Left for Garbage

say to dam the tide of hatred and disgust.
    W e don’t want to have to act or speak, though, yes, it’s hard to be so hated, so hard, in fact, that Margaret can’t help herself. She’s still out there trying to change their views, to find one right word or action that will make someone, anyone, say, “Yes, okay, I’m sorry for you. I don’t think you’re awful people, I don’t think you deserve this.”
    God bless her hard , brave little heart. Sometimes I want to hold her myself and tell her all of those things that she needs to hear, but I don’t think she wants to hear them from me, and I don’t think I could say any of them now anyway. Problem is, most people are too busy in their own lives to sift through what’s true and what’s false about us and about my daughter’s situation. They take things at face value or the way the media spins it.
    When I finally started accepting that the truth was closer to home than I ever wanted to acknowledge, I found that I couldn’t accept it after all. It was too difficult, too ugly and hard to take, so I gathered up my pills and left the house. I didn’t want to leave a mess for poor Margaret , or even Denise, but especially not with Seel. But, I did have to leave.
    My daughter has a woman on her defense team now, Penelope Bledsoe, who is married to a seria l killer. I’ve done my research. I know the cast of players here. Her husband, Charlie James Bledsoe, is suspected of killing many, many women, and is on death row after being convicted of slaying three young women. Not one, three! These deaths were brutal. I believe ‘heinous’ is the better word. Charlie gouged out eyeballs and cut off ears, sliced a large crosshair on a girl’s navel and inserted an umbrella, the kind with a hook handle, that he positioned inside the girl’s stomach so the umbrella stood straight up, opened and shadowing the body left in the sun to be found. Another victim, he carved a circle out of her chest and left her heart on display. And this Penelope believes in, and is adamant about, Charlie’s innocence. I’ve heard she tells Denise she knows what true love is since being with this man. You see why I want to die?
    Don’t get me wrong, I suppose I’m glad Penelope believes in my daughter’s innocence, but not every person on death row is innocent. How is this crazy-as-shit woman going to help my daughter? My daughter needs an expert, experienced defense team. Instead she’s got the great grandstander, Gutierrez, who barely passed the bar on his third try and spends more time talking to the media about the case than preparing a case, and now the oh-so-proud Mrs. Charlie James Bledsoe, aka ‘Bride of Chucky’, by her side.
    I tr ied to help, I tried to help constantly, only to be told to stay the hell out of things after our private investigator was on the scene. Margaret refused to let me logically discuss the state of affairs, to search the house, to make important phone calls, anything that could contribute effectively. My job was to hose down anyone who stepped onto our property.
    A person can live with a desperate fight-or-flight feeling only for so long. I chose flight on January 22nd, 2009.
    Denise has made our family famous - well, infamous - and our lives are in ruins now. It’s funny, I don’t know if what we had was so good, I guess it couldn’t have been or we wouldn’t have come to this, but what wouldn’t I give to reclaim even a day of it? The media are digging ever deeper, and broadcasting every truth and half-truth they can unearth about us. Soon they’ll have my death to enrich their storylines. I don’t feel I should have to explain my life or my mistakes to the public, either the good or the bad.
    Think about it. What if one day it was expected of you to explain every single thing you ever did in your life, aren’t there moments, some that stretch into years, that you aren’t all that proud of? No one lives their lives forward so that everyone else can understand it backward. Maybe we should. But no one does, not me, not you. If I were asked what I am proud of about myself or my family, there are things I’m proud of, times I’m glad of, but they wouldn’t interest anyone, not like this. I could tell people about the day I taught my son to drive a car, or how I taught Deeley to say her name backwards, but no one cares about the simple things now and I feel there will never be simple good days again, not for us, not the Browns, the family