Her stepfather earned the certificate in Toledo, Ohio, but never worked as a butcher when he returned to the Wind River Reservation.
Still, he kept fancy cutlery in the kitchen and a big freezer in the basement.
“She was 110 percent deathly afraid of him,” Haukaas said.
Only recently has she started talking to her 69-year-old mother about the domestic violence that permeated their home. Now her early years are beginning to make more sense.
As a girl, Haukaas didn't understand. At times, it seemed too many days were filled with violence.
Like the night her mom and stepdad came home from a bar. Haukaas and her brother were sleeping when adults arrived and began partying in the living room.
When her stepdad opened the bedroom door, the nightlight illuminated his blood-splattered shirt. He told the 10-year-old girl and her brother to stay in the room.
What happened to you? she asked the man.
I got in a fight with a guy.
The kids stayed in the bedroom, listening to the adults' music, but Haukaas needed to use the bathroom. And she found her mother sitting on the toilet bowl.
Her face was swollen and bloody.
“I grabbed her and said, ‘Mom, look at you.' I started crying.”
She patted her mom's back to comfort her. The woman winced.
Cactus needles covered her back.
“I started running the bath water for her,” said Haukaas. The water turned pink when her mother sat down.
Haukaas and her brother were the youngest in the family. The older brothers and sisters had long ago moved out. The only thing the little ones could do was call the cops when their mother was beaten. Their stepfather didn't care.
Go get the cops. Go get the cops. See what they can do.
The cops would come and leave.
“He'd beat her a little more,” said Haukaas.
When she was in eighth grade, Haukaas left Wyoming to attend the Flandreau Indian School, a Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school in South Dakota.
“Sometimes I couldn't wait to get back to school,” she said.
It wasn't until Haukaas turned 17 that her mom and stepdad finally split up. He ended his own life with a shotgun blast to the head.
Her mother later reunited with Haukaas' biological father.
It's been a whirlwind watching her mother find happiness with a man who treats her with respect, said Haukaas, who has learned to appreciate the elderly woman's skills. Her mother has worked as a language consultant for the Eastern Shoshone Tribe. And she's also a master teacher for cradleboard classes.
Today Haukaas, 42, works as a women's advocate at the Wholeness Center, a domestic violence and sexual assault shelter. She helps women and their children find cover from abusive men.
And she no longer blames her mother for a childhood fraught with images of blood-splattered shirts or meat-cutting certificates.
“I told her, ‘I know why you didn't leave. I know. Now I understand.' ”
Her mother cried when she heard the words. She finally told her daughter about her constant fear, how she was slapped with threats the children never heard.
If you leave me, I will kill your kids, cut them up, put them in the freezer and I will feed them to you. And you won't even know you're eating them.
It's taken a while, but Haukaas now uses wry humor to gently massage old wounds. She likes to joke with her mother about the freezer.
“Oh, mom, you could have been eating my big toe.”
Rhonda, you're not even funny.
“Yes, it is,” said her daughter. “We can sit here and laugh now.”
Jodi Rave covers Native issues for the Missoulian. She can be reached at (800) 366-7186 or jodi.rave@lee.net
Domestic violence and children
- In a national survey of more than 6,000 U.S. families, 50 percent of the men who frequently assaulted their wives also frequently abused their children.
- Slightly more than half of female victims of intimate violence live in households with children under age 12.
- Studies suggest between 3.3 million and 10 million children witness some form of domestic violence annually.
Source: Family Violence Prevention Fund
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