Amy B. Chesler - Working for Justice: One Familys Tale of Murder, Betrayal, and Healing

A POST HILL PRESS BOOK

ISBN: 978-1-6 4293-754-1

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-6 4293-755-8

Working fo r Justice:

One Familys Tale of Murder, Betrayal, a nd Healing

2021 by Amy B. Chesler

All Right s Reserved

Cover art by Cody Corcoran

All people, locations, events, and situations are portrayed to the best of the authors memory. While all of the events described are true, many names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of the people involved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

Post Hill Press

New York Nashville

posthil lpress.com

Published in the United States of America

Dedicated to anyone who has ever felt alone in

their experiences, and to Mom for lov ing me so

fiercely that her presence stil l remains.

Table of Contents

The following is an entry in a diary that Mom penned between the years of 1974 and 1992. She eventually gifted the small, leather-wrapped account of her life to me when I was seventeen. It truly illustrates the qualities Mom most embodied: openness, honesty, fairness, and tenacity. It is with these values, which Dasi held so dear, that I work towards justice in her honor.

October 23rd, 1985

Dearest Ror y and Amy,

I hope when the two of you grow up, youll be decent human beings because thats how Im trying to bring you up. I want you to be good, warm, caring, thoughtful, open , honest, sharing, real, not play games , feeling, sensitive, unselfish, fair, giving, generous people! If you are all these things, and God only knows Im trying to set a good example for the two of you, people will have respect for you, youll be happy, and youll respect yourself. With these tools youll be able to be very accomplished, and I will always be there for you to back you up in anything! Always look to people inwardly, not outwardly, because when people have all these qualities that I hope the two of you someday will have on the inside, then they are automatically great on th e outside!

Lov e Always,

Mom

My phone rings for the second time in the matter of a few minutes. A warbled, instrumental version of A-has Take On Me echoes across the playground, cutting through the distant sound of children playing. I click the button on the side of my chunky, pink contraption to silence the noise and to avoid disturbing the remaining students in the classrooms behind me. I spy the small, square screen on the Noki as cover.

Mom, 818 scrolls acro ss again.

My eyes roll before I realize what they are doing, and I huff as I crack my ph one open.

Sometimes Mom pushes the thin boundaries we have set up, much like she is doing this particular afternoon. This is already the fourth time she has called me since my work shift began, and I sense that if I do not pick up now, she will just ke ep trying.

Hey, whats up? Im at work.

My voice is terse and impatient. I cannot curb it, especially when I am on the job. I attempt to establish the fact early on that I am not available, so she will not dive into a long diatribe. Thankfully, work is always a valid excuse with Mom. School might be the only o ther one.

Mom runs a tight ship, or at the very least, attempts to when I am on deck. I have come to realize over the years this need for relative control stems from her anxiety, and her application of it to me is because I allow her to do so. It is also her way of mastering life instead of life mastering her, as it has done in the past. I believe almost everyones anxiety is, whether it is born from post-traumatic stress disorder or not. In this moment, however, I am not so understanding. Instead, I am short on patience.

When are you going to be home? sh e retorts.

No greeting whatsoever; her voice is thick with blunt friction.

My annoyance is indomitable, and it becomes impossible for me to bite back anot her sigh.

My students have a field trip today. A beat, then, Im pretty sure I mentioned that to you ye sterday.

I am perturbed, as I can often be when dealing with my family. It sounds terrible, but lately I have had way more important things to deal with, like finishing school, my sorority involvement, and a budding career. As far as I am concerned in this moment, their drama is officially out of my newly college-graduated pay grade. In fact, the more I experience the world outside our little family, the less time I am willing to devote to my familys dysfunction. Distance just feels too nice.

Probably closer to ten, I flatten my response, working hard to swallow a little of the buzz at the recess of m y throat.

I know Moms intentions are pure, but I want so badly to be free of my familys incessant need for my mediation. Work and school are my havens to escape my role at home, and they always have been. I despise when these very separate lives of success and strife that I have so carefully cultivated to grow separately become intertwined. Like a semester or two ago, when Rory hijacked my open AOL Instant Messenger buddy list and messaged a few of my sorority sisters from my screen name. I had been mortified and was sure the candid, questionably inappropriate messages he had sent out to them would give me the status of social pariah. All I could do was craft an apology and be sure to log out. Thankfully, my sisters had been forgiving. But because I am poor at establishing boundaries with my family, the game of emotional tug-of-war hardly ever stops. Like right now.

I am about to say goodbye and hang up to attend to my growing work obligations, when I think to add, Why? Everythi ng okay?

The emotional support is why she is calling, anyway, I am sure.

She ignores my questions and instead replies , Fine.

Or maybe that is her answer, and also her very poor attempt at making me think things are conflict-free at home while I am at work. A heavy breath muffles her side of the line and ends with a loud crackling snap. It signifies either a biting back of words or serious defeat. She does not hang up.

But a parent walks up to sign their child out of the after-school program I am newly directing, and I can no longer attend to her and Rorys needs. Her impending re sponse becomes irrelevant.

Ugh, sorry, Mom, someone just got here. Gotta go, bye. And with that, I hang up.

About fifteen minutes later, Ro ry calls.

The majority of my students not going on the field trip have been retrieved by their parents, with the exception of a few stragglers. My attending staff has also successfully loaded the trip-goers onto the large, yellow bus standing idly in front of the school. Things are calmer, and I am less preoccupied. So I decide I have a few moments to chat, especially considering Moms earlier call. Something about it that I just cannot put my finger on leaves me with a pit in m y stomach.

I answer the phone with as casual a Hey, whats up? as I can muster.

When are you going to be home? he asks.

The same question, sans greeting, and his voice contains the same agitation that seems to have been laced into Moms speech too. I am a bit more open this time. It is not like I am generally more candid with Rory. On the contrary, Mom and I are close, undoubtedly closer than any other mother-daughter duo that I know. We tell each other almost everything, to a degree that make most parents or children unco mfortable.