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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Gregg Olsen
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February 7 - February 7, 2024
“Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.”
“Shelly’s really tired,” Kathy told Lara one time. “I’m cooking dinner now and keeping the house up. Kids are doing their homework. Doing the best I can.”
“Kathy, this is a bunch of BS. Cancer isn’t like this.”
The truth was there was no convincing Dave. He hung up on Lara.
She was lonely, estranged for the most part from her family, and had no money of her own.
After
No matter how hard Kathy worked, Shelly didn’t seem satisfied.
Shelly would give her a hug, then a bunch of pills.
Though Shelly was still pregnant with Tori, and Kathy was much larger, it was Kathy who was taking a beating.
“You don’t remember doing it, Kathy,” she corrected. “That’s what you mean. You don’t remember.”
Kathy’s resolve was gone, and she started to cry.
audience. “Did you?” Nikki recognized that her mother had returned to one of her greatest hits of abuse—gaslighting. Nikki had been on the receiving end of that gambit too.
her mom made Nikki hide food under Kathy’s bed, so she could inform Kathy the next morning that she was “sleep-eating” and “eating all of our food at night.”
“you were sleepwalking naked in Shane’s bedroom. He told me.”
Kathy. I know you want him, but this has to stop. I don’t want that kind
Kathy ran up to her room in tears.
They were in survival mode.
The fear of the unknown kept them in line.
Her personal items were confiscated, starting with her pictures, her country music records, and her knitting supplies.
the bathing was done outside with a garden hose.
She was glad that it was Kathy who was getting punished instead of her siblings.
recalled, “I was not getting hit hardly at all. It was kind of like they ignored
It was Shane, however, who did most of Shelly’s bidding.
his aunt Shelly was the closest thing he’d ever had to a mother.
Sometimes when people came over, Shelly would put Kathy in the closet until they left. It didn’t matter how long. Hours and hours. Kathy would sit slumped on the floor, patiently
Kathy refused to accept a lifeline from any of the kids. She knew that if they tried to help her—tried to rescue her—they’d be their mother and father’s next victims.
it was unlikely that any activity would hold more favor than going camping in Washington State.
so Kathy rode in the trunk.
‘Kathy, get this’ or ‘Kathy, do that’ and things like that. She was there to do things
in the tent the first night, Kathy slept under the car.
going?” “We’re
voice muffled under the lid of the trunk. “Talk to you soon.”
barber’s scissors, snipping off the long, wavy
Grandma Anna had once given her, which had really been intended to teach her stepmom, Lara, a lesson: “You can’t keep her hair brushed properly, so I cut it!”
Lorazepam, Nitroquick, Atenolol, Altace, and Paxil.
drugged Shane or any of her girls from time to time.
do, fantasizing how they might end their misery and save the world
away, Nikki would tell herself that it was for the best and inwardly rooted for him even as her mom would pile the girls into the car to search for the runaway. She never once stopped hoping he’d finally make it somewhere.
applied Icy Hot to his penis while he yelped in pain.
what they all did—whenever their mother left the house.
she told Kathy that she’d be giving up her space between Nikki’s and Sami’s rooms.
displeased her.
the snow was bloody and red all the way down the hillside. Like a big red stripe.”
said. “Rocky?”
Kathy’s unmistakably
that she and Kelly didn’t have a close relationship, but she was fine.
It was Shelly’s birthday, and Washaway Beach was one of Dave’s favorite surfing spots.
Her front teeth had begun to decay into black nubs, and her skin sagged where it had once been full. She sat in the sun, looking blankly at the water while her friend reveled in her special day.
beautiful at thirty-seven
Shelly was 37
Monohon Landing Road in Raymond in the summer of 1992. The house was no great shakes, and
