Inside her Mind

As I walked into apartment 3, I looked around and notice that the apartment was cluttered with lots of dolls. Every wall had dolls from the floor to the ceiling it was kind of creepy, “oh you like them” she asked. Oh very nice, what was your name again “I am Caroline Walton, I have lived in this building for over 30 years. Oh nice so you know, Betsy you said her name is “oh yes, we use to be friends as children. She uses to live here with her husband and children, but they left about 15 years ago, and that is when she lost it. Our parents grew up in the neighborhood together, we went to the same schools until high school. Then I went away to school and came back my mom was ill so I came home to take care of her. These are her dolls; I keep them around because they make me feel like she is still around. I always say I want to get rid of them but can’t bring myself to do it. Anyway, have a seat dear, my mom passed 7 years ago and I stood behind, I didn’t have anyone else to return to in Paris where I lived. I don’t have children or was never married. I knew Betsy's children she has a son and two daughters, I believe they are all married and have children of their own. If I recall correctly her oldest daughter was only 10 yrs. old when their father took them with him. It was quite the sandal, she had just lost her father who lived in the building next door. Her husband did not allow the child to talk to him or even visit him since the day they were born, being that it was rumored that he poisoned her mother. You see her father was not all right in the mind and everyone in the neighborhood knew. Poor Betsy was taunted in school for it, her mother died they said she took her own life when she was just 5 yrs. old.

Learning how to be a girl was hard for her, my mom and I tried to teach her for the most part. When I came to visit the first year back had already met her husband John. They meet in the community college he was from Greece. Mom would let them hang out in our apartment since her father would have beaten her if he knew she was hanging out with him. I asked if it was because John was a boy. No dear it was just that she talks to another person period. He kept her locked up in the apartment the only reason he let her go to school was that the government made him. I assumed she was talking about children's services, so she was abused as a child by her father. was it just physical? That I know of yes, but gowning up I didn’t know what it was. I remembered one day my mom stopped by to drop off some food for them, I believed it was a holiday. Betsy was in the living room closet when my mom walked in, she asked her what she was doing there and she dear not speak. I asked her father if he wanted to join the party and he just said no. She then asked if she could come and he looked at Betsy and she just nods her head no. Mom somehow convinced him to let her come to my house and play with me that weekend, and that when I notice the bruise on her back. I asked her what they were and she told me that she could not talk about them because they will lock her away. I asked my mom about after and she told me that it is best if we just mind our business. From there on she would come to my house once a week, and her dad would drop her off when he was doing well. People use to say he was back on his coo-coo pills. There was the time she spent with us a whole summer, that was the best I had a sister being I was an only child. Her dad was in the hospital, and the police came and took him away. The next day a social worker was asking if they knew if she had any family. My mom asked what would happen to her if she didn’t, and they said they will put her in foster care until her dad gets better. My mom asked if she could keep her until he got out of the hospital and they said yes. That summer was the best we went everywhere together she even went with me south to visit family. That was when I found out that she had a brother that had died in that very apartment. The strange thing was that no one had ever seen her mom pregnant, I remember there was a period when her mother was not seen for about a year. They asked her father and he stated that she was helping out her sick sister in the city so she would get home really late and leave early in the morning. Her dad had his good months and then bad moments, but worked and took care of his family for the most part. They didn’t live off the government, her mother worked in the home she uses to make clothes. I believed he worked in the factories in queens, he did retire at the age he was supposed to. You asked about John, he was a handsome man, but by the time he came into her life, she pretty much took care of her dad. But she still managed to have a whole life outside of him. They were so in love for such a long time, I was happy that she started talking to mom again after what happened. I asked Caroline, what took place that made her and Betsy fall out. I would call it so much of a falling out, it was more like we grew apartment. I graduated high school the year before she did I went to study abroad and stood. Betsy felt like I somehow abandoned her, she was unable to understand that I want to experience life, and staying here was not going to cut it for me. We use to dream about going to Paris together, we even got an application for a scholarship to go. She had the grades boy she was smart as a whip but it need parental consent to be filed and her dad would not sign it. In my time kids did not sign paperwork for their parents if I was her I think I would have but she was a very obedient daughter. So I got to go and she graduate without me being here and that cause a separation between us. I do miss her, I knock on her door from time to time and she tells me to go away. It wasn’t like that at first, when I came back she was okay not so crazy as they say. She would come down and check on mom from time to time I think that is what kept her going for a while. Once her children were taken from her and her husband moved on with his life, mom is all she had left.

What happened with her husband? I asked her well when her dad passed away she was cleaning out his apartment and she found a black box. She got it open and found a letter that stated “to my daughter” In this letter, her mother confessed to her that she was not her mother, that she was her mother's twin sister. That she had taken the role of her mother to try and help her and her dad after her mother died giving birth to her brother. The letter went on to tell her about a memory she suppressed for so long. The night her father drowned her brother who was just one at the time. He thought her brother was trying to kill him like he did her mother, he called him the devil and drowned him in the bathtub all with her watching, she was two years old. Betsy was found in the living room closet crying when her aunt came home. They put him in bed and called the doctor over, classified as SIDS and he was laid to rest next to his mother. It was like something snapped in her mind, she started to see her dead brother and talk to him at night. At first, John thought it was just the grieving that was making her behave in that way. Then she started accusing him of trying to poison her and her children. He took her to the doctors and who started digging into her childhood to try and get more information about her and her family. First, they gave told him she was suffering from PTSD, that thing soldiers get. He did more harm they good if you ask me than when she started to realize that she was a witness to both the murder of her brother and her aunt who she believed to be her mother. She remembers her dad putting pills in the milk he would give her aunt at night and he would tell her it was just to help mommy sleep better because she was so tired. All of this information mixed her mind up so much pulse they gave her so much medication that she could barely function. Then came the paranoid thoughts that people in the building were trying to hurt her or her children. At this time John could not take it anymore and started having an affair with his old high school girlfriend. He would tell Betsy that he was taking the children to his mom's house upstate and he would for the most part, but will not spend the weekend with them. In conversation with her mother-in-law one day, she asked her how was Cancun. Betsy asked what and that was when she found out that her husband had been spending time and going on a trip every weekend with another woman. As the story goes Betsy stated that they had a great time, in a matter of fact she could not wait for the next trip which was a surprise. John's mother did not know that Betsy was lying so when she hung up the phone she said “have fun in the Pocono this weekend, can’t wait to see the kids”. Betsy was crushed, she went looking around at her husband's things and found a credit card she has never seen before, she contacts the number and found out that her husband had a reservation for two Cove Haven Resort. She concerted the hotel and stated she want to get in early so that she can leave a special surprise for her husband, the clerk after verifying she was his wife gave her the room number and told her she can pick up a copy of the keys early that day. Betsy waited until John got home, he grabbed his children kissed her on the forehead, and told her he will see her Sunday night. If john wasn’t so wrapped up in his affair he would have noticed that Betsy stopped taking her medication months ago and has not seen her doctor either. She had already driven the four hours to pick up the keys and knew that he would pick up his girlfriend later that night. So as soon as he pulled off she called her cab and it was costly. To take her to her 5:30 pm train she would be there an hour before him. She just played the thing in her head over and over again, once in the room she hides inside the closet. An hour passed and she heard someone come in she hears them laughing and John telling her how much he has missed her over the week. The hot tears ran down her face, once they were preoccupied with the bed. Betsy jumped out of the closet, crying John asked him how could he. The young lady laughed and Betsy beat her up within an inch of her life. She was placed under arrest. They let her go pending charges and she was allowed to go back home. When she returned the apartment was empty all of the john belonging and the children were gone. She called his mother home but she stated she did not know where they went and that she should leave them alone, when she received the divorce papers in the mail there was an address on them. She went, but when she got there she looked in the windows and saw how happy her family was without her that she just signed them and left them on the porch. Mom tried to help her but she knew Betsy was losing it, she tried to comfort her but it was not used. “on me what happened in court, “ I asked her, She was given probation and made to take her medication for six months. Once she completed they never came back to make sure she was okay, but then mom passed away. The day after the funeral she stopped talking to me or letting me into her apartment, she said I killed my mother because I didn’t want her to have anybody.

I garbed my things and thank her for her time, I could not help but feel sad for Betsy as I walked away from the building. I look back at her floor and could see her looking out the window from behind the curtain. I got home to get ready for work knowing that when she called tonight I could not talk to her. I press play on my answering machine and beside a call from my mother asking me questions as usually. there was one from her next-door neighbors stating they are willing to talk to me. I called back and asked if it was okay that me to meet them in the park tomorrow at noon. The young man stated yes, I will be at the park around the corner from the building.