Puppies, Manure Pile and Baths

It’s been some time since I blogged.

I don’t know how old I was when the following incident occurred.  I do know however, it was before I started Kindergarten at five years of age.  I know this occurred during late summer because that was when Cleo would hire extra farm hands to help bail hay and bring in various other crops. Mostly corn.

There were always a lot of dogs and cats on the farm.  I remember sitting on the ground have a great time playing with a little tan puppy I had named Tico.  The thing I remember was Tico was licking my face and Cleo started screaming at me because I “was dirty.”

My sin? I had grass stains on my clothes.

The next thing I remember was Cleo picking me up enraged that I had grass stains on my clothes and hurled me into the manure pile.  This was the manure pile from cleaning out the barns.  Lou would then use the manure to fertilize the fields with a manure spreader.  This was not a cow patty or single horse dropping in a field.  I remember trying to get up and kept sinking into the pile.  Lou did come and lift me out of the manure pile.  Cleo was furious.  The next thing I remember I being placed in the basement in my manure stained clothes.

After what seemed like an eternity, Lou came and took me out of the basement.  Lou took me up to the bathroom, gave me a bath.  Lou’s baths are still traumatic for me to remember.  Lou used to wash me all over, even my private parts.  Lou used to spend a lot of time on my private parts telling me, “we need to make sure you are clean here.”  Lou used to “wash” his private part when he gave me a bath.  Lou then used to take me and lie me on his bed.  He would powder me all over then Lou used to teach me “how to be a good wife” when I grew up.  Lou had the same ritual every time he gave me a bath.

What is more disturbing is that even when Cleo gave me a bath, she had the same ritual.

Cleo’s cruelty was not limited to me.  She was cruel to animals as well.  Poor Tico did not escape her wrath.    Cleo tied Tico up, kicked, rarely fed and constantly beaten by Cleo with a long stick that resembled a 2 by 4.  By the time Tico was about 6 months old he was a vicious dog that only Cleo would dare approach because Tico would cower from her.  Tico remained chained up until the day Cleo shot him. By that time, Tico’s ribs were showing.  Tico was a Golden Retriever which Cleo succeeded in turning vicious.  As you may know, Golden Retrievers are known for their gentleness.  Tico wasn’t the only dog that turned mean as a result of her treatment.  It was a game with her to torture animals.

Tico before Cleo turned her wrath on him.

Putting it all in Perspective

Based on my recent posts, I’ve had some people I grew up with contact me and apologize for not seeing what was happening or not doing something.  These are people my own age – they were kids at the time the same as I was.  For them and for all of you who are reading this story, Please know that if you were someone I grew up with, you too were a child.  You’re now looking at this through adult eyes.  I want to tell you that I don’t hold any grudges against any of you. Any responsibility belonged to Cleo, Lou, Felix (you’ll meet him later) and the other adults who turned a blind eye and ear to abuse but knew the truth and didn’t do anything to stop it. You had no way of knowing what was going on.  I’m OK today.  I’m going to take a “time out” from the story itself so I can explain.

It isn’t that I feel “good” or “right” or anything else.  It’s a confidence that I know God hasn’t left me – He never did – and that He will redeem it all somehow in some way.  I don’t have the answers and I don’t understand it.  But I know that He held on to me the whole way and He is still holding on.  That is very clear to me even now as I’m working through the story again.

People are the ones who told me God was this or that, or that He didn’t love me or that I wasn’t worthy.  All my life, people have been trying to speak for God.  And these are people who were supposed to be offering me “help” by their actions.  They acknowledge what happened was bad, but they told their own versions of the story (I was sold rather than kidnapped.  I needed to forgive and forget about past abuse.  I needed to change and start acting better, etc.)  It was never so clear as when a so-called Christian counselor said – “I can’t help you.  No one can help you.  Not even God can help you.”  That’s the time I hit the bottom and tried to escape it permanently by my own hand.

But Jesus wasn’t the one beating me up.  That came from others, from their words.  And I believed their words.  All those sent to counsel me had the same message … until one day while I was bawling my eyes out, an older man with a white beard walks by.  Turns out he was a Methodist minister.  I hadn’t met him before and have never seen him since.  But during that one meeting, he showed me clearly that Jesus loved me.  He took the time (quite a while that day) to help me separate what I had heard from the fundamentalist crowd about God’s wrath versus the Love and Mercy God really offered.  The page in my life slowly started to turn.  It took a long time, because shutting down the “you’re not worth anything” messages is hard.  They were very well ingrained by this time.

I saw a “secular, unsaved” therapist (never mind the fact that she was a Southern Baptist).  The old crowd told me she was evil just because she was licensed.  But this time, I didn’t listen to their words. I was learning boundaries.  I began to see there were plenty of other Christians – real Christians – in the world around me. This is something that may sound strange, but fundamentalists teach that those who don’t believe exactly as they do are probably unsaved, going to hell, or at the very least not living as they should. Most of the cruelty came from fundamentalists.  I began to question the things I had been told.  If they were so very wrong about this therapist, these other Christians I had met, and the like … what else were they in error about?

So I pulled into myself, focused on finishing school, and even dropped church for a while.  When I started attending again, it was one of those “off limits” community churches which got tongues wagging even more.  But having been exposed to Grace finally, I didn’t care about them anymore.  I became aware that I didn’t have to earn my place with God like they said I did.  I began working as a nurse for the County in which I was living at the time. That really opened up my eyes.  You might call it all part of my own “Grace awakening” process.

Fast forward several years and I’m hit between the eyes with cancer.  I was told, “God gave you cancer.”  But that’s all they offered.  No other support came.  And it is a serious, rare cancer where the doctors wanted me to get to a specific treatment center.  Tongues still wagging and now I’m mad:  “God!  How can you do this to me?  Haven’t I been through enough?”  And the answer came from an unlikely source.

My oncologist was an Italian Catholic who reminded me both of us were people of Faith.  He reminded me that God hadn’t left and that Jesus would stand with me.  A few days later, I have a job that covered my living expenses for six months, and an offer from the Diocese of Philadelphia to pay for moving.  And I’m not a Catholic then or now!  How’s that for WWJD?  My old fundamentalist friends start the gossip chain.  I’m taking money from Catholics.  Yet none of them offer to help in any way.

Through it all, as I look back, I hear (not audibly) God’s voice (still and small like it usually is) saying clearly, “I am still here, Cathy.  I love you unconditionally and will always stand by you.  You don’t need to work it out by yourself.  Leave it all to Me.”  So even when my story upsets you, know that I am “OK” right now.  I’m “OK” because God says I am.  He hasn’t left and I know He won’t. I do have days when my faith is weak.  When my body is sick.  When PTSD flashbacks taunt me.  When I am angry, frustrated, even depressed.  Telling my story is just a part of my healing.  Pausing for some reflections is a good thing.

Kindergarten Times Two

The following is one of my “flashbulb memories.”

The first time I was enrolled in Kindergarten, I don’t think I had ever seen another child since  Cleo had kidnapped me two years earlier. I was very frightened, wouldn’t play with my classmates, and I cried … I cried a lot. I have been told they asked Cleo to put me in something like a Pre-K or daycare for these and other reasons. I had not been “socialized” with other kids is what the school told her. Of course, Cleo didn’t remove me, but let me struggle, cry, and be terrified the whole school year – and then got angry at the teacher and school when I did was asked to repeat Kindergarten the next year.  The school was run by the same church where Cleo took me when I was three. She had told him I was found abandoned in one of rental properties in the city.

The following school year, Cleo placed me in another Christian Day School. She told this school that she had lost my birth certificate, but would order one from the state. The school allowed me to begin on time but, like the other school, would not allow me move into first grade.  I did much better the second year in Kindergarten.  At least better at school.

Lou was a severe alcoholic. He would come pick me up at school. Very frequently Lou would stop for a “few drinks” on the way home at a place called. “Susie’s Lounge.” I remember one day in particular. I don’t know what month it was, but it was in the winter. There was snow on the ground. I remember Lou stopping and telling me to stay in his truck. Lou went into Susie’s. I have no idea how long he was really in the bar, but I do know it was light when he went in and then dark and very cold. Lou still hadn’t come back. For a child it could have been only a hour to hour and a half, but seemed much longer. I remember it was snowing and I was so cold my teeth were chattering. I remember this couple seeing me inside the truck and coming over to the truck. I was so cold.

The woman opened up the passenger side door and she started rubbing my arms and body. The man took his winter coat and put it over me like a blanket. Through chattering, I told them that my daddy was inside. The woman picked me up and carried me inside the bar. She and the man she was with started arguing with the bartender who wanted no part of having a small child in her bar. Finally, Lou stumbles over drunk and says that I belonged to him.

Now the two men were arguing. I guess at one point in this whole thing the bartender realized that I had been in Lou’s truck in the cold. The woman picked me up and sat me on her barstool, asked if I liked hot chocolate. I remember this, because although I was cold I didn’t know what to say. Lou was a mean drunk. This bar also had a kitchen and although I can’t remember whether I said that I liked hot chocolate or not, I soon had a nice hot cup sitting in front of me.

Lou didn’t stick around much longer. He picked me up and carried me to his truck. Although I did not know why he was in such a hurry at the time, I suspect he knew someone had called the police.

Susie’s bar was maybe a mile and a half from the farm. After this incident Lou didn’t take nor pick me up from school much. I remember going to and from this school in a taxi.  The reason I rode in a taxi is because this school didn’t have bus transportation at this time. I was only in this school one and a half years.

Lou never visited “Susie’s Lounge” again. Not after that incident. He didn’t worry about that, much. There are always other bars for an alcoholic to drink himself into a stupor.  No police came to my rescue after that incident at Susie’s.  And, as for the pastor from the first school, I’m undecided if he ever knew that I was kidnapped.  One thing is for sure, he never called the police on Cleo.

The Farm

 

The farmhouse sat very far back from the road. There were, at one time, two gravel lanes that led back to the farm buildings.

Cleo’s farm consisted of 110 acres.

 

One lane was used up until a horrible storm came through and washed out the small bridge that ran across a stream. That stream led into a sewage treatment plant, that then emptied into the Nashaminy Creek.                     

Nashaminy Creek

 

Part of that Nashaminy Creek meandered back through the other side of Cleo’s property.

 

There were two barns. The oldest barn was what we called the cow barn. It had 100′s of cattle stalls for milking. In the back there was the bull pen. At one point, Cleo had added onto the cow barn another partition that’s where calves were kept. One of the stalls kept the biggest hog I ever saw. His ears were as big as my face.

 

There were also goats. Lots of goats. It is not a old wives tale when you hear that a goat will eat anything.

 

There were plenty of cats and dogs. Most of the cats were feral and never saw a vet. The dogs were mutts. Lou would put large bowls on dry dog food out on the front porch in each evening.

 

Only one dog was well cared for. That was this nasty white Spitz, named Marshmallow. Cleo took Marshmallow with her everywhere. That dog had the worst temperament. It snapped and snarled at everyone and everything … except Cleo. I always thought that dog and Cleo suited each other.

 

The second floor of the cow barn was a huge loft. There was a huge door that opened to allow hay wagons, corn wagons and other equipment to be unloaded and stored there. The lofts were actually on both sides. Hay and other materials were stacked to the ceiling. There were hooks attached to a pulley system that was attached to the ceiling to make it easier to stack bales.

 

On the very top beam in the cow barn loft was a pair of Barn Owls. The owls were there the whole time I was at the farm. I remember watching this pair of Barn Owls. As a child I thought they were the same Owls, but I am not sure now. I remember watching the male owl fly out at night and return to feed his mate while she was sitting on her eggs. While sitting on her eggs she never left her nest. Eventually, I would hear the baby owls. He would feed Mrs. Owl for awhile longer, then she would fly out while he stayed with the young owls and she would return and feed him and the baby Owls. It was cool to watch. The nest was too far up for Cleo to bother Mr. or Mrs. Owl, and Cleo said she didn’t mind because Owls kept rodents away.

 

I do remember that there weren’t any rodents that I was aware of in the loft. I was thankful for that, since I had to sleep there a lot.  Depending on Cleo’s mood, I could stay in the house, in the cellar or be banished from the house altogether to the barn lofts.

 

The other barn was the horse barn. Cleo used to buy Jockey Horses. At one time she had over 30 horses. The stalls in the horse barn were large, and square in shape as opposed to the cow barn “neck type” harness the cows were kept in. The barn loft in the horse barn was smaller than the cow barn. There was one large door in the middle of the loft that went to the outside. This door was used to put the hay and feed into the loft. The only way to access this door was by opening it from the inside. To get up to the loft from the inside you went up wooden ladder and through a trap door. Hay bales and feed were put into this loft by setting up the conveyer belt to bring the hay or feed up. One person below on the outside of the barn would load the conveyer belt, one person at the top would unload the bales and feed as it came off. Each morning, hay bales and feed would be dropped down and distributed to the horses as needed.

 

Behind the horse barn was a large manure pile. Next to the manure pile was a piece of equipment called a manure spreader. The manure was spread in the fields prior to planting to fertilize the fields.

 

There was a large well that looked like a wishing well on the back side of the house in the back yard. The water in the well was not safe for drinking. It was rancid. The back yard had several trees – Pear, Apple, and Crab Apple.

 

There was a couple of chicken coops behind the horse barn. I was the one who got to rob the nests every morning.

 

Directly in front of the house was a large field, used mostly for grazing cows. The gravel driveway separated the two fields in the front of the property. On the other side, in front of the cow barn, was a larger field also used mostly for the horses. The other fields were used to grow hay, wheat, and corn respectively.

 

In the very back of the property was a wooded area. I remember I liked to go back there to get away from Cleo and Lou. I also liked to explore. I would often ride my horse, Candy, bareback. At the very edge of Cleo’s property was this old run-down one-room school house. Behind that were two old outhouses. Back in this area, strawberries and blueberries grew wild in the summer. I used to pick them and eat them. I used to love to tie Candy to a low tree branch and explore the old school house. I also would climb the tree’s. I remember every spring the most beautiful orange wild lilies would grow wild back there.

The House

I pretty much described the cellar at the end of this post.  

I spent a lot of time in the basement. Whenever Cleo was angry (or for whatever capricious reason she decided I needed to go to the basement) that’s where I’d be.  But I wasn’t always kept in the basement. It doesn’t take long to break a 3 year old and I had nowhere to run either. It was a big house.

 

The door at the top of the basement opened up into a hallway. It had one time been a grand house but Cleo and Lou had not kept it in good repair.

 

In the hallway, right directly in front of me when they let me out of the basement was the dining room. It was a very large room with very high ceilings with hardwood floor. The walls were covered in wallpaper – pale yellow flowers with a green background. There were white cabinets that took up the whole of one side of its wall. It had a large rock-looking fireplace with a large cherry table in the center. Around the table were 12 matching chairs. The dining room had its own outside entrance. This room was kept very clean because this is where Cleo would receive guests.

 

A room next to the dining room the door was always closed. It was a big room as well. The walls were white. This room was full all kinds of things, from TV’s, other electronics, and other items of just about every kind that were piled from floor to ceiling. Cleo owned rental properties in Philadelphia. She would steal from her own tenants, bring the items to the farm, and then sell them at the Montgomeryville Mart, a flea market down the road.

Going back down the hall past the root cellar door, there was another room that they called the “sitting room.” It too had a large fireplace. The walls were painted a pale green and there was a green couch and Lou’s recliner. There was a large cabinet where Cleo and Lou kept their alcohol. There was a regular size kitchen table. This is where they ate when they weren’t entertaining. You could walk through this room and through another door into the “Big Kitchen.”

 

The “Big Kitchen” was as bigger than I have since seen some industrial size kitchens. It had 2 large porcelain sinks. Cleo had her range, refrigerator and 3 large freezers where she would keep the butchered meat from the cows slaughtered that year. The walls were tan. I’m not sure if they were painted tan, or had just not been scrubbed and turned that way.

 

You could either turn left and go into the Dining Room, or turn right and go down 4 steps into the “Little Kitchen.” She had another freezer in this kitchen and an apartment size range. In the corner of the “Little Kitchen” was a pot belly stove. There was one door to the outside of this kitchen. There was another door that went up a narrow set of stairs to a small room with a cathedral ceiling. This room had a single bed and was decorated for a little girl. It was painted white.

 

There was no heat in this part of the house in the winter. The only heat came from the pot belly stove in the “Little Kitchen” below. If I left the door open it was pretty warm.

 

Going back to the hallway where the cellar was. There was a wooden grand-staircase. It was wide like what you would see in a old movie.

 

Immediately on the second floor landing was another door. This door had four locks just like the cellar door. The door opened to a room that Lou used. He called it the “play room.” There were lots of dolls . The walls were painted neon pink and there was a canopy bed. The bedding was white with tiny pink hearts. This room wasn’t a “play room” for me, it was for Lou for the men who Cleo brought to the farm who paid for time with me.

 

There was a blue tile bathroom. It was larger than my basement room. The floor was tile as well.

 

The second floor next to Lou’s “play room” was Cleo’s bedroom. I don’t remember much about her room.

 

Then if you go up the stairs to the third floor, you found Lou’s bedroom. He had it decorated with his military stuff and his military chest bars and stripes. He also had 2 purple hearts. He had pictures of his son that had been killed in Vietnam. Lou drank too much and would talk about “Sonny.” His son’s name was Gold.

 

Then you can go up to the attic. Cleo used that as another storage space for the stolen goods.

In the next post I will do my best to describe the farm itself.

Right Hand and Evil Hand

Some things are harder to write about than others.  The following is one of them.

I am not sure how long I was with Cleo when this took place.  The first meal I remember being served by Cleo was Chicken Noodle soup.  Cleo became very angry because I was holding my spoon in my “evil” hand.

She was yelling at me about the hand I used to eat with was ‘evil.’

I didn’t know what ‘evil’ meant, but by looking the look on her face, evil must mean really bad.

She set me down and told me to use my RIGHT hand!

I didn’t know what my RIGHT hand was.

I picked up my spoon.

Cleo was screaming about the RIGHT hand!

Lou reached across the table and put the spoon in my other hand.

Cleo stopped screaming.

That must be what Cleo means by the RIGHT hand.

I tried to eat my soup with the spoon in the RIGHT  hand.  It didn’t feel right.  I didn’t know how to use this hand.

When I tried to eat the soup with the RIGHT hand, I spilled soup down the front of myself.

Cleo flew into a rage.  Picked up an extension cord, yanked me out of the chair and struck my back, bottom, and legs with it.

I didn’t know what I was doing wrong.  I was trying to do what she wanted.

I was trying to use the RIGHT hand, but it didn’t feel natural.  I was clumsy when I used the RIGHT hand. Cleo said using the other hand was “evil.”  I didn’t understand, I had always used the “evil” hand.

She told me to eat my soup.  Lou again put my spoon in my RIGHT hand.  I held the spoon really, really tight.  I was trying not to spill any soup.

I spilled some soup.

Cleo was screaming about an ‘evil’ hand.  She  snatched the spoon away and smacked my “evil” fingers with its handle–really hard.

Cleo picked up the extension cord.  Instead of beating me with it, Cleo tied my RIGHT hand and ‘evil’ hand together behind my back.

Cleo told me to lap my soup like a dog.

I did.  I was crying.

Cleo was smiling.

My back and fingers hurt.  They hurt bad.

Cleo and Lou watched.

After I finished lapping my soup, Cleo told me that I would be using the RIGHT hand.  Every-time she saw me trying to reach for something or using my wrong hand, my ‘evil’ hand would get hit with the heavy handle of the spoon.

Cleo dropped the spoon in her apron pocket.

Eventually, I did learn to use the RIGHT hand. I don’t know how long it took.  I do have scars on my “evil” fingers from the times Cleo caught me.

Spiders and A Stuffed White Kitten

The car finally arrived at the farm where I was kept  for the next 9 years. I was taken out of the trunk by a man. I remember meeting Lou for the first time. He leaned over. He was smiling as he smelled my hair. I didn’t understand why I felt icky when he did that, but would find out none too soon.

My new home was to be the root cellar of the old farmhouse. I don’t know where Cleo thought a three-year old was going to run away to. The farmhouse set far back from the road. The farm was located in the middle of nowhere.

My new name was Salina.  Mommy was Cleo.  Daddy was Lou.

It doesn’t take long to break a three-year old.

The cellar had cement block walls and a dirt floor. There was an old ringer washing machine and oil furnace on a cement slab in one corner.  The size of the basement was small, about the size of a typical bathroom.  There was a small very dirty window that  had bars on the outside.  The window did not open.

There were basement stairs.  The stairs were steep.

At the top of the stairs, there was one lone bare lightbulb with a pull string that I couldn’t reach. Cleo turned it on when she came down. Lou also turned it on when he came to “visit.” Other then when they allowed the bare bulb to stay on that it was off.

She let me know she controlled everything.

It was dark. It was so very dark at night. The only light came from the crack under the door at the top of the stairs. Even during the day, it was dark. The small barred dirty window let in very little light.

There was a bucket in the other corner. That was my toilet.

My bed was the floor.

Lou made sure to bring me a Disney princess sleeping bag. It had Cinderella on it. He made a table. The table was actually was six cinder bricks, with an old wooden door laid across the gap in the bricks.  He  put a dirty table-cloth over the old wood door.

The heavy door at the top of the stairs the basement stairs had four locks.  The door led out to the hall.  The room directly ahead was the dining room.  If you turned left instead, and then up the stairs of Cleo’s old farmhouse there was another door with four locks. This door opened to another enclosed room Lou called the ‘play room’. The walls in that room were covered with neon pink. There was a canopy bed with white sheets with little pink hearts.  There were dolls.  Lots of dolls. Cleo brought “guests” who paid for time with me.

I’m not going to describe anything that happened in that room, that is enough. One thing I will tell you,  is the pink wasn’t  for me, it was because Lou and the other men liked pink.

I learned every inch of the basement. I knew what the cracks in the block walls felt like. I knew the taste and smell of the dirt floor and I knew the spiders that lived in the windowsill, they were friends. With the dim light coming through that tiny basement window, I’d count their legs, inspect their webs, examining them, trying to understand why they were there.  I even named them.

Although it may be hard for you to understand, the basement terrified and comforted me at the same time. I was terrified of where Cleo and Lou might be. As long as that door was locked I felt safe. I learned to listen to every sound of the footfalls from the house above. I learned the creeks and noises of the house and how many seconds I had from the moment the first lock snapped to the crack the door made when it was opened.  As long as I didn’t hear that crack then I was safe. If I heard voices that was even worse because it could mean I would be entertaining soon.Silence meant no one was moving and no one was headed down to me.

I had my secret too.My soft stuffed white kitten.  Her name was Snowball.  I had her in the store.  I held her in the car and trunk too. Lou had taken Snowball out of the trunk.  He threw her on the ground. .  Lou was too busy smelling my hair and smiling.  I felt icky,  I picked her up.  Lou didn’t  notice me hugging a little white stuffed kitten.  Somehow I knew to hide Snowball in the cinder block holes in the table when Cleo was around.  Lou didn’t care about stuffed kittens.  

Snowball was the only thing they would never take away from me.  

Christmas Eve in the Barn

Since I am starting this blog on Christmas Eve, I am going to tell a memory I have of one Christmas Eve.

I don’t know how old I was when I was first banished to the barn, but I know I was already in school because the kids at school would tease me about smelling like the barn animals and poop.                                                                              

I remember one Christmas Eve in particular.  I was between 6 and 8 years old. My teacher in school had read a story to my class about how the animals were able to talk at Midnight on Christmas Eve because the animals in the stable where Jesus was born kept Him warm with their breaths. The story said, That God remembered this, and every Christmas Eve at the stroke of mid-night animals were able to talk. It was God saying thank you to the animals.

I wanted to hear my barn friends speak to me on Christmas Eve like the story said. I believed they would too.

I remember waiting for the stroke of midnight. I would know it was midnight by the sound of the Church bell which rang every hour somewhere in the distance. I remember this particular Christmas Eve sitting on a hay-bale, wrapped up in my Cinderella sleeping bag , watching, the barn animals. All the stuffing was long gone from the sleeping bag. It was ragged, torn and stained. I had learned that getting under the hay was very warm, and that the sleeping bag kept the hay from causing my skin to itch.

It was cold in the barn.  It’s cold in Pennsylvania in December.  But, I couldn’t get under the hay. Not yet. I couldn’t miss one word of what my barn friends had to say.

As I sat listening for the church bell in the distance to tell us it was midnight, I wondered what my friends, the barn animals would say. Unlike Cleo the animals were never cruel to me. Unlike Lou, the animals didn’t want things from me that hurt me. I day dreamed about what the horse I liked to ride, Candy, would say.  Candy was a brown and white paint. Then there was Chestnut stallion named Storm, the milk cow name Sally, the Bull named Joseph, and all the other cows and horses in the barn. What about that old Sheep dog in the curled up in the corner?  His name was Blackie. I pictured, Blackie having a deep voice like his bark. I wondered what he would talk about. There was a little brown, black and white mutt, I called Baby. Baby was a quiet, sweet dog.  She loved being petted and slept with me.  I imagined her voice would be quiet.  I wondered what the barn-full of feral cats would have to say. I had made friends with the kittens, and they were tame.  The older cats, and Mama cat, in particular, still didn’t trust me. I would tell mama cat, that she was pretty, and that I wouldn’t hurt her. Then she would trust me.  I just knew it.

I couldn’t wait for that church bell to ring. I was so very excited. I started asking the animals questions. I told them they could answer me when the church bell rang.

Suddenly, I heard the bell ringing in the distance. I jumped to my feet, ran to the horse stalls. The horse stalls were on my side of the barn.  If I did miss what my barn friends said, I would have to wait a whole year, until the next Christmas Eve before we could speak to each other again.
The bell tones faded away.

Silence.

The horses didn’t speak.

I ran over to Sally. She was chewing her cud.

Like always.

Certainly, Joseph the bull would have a lot to say. He was always snorting in his pen. I ran to his pen. He was chomping on hay.

Joseph wasn’t speaking either.

Tears were streaming down my cheeks by then. Hot tears.  Brokenhearted. None of my friends spoke.

Then I felt something soft against my leg. It was one of the cats I had tamed by playing with when she was a kitten. I had named her Missy. Missy was looking up at me.

I thought she was going to talk to me. She did but instead of a human voice, she mewed and rubbed against my other leg. Crying with disappointment, I went back and sat down hard on the same hay bale I had used as a chair earlier.

Missy hopped up, purring she took her place on my lap. I knew I should get under the warm hay, because it was cold, but I just couldn’t do that. Not yet. I sat there, straining to hear my friends speak. Maybe they just needed more time since they could only talk once a year.   

The barn was very quiet. No one spoke.  The only sound was Sally chewing her cud, Joseph snorting from time to time, the occasional sound of a horses  hoof as they changed positions in their stalls, and Missy’s soft purr.

I shivered as the night became colder. Wrapping myself tighter in the worn out sleeping bag, I finally made my bed under the hay.

The sun rose Christmas morning.

My barn friends never spoke.

I’m a grown now. Well past the age of childhood fairy-tales and dreams. But yet, I catch myself each Christmas Eve looking at my cats and hoping this is the Christmas they speak. Hoping that this is the Christmas that the world will be set right.