"TEARS OF DECEIT" by Sarah Ryniker

STORY LAST UPDATED ON 09/04/2003

Tears of Deceit Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Epilogue

CHAPTER TWO: RISE AND FALL

Kassy went into complete shock with her period. She, of course, came out of it. However, she refused to take care of herself during that time. I was forced into home school to take further care of Kassy. I was miserable the day I was taken from school. Well, in actuality, I just didn't go back from Christmas break. I would begin my schooling at home with my siblings. It made more sense, anyway, didn't it?
    I hated taking care of Kassy during that time of the month. I hated having to force her to take care of herself. It disgusted me. And the entire time I was helping her clean herself off and change her sanitary napkin, she would cry and even throw fits at times. She was truly more like a small child, and by this time I was convinced that my father should take her to a mental institution. But he refused, claming that his family would always stick together, no matter what the cost.
    I understood, of course. But I wanted to live my own life. I wasn't some hired nurse to help care for his mentally challenged child, which she truly was. I was his other daughter. But I was convinced that he forgot that I needed my own privacy.
    Taking care of Kassy was a full-time job. It never seemed to end. She was always having one problem or another. Eventually, she did take care of herself during her monthly period better, although I had to remind her. But reminding her was a lot easier than actually having to do it all for her.
    I lost my childhood to her. Maybe that's why I became so bitter towards her along with my dead mother. I wanted to hate Kassy as much as I'd made myself hate my mother, but I couldn't. I loved her so much that I would continue taking care of her. I couldn't stop myself. By the time I was in my teens I had become a mother to her. I truly felt close to her like a mother would a daughter. It was frightening to have such strong feelings for someone, but I had been forced into being Kassy's mother. How else was I supposed to feel?
    When I started my own womanly cycle at the same twelve years as Kassy, I was a lot less dramatic. And, not to mention, a lot more clean about it. I couldn't stand to be in my own body during that time, however, and slept as much as possible, wanting to escape from the reality that I was woman, and I did have to deal with this dirty thing every month. I hated to feel filthy, but no matter how clean I made myself, I continued to feel disgusting until it all ended.
    When I started my own, Kassy decided to get bad about hers again. Susie couldn't take it. I woke from a nap one afternoon to the sounds of yelling and screams from someone who sounded like they were being murdered. Immediately realising that the screams came from Kassy and the hollers from Susie, I rushed to Kassy's room.
    "You are dirty like a monkey! You bleed on another sheet, I will personally put you in boiling hot water and scrub your filthy skin." Susie was standing in front of a curled-up Kassy, who lay on the floor, crying.
    "You most certainly will not touch her," I yelled, rushing to Kassy's side. I knelt by her and brushed her hair with my fingers lovingly. "Don't listen to her, Kassy. She's just a mean, ugly, bitter old woman. She only wants to hurt us because she's jealous of how pretty we are."
    "I'm not jealous of spoiled little rug rats. Be gone from here while I take care of her. I'm her nanny," Susie yelled at me, holding tightly to the bloodied sheet.
    "Oh, you most certainly are!" I declared. "Be gone from here, you old hag. You've done enough damage."
    Susie looked as if she was about to kill me, but Father stepped in just as she was coming towards me with her large fist raised. "Susie? What are you doing?"
    "You raise filthy, spoiled brats. I did what I could, but they're still dirty and disgusting, with bad mouths." She looked pointedly at me.
    "You were going to hit her, weren't you?" he demanded to know. It was the first time I'd ever seen my father defend us during one of our punishments from Susie.
    Susie nodded, being honest. "Yes, she deserve it with mouth like that!" Her English became awful when she was in a fit of rage.
    I had never back-mouthed Susie, or anyone else for that matter. I had always been polite, trying my hardest to put up with her. I didn't have much of a temper on me, but she had gone too far. Kassy was still scared to death, shaking on the floor still curled up in a ball. She had gone to whining from crying, though.
    "You weren't hired to punish my children in such a manner. If anything they have done is worth that punishment, you were to come get me immediately." I held my breath on the word "were". Was he going to fire her? "I'm sorry, Susie, but your job here is now terminated. And I'll make sure that you'll have a hell of a time working as a nanny again."
    I was smiling and celebrating inside. I was also wishing that I'd told him about the smacking and hitting, and even kicking, that she'd been putting us through our entire lives. She would have been terminated a long time ago, had I just piped up instead of put up with it. I realised that a little too late, though.
    It wasn't until after Susie and Father had left the room that I helped Kassy up off the floor. That's when I saw the giant bruise on the side of her face. "Oh, my God! Kassy, did she hit you?"
    She nodded, and held the swollen side of her face. "It hurt, Felicity. It hurt so bad!" she moaned, her tears coming back. She began to sniffle and wipe at her nose with her hand. I got her a tissue and handed it to her.
    I didn't know if I should tell Father. Susie was already fired, what else could he do? But I also knew that he needed to know. Susie needed to lose her job as a nanny permanently. With age, she was getting more difficult, and more abusive. I couldn't imagine her around young children. Kassy was close enough to a young child, and Susie couldn't handle her with her special needs, she'd proven that.
    I decided to clean Kassy up, and take her down to Father. We walked down the stairs together, Kassy leaning on me, still sniffling although her crying had stopped. Eddie was just coming up the stairs whe he heard us. "What's going on? I heard Father fire Susie!" He sounded so shocked I almost laughed. But I understood his shock. After years and years of begging to get rid of her, he'd finally seen what we'd been telling him for so long, and had done just that.
    "She was about to hit me when he walked in." I went into further explanation, telling him everything that had happened. "And now I am taking Kassy down to show Father what Susie did to her."
    "I'll go with you. We need to tell him everything that she has done to us." I didn't know what else she had done that was so horrible. I was sure that what she had done to Kassy was the worst ever. How wrong I was.
    We got into the front parlour, one of Father's favourite rooms. As we entered, he turned around to see us. The moment he saw Kassy, his eyes seemed to turn red with anger. He didn't ask, he simply walked over to Kassy and held her close to him. It shocked me to see such a display of affection. He had never been affectionate with any of us.
    Eddie didn't know what was going on, but he had learned, by now, to go by his instincts and feelings. "There's more," he announced, and we all turned to him. "Sit down. I need to tell you all something that has been going on for a long time. Or had been."
    We all sat down as he bid, and he began to tell us all a story that I hadn't expected, a story that truly disgusted me. "When I was about three years old, Susie began to touch me. You know that she was always nice to me. Felicity always used to wonder why I wanted to get rid of her; she was always so kind to me. Well, she had been molesting me up until about six months ago. I put a stop to it, because I realised what was going on. I told her I'd tell."
    "That's the last straw. I'm turning her in." Father was so angry I thought that he would surely burst about it. In seconds he had the police over. They took each of us by ourselves and had us tell them what had gone on with Susie.
    When it was my turn, a lady cop sat me down at a long table. The room was set up just like in the movies, when they would interrogate people. I almost laughed. I didn't know who was copying who, the movies or the police station.
    "Sweetie, I want to ask you some personal questions," she began, fumbling with some papers nervously. She seemed uncomfortable with asking me personal things such as she had to ask.
    I nodded. "I already know what you'll ask me. The answers are all no. The only one of us she ever touched was Eddie. She always hit us girls. Or she would lock us in closets. She would grow angry when we liked to play inside of the closets, because that was supposed to be our punishment rooms. She often hit us or kicked us."
    She seemed stunned by how easy I made her job. "Well, why didn't you ever tell anyone? Don't you know that your family is always there for you in such a matter?"
    I smiled, and shook my head as if she were a complete numbskull. "Don't you know anything? Rich families aren't close. I hardly know who my father is, and I was honestly shocked by his reaction to all of this. I am only close with my siblings because of certain circumstances."
    "That's a very sad thing to say, Felicity. Do you really feel that your father doesn't love you enough to react the way he did?"
    I didn't know if she was prying further into my private life or being sympathetic. "I know my father loves us all. I just don't know him very well. Ever since our mother died, he's been in sort of a trance, always wanting to be with her. But that is none of your business. We are not neglected children. You're after Susie, not my father. Can I go now?" I stared at her, wanting her to feel the anger she was building up within me. And, as I've said before, I wasn't an angry person. I was just very protective of my family.
    She shrugged and let me go, having everything she needed on paper. They, of course, couldn't touch my father on negligence charges, but I saw that she had been trying. I assumed right away that it was because she hadn't been very well off as a child, and hated rich people. She wanted us to have to be normal children and struggle as her family had, not have it easy. So she blamed Father, and hated him for having so much to give us.
    Susie was, of course, thrown into jail. We all had to take the stand and testify against her. We had been in her care for twelve long years. There was an intense amount to be told, especially by Eddie. The jury was shocked that anyone trusted to take care of a child could do such a thing. Some of them had nannies for their children, and decided to get rid of them when they returned home, for just-in-case purposes. I only knew this because I sat close enough to them to hear some of them whispering. I had fantastic hearing.
    When we returned home from the last day of the trial, we were all very exhausted. Our faces were plastered all over the news, even though it had only been a two-day trial. It was such a big deal being that she was a trusted nanny, and we were rich little children. Our father could afford the best, and had assumed that he'd got the best.
    Father got tons of attention from co-workers of his. Many of the women all felt terribly sorry for him. It made me angry that we were all skipped over by our father's friends. We had been through it all, not him. Yet he was the one that seemed to have gone through a horrible ordeal.
    After that, Father seemed to come more out of his shell. He dated some, although nobody seriously. But suddenly we were having garden parties, and holiday parties, and just parties just to party. Suddenly, we were not only rich but also famous, and in the circle in which the rich and famous socialised.
    I hated it immediately. I didn't like this sudden fame and glory. I'd been happy just to sit back in our quiet world. I had enough to deal with. Kassy wasn't growing any older mentally. She aced everything she did that the teacher gave to all of us, so she learned things. But she resided in her childish world. Father, embarrassed by her, told her to hardly speak, if she had to at all, during the parties.
    I have no idea how I made it through any of those parties with Kassy. I stood by her side, making sure that she was behaving herself. Father insisted that I turn down anyone that wished to dance with me. He wanted me to keep Kassy close by, not wanting her to cause one of her many scenes. It was rather difficult to hide a mental illness when you socialised with the rich. And you only had to hide it because you would face harsh ridicule from them.
    I only protected Kassy, and did as my father said because I didn't want Kassy hurt. She was sensitive, and people even looking at her the wrong way would make her burst into tears. So many young men asked her to dance and when I finally let one have her, so as not to cause suspicion when the excuse was "we've been through a lot right now", she behaved herself perfectly. In fact, on the dance floor she seemed another person. She actually had the young man smiling.
    It wasn't that Kassy acted older, she just acted more refined and classy than expected. Soon I was able to let her do whatever she wanted so that I could do whatever I wanted. Father was suddenly proud to show us all off. I hated when these rich, snobby people, especially the women, would come up and ask me questions about my life with Susie. Susie had been a bad person, but they were more interested in how dirty a person she was. After all, however could such a bad person be clean and refined enough to take care of children? I actually heard some of them gossiping about our family. They seemed to be using us for amusement, and that bothered me.
    I tried to tell Father about it, but he ignored me. He was enjoying this new lifestyle. It seemed to get his mind off of Mother. I didn't want him hurt, or Eddie or Kassy. But I had a bad feeling about this going on. I knew that it would end, and I knew that it wouldn't end well. So I attempted to warn him, no matter how many times he brushed me off.
    It didn't all end as I expected it to. In fact, it ended rather difficultly. It had all been going on for three years, and still we were a big conversational piece amongst most. It annoyed me, but it seemed to be good for Eddie, who always had a trail of girls following him. And Kassy was even engaged to be married. It worried me that Allen didn't understand that something was wrong with her, but no matter how I tried to tell him and explain things to him, he ignored me. But he'd never been alone with Kassy, he just didn't understand.
    It wasn't until Kassy's wedding day that everything went down. Everyone was getting ready. Father had put me in charge of everything and everyone, as he most always did during events. I helped all of the bridesmaids into their dresses, and helped Kassy get dressed, because she was having one of her bad days. I knew the moment she began to cry and act like her old, immature self that the day would go badly.
    The vows were exchanged, and I stood by nervously, my palms sweaty. I didn't know what I was expecting to happen. But it was coming. I could feel it with every fibre of my being.
    They were dancing their first dance as husband and wife. Nobody had heard that Susie had broken loose from prison. But we all knew rather quickly when she burst in on the wedding.
    I'll never understand why they believed every word she uttered about our family. She blabbered about incest, and about how Kassy wet the bed up until she was fifteen years old, and other such things. And all of these people that had said such horrible things about her and had sympathised so much with my family were suddenly pulling away with repulse.
    The cops came and took her back, but the damage had already been done. We had risen to fame, and had fallen. It had been our time to shine for a few short years, but it was all taken down with words of cruelty. But if those people were so shallow, they could have their snobby world back. I certainly didn't need it, anyway.
    I just wanted what was best for my family. And I wasn't getting that anymore. Eddie was upset because all of the friends he'd had, his only friends he'd ever had, disappeared. Father was upset that his life had started again, only to end so abruptly. He went back into his shrine of Mother, and was positive that it was a sign from her that she didn't want him to associate himself with people like them. He apologised to her profusely, which annoyed me. If she controlled his life after death, I couldn't imagine when she was alive.
    I was surprised that Allen chose to stay with Kassy. It made me believe that he loved her. Though I did find out later that he cheated on her left and right. It made me angry. He was taking advantage of her illness. She hadn't a clue what was going on. But I did. He had a wife to give him heirs, he had a dowry from her, and she was too stupid to realise that his partying wasn't yet over. I felt bad for her, but there was absolutely nothing that I could do.
    With Kassy out of the house, and the popularity having fallen apart, I was at a loss as to what to do with myself. Suddenly, loneliness hit hard. Eddie was so depressed that he refused to come out of his room, and Father was busy apologising to my death mother. So that left me. All alone. But then again, even with them around, wasn't I always alone anyway?

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