In a personally convenient turn of events, Northville, MI-based mom Barb Schultz has no memory of the traumatic childhood event her adult daughter just brought up.
“I’m not denying that it happened,” said Barb. “I simply have no memory of it, so I’m not sure what you want me to say.”
The definite disengagement from the conversation proved frustrating for Emma Schultz, Barb’s daughter.
“This is insane,” says Emma. “How could she not remember that she used to send me and my brother to our super old, creepy next-door-neighbor’s house after school, and he had that huge taxidermy collection, and then one day we went in and found him literally dead surrounded by his taxidermied foxes and shit.”
“I’m scarred for life,” Emma adds. “The least she could do is say, ‘Yeah, it’s crazy that that happened and just kind of fake it.”
But Barb remains unable or unwilling to provide that affirmation.
“Taxidermy? I don’t know what you’re talking about. On the Water Street house?” said Barb. “I don’t think I would have sent you and your brother off to some strange man. That just doesn’t sound like me.”
“I’m not questioning that that’s how you remember it,” Barb added. “Maybe you saw it in a movie? Either way, there’s something missing from this story.”
At one point in the conversation, Barb raised Emma’s hopes by asking, “Oh, wait, you mean David?” only to follow it up with, “Yeah, he was our neighbor, but I don’t remember any of that other stuff.”
“There are so many things infuriating about this,” says Emma. “But mostly it’s how she’s all at once saying she can’t remember, while also insinuating it didn’t happen, and also defending her role in it if it did happen.”
“It’s not like I’m even blaming her for anything,” she adds. “Could she have really blocked this out?”
When Emma decided to call her brother to confirm her version of events, Barb suddenly remembered something she needed to go do in the other room.
