Involuntarily Yours

** This story contains emotional abuse **

Harvey Brown looked around the stifling attic, sweat forming on his brow. The small dirty window afforded him a view of the yard - his one reminder of the outside world. Old memories were what kept him going after eleven years in captivity, the last seven months of them in this very loft.

In his imagination, Harvey was young again and he was transported back to 1957. He could see himself with his then black hair all slicked back, donning his nicest summer sweater and navy slacks. Nervously breathing in the scents from the flowering shrubs, he walked to the home of his beautiful bride-to-be.

He envisioned his lovely Bonnie opening the door upon his arrival. Her hair was the color of sunshine, curled overnight with those rubber rollers. ‘Spoolies,’ he believed they were called. A loopy wave draped down, a whisper away from one of her green-gold eyes.

Harvey was on the verge of recalling Bonnie’s outfit when Pips scurried across the floor. The tiny mouse had been Harvey’s roommate since his seclusion on the uppermost floor of the antique house.

“Hey, fella,” Harvey said now to his animal friend, “I was kind of in the middle of something…”

Suddenly, the attic door burst open and Pips bustled away while Harvey held his breath.

The ample body of his abductor squeezed through the doorway, jiggling as she thrust a tray towards Harvey. “Here’s your lunch,” she sneered. “Maybe you shouldn’t eat it. You never know what I might’ve put in it.” Greasy hair of curly black, streaked with grey hung down, nearly falling in his soup as his sister, Anna, taunted him.

Harvey tentatively reached for the filthy tray when Anna gave it a hard shove sending the soup flying out of the bowl and spilling the entire cup of water. “You forgot to thank me, you ingrate!”

“Thank you,” her brother whispered staring at his feet.

“Poor Harvey,” Anna mocked, “you’re such a good person.” Just then, a rotting banana fell out a pocket of her ill-fitting jumper. “Here, take this,” she scowled. Then she produced half a bottle of spring water, “and you’ll be needing something to drink since you spilled your water. Klutz.” Anna opened the top of the bottle and spit in it.

“Bon appétit. Try not to choke on it,” she added with an evil smile as she turned to leave.

As Harvey heard the key turning in the lock, he felt both relief and shame. He had wanted to scream, “Get the hell out of here, Angela!”

Not since the sixties, when his sister’s idol - a Swedish singer named Anna - hit the scene, had she allowed anyone to call her Angela. She insisted that, she too, was named Anna because that was the name she took for her Catholic confirmation. But it wasn’t. She’d chosen St. Anne as her patron Saint. “And Anne means Anna, so that’s my real name.” And that was that. It was as much a lie as everything else his sister said and did.

* * * * * * * * *

Looking out the window, Harvey determined it was around 4:00 P.M. He had learned to figure time by the angle of the sun. Moments ago, he’d heard an engine turn over signaling that Anna went somewhere with her grandson Ricardo. Harvey’s niece was Ricardo’s mother, but Anna viewed the fourteen-year-old boy as a piece of property, her property, and took right over.

Now was Harvey’s chance to look for an escape for the millionth time. First stop was the area of the standalone toilet. This was the part of the attic with a small amount of surface area in which to walk. He had to climb over a table to get to it, but he was used to that. The whole room was cluttered with old furniture and junk, just like the rest of the house. Opposite the table, Harvey started feeling along the paneled walls for weak spots. He could hear the ‘drip-drip-drip’ of the nearby broken sink that kept him awake many a night.

Hours passed as he felt along the walls, pushing, prodding, examining. He hadn’t realized how good he had it when he was allowed in the main part of the house. For nearly ten and a half years, Anna had kept him inside mostly, controlling him with the threat of the carving knife she kept under her pillow on the couch where she slept. But every so often…he’d slipped out of the house and into the fresh air. Now, as he desperately groped every structure within reach, he’d forgotten what fresh air even felt like.

Taking a much needed break, Harvey thought back to when all this started. He still had all his faculties about him at 85 years old, despite being fed old, dirty food and being stuck in a hot, musty old attic at the top of a decrepit antique house.

The beginning of the end was the day his little sister was born. Unbeknownst to Mr. and Mrs. Brown, they’d produced an abomination. By the time she was school aged, Angela constantly set Harvey up and made him the target for all her immoral actions. The rabbits that she injured in the yard; the stolen car keys and resulting crash of their automobile into the garage; the missing money from their mother’s purse. Angela was calculating and cunning enough to convince both Brown parents that these misdeeds were all committed by Harvey, which resulted in many hours of therapy for the stable child.

Only when it was too late and the misdeeds turned into misdemeanors, did their parents see what was happening in their own household. And by then, fifteen-year-old Angela Brown became Anna Warner, wife of the foolish Bobby Warner.

Harvey heard the car pulling into the driveway again and got up to climb back over the table. He picked up a grimy tissue off the floor and tried unsuccessfully to polish the undersized window. He couldn’t see them from this angle, but he heard both his sister and his great-nephew arguing outside. Funny how he never heard his niece anymore. Lynley was quiet, but it was odd that she should never make a sound in that poorly insulated house.

Before he could ponder over that any longer, he heard the familiar sound of heavy footsteps approaching the door. He pretended to be sleeping so that maybe Anna would leave him alone.

“Move!” she yelled after throwing open the door. “You’re lucky I brought you food and you have the nerve to sleep?” Sneering, she added, “Who do you think you are?”

After being forced onto his hands and knees to kiss Anna’s feet, he received his poor excuse of a meal.

Harvey took the tray and saw half a loaf of hardened bread and a half-filled cup of milk. He wouldn’t put it past his sister to poison him, but he gambled on the idea that she wouldn’t. After all, she didn’t want those social security checks to stop coming.

She left. At least it was a short visit this time.

Pouring a tad of the lukewarm milk over the bread to soften it, Harvey ate. Pips scampered over and Harvey broke off tiny pieces for his pet.

After the sparse dinner, Harvey sat down against the wall to continue his fantasy from that morning.

Closing his eyes to travel back in time, he envisioned Bonnie in her turquoise summer dress, complete with the circular silver pin she always wore on her left hand side. The one with the little pearl.

Quickly brushing over her hair with one hand, Bonnie greeted her suitor with a brilliant smile, a slight, curved dimple forming in her lovely left cheek.

She grabbed her white cardigan and took the hand that he offered and off they walked down the moonlit path into the warm evening.

A thought was niggling at his brain, a riddle that had tormented him all his life, moving to the forefront of his mind. Why had Bonnie left him only a month before they were to be wed? What could he have possibly done to taint their love? Harvey had never had the opportunity to ask her those questions because she had left town without telling a soul.

How could he have possibly known that Angela had sabotaged their relationship with threats and lies she had told the young, frightened girl? He couldn’t have known that, but he should have been able to guess.

* * * * * * * * *

The following morning, Harvey once again set about the task of finding an escape route in the attic. It was restricted due to all the old, broken down objects shoved in there, but he no longer cared.

As usual, Anna went out with Ricardo whom she lived vicariously through. And Harvey was going to break down the walls if he had to while they were away. He did feel for his great-nephew and wanted to help him, but in order to do that, Harvey had to escape.

He went over to the area of the wall that he intended to kick in. Forty minutes later, Harvey gave up. Punching, kicking, even slamming his body against the wall with all his might, did nothing. Except now he was shaking from exertion and feeling terribly weak.

Suddenly , he heard a noise coming from somewhere downstairs. He’d heard Anna’s and Ricardo’s voices outside earlier, followed by the sound of the car driving away. So who was in the house?

Without warning, there was a loud crashing sound and Harvey felt his body freeze in terror. Had Anna gone completely crazy and somehow snuck back in? He pushed his back against the wall and huddled into the fetal position, bracing himself for the worst.

A few moments later, he perceived that the worst was happening. Hearing the key turning in the lock, Harvey began to cry silently. He could take no more. What would Anna do to him now? His old t-shirt was wet under his overalls as the tears fell more rapidly. Soon he was crying so hard that his entire body shook, heaving with sobs he could no longer contain.

“Uncle Harvey?” a soft, concerned voice inquired.

Astonished, Harvey looked up to see his niece before him. “Lynn!”

Lynley ran over to hug him and started sobbing. Uncle and niece stayed that way for a few minutes until they both regained their composure.

“Where have you been, Lynley?” Harvey had almost believed the girl dead. He would put nothing past Anna.

“I’ve been locked in the den for months.” Lynley told him. “Angela put me there.”

Harvey noticed that Lynley openly referred to her mother as Angela, just like he silently did.

His niece went on, “Did she lock you in here, Uncle Harvey? I overheard her tell Ricardo you were up here, but since she lies all the time…”

“Yes,” he answered sadly. I’ve been stuck up here for months, as well. And then, “How’d you get the key, Lynn?”

“I checked under the rug,” she explained. “I figured Angela might do something like that. I hurried up here after breaking the down the den door. All the noises upstairs scared me into trying to escape. So in a weird way, you saved me by making such a racket. But we still have to get out of this house.”

They both ran toward the door when Harvey yelled, “Wait!”

Dumbfounded, Lynley looked expectantly at her uncle.

“I’m sorry, it’s just…I have to find Pips,” Harvey was racing around the attic in a desperate search for his small companion.

Before Lynley could ask who Pips was, Harvey emerged with the adorable mouse. Delighted, Lynley uttered, “Oh! Hello there, Pips!”

Then the two of them proceeded to run down both sets of stairs, Pips in hand. Harvey noticed the whole house was falling apart, but only cared about his freedom.

They reached the kitchen door and tried the knob. It gave way and they raced out of the house in relief.

When they reached their neighbor’s home, Thelma Johnson answered the door. She was briefed on their situation and called for assistance. “You’re safe now,” she assured the two frightened survivors. “And we will get Ricardo to safety, too,” Mrs. Johnson promised. Then she took them out to the terrace for tea while they waited.

“What a beautiful sunny day,” said Harvey as he, Lynley and Pips felt their first rays of sun in seven months.