Always Watching

perpetually high, going off with Aaron to his cabin for hours and coming out spacey, like she was in a trance, her eyes half-closed as she wandered around, stopping to pick a flower or a leaf, gazing at it dreamily. I didn’t like how disconnected she’d become, living inside a bubble that I couldn’t touch, but it was better than her dark moods, when I lived in fear that she would hurt herself. I didn’t know if it was the marijuana, being away from our father, or the meditations, but she finally seemed happier. Robbie had also changed.
    When we’d first arrived at the commune, he’d watched out for me, just as he had for years. With parents like ours, we’d frequently been left to fend for ourselves. When my father was away fishing, and my mother was sleeping all day, he’d make me dinner, and often my lunch for school as well. He’d also bring our mom food and do all the chores around the house, feeding the animals, chopping firewood, keeping things going until she finally crawled out of her room. I’d help as much as possible, but being older and stronger, a lot of it fell on his shoulders.
    If our father was in a rage, Robbie would make me hide, or once even took the blame for something I’d done, saying, “I knew he’d use the belt. I’m tougher than you. I can take it.”
    At the commune, he made friends quickly, but he also made sure I was never sitting alone, and when he’d done his chores, he’d help me finish mine. In those first weeks and months, when the members would gather for Satsang or a campfire meeting, I’d look up and see him keeping an eye on me. He was my raft in an ocean of uncertainty, my only safe person in this new world, where all the rules had changed. But then he also started to drift away from me, spending all his time with Levi or the teen girls in the commune—a new one in his tent every night.
    More and more, I was on my own.
    *   *   *
    We were starting to expand. Aaron wanted the young people to go into the village to sell produce we’d grown in greenhouses at the farm market and find other people who might be willing to join our group. It wasn’t hard. The members were fresh-faced and wholesome-looking, our vegetables, herbs, homemade jams, baking, and eggs were always a hit. The members would explain that everything was organic and our chickens roamed free, while they handed out pamphlets on social consciousness. If someone stopped to listen, we’d tell them about the commune, how cool it was, how joyful and free we all were. We’d also pick up hitchhikers, and teenagers hanging around the corner store.
    Aaron often went with us, and he could always sense right away who was a good target. Complete strangers would be telling him their heartbreaking stories in minutes. He’d hug them, reassure them, then bring them back to the commune, where we all greeted them with a plateful of food and a seat by the campfire.
    While we ate, Aaron would talk about how we were all connected to every blade of grass and seed, and that it was our purpose to spread love and awareness. Everyone would be nodding and agreeing, passing a joint around, hugging each other. After the meal, he’d ask the new people to do a small task; they always agreed. They’d end up spending the night. The next morning, Aaron would ask them to help with something else, moving some equipment or planting, which would take all day, so they’d end up spending another night. Before they knew it, they were living at the commune.
    No wonder people stayed. The commune was the perfect place to be if you were lost, afraid to take control of your life. It was the opposite for me. Something about Aaron made me shy and nervous, and I was frightened of Joseph. Looking back, I now understand it was because I was a child of abuse, too, and could sense volatility in others. Aaron was intense, and for a child who’d grown up with a manic mother and an alcoholic father, intensity equaled danger.
    By the end of May, we’d swelled to sixty members, and the commune was a constant hum of activity. Aaron had handpicked two male members, Ocean and Xavier, to be Spirit Counselors to work with anyone Aaron felt needed more help, or whom Joseph had gotten a bad feeling about. Maybe that was when the tide started to turn, when things stopped being so simple. Ocean and Xavier would stand there, eyeing us and whispering to each other, as we waited, sick with tension, wondering who wasn’t living up to their potential.