#shesthedevil

I learned a truth today. I learned a truth today that I should have learned in December of 2001/January of 2002. That’s a long time to keep a truth from someone, especially a truth that, while it might have changed nothing at all, it would have explained so much. 

I’ll start from the beginning.

December 21st, 2001, is one of the top 5 worst days of my life. 

On December 21st, 2001, a Child Protective Services (CPS) worker named Pam came to my residence, a residence that I happily shared with my 10-month-old son and my then boyfriend. Pam the CPS worker brought two RCMP officers with her. She also brought a court order that gave her the right to remove my son from our happy home. My son, 4 days before his very first Christmas, was ripped away from the only home he’d ever known, and driven the 500 feet down the alleyway, across the street, and halfway down the block to his new home- with my mother.

I put up a fight, but Pam pulled my boy out of my arms as the officers shoved me up against my living room wall, with my hands behind my back, threatening to put me in handcuffs if I didn't settle down. Once Pam left with my child and the RCMP went to hand out tickets or whatever they went to do, I collapsed on my living room floor. I stayed there, on that floor, and cried and screamed and beat my hands into that carpet for what seemed like hours. 

My worst day before this day was January 13th, 2000, when I was laying in a hospital bed with my grandmother. We knew she didn’t have long. It was just her and I there that day, I had my head on her chest and I was just talking to her. I heard her heart stop beating. One minute it was beating in my ear. And the next it wasn’t. December 21st, 2001, was worse. 

Once I finally collected myself as much as I could, and let me tell you, changing my clothes, washing my face, putting on my shoes and walking out my back door was a herculean task, I went to see Pam at her office. 

Her first words to me at that office were “Your eyes are all red, are you high?”

I had never wanted to punch anyone in the face as much as I wanted to punch her right there in that moment.

Pam told me that my son, *A* had been placed in the care of my mother. That she would work out a visitation schedule that was convenient FOR MY MOTHER, so I could see my son. A’s very first Christmas, my boyfriend was not allowed to come with me. *D would have made the whole thing more bearable, we’d been together 8 months, D loved A like he was his own, and we were in a really great place. They deliberately psychologically and emotionally knocked me down another peg. A’s first Christmas was spent in a home I wasn’t welcome in, I was under intense scrutiny. I received one hour with my boy. Maybe they had been trained by the CIA or the FBI, because my mother, her boyfriend (who’s an entirely different, abusive story), and my siblings watched me like they were watching the President of the USA. They had eyes like laser beams. They watched my every move with A, listened to my every word, stayed within 7 feet of me at all times. My grandmother, who bless her, had tried to warn me this was all coming. There wasn’t time to run. She kept looking at me with these sorrow-filled eyes. It was written all over her face that she didn’t agree with what my mother had done to me. Her and my mother fought about it. My grandmother, who was highly dependent on us for lots of things- she lived in a nursing home, and they wouldn't buy her cigarettes- didn’t talk to my mother for months, except to tell her how horrible a person she was. Grandma was savage. 

A and I never really did get a first Christmas. That single, solitary hour went by in the blink of an eye. A literal fucking blink. Before I’d really gotten in the door, I was being thrown out. I don’t remember what he wore, or what he got, or how many teeth he had that day. I don’t remember if he had his socks on- he went in cycles, for weeks he always wanted them on, and then for weeks, not-, or the color of his hair, it went back and forth between brown and blond. I remember crushing pain, I remember begging for just 10 more minutes and being told ‘no’. I don’t remember his face.

When D worked nights and I was home all alone, I would try and sleep. I had taken the blanket out of A’s crib, wrapped it in a pillow, and held onto it like my life depended on it. D would sometimes come home in the morning and find me sleeping on the floor in A’s room. He would wake me up and put me to bed. He did the best he could to help me, and I loved him for it. 

When I started going through all the paperwork that Pam- remember that bitch?- had given me, all the accusations against *D and I, accusations made by my mother, I was blown away. Let’s make a list, shall we, of the accusations:

A was not fed often enough (A had a low iron lever at his 9-month checkup, and was cutting 5 teeth at once). But at 10 months, that chunky little bugger was 26 pounds and had baby tummy rolls for days.

D and I were drug dealers. We were both also addicts.

D and I threw loud, wild alcohol and drug-fueled parties with A in the house.--------We lived across the alley from our landlord. If we were throwing these parties, the landlord would have known about it----

A wasn’t bathed often enough and often smelled ------- Let me tell you, 10-month-olds are into everything, and usually have at least 3 baths a day-----

A was often left in soiled diapers for hours and often had rashes                          -------- ahem, bullshit, ahem-----

A was often left in dirty soiled clothes for hours and often had rashes                    --------remember those 3 baths we just talked about? They come complete with fresh diapers and clean clothes, it's just how it works ------

A often had bruises and abuse was suspected     ------ 10-month-olds who are crawling/army crawl/walking along tables/running into walls and doorways and closed doors/falling over usually have some bruises----

And finally...

A was being driven around in a truck with blaring music.

It’s quite a list, and all easily explained away. 10-month-olds are dirty, and smelly, and have bruises, and then they have all these baths, wear all these clean diapers and all these fresh clothes. That's how it works. Loud wild parties? Drug dealers? I’m positive our landlord, who also ran a real estate firm in town, would have noticed the parties and strange people coming and going all the time. On January 4th, 2002, D and I drove 200 km’s to the nearest drug testing facility. We both paid to be tested. We both came back clean for any and all drugs. It didn’t make a difference at our first court appearance, where D and I were ordered to undergo psychiatric evaluations by local professionals. Where I, and D was not allowed to come with me, received 4 supervised hours of visitation with A at my mothers' house, as her schedule allowed, per week, until our next court date.

The supervised visitation never did get any easier. 

D didn’t want to do his psych evaluation. I didn’t blame him. He didn’t sign on for this. He was just a guy I had taken home from a crappy bar 8 months ago. This wasn’t his family he was fighting, and he didn’t know how dirty they could fight. But he did it anyway. He talked to the shrinks. He answered all their questions. He participated in the ‘couple’ eval too. He wasn’t happy about it, but he did it. He worked 12+ hours a day- 7 days of days, 7 days of nights, and then 7 days off. Hard work. Roughneck work. In January. And yet, he still did all of this. 

We did, after our next court appearance, get in our home, unsupervised 3-hour visits, 3 times a week. We got him for 5 hours on his first birthday. His face was covered in green icing and chocolate cake. He wouldn’t let go of one of the dinosaurs that had been sitting on top of his cake. His hair was more blond than brown until it was green. His eyes shone like stars. He had 6 teeth in front- the middle two on the top and the middle 4 on the bottom. I remember he laughed, big belly laughs. I remember him hightailing it out of the bathroom when I tried to put him in the tub, covered head to toe in cake. I remember the high pitched squeal he made when I said his name and came around the corner after him. I remember him giggling as I chased him, I remember the fit he threw once he was in the tub and it was time to start cleaning him off. 

We didn’t get a first Christmas, but we got a first birthday. And it was perfect.

7 days later the judge told us A was coming home. He was coming home that day. He was being dropped off at home at 4. He was really coming home! D and I rushed the 45 minutes home. I spent that 45 minutes bouncing in my seat and hyperventilating. He spent that 45 minutes trying to get me calmed down before I passed out. I went and bought all his favorite foods. I bought him new bedding, because this felt like a fresh start, and this fresh start needed new bedding. And I paced. And I fidgeted. I had the cleanest bathtub on the block. I quadruple checked that the strings on the blinds were high enough he couldn't reach them. I rearranged his drawers for the 73rd time. 

And then there he was. At my door. He was mine. He was all mine. And when Pam turned to leave, that boy was staying with me and she was walking away with her nose intact.

D didn’t work that night. And he didn’t fight me when I refused to let A sleep anywhere else but with me. He sighed, said “yes dear. I love you. Night A. Night L”, kissed the back of my head, snuggled up to my back, put his arms around A and I and went to sleep. I had my baby in my arms, A and I in my hunnies arms. I had the greatest sleep of my life.

I was witness to A’s first unassisted steps 2 days after he came home. 

No one can ever take that away from me.

We packed up and left town not long after A came home. We couldn’t stay there. We would run into my mother or her boyfriend and they would make comments towards us, be ignorant. My mother yelled at D in a parking lot once.

We moved in with my father while we looked for a place. That man is an entirely different story. I was back in my element, my hometown. 

A month later D left. It broke my heart to see him go. It broke something in me. He had been so strong for me for so long that he brought me home because he couldn't be strong for me anymore. The emotional and mental anguish that comes along with a traumatic experience like this doesn't just go away the minute your baby comes home. They linger. For years.

It took me a very long time to get to a place where I accepted D was gone, and he wasn’t coming back. It took some hard on the heart things to happen for me to get there, but I did. 

With the invention of Facebook, D tracked me down several years ago. We’d message back and forth here and there, but not frequently. Then I wouldn't hear from him for 3 years. Then he’d pop up outta nowhere with a “Hey stranger, whats new” message. Then I wouldn't hear from him for a couple more years. We were living our own lives, and those lives didn't include each other. It’s just the way it was. 

D and I have been messaging a bit more these days. Turns out, we actually make pretty good friends. 

I saw D today. It’s been 13 years. He hasn’t changed. A lot more wrinkles- but the good ones, the ones you get when you laugh a lot. This one weird random patch of dark hair on the back of his head is completely grey now. His smile is the same, and his voice is the same, and it was sort of comforting to see it, hear it again.

We got to talking about whatever happened to my siblings, and my parents. He’d told me years ago to get away from all of them and never look back. I should have listened. 

On the list of accusations, the one accusation that always confused me was:     A was being driven around in a truck with blaring music.                                              Yes, D did have a loud diesel truck. Yes, he had a loud stereo system in it. Yes, he cranked that bitch up when he ran errands. That stereo always stayed at a very civilized level when A was in that truck.

Today D was saying something that I didn’t catch, but I did catch, “..and that's the day I lost all respect for your mother.”

I asked him what he was talking about, and he said: 

“do you remember the list?”

Me: Of course I do

D: The part about the truck having music blaring

Me: What about it?

D: She did that part to me.

Me: What do you mean?

D: A month or so before A was taken I had stopped at the post office. I left the truck running and the music up. She walked past me. She looked in the truck, you could see that A wasn’t in his car seat, and she smiled at me. And then it wound up on that list.

Me: Why didn’t you ever tell me?

D: You didn’t need to know. You didn’t need more stress. I watched you try to stay together but just fall apart. You didn’t need to know. You would have been angrier, and you didn’t need that. I did have words with your mother.

Me: *completely flabbergasted* What?

D: After we got A back, I ran into your mother. I told her what a disgusting human being she was to do something so terrible to her own grandson and daughter. That I knew that she knew that A hadn’t been with me that day at the post office. That that had been a cheap shot at me, but that you had gotten hurt, not me. 

Me: You said what?

D: She deserved it.

And I set down my pool cue and I drug him off his chair and I gave him a big hug. That bastard broke my damn heart 16 years ago, and today, the part of my heart that was still a little broken just for him isn’t broken anymore. 

Would knowing that that ridiculous accusation was a cheap shot at D changed anything? No. Am I glad he chose to keep it from me until now? Yes.

No one ever did talk to my landlord.

To this day, my mother refuses to admit she had anything to do with this entire event and pretends the entire thing never happened.