved my desk, isolating me from the rest of the students.
She’d hover near me watching everything I did.
I was stunned and humiliated, having no idea what was going on, my classmates staring and whispering.
That afternoon while waiting for Lenore to drive us home, I visited with my English teacher, who was always nice and helpful. I told her the way Mrs. Brown was acting. I couldn’t understand why she moved my desk away from everyone.
“You really don’t know?” the English teacher asked.
“Know what?” I replied.
“Mrs. Saunders told Mrs. Brown that you cheated on your last math test. All your teachers had been alerted.”
It was a lie. I’d never cheated on anything in my life and never would.
Besides, Mrs. Saunders reviewed my every test, forcing me to take them again if I gave a wrong answer.
Had I cheated, she would have realized it immediately.
But there was nothing I could do. The faculty believed Lenore and not me.
I was branded, more isolated and self-conscious than ever.
That was when I became acquainted with Linda Hile, who lived in a nice house on the Black Mountain golf course.
We were in Mr. Pollard’s home room, and she started sitting in the back row next to me.
When she struck up a conversation, I couldn’t believe it.
She seemed unaware of my ill-fitting clothes, my powdery hair and bald spot.
In no time we were inseparable, and I was spending the night now and then at her house.
Eventually, her family would include me on trips to a ski resort and the amusement park Six Flags Over Georgia.
It was Linda’s mother who taught me about certain indelicacies relating to puberty, such as using a tampon instead of a thick sanitary napkin attached to an elastic belt.
Reassuring me that menstrual cramps were normal, she’d give me a hot water bottle and a Midol.
I knew quite a lot about what went on sexually between adults, but Mom hadn’t gotten around to telling me about puberty.
The first time I had a period, I thought I was bleeding internally.
I was appalled by changes to my body I’d not been told to expect.
I looked at other girls my age and the way the boys looked at them.
Most of the boys didn’t notice me at all.
I was skinny and still wearing an undershirt.
The hair I didn’t pull out needed cutting and was dusted with dry shampoo, my front tooth chipped from flipping over my bicycle.
I’d been branded a cheater and felt terrible about myself.
I couldn’t imagine anyone liking me. It seemed Lenore went out of her way to crush my spirit.
By early 1970, Manford was traveling constantly, his relationship with his wife all but over.
I remember him dropping by the house now and then to take care of a list of chores she’d leave taped to the kitchen wall.
I could feel her resentment and dry-ice coldness. When he showed up, he didn’t linger.
Later I would hear gossip about him having an affair and being defrocked as a Presbyterian minister. He would leave his family not long after my brothers and I stayed with them in 1970. The last time I saw Manford Saunders, I was walking along Assembly Drive one summer evening.
A Winnebago lumbered in my direction, stopping when it reached me.
I was startled and baffled to see Manford at the wheel.
Friendly as ever, he told me that he was living in the camper and hawking Cherokee Indian souvenirs.
Feeling sorry for him, I said how cool that was, promising if I ever had any extra money, I’d buy a few.