Penny's life was like a fairy tale--the terrible kind. Penny Lane was four years old when she was snatched from her home. The strange man's foreign accent was as rough as his kisses; her beloved Aunt Charlotte introduced him as Penny's father. As the girl and her suitcase were bundled into a car, Aunt Charlotte revealed a horrifying truth: Penny's mother died when she was a baby, and her Hungarian father had suddenly claimed her. Her illusion of family shattered, from that moment Penny's uprooted life became an exercise in survival.
The abuse started quickly: Her new stepmother beat her bloody for eating a slice of bread without asking, beat her for lies she never told, beat her without excuse. As she grew into a young adult, Penny's boyfriend introduced her to church. But instead of finding solace, she was sucked into a too-familiar cycle of manipulation as the charismatic leaders exerted cult-like control. After being pressured into marriage and enduring years of forced confessions, Salem-style accusations, secretive disciplinary actions, and ostracization, Penny reaches her breaking point. Could she leave the church and her husband--and confront her abusers--and finally navigate life on her own terms?
A harrowing story of survival, this deeply poignant narrative explores learning to give yourself what others have denied you.
Excerpt
Chapter One: Losing Home
The man kissing me told me he was my father, but I did not know him. His face was rough and scratchy, and his smell unfamiliar. His sloppy kisses soon turned into hugs as he babbled away in a foreign accent that I did not recognize, acting as if he knew me. I didn’t want him to kiss me but did not know how to tell him to stop. I tried to pull away, but he was too big, and I didn’t stand a chance. My throat closed up, and I couldn’t talk.
The year was 1963. I was four years old. Before this strange man walked down my driveway, I had been plum happy sitting on my red tricycle, scanning the neighborhood for someone to play with. I had a great life in a big, brown two-story house in Linden, New Jersey, with lots of yard on a shady, tree-lined street. We had a long, wide driveway on which I could ride back and forth all day or play hopscotch with my cousins. I lived with my Aunt Charlotte and Uncle George and their kids, Georgie, and Alex. Living downstairs were my Uncle Buddy and Aunt Mary and their brood, Maggie, Rebecca and Ted. We had neighbors next door who were old but still nice, and there were lots of kids and fun on our street. I fit right in.
“Penniké,” the new man called out enthusiastically, grinning with his funny teeth. He kept calling me Penniké, though my name was Penny, and he called me another funny word, csillagom.
Just then, Aunt Charlotte came outside in her going-to-town dress and began talking to this man like she knew him. She did not seem surprised by his presence, or his odd words, which made my stomach queasy. She looked at me with eyes I could not read, then quickly looked away.
The street was quiet, except for the grown-ups talking, and it was hot. My clothes were starting to itch and stick to my back, making me even more uncomfortable. After a while, my aunt hunched down to me, her soft, tender eyes at my level. She smiled as she stroked my cheek, but I could sense that she was having a hard time of it, her smile cracking into a sad face.
“Precious,” she said, “this is your father, and he’s come to take you home.”
What? I thought to myself. I had never seen him before in my life.
Home? I was already home. This was where we had birthday parties and ice cream, where we kids played hide-and-seek and chased fireflies in the backyard at night. I had always lived here, and I did not like this stranger. Aunt Charlotte held my hand as she and the man started walking way too fast toward a car parked at the curb. I dragged my feet and pulled back, but Aunt Charlotte tugged me along with a force that I had not experienced with her before. I let go of my tricycle and hoped it would not tip over. What was going on? And why was this man carrying the suitcase I had seen in the kitchen that morning? As I looked back at the house, I saw my cousins Georgie and Alex in the front window, watching. I looked up at the adults talking to each other over my head, but I could not make out the words. Something was very wrong.
In the car, a man waited for us in the driver’s seat. He smiled and handed me a beautiful teddy bear, which calmed me down a little. Maybe this was not so bad. The driver’s eyes were kind, and he held my gaze for a few moments, as if to communicate some sort of comfort, but did not say anything. As we got in the car, the driver spoke to my father, but their words were in a funny language, and I did not get any of it.
I sat in the backseat with Aunt Charlotte, who continued holding my hand. She told me we were going to see Uncle George at the train station. My Uncle George was a ticket agent for the Pennsylvania Railroad, a glamorous-sounding job to me. But we’d never visited him at the train station before.
As we pulled away from my home, I looked back at my tricycle left in the driveway. Aunt Charlotte held me close, her arm around my back. The two men in the front seat were still conversing in their strange language. Sometimes I heard them mention that name, Penniké.
I could tell by the struggle on her face that my aunt was getting ready to say something and was choosing her words carefully. “Precious, your mother died when you were a baby,” she told me gently. She said she had taken me in, and I had been living with her and her family ever since.
“You were too young to remember,” she said.
My head and throat were starting to hurt, and I became dizzy. I had always thought that Aunt Charlotte was my mother and that Uncle George was my father and that I was part of their family. Why hadn’t anyone told me?
I kept quiet. There was a lot of chatting among the adults the rest of the way to the train station, but I was still reeling from what Aunt Charlotte had told me. Why did my mother die? Would Aunt Charlotte die? Would I die, too? I held on to Aunt Charlotte’s hand for dear life. I looked at the two men in the front of the car as if in a dream, wondering how they got there. My eyes filled up. I could not speak.
When I gazed up toward Aunt Charlotte, I noticed that she was biting her lip as she looked out the window, and there were tears in her eyes, too. Soon, we got to the station, and she squeezed my hand.
“I’ll be right back, Precious,” she said, not looking back at me. In a flash, she was out the door, disappearing into the crowd before I could say anything or muster the courage to run after her. She never looked back.
In that moment, I had no way of knowing that my carefree, happy life was about to turn into a nightmare I could never have imagined. That I was being ripped from my loving home into a world full of fear, neglect and abuse that would take decades to escape. That I was about to become an unwanted alien, lost in a cold, foreign home, and a powerless scapegoat lacking any sense of self or worth, one that not even God could save.
Until I finally broke free and found a way to stand on my own.
In the car, the two men in the front seat remained silent as we drove away. I waited nervously for Aunt Charlotte to come back. But it would be more than fifty years before I saw her again.
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