The Social Worker Visit

Trigger warning: Child abuse (factual, not graphic). Real family role titles sans names, to protect the survivors not the perpetrators. Mood: "Adios, Au Revoir, Auf Wiedersehn" by Bob Patin

It was calm in the home that night.

Aunt and Uncle, our guardians, had bluntly declared it was “time to sit in the living room,” which was always an order and never a suggestion. From my room, I strategically followed the hall into the kitchen rather than the foyer in order to approach the living room from behind and avoid crossing anyone’s path. I passed through the kitchen and stood at the threshold from the dining room to the living room, taking in the scene for a moment. An old rerun of The Lawrence Welk Show was playing on one of the few TV channels our antenna could reach. Their daughter - my only cousin - had always called it The Bubble Show because the intro sequence had bubbles. I hated that show exactly as much as I hated ‘60s bubble gum pop. I hated everything they liked.

My cousin was three years older than I but had always acted emotionally younger. I’d cringe at the shrill baby-voice she would use with them, calling her parents Mommy and Daddy until the day she ran away at seventeen. Looking back, perhaps it was a product of her having lived with abuse her entire childhood. My sister and I had experienced life without severe abuse, until we were taken. But our cousin never had that experience. These were her parents. I didn’t miss her though, nor did I feel sorry for her. I was glad she was gone. Just another bully in the house, I felt. She’d do things like hold down my sister and make her smell her funky track shoes, or she’d talk down to us, or she’d use blackmail tactics to get us to do or say what she wanted by threatening to get us into trouble in a home where punishment could mean torture. Sometimes she and I got into fist fights, which were as much about resenting her as defending myself or my sister. There were some days we got along, but most days we were indifferent towards each other. There was never a moment I felt completely safe in her presence, even when laughing together.

I remember her asking me if we’d be ok with her running away. “I wanted to make sure you’d be ok if I’m gone.” Not with genuine concern in her eyes, but with the satisfaction of checking a task off her list so she could say she did something right. She knew damn well we wouldn’t be ok. And she knew damn well we were even less ok with her home. But she needed me to tell her it was fine.

Having taken in the living room scene, I opted out of cushioned seating in order to keep a quiet distance, and sat down right where I’d been standing on the wide wooden step that was the threshold between the carpeted dining and living rooms.

Aunt sat on the couch to my right, legs crossed above the knees. On her lap laid an open magazine she clearly wasn’t reading. Her top leg wagged deliberately. Her pointed expressions were sentences in a language only we were conditioned to read. She flipped the pages flamboyantly as if punctuation to the daggers her eyes were throwing.

Uncle sat in the recliner to my left, legs propped up, petting their one indoor pet - a very sweet, chubby black and white cat with a decrepit meow. I really loved her. I never understood how she could tolerate such terrible people even in their “best” moments. I often wondered where she hid whenever voices raised or violence began. Uncle’s attention was on the TV, and he seemed content with a faint grin which likely meant he was pleasantly high on his arthritis pills tonight.

Careful not to draw attention to myself, I stared blankly at my hands, fidgeting aimlessly. I’d learned how to stay aware enough to respond promptly if spoken to while dissociating enough to shift the rest into background static when everything in my body buzzed but I had to appear to be neutral in thought.

The sun had set. I remember wishing I were outside with my spaniel, Lady. I’d learned young that animals were predictable and incapable of hate, and humans were volatile and full of it. I was safer outside and my mind often wandered there as an escape. In the black country night, the moon was a beacon of quiet mystery amongst a plethora of stars glinting to horizon’s infinity. In the absence of any noise made by man or machine, the night birds’ calls and seas of rustling leaves reminded me the woods were more curious than savage. Night inside was where Evil huddled in false light, with black holes for windows behind the colonial white lattice. Every shadow had secrets; every wall had its favorite horror story. I had much more to fear in my own house than in the woods. In the woods, the cold would take me long before a monster would.

My little sister had just used our shared restroom in the hall. When I heard the toilet flush and realized where she was, I hoped she would intuit to come through the kitchen. But she didn’t. She took the path through the foyer and entered the living room from behind the couch Aunt sat on. Sis’ hand playfully traced along the wooden railing behind the couch that led to the front door. The adults casually took the opportunity to demean my sister. The kind of comments meant to break a child slowly from the inside in ways a physical beating doesn’t. Aunt and Uncle rarely missed an opportunity to shame us. I felt like they picked on her more often than me in this way, but I couldn’t guess why. Sis briefly met my eyes then watched her feet as she sauntered to the center of the living room and sat on the carpet.

Sisters, divided.

A firm knock at the door startled us.

This was the country. Our home sat atop a hill centered upon a sprawling thirteen acres with a cow pasture on one end, a forest on the other. Our driveway was practically a tiny road. In the country, there are no Girl Scouts selling cookies, no door-to-door salesmen, no police knocking to see if someone witnessed commotion next-door. A knock on our door after dark was rare, indeed.

Sis and I both rose to our feet but kept them planted. The last time there was a mysterious knock after dark, it was Farmer Cox threatening to shoot Lady if she and her local furry friends didn’t stop running his cows. She was my dog, so it was my responsibility to own all of her destructive fun. There were no fences in this town ‘cept to contain livestock - mostly electric or post-and-rail, which any dog can get around - so I didn’t much have control of her. I mended her wounds, took care of her needs, played with her profusely, and buried all of the dead things she brought home at the edge of the woods. Those who argued with Farmer Cox were at much greater risk of their dog becoming target practice, so I’d been told. So my strategy was to always apologize and agree with him. “I’m sorry Mr. Cox…You’re right Mr. Cox…I hope not, she’s still a pup sir…I’m sure she doesn’t know any better….I understand, sir, you’d have to do what you’d have to do…” My stomach dropped as it hit me that this could be Farmer Cox’s final knock at the door. Where was Lady?

Aunt and Uncle opened the door to welcome a woman in a flowered mid-calf dress and pumps. She introduced herself as a social worker from the South Carolina DSS Child Support Services, and asked if she could come in, said it wouldn’t take long. Sis and I straightened our spines. We’d been living this hell for years - since I was nine and she six. We’d never seen anyone care or even acknowledge having seen the signs before, so why now? A rush of ice cold hope with sharp spikes of fear zipped up my back. I wondered what sis was thinking, and adjusted my face.

The adults performed their top notch fakery and welcomed the woman in. She scanned the minimally decorated, unnaturally pristine home and turned her attention to us kids. “Come here, girls,” she beckoned with an oversized plastic smile. She coaxed, “Don’t worry, I’m just here to ask you a few questions and then I’ll go.”

This woman felt wrong in an inarticulable way.

Sis and I reluctantly did what she asked, forcing our bodies to do the opposite of what they wanted. As Sis and I stood shoulder-to-shoulder facing this strange woman, she took a patronizing stance with hands on her hips and a slight stoop (as if it wasn’t just her pumps that made her a few inches taller than I was). Her eyes shifted to something happening behind us as she widened her smile again. There was nothing warm about that smile.

I stifled a jolt as I felt someone’s hands grab my left bicep and right shoulder - hands I would never consent to touch me. These hands belonged to the person I hated most. These were wretched, poison hands. Kidnapper’s hands. The hands that could shift from the taste of a child’s suffering to elegant gesticulation with church folk with ease. I looked beside me to find that Uncle stood behind my sister, his hands on her. I learned later that she must have hated his hands even more than I hated Aunt’s, which was impossible to imagine at the time. Even at her young age, my sister had learned to hide her fear well. But in this moment, I thought I saw it for a second.

One of the first concepts we were brainwashed with was that we’d be separated if we ended up in Foster Care. “Those Foster Care homes are just as bad as here and worse. And you’d be separated, so you’d be alone, too. You think about that good and hard.” Aunt would grit her jaw and say these things through her teeth close enough for the spittle to land.

It had worked. We knew it like the sky was blue and cows loved salt: If the state took us, we’d be still be suffering but we’d be suffering alone.

I internally shuttered as I felt Aunt’s large hands tighten. We were trapped in a controlled spotlight controlled by whom we felt were the most repulsive beings on Earth.

This strange woman spoke the words that confirmed what I already knew: she was not here to help us.

There we are, it’s nice to meet you. It seems that your aunt and uncle here are taking very good care of you. Wouldn’t you agree?

She nodded, inviting us to join her.

I couldn’t. We had learned how to mask feelings, disguise bruises, and deny abuse. But to outright agree to being treated well? No. I suppose that’s where the line was, for me. To nod, to say yes to that question would take what last of my dignity I had kept alive. I could lie and say I was fine, but I couldn’t lie and say they were good to us.

Well, I’m just here to ask a few questions and then I’ll be on my way. Ok? Just a few questions. But before I ask, I need you to understand somethin’ very clearly.

No matter what you tell me tonight, I cannot remove you from the home.

She nodded to us as she spoke, searching our eyes.

I’m just a social worker. I’m not a police officer. I don’t have the power to remove you from this home. Ok?

She slowed her words just enough.

So no matter what you tell me tonight, you will stay home when I leave. I need to know you understand that. Please be honest with me, but whatever information you give me will not mean your immediate removal. Do you understand? And be honest with me.

I remember it was so difficult to hide my repulsion. The only chance we were ever given to be seen, and she made it clear she was not there to see us.

I reluctantly nodded. I lowered my shoulders, hardened my jaw. Shifted from hidden fear to hidden rage. I wonder how see-through I was.

The social worker proceeded to ask her “just a few” questions, strictly in yes/no format. She leaned words in the local style. Her intent was obvious.

She asked if we were happy out there in the country. Didn’t we like our pets, the weather, our lovely home? Did we like playing instruments and taking dance lessons and getting excellent grades?

“Yes, yes, yes.”

Then she asked if they hit us.

With our abusers’ hands on our bodies and their bodies behind our backs, we had no voice. And with it, we answered.

“No.”

Are you sure?

I went numb, unable to feel my sister in this moment.

“Yes.”

Well then, that wasn’t so hard, right?

Clearly satisfied, the social worker beckoned Aunt and Uncle aside in mumbled conversation on the foyer, gave the good-night pleasantries only to them, and waved distantly at us -the two girls standing like boards in the sand, confused, stifling tears.

The rest of this night is gone. A suppressed memory, deleted memory, blocked memory, repressed memory - whatever the term, it’s swallowed in the dark matter. It seems there are many forms of memories, and although some become suppressed there are those that earn a special sort of deletion that’s indescribable. I wrote about my blocked memories in Alien in the Room. I plan to speak with my sister about this night. I’m sure her perspective is unique to mine, and I know it’s just as valuable. Although we stood in each other’s shoes in that moment, we were each in our own worlds as well.

Resources…

National Domestic Violence Hotline - victims and survivors who need support, call 1-800-799-7233 or if you’re unable to speak safely, log onto thehotline.org or text LOVEiS to 22522.

Suicide & Crisis Lifeline - Call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org. Free & confidential emotional support for suicidal crisis or emotional distress 24/7.

Anonymous Mental Health Support - Call 855-845-7415 or go to mentalhealthSF.org/warm-line/