• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 357 0

a man was in the waiting area who claimed he was somebody’s driver. He put our kids on his lap and took pictures of them, and nobody could do anything to get rid of him. I kept mentioning my discomfort as politely as possible, but whenever he was asked to leave, he kept reappearing. I felt powerless and completely creeped out; so from then on, we traveled with security at my insistence and had the total support of the network. There was no going back.

Besides, it was essential for safety. With eight small kids in airports and just two of us, what were Jon and I going to do if someone snatched one from us? We had seven others to keep an eye on. Security assistance meant we could just focus on our kids and let someone else watch people’s intentions.

It always thrills me when my kids have the privilege of flying.

Overzealous attention was bad enough, but when those actions turned into vandalism, it became ugly. Our mailbox was destroyed several times, our house was egged, among other things. We were already confined inside with the blinds drawn the majority of the time, and I felt horrible because this was no life for any kid. They need to be free to run outside and play. So I constantly felt torn between keeping them safe and allowing them a normal childhood. They just wanted to ride their bikes on the driveway. Seriously, was that too much to ask?

They just wanted to ride their bikes on the driveway.

At the request of the network, a security review was completed on our house and it highlighted areas where security needed to be improved. Unfortunately, neighborhood building codes prevented us from making the necessary adjustments, so we needed to look into a more secure home location.

It took awhile for us to find the right house. When we finally found it, we had a moving plan in place set for the end of November, right before the holidays. It couldn’t come soon enough for us.

That summer when we were on a vacation in North Carolina, Jon and I said to each other, “Let’s just not go home. Let’s stay here.” If only! We dreaded going home.

When we were home, I would wake up every single morning and the first thing I would think about was, “Where can we go? How can we get away from here? Where can we go where people aren’t staring in our windows?” I felt there was never anywhere we could go to get away from the prying eyes. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, cars were parked along the street. People were watching us at every moment. I would look out my window and see somebody with a camera pointed into my bedroom window taking a picture. We were constantly reminded that we couldn’t keep our own children safe. As a mom, I was horrified. I felt like I wasn’t doing my job.

I started viewing everyone as our enemies. I’m sure most of them didn’t mean any harm; they were just curious. Each person driving by probably thought he or she was the only one who drove by our house. What they didn’t realize is that “just one person” five hundred times a day gets excessive day after day after day after day. We felt bad for our neighbors because we brought so much chaos to the neighborhood. Besides the fans (and vandals), tabloids started calling the neighbors, and reporters started knocking on their doors in addition to our own.

We needed to get out of there fast.

The last straw came unexpectedly one October morning. As I headed out to work on a new book with my editor, I jumped in our white minivan and as I started to back out, I realized it had two flat tires. Annoying, but I could just take the Big Blue Bus instead. When I saw that the bus had two flats as well, I noted that this was not an accident. After closer inspection, I saw large gashes in the tires and realized that someone with a knife had walked up our driveway and deliberately slashed them in the middle of the night.

I ran back in the house and yelled, “Jon, we need to move now!”

I had heard there was a lot of anger toward me on the Internet, but why would someone do this? I not only felt violated—and upset, since we now had to pay for four new tires