A Book of American Martyrs(44)

Our sister Melissa would be alive but living in Shanghai (?). Or perhaps, Melissa would not be alive.

On a trip to China in the 1980s traveling by boat on the Yangtze River he’d seen corpses of infants swirling in the mud-colored water.

Girl babies we were told.

Because he’d seen, and had not forgotten.

Because there is so little we can do. Yet it is our duty, to do it.

Because he had not lost faith and because I am hoping to learn what faith is.


BECAUSE WHEN MY FATHER was murdered on November 2, 1999, all his memory of our family was obliterated in the instant of a shotgun’s explosion.

Because we are that family, we have been obliterated in that instant.

Because what is lost can be retrieved only with effort.

Because if I am admitted to U-M at Ann Arbor I will continue the archive of my father Gus Voorhees’s life (and death). Because I will use the university library to research thoroughly and methodically as I have not (yet) attempted.

Because years were lost when I could not begin.

Because randomly and haphazardly I began the archive after my father’s death not knowing what I was doing as a rat will save items woven into a nest and now that I am older, and am less disabled, I will continue the archive more deliberately. Because my mother was angry with me when she discovered what I had been doing that I had not been doing deliberately but (it seemed to her) secretly because I did not want her to see it and so it was hidden away in an inadequate place where there was dampness, and much of the material has been torn, rotted, and ruined. Because my mother presumed that what I was doing was deliberate and secret because it appeared that way to her who had no idea what I was doing because I did not know myself what I was doing because my thoughts were scattered and it was not clear to me, that “Naomi” was the same person from one day to the next and that this person was to be trusted.

Because if I am admitted as a freshman to the University I will behave then like a freshman at the University. Because I will mimic the behavior of other students that is visible and from this I think that I can successfully deduce behavior that is not visible.

Because my mother said I am sorry, I can’t be your mother any longer.

Because my mother said You must make your own way. I am sorry.


BECAUSE AFTER MY FATHER died there was a sickness in my soul.

Because as a girl I hated those who had both parents living.

Because there was a terrible rage in me even as I smiled at them thinking Some day you will know. Some day they will be dead.

Because it has been years, the murderer is still alive in the Ohio prison.

Because we are waiting for his death—his execution.

Because it is a sick hateful thing, to be waiting for another’s execution.


BECAUSE IF I am admitted to the University I will use every facility in the library to research the life and death of Gus Voorhees. What has been done haphazardly and childishly will be done with care, I vow.

Because there is microfilm in the library, I will learn to examine. I will use computers.

I will search for letters, snapshots, manuscripts—every sort of documentation. I will search.

I will interview people in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti who knew my father. People who knew my parents. Doctors and staff at the hospital, women’s health center. Friends, neighbors. I will go to them and I will say Do you remember me, I am Gus Voorhees’s daughter Naomi.





“FALSE ALARM”: JUNE 1997


Were your parents happy?

What was it like to be a child of Gus Voorhees?

And for your mother—what do you think it was like for Jenna Matheson to be Gus Voorhees’s wife for sixteen years?


“BECAUSE I SAY IT’S NOT.”

My weird brother Darren had it fixed in his brain, the way something stringy might fix itself between your teeth, and slowly drive you crazy if you couldn’t remove it, that our mother’s decision, or rather our mother’s sudden change-of-plans, was not a good idea.

I persisted—“Why not? What’s the difference?”

“It’s not good to change plans impulsively.”

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

Exasperated my brother glared at me. Deliberately my eye sought out the patches of acne on his forehead and cheeks, that kept Darren from being a strikingly attractive boy.

He said, with the righteous stubbornness with which he practiced his braying trumpet outside in the garage where my mother had banished him with a plea of Darren, please! Some of us are trying to retain our sanity: “She should call first.”

“How do you know she hasn’t called?”

“Because I asked her. And she said ‘That isn’t necessary.’”

Darren had caught the haughty calm of our mother’s voice but not the quaver beneath. Such mockery, if that’s what it was, made me uneasy for the obvious and abiding truth was, I loved our mother much more than I loved my difficult brother.

“Why don’t you call Dad yourself, then? If you think it’s so crucial.”

“Why should I call Dad! She’s his damn wife.”

In Darren’s lips she was a hateful hissing word meant to shock.

He added: “She’s got some agenda, she doesn’t want us to know about.”