Missing Without A Trace Read Free Page B

now, in more insidious ways. For example, someone once passed her a note, pretending to be a popular guy asking her out on a date. She went upto him after class and he laughed at her because he hadn’t sent the note.
    When Tanya was young, her maternal grandparents were loving substitute parents. But, they traveled a lot and she could not rely upon them to rescue her from all the neglect and abuse. The weekends she was able to be with them, they treated Tanya like a princess, making her breakfast and spoiling her with lots of Barbie dolls and other indulgences. But this only further infuriated Nancy, who was jealous of all their pampering.
    Tanya’s mother had warned her not to tell her grandparents about Nancy’s boyfriends and her partying, threatening to beat Tanya if she dared speak of it. Finally, when Tanya was twelve or thirteen, unable to withstand it any longer, she told her grandparents about her mother’s abuse. Her grandfather swiftly took her home so that Tanya could show him the belt her mom used, and then took her to Child Protective Services. They ordered Tanya and her mom into counseling. This prompted Nancy to call Randy, who had gotten out of prison, built a painting business and remarried. Nancy was in trouble, so she decided it was time to bring him back into the picture.
    Nancy called Randy, inquiring—out of the blue—if he would like to have Tanya come live with them. This seemed like a wonderful idea to Tanya. She had visions of a real family, a comfortable home, dinners… a normal life. “I could be a kid,” she thought. So she decided to live with her dad. And she did, for one-and-a-half-years, from twelve or thirteen years old until she was fourteen or fifteen.
    But whereas living with her mom meant complete neglect, living with her dad meant every move she made was wrong. Although her father spoiled her with expensive things from the mall, her perfectionist stepmother treated Tanya like Cinderella, making her clean house and do chores. She was very afraid of them. When Tanya accidentally broke something while she was cleaning, her father’s face got beet red and he yelled at her that she was “slime.” Another time, he threw down a chair and threatened to cut off her long hair, which he did, ostensibly becauseher hair products were costing him too much money. It was another way to show her that he was in control. His displeasure and yelling was a frequent occurrence.
    Tanya’s stepmother couldn’t have children. She was afraid that Tanya would take her father with her when she returned to Washington, and that he would return to his first love, Nancy. So her stepmother never missed an opportunity to complain to him about Tanya. She read Tanya’s diary and eavesdropped outside her therapy sessions, exposing Tanya’s most personal thoughts, such as the reason why she refused to call Randy “Dad”—because he was never around during her childhood.
    Since Randy’s brother had starved himself to death, Tanya wasn’t allowed to close her door. As a teenage girl, she found this very awkward and uncomfortable. She was even told how long she could be in the shower. Tanya tried her best. She was a straight-A student, but this wasn’t enough for them. She had to be in honor classes. The social worker from Child Protective Services was still in contact with her, but Tanya couldn’t tell her how things really were at her dad’s house because her calls were being monitored.
    Still, this was a time when Tanya began to flourish. Now in eighth and ninth grade, she became a top student and others looked up to her. She played violin and was involved in the drama group. But her overprotective father and stepmother interfered, restricting her from acting in the school play and from going on a school trip to see the space shuttle.
    After a year and a half, it was agreed upon that she would visit her mother for summer vacation. Her father was afraid she’d stay there, so he wouldn’t let her take