I wake up in the morning, I notice ants, and spiders are crawling ON ME! I get up and I start to scream bloody murder.
Dad comes running out of his bedroom to see what is wrong and finds me on the mattress, on the floor, having a meltdown over insects crawling on my body. To dad, this is hilarious and he is laughing so hard he almost pees his pants. Apparently, bugs are not a big deal and I should not worry. I definitely do not feel better and I really want him to cover the giant hole in the wall where the bugs are coming in. He said the hole would be covered before bed tonight. My new bedroom, which I share with my sister, used to be the laundry room* and the insects are coming in through the dryer vent.
Noticing that my sister is missing, she is not in the bedroom when I was screaming bloody murder; we move around the small apartment and eventually make our way to the store. A regular interior door between our living quarters and the commercial business separates the spaces. We find my sister, sitting on the ground behind the counter with fistfuls of candy being crammed in her mouth… she found the blue fish gummies.
While dad and his concubine unpack, my sister and I explore the neighbourhood and make a few friends. Our new school is only one block away, and so is the hairdresser. Maeve makes an appointment for us to get our hair done before school starts. Maeve does not like long hair on children so my sister and I end up looking like boys when we get back from the stylist. Dad is not too impressed since he loves the long blonde hair my sister and I had. I hate my new haircut, its super short and sticks up in the middle like Alfalfa’s hair from the Little Rascals. My hair is poker straight, super fine, very blonde, and tangles easily. Maeve’s Irish hair is super thick, heavy, auburn, and naturally curly, down to her waist and the only acceptable hair type permitted in our house.
Soon after moving to the corner store (‘The Store’), we found out just what living with Maeve was going to be like.
“WHY ARE YOU SPEAKING FRENCH? SPEAK ENGLISH! THERE WILL BE NO FRENCH IN THIS HOUSE! IT’S RUDE TO SPEAK YOUR LANGUAGE IN FRONT OF OTHERS WHEN THEY DON’T SPEAK IT!” Maeve is screaming at me one day because I was asking my father if I could go play outside. As a 6 or 7 year old, I honestly had no idea what the difference was. Words were words and I was unable to comprehend they were separate languages. I did not know I was speaking “French” or “English”. I was just using my vocabulary, granted I had been living in a purely French household, went to a 100% French school and did speak French, it was my first language until Gary and Irene helped us with English after we learned words on Sesame Street.
“Fucking stupid French people” was a daily reminder of how much Maeve hated my culture and me. I remember being constantly yelled at to “SHUT UP!” and ”QUIT THAT CRYING!” – if I spoke French and was yelled at because I did not know what I was doing wrong. Dad was usually out either shopping for The Store or probably on one of his long rides in the bush. Dad was rarely a presence growing up. If he was, he was not an active parent in my opinion. Shortly after we moved to The Store I was told that Maeve would be my mother and that I was to call her ‘mommy’. However, I had a mother. I did not want or need another mother; but where was my mom? When I asked about her, Maeve would usually scream that she was a stupid fucking French whore and that SHE was my mother now. She had to be called ‘mommy’ otherwise her stepchildren would not respect her or listen to her. She needed supreme authority to emotionally, and psychologically beat us in to submission.
After a few months of living with Maeve and dad at The Store, it became apparent that I was not to speak unless spoken to; that I was to be quiet and not ask mommy anything or risk being screamed at. Our bedtime was 18:00 and we were not permitted out of our bedroom until 7:50 am. I had a windup clock, a watch, and times drawn on a piece of paper so I would not have an excuse to disobey. In the beginning, we stayed in our room and played games with each other. After a while, it was boring. The biggest mistake Maeve made was assuming that children would actually sleep from 18:00 – 07:45 every single night. I was used to a much later bedtime. At first, we did go to bed early, but we also woke up incredibly early – 3:30 AM early. Dad had left mom’s acoustic guitar in our closet so for several weeks, after I woke up at 3:30 I would reach for the guitar and attempted to teach myself to play. My sister and I would sing hymns we had learned at church… although singing is probably not the right word. One morning around 4:00, Maeve came BARGING THROUGH THE DOOR and she was fuckin’ PISSED!
“WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON IN HERE. IT’S TIME TO SLEEP! STOP IT WITH ALL THAT RACKET!”
I was terrified of this woman. It seemed like whenever my sister and I were playing or just entertaining each other we were screamed at. My sister was equally terrified and never went near her unless she absolutely had to. Every morning I took care of my younger sister; I got her up and dressed, combed her hair, we bathed together in the evening and I washed her and dressed her for bed. Maeve’s behaviour caused my sister, Roxanne, to start bed-wetting again.
Roxanne had not wet the bed the entire time she lived with my Aunt and Uncle, but she was terrified to leave our room at night to use the washroom so she peed the bed instead. I did not want us yelled at so I remember washing the sheets in the basement laundry room. I remember because when I asked Maeve how much soap to use, she absolutely lost her mind and I ended up using half the box of Tide powder. Fortunately, Maeve was upstairs in The Store deep-frying herself some eggs, bacon, and home fries in The Store’s chip stand (Barf!). We made the BEST fries in town. If you know Maeve, you know that she only eats food floating in grease, chips, Pepsi, and chocolate bars.
When I went down to the basement to check on the sheets, soap bubbles were filling the area and I had a panic attack. I knew I was going to be in shit and the screaming would be bad, but if I could clean it up then she would not see it, but how. Dad showed up and he thought it was hilarious. He helped me clean it up and I do not recall him ever saying anything to Maeve about it. After that, I did not want to have to deal with sheets so I placed Roxanne’s sleeping bag on top of the bed. Perfect solution! Maeve had a ton of perfume so I was pretty certain she wouldn’t notice if we used it in the morning to freshen up the sleeping bag. Wrong, but it took a long time for her to discover it.
One-day mommy was cleaning (snooping in our bedroom under the guise of cleaning), she looked inside the sleeping bag and the stench nearly knocked her over. She washed the sleeping bag and when we got home from school, WWIII was happening. Maeve was screaming at my father that he was a “stupid fucking French bastard with 2 ugly twins.” The general gist of this particular argument was that we (French people), are assholes who should not exist. She then spun on my sister and me, her frog-eyes bugging out, her pale skin was a deep shade of rage red, and she was spit screaming saying that we are dirty little bitches. In 1981 I was 7 and my sister was 4.5 years old.
Jack and Maeve had no idea we left the house every single night because we were NEVER caught. I would go through all the garbage bins and take old wood, nails, anything that looked like building materials. I would then bring all those materials down to a large park with plenty of trees, near the train tracks. I then ‘built’ my sister and me a hiding place – a tree-house with a little bench we could sit on. Once I had it built, I tried to get my sister up in the tree so she could sit with me. My dad fed my sister the way a grown man working hard labour would eat, so my sister was definitely not light as a feather back then. Roxanne was also not the most athletic, so I had to push her up the tree since she did not know how to climb one. She ended up getting wedged in the tree’s fork and I had a really difficult time trying to get her out. I decided if I used mud it would help her slide out like a banana from a peel. No, but it definitely made us look like dirty little bitches. I went back the following day only to see teenagers destroying my hiding tree. They laughed at my ‘seat’ and pulled the wood pieces and nails out, leaving them on the ground by the tree.
After not living with maman and papa for 2 years, Roxanne and I were faced with this truly hateful woman. She told me she hated me. She hated me because I was French and I looked like my mother - Maeve would never ever be able to escape the constant reminder. She was always waiting for the day Monique would want "her man back". She hated me for being blonde and blue-eyed. She hated Roxanne and me because that meant Jack spent less time kissing Maeve’s ass.
I remember one time, the only time; we ever played a board game. Gary and Irene had bought us Shoots and Ladders and we were playing as a family. Maeve told me she was going to teach me a lesson in life. She kicked my ass at the board game, made a big show of it until I cried, I felt so humiliated – point made; we never played board games as a family ever again.
After a few months, Jack had enrolled Roxanne and me in a karate class. He wanted us to be able to defend ourselves if we were ever attacked or kidnapped. Just because Jack left The Force, did not mean we were out of danger. One thing about my father, he is never on time. Never on time for anything – it doesn’t matter what it is, he will always be nearly an hour late. Guaranteed. On this particular occasion, I got tired of waiting on him to come and pick us up after karate – if I’m really honest, I thought he left us there because he loved Maeve now and not us. I decided that Roxanne and I needed a new home. The karate class was on Saturdays at my first school so I knew I was close to my grandparents’ house.
I took Roxanne’s hand and led her up the street in the direction of my Aunt and Uncle’s house. I happened to turn back and I saw my dad driving away from the school, he held a tissue to his eyes, he was crying I guess, thinking we were gone. I did not feel any guilt at leaving or watching him cry as he drove away. I felt happy that I would not be returning THERE with him. I also knew I needed a better plan, the anxiety in my gut told me I needed a plan. My Aunt’s house was not the safe haven I wished it to be; if I went to my grandparents, I knew they would call Jack and send us home, so I went to a non-relative. I walked up to Mme. Suzanne’s door, knocked, and asked if we could live with her. My father showed up not long after that, apologizing for being late and relieved to see us – he thought we assumed he forgot about us so I let him think that.
The closer we got to The Store, the more my stomach felt like it was in knots and I felt like I had to poop only I did not need to go to the bathroom. I could feel the electricity running through my veins – electricity was anxiety and I felt that all over my body. The voices in my head telling me she was going to kill me for this stunt. I started shaking and then we arrived home. Dad pulled into the carport; we got out of the truck and walked into the apartment. Hell’s fury rained down on us that afternoon. I cannot recall what she said, there were a lot of F-bombs, bitch and whore, French, bastard.. not too sure because my vault was ready and waiting for me when I shut the world out.
* the laundry room was moved to the basement. The basement had at least 4 bedrooms and to this day, i have no idea why my sister and I didn't each have a bedroom in the basement. My father used the basement for storage (I didn't realize he was a hoarder until very recently).
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