Once again, my life was spared simply because of my Mother's weak stomach. I turned blue, and she couldn't stand to see that. If she had thought of simply hiding the rest of my body under the sheets while holding the pillow of my face, she wouldn't have seen any of my skin turn blue and I would have died. But she was in no condition to think.
Next she took me back downstairs, where I sat for a long time on the sofa in the living room while she paced and talked to herself more. Smothering didn't work, what would? She kept talking about finding a way to kill me that wouldn't be ugly. She talked about locking me in a closet and walking away. It wouldn't take that long to walk to town. Then she could hitch a ride, take a train. No, they'd find the body, she'd be charged for leaving me, it wasn't fair. She said, "Damn you! Why couldn't you just die? I HATE YOU! FILTHY BRAT! DIE!"
She got me dressed. "We're going outside to look for the damn dog." It didn't make any sense. She was the one who chased the dog off. She never cared about the dog. Why were we going to look for him? In retrospect I think the idea occurred to her as worth doing just because nothing else she wanted to happen would happen. We were going to look for the damn dog because she couldn't think of a way to kill me that she could stomach that wouldn't leave evidence pointing to her.
I was still weak. I got outside and sat on the ground. She was ordering me back up when my Father came back. He drove up and parked directly in front of the house. He came out of the car reeling. He was drunk. But he said, "I'm here to give myself up. Call the police. Tell them I killed my son."
My Mother laughed at him. "You fucking idiot! He's not dead! He's right over there sitting under the trees. You think you're so fucking strong! You're such a big man! You couldn't even kill a four-year-old! Some soldier!"
My Father ignored her taunts. Seeing me, he broke out in tears. It was the only genuine sign of concern for my welfare I experienced from the two of them that day.
Following that I was allowed to go back into the house. I collapsed onto the sofa while my parents argued what to do next. There were hours of argument. I slept through some of it, so I can't remember it all.
I know that the question of whether to finish me off was raised again by my Mother. My Father was adamant about that. He wouldn't consider it. My Mother spent a long time yelling at him for abandoning her with me. She called him a coward and a wimp for driving away. I found out that he had been gone 3 hours, and spent all the time in a bar. At first he acted humiliated but as she rubbed it in more he began to threaten to hit her if she didn't shut up about it.
Finally she started in to him about the fact that I needed to see a doctor. "If we aren't going to finish him off, we can't just leave him the way he is. He hasn't been able to stand on his own two feet for more than a minute since it happened. How are you going to explain that to your army buddies?"
This led to a long hushed discussion about my Father's career and how he had to be careful. If it got out that he caused this, it could cost him a promotion. My Mother was more than willing to help him preserve his career, but how?
One thing: they both had to be sober. So deep into the evening there was an aroma of coffee brewing from the kitchen.
Another thing: They shouldn't go to an army clinic. I didn't know it then but there was an army infirmary close to the east gate of Fort Devens near Shirley. At any time that day I could have been driven to it within 20 minutes, and there would have been doctors on duty to take care of me. It was ruled out because the army doctors would likely have reported signs of abuse to my Father's commanding officer.
So my parents called a civilian general practitioner out of the phone book. They woke a doctor up that worked out of his own home. They wanted him to make a house call but he insisted that they bring me to him. Fortunately it wasn't far. The doctor's house was on Leominster Road near the east end of Shirley, fewer than two miles away. We got there in five minutes.
As we were getting ready to go, and on the way, I was told that I had fallen down the stairs in the house. I was told, further, that if I didn't say that, "Don't think you'll be safe from us. They won't take you from us right away." I was told that the doctor would try to trick me into saying one of them hurt me. I was to just keep repeating that I fell down the stairs and not give any more details. "Tell the man you can't remember anything more, since you hit your head. You don't even know how you fell."
The doctor was a spectacled old man in his late 60s or 70s who looked a little like if Wilford Brimley put on glasses for his Liberty Medical commercials. While my parents were in the room he peeled the rags off my head. He looked and grimaced and said, "This injury is hours old! Why wasn't he brought to me sooner? Am I the first doctor to see him?"
My parents made lame excuses. They said they didn't think it was serious at first. "We thought the bleeding would have stopped by now."
The old man glared at my Father, and said, "You're with the army aren't you? I've never seen you before. I know everybody in Shirley." My Father said he was a Captain, and the doctor said, "Then you should have had enough training to know that with a head injury like this you need to think about the possibility of concussion, not just bleeding."
Then he demanded to speak to me in private. My parents stood up, my Mother saying, "Do you have to?" but the doctor ignored her and took me firmly by the hand into a small office leaving my parents open-mouthed in his living room/waiting area.
He first made small talk with me. Then he asked me questions that he already knew the answers to, like, "What's your name?" "They told you." "I want you to tell me." He asked the day of the week and the month.
He asked me how it happened. I said, "I fell down the stairs in the house." He said, "They told you to say that. What really happened?" "I fell down the stairs." "It isn't the kind of injury you'd get from falling down the stairs." "I fell down the stairs."
This went on a few more rounds. I never said anything except, "I fell down the stairs," "I fell down the stairs in the house," "I fell down the stairs, sir," "I fell down the stairs in the house, sir." Finally he smiled faintly, and took me back to the waiting area.
The doctor said there was no sign of mental impairment, but I should be taken to a specialist for further evaluation in a few days. He said there were plenty of good specialists at the base that could see me. He said any danger of concussion had passed.
On our way out the doctor told my Father in low voice, "I'm going to be keeping an eye on your family. I have sources on base. If I hear about anything like this happening again, I'm going to find out who you work for and they're going to hear from me. And no, he didn't say anything to me, except that he fell down the stairs. But you and I know you told him to say that."
Dad was unusually quiet during the trip back.
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