Out From the Underworld: A Memoir

By Heather Siegel

FOREWORD REVIEWS INDIES BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD, FINALIST 2016

READERS FAVORITE FIVE STARRED REVIEW, SILVER MEDALIST 2015

EAST TEXAS WRITERS' GUILD BOOK AWARDS, 3rd place, 2015

A basement apartment, an undertaker, three resilient kids, and the mysterious disappearance of their mother. Forty years later, in this heartbreaking, uplifting, and darkly humorous coming-of age memoir set in the 1970s and 1980s, one daughter explores the truth of what happened.

Heather Siegel was six years old when her mother disappeared, sending her funeral director father into a tailspin that took Heather and her siblings down with him--from a comfortable suburban home to a barely habitable basement apartment, a dark world they soon found themselves fighting to return to from the exile of foster care, then fighting even harder to escape. Forty years later, Heather Siegel tells the remarkable story of how she and her siblings, Jaz and Greg, banded together to find out what happened to their mother and fight their way Out from the Underworld with nothing but their wits, determination, unbreakable bonds and gifts for humor and compassion to sustain them. A wrenching, inspiring story filled with heartbreak, hope and love, Out from the Underworld will move you to laughter and tears.

PRAISE FOR OUT FROM THE UNDERWORLD:

"Heather Siegel has taken the raw material of an unusually deranged childhood, and done with it what very few can do: fashioned a piece of writing so smart, funny, and insightful that, as we read, we see the narrator growing from a street-smart little cynic into a remarkably understanding woman. More one cannot ask of any memoirist."
- Vivian Gornick

"A graduate summa cum laude of the school of hard knocks, Heather Siegel has written this dark, riveting memoir with refreshing if mordant humor, rueful tenderness and compassion. She is a stunningly gifted storyteller."
- Phillip Lopate

"Heather Siegel is a master storyteller like none I have encountered."
- Sarah Cottrell, HUFFINGTON POST BOOKS

"Heather Siegel's unforgettable memoir is authentically heartbreaking, but also filled with the kind of dark humor that will have any reader turning pages, eager to keep up with her masterful storytelling. Revelatory in many ways about childhood, parenting, family, identity, forgiveness and, above all, survival, Out From The Underworld examines some of life's greatest tragedies with admirable honesty, exquisite detail and a redemptive insight that is both inspiring and illuminating."
- Julia Fierro, author of CUTTING TEETâ H

"It's about mental attitude and how positive change is achieved against all odds, and it's about accepting parents for who they are rather than who they 'should' or could become. Out from the Underworld illuminates one woman's transformation and serves as a beacon guiding pathways of possibility for others to follow."
- Diane Donovan, MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW
â
"Heather Siegel writes well - really well. And her story is so astonishing you'll be tempted to check the cover again to see the word "Memoir" - but memoir it is, and what a journey! Gripping and compelling, filled with the kind of nuanced details that only someone who lived through this could write. An impressive debut from a talented writer."
- C.E. Lawrence (Carole Bugge), award-winning author of the "SILENT" series thrillers

"If Frederick Douglass or Elie Wiesel could rise above, why can't I? These are the questions a precocious young girl is forced to ask when, after an idyllic beginning full of Oz-like dazzle, she's suddenly dropped into the black hole of foster care. She spends the rest of her life investigating what went wrong. What she learns is this: demons can be holy messengers; empathy must be balanced with responsibility; and managing the shit sandwich that life foists upon us is part of the human condition. And it's our duty to rise above. Thank you, Heather,

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Feb 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9781456638887

Book preview

Prologue

HOW DID I GET SO LUCKY? I ask my daughter, strapping her into the car seat and tickling her toddler belly. Huh? How did I get the best little girl in the world? I kiss her doughy hands, the soft blond hairs on her arms, and she squeals with glee. I could stand here all day and lavish her with affection if not for the window of opportunity that will surely close on the other end of this drive if I don’t keep moving.

Three more delicious kiss-tickles. I can’t help myself. I want her to know how loved she is. I want her to know that I will always be that single person in her life who will put her needs before my own—if only because, or especially because, I know too well how it feels to be without that person, floating without a center when the gravitational force of the family disappears.

I could go there in my imagination, as I often do, to see my mother flying through the air like a starfish—long limbs akimbo, fresh-milk skin, hair dyed red, all the promise of her unrealized life held in that brief second before she thudded onto the pavement. But I won’t. Not today. Not in front of Julia. Not on this gorgeous spring morning.

I call my father as I pull from the driveway. It will take forty minutes to drive from the North Shore to the South Shore of Long Island, and I hope that he has remembered our visit.

Just wanted to let you know that we’re on our way, so don’t go anywhere, okay?

Is that my Daddy? Julia looks up from her game of Spider. One hand is the insect, the other is the caretaker. I’ll take care of you, Spider. Spider, don’t worry, I got you. She pats her hand.

No, it’s Grandpa. Remember, we’re going to see your Grandpa today?

She smiles four teeth. She loves her Grandpa as much as I do, even if she can count on one spider hand the number of times she’s seen him.

THE HOUSE LOOKS UNCHANGED after all these years. White asbestos shingles, black shutters, a ranch home not unlike the others on this tree-lined block in Bellmore. Unexpectedly, my heart ramps up as I knock on the door.

Too many musty memories.

Inside the foyer, Julia in my arms, the darkness swallows me up, and I stand there amazed, even after all these years, to see how he’s managed to transform this three-bedroom ranch home into a virtual basement.

Hey there, Pookie. He steps from the bedroom wearing, no doubt, last night’s romantic get up for the newest lady in his life: maroon satin pajama pants and no shirt. At least his outfit has evolved. Or has it? I would wager that his lucky zebra bikini underwear is lurking beneath those satin pajamas.

He kisses Julia’s cheek, then mine. The smell of hair dye, Very Black, wafts out from his goatee, which, like his hair, combed into a slick ponytail, reveals a purplish hue along the hairline.

She got big, he says as I set her down. She has spotted a cat in the living room.

A lot happens at this age, I say, following her.

He ignores my dig.

Dust and cat hair coat the oak floor. Three litter boxes are arranged as if they are fixed furniture: one beneath the glass-and-wrought-iron coffee table, one next to the black leather sofa, the last tucked next to the upright piano that hasn’t been played in half a century.

Did you get another cat? I ask, sitting down gingerly at the edge of the couch.

Nah, Haley’s been shitting on my bed, the little pain in the ass. The vet told me I should get some extra litter boxes.

Did he also tell you to put them in your living room? I say, aware of how obnoxious I sound. How can I help it?

I feel for the lamp beside me and find the ridged knob.

I don’t want that on.

Dad, come on, it’s ridiculously dark in here.

He shakes his head, as if I’m the one who’s crazy for not having nocturnal vision, as if it’s perfectly normal to hermetically seal all the windows with shades.

As my eyes adjust, I can see in the dim light that things are worse than I thought. Is that a pile of dried cat vomit on the floor?

Hey, did I tell you about this great cleaning lady I found? I say. She’s really meticulous, and I’d be happy to pay for her….

I thought you were coming for a visit, he says flatly. Besides, I do my own cleaning.

Okay, Dad.

And to my delight, he chuckles. We both know very well what his so-called cleaning routine is, and let’s just say it involves one wet paper towel and no soap.

She’s adorable. he says, almost pained, watching Julia lovingly pet his cat. Is there a hint of guilt? Regret? I suddenly feel sorry for the dig earlier.

So how’s work? I ask, aware of the irony that he will perk up at this.

Dead as usual. I just made arrangements for a thirty-five-year-old schoolteacher. Breast cancer. Believe that shit? Thirty-five years old. What a way to go.

Horrible, I agree.

I tell you, Heather, Somebody Up There has got a real sick sense of humor. Really, and I’m serious here. You tell me what the point to all this shit is….

I let him prattle on without interruption. He has his gripes, just as he has his theories—or maybe I should call it empirical evidence at this point. With forty years in the funeral business, he has come to believe, for example—based on the fact that Monday is the busiest day of the week at the funeral home—that people would rather drop dead than start a work week. Or—since early winter is generally the busiest time of year—that people would rather drop dead than go through another holiday season. But his main theory—and the one he is arguing now—is that we’re all going to drop dead, so you might as well pack it in from the start.

Well, I say obligatorily, "I think the point is trying to enjoy life while you can, Dad."

If you see what I see, Heather, day in and day out, miserable people dropping like flies, leaving behind more miserable people, you wouldn’t think so.

I hear you, but life is what you make of it…. Now it’s my turn to ramble on for a while. I dredge up stock inspirationals: Anyone can have a full life, even if it’s short….

After five minutes, his eyes glaze over, and I grow weary of my own preaching. Damned if I know what the point is, but I know it’s not to sit idly and listen to his Debbie Downer routine without objection.

In just twenty minutes, we’ve reached our saturation point with each other. And then the unexpected golden nugget:

I’m glad you stopped by, he says, standing.

Thanks. Me, too.

We hug, tightly, meaning it.

Love you, he whispers into my hair.

Love you, too. His musk and tobacco surround me; and, as usual, my heart warms and breaks. I really wish he’d leave this tomb of a house and move on.

Then again, maybe it’s amazing any of us broke free.

1

Manhattan

SHE SPUN AWAY FROM ME forty years ago.

I was five, coloring in my sister Jasmine’s yellow bedroom in our house in Babylon, waiting to go to school in my orange plaid bell bottoms, when my mother entered, suddenly looking more like Ann-Margret, with her hair dyed red and teased up, than like her usual blond, effortless self—Catherine Deneuve comes to mind now at the age my mother was then: twenty-seven. She was wearing an army-style shirt and tan shorts too short for May and braided sandals that wrapped around her pale calves—an outfit I’d never seen before that could easily have come from the fashion pages of Vogue that she was always admiring.

You girls want to go to New York City? she sang, packing our clothes into a valise. Her mood was buoyant, stratospheres higher than the afternoon before. No more diner jobs or temp positions, she explained. No more lonely afternoons looking at the low bedroom ceiling that made her feel small. She was going to become a model, take the advice people had been giving her for years, give Jerry Hall a run for her money.

She didn’t need to convince me of her beauty. She was my mother, and also six feet tall, 130 pounds with wide cheekbones, a show-stopping figure, and a forceful walk she’d inherited from her seafaring, clog-making, cow-milking ancestors in the low-lying Netherlands, whom I heard about endlessly as I lay next to her in bed, running my small hands along her milky freckled arms. They were some of the happiest women in the world, she said. Strong-boned, determined women who seemed more like men than women from her descriptions of their hard, manual labors. But they were feminine and sexual, she’d told me, make no mistake about it.

She dragged the suitcase across the braided rug and set it by the bedroom doorway. Don’t worry, she said, reading my face. Daddy’s going to meet us there.

Lying had never been her strong suit. But objection was pointless. Her exuberance was impenetrable, and maybe even a little contagious.

Jaz held our baby brother, Greg, and we climbed onto the bench-style front seat of the station wagon with yellow sideboards. I was closest to my mother, and as we chugged toward the Midtown Tunnel, I noticed the bite marks on her upper thigh. She told me that her friend had done that—her new friend, Slim—and that sometimes, as a game, he would bite her on the behind. Wasn’t that fun?

Not really. Not at all, actually. To be bitten—and on the behind? It sounded pretty awful, and yet I couldn’t keep my eyes off those marks. Like a rubbernecker trying to make sense of a macabre accident scene, I stared at those marks clear into Manhattan.

Competing for attention with Jaz’s eight-year-old wisdom and Greg’s Gerber Baby looks usually required me to turn on the charm for my mother’s avant-garde friends, but when we walked into the Times Square motel lobby where Slim was waiting, one look at him stopped me cold.

Taller than my father, dark but just as thin, he emanated a too-cool-for-school vibe. His ultra-slick smile and brown pinstripe suit, and the way he made my mother laugh—high-pitched—made me feel instinctively that my tap-dancing antics would not work, and I kept quiet. He was interested in her, and she in him, and as his fingers fished through the belt loop of her shorts, she giggled self-consciously.

Watching her under the harsh, cheap lighting of the motel lobby with her artificial red hair and short shorts, I felt possessive and helpless. I wanted my white-blond, ponytailed mother, who walked around barefoot and wore my father’s t-shirts as dresses, who burned incense in the afternoons and danced with us to Peter Frampton. Where was my pale Dutch explorer, who took me hunting in our tiny backyard for birds to rescue and black widow spiders to mail to scientists in faraway lands so they could produce antivenoms? She was suddenly moving away from me.

It was at that moment that I first began missing her.

She led us up several flights of stairs to a small room with a queen-size bed, an armchair and a television. She arranged snacks on the table and gave Jaz instructions for Greg’s bottle.

I’ll be upstairs if you need me, she said. And then she left, without giving us a room number.

We waited. The sky darkened outside the neon-lit window. Sounds of sirens. Unwholesome peals of laughter. Jaz and I watched Little House on The Prairie. I read and reread the books I’d brought from home: The Little Engine That Could, Fun with Dick and Jane, James and the Giant Peach. I read them in my head with the same inflections my mother used when she read them to me—The little train rumbled over the tracks. She was a happy little train—and with the same conviction and belief that life was an incredible adventure. A little boy lived inside a giant peach; what could be more incredible than that?

Jaz found a carton of my mother’s Salem Lights on the radiator. She lit one and shared it with me. I copied her and sucked in smoke as if using a straw, then opened my mouth to let the heat escape. I got the idea to light three at once, and we turned the lights off and waved them around like sparklers on Fourth of July.

My mother returned at dinnertime with a bucket of fried chicken and sat with us for a while watching television and rocking Greg in her arms. Her lips were deep crimson, her eyes shaded like half moons. By the flickering light of the television, she was almost unrecognizable.

Jaz and I fell asleep leaving most of the chicken in the bucket. We liked the legs and breasts, extra crispy, and the container had mostly soggy thighs.

My father did not meet us there that night, or in the nights that followed.

ONE NIGHT, AFTER WE’D BEEN in the motel for about two weeks, Slim came in with a woman we didn’t know and closed the door behind him.

We’re going to town, he said, washing his hands with air. Going out. He smiled a set of perfect teeth. He wore his suit, no tie, and told Jaz and me to put on our shoes, that Gladie would watch Greg. I handed Greg to Gladie, and we followed Slim down the stairs, into the lobby and out the revolving door.

He held our hands and led us along 48th Street, which in 1975 was devoted to the X-rated. Blinking lights; the mysterious XXX everywhere; vendors selling wristwatches, books, hairpins, pictures. Slim wasn’t buying. He seemed to like the attention he drew. People glanced our way, curious for a split second in that New Yorker way about the reedy, brown-suited black man flanked by two frizzy-haired blond girls in their Mary Janes.

We ate hamburgers and French fries and cheesecake at a place called Wienerwald. Slim smoked and watched us. He asked us how school was—Montessori for me, kindergarten for Jaz, though it should have been first grade. (Between a couple of colds and coughs and my mother’s lackadaisical attitude toward school, Jaz had somehow missed most of her first year—enough for her teachers to recommend a redo). We hadn’t been there in weeks, Jaz reminded him. He checked his watch and told us to finish up. When we returned to the motel, Greg was asleep in the center of the bed and Gladie was nowhere to be found. We climbed in on either side of his sweet little body. Slim closed the lights and the door behind him.

I did not see my mother that night, or ever again.

THE NEXT MORNING, my father called our room from the motel lobby; he was parked outside the motel in our second station wagon: a yellow Vista Cruiser with brown sideboards.

We met him in the street and he held the back door open for us. His Welcome Back, Kotter perm was unkempt; it sprang wildly around his face. He was handsome, resembling Al Pacino with his dark features and serious eyes—only with new dark hollows carved beneath them.

Unfuckingbelievable, he said, ushering us onto the vinyl bench seat, trying to sound angry, but I heard an unmistakable quiver of panic.

A woman named Rosalie sat in the front passenger seat. She was one of my mother’s high-school friends from her old neighborhood in Tremont, now a sensible school administrator who had offered to help my father search for us. Together, they had called every last one of their friends until someone confirmed that my mother was in the city. My father knew enough somehow to search motels in Times Square; it took all of two weeks of calling and driving around for them to track us down.

Let’s see how she likes it, he said, hitting the gas pedal, wondering where the fuck you guys are. We raced through the streets, whiplashing to a stop at red lights. Warm, exhaust-filled air rushed through the open windows. I counted squares of lights in the tall buildings. From the dashboard radio came the sounds of his favorite R&B station. Barry White sang about his first, last and everything, followed by more soul-crying music with lengthy, snake-hiss beats—songs of women throwing their men out, men pining for their women to come home, and everyone searching for love and lovin’.

We dropped Rosalie off in Queens and kept driving south, past the eastern turnoff to our own home: a rented, three-bedroom split-level with shag carpeting, gold velour couches and my mother’s touch and presence everywhere—from the hand-painted jelly jars on the windowsill to the stubs of incense left on the countertops.

Twenty minutes later, we pulled up in front of a vaguely familiar ranch home with white asbestos shingles and black shutters.

Just until I figure some things out, my father said, and went to pull a suitcase from the trunk.

We followed him along the side of the house past a row of trimmed hedges. When we reached the landing of the cement steps that led down, seven feet below ground, we hesitated.

My father descended the steps and jiggled a well-worn key into the lock, trying to find the sweet spot.

We didn’t know his relationship and history with the place then. We had no idea that he had retreated here as a teenager to avoid confrontations with his father upstairs, that he’d returned here as a young newlywed to avoid paying market rent elsewhere, that for fifteen years he had run here whenever he was scared. If we had, we might have objected.

Still, on instinct, we hedged.

You guys coming, or what? he said, springing the door open. It’s just an apartment. It’s not going to bite you.

2

Access Denied

NOW, OF COURSE, I AM CONVINCED that it is a mistake for humans to live inside the earth, even for a short while.

There are organisms that can spend a life underground. Organisms that belong underground. Mushrooms, for one. Millipedes, eyeless fish and cave crickets are also well adapted—as is the naked mole rat, an animal whose long lifespan, immunity to cancer and ability to thrive in a low-oxygen environment has some scientists excited. But not man. If man had been intended to burrow into the ground, Mother Nature would have given him the tunneling claws of the woodchuck, not a

Reviews for Out From the Underworld

[grgenius_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This recollection of thoughts and memories takes us from the author's childhood through adolescence and into adulthood. She and her siblings survived much more than a broken home. From the moment her mother made a seemingly selfish decision, it was almost all downhill from there. From a self-imploding father unable to step out of his own shadow to care for those in his charge to a parade of women that would each leave their mark (for better or worse) on their young lives, the eventual realization reached was that no matter how much they wished, hoped, and dreamed that their remaining parent would rise above to save them like a phoenix from the ashes, it simply was not in their cards. So, the had to make their own luck and reach towards a happier ending.

It was so hard to watch this little family within a family be broken up again and again with atrocities committed against them that none should have to bear. It was inspiring to see how they pulled together to take care of each other while still reaching out to try and rescue the lost parent that still lived. Jaz may have been a hardcore-kick-butt-and-apologize-later type of girl, but deep down she was the "mother" between them, always guiding, sharing, and caring...in her own way. Greg, their brother, was a gentle spirit, and carried that kindness with him despite the tortures others inflicted upon him. As for Heather, she's more than simply our narrator or a victim of circumstance, she's a survivor, and considering where she came from any sort of normalcy achieved would be a celebratory point. So, settle for what she could get? Nope! She shot for the stars and while fame and fortune may not have been the end result, a life in the sun, with loved ones to cherish, and even a chance to make amends with her father, are definitely not something to shrink from.

In conclusion, an honest share of a life that was much more thorns than roses but with an ending that opened more doors than it closed, for the better. It's been said you never know what you're capable of until put to the test. Well, when their feet were to the fire, they didn't shirk away.


**review copy received in exchange for my honest review...full post can be seen on my site**

[lindz2012 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The story starts out by having Heather with her daughter and visiting her father. Heather starts the story of her childhood from when her mother left them. The story is painful but intruding at the same time.

We get the authors view of things through her eyes. We also learn about how she and her sister Jazz needs to deal with grieving. We learn about her life in foster care with her brother and sister. Heather has a hard time with her mother's loss.

We see what happens when their father has to make his decision. The siblings have a bond together. We also learn about their father background and the family history. I learned that the siblings had a strong bond with each other. They can not seem to understand why their father does not want to escape the basement.

[staciele · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Heather takes us into her childhood inside a dark, musty, and moldy basement where she lives with her sister, brother, and father. Her mother left them and then died. Her father can't seem to function without her and escapes to work at the funeral home or on his dates with women he met from personal ads. Her grandparents prefer to ignore the fact that they all live in their basement. When her father can't seem to get things under control, the siblings are sent to live in various foster homes, Eventually, Heather and her siblings finish their childhood years with their father in a basement with no windows.Heather shares bits of memories of her mother, ways that she and her siblings survive, and her dreams for their future. Traveling through the pages, Heather grows from a five-year-old to an adult, going to college and working two jobs to pay for it. Through all the hardships, Heather always found a way to appear happy, normal, and sane. With both of her parents suffering from mental illness, it is a wonder she and her siblings survived at all.OUT FROM THE UNDERWORLD is one of those stories that shows how people can rise from the ashes and prove society wrong. If you have a dream, intelligence, resourcefulness, and a sense of humor, you can accomplish anything. Heather Siegel and her siblings survived harsh conditions, horrible memories, and tragic childhoods and came out ahead. Her story proves that people can rise above their fate and overcome. She doesn't spend time in the book whining about her sad life, her father's poor choices, or lack of family to support them. She instead shares how she and her siblings stuck together and focuses on the few angels who supported them and made them feel special. Heather also is thankful for the many books she disappeared into during her childhood. She is another example of how reading can set you free. Kudos to Heather and her siblings for finding the silver lining in life and making the best of the situation at hand.

[dwatson2_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Heather was six years old when her world was turned upside down. Her mother vanished leaving her family in a tailspin. Heather, along with her brother and sister were forced from a nice home to a dark basement where they lived with their father who never got over the loss of his wife. The children were eventually forced in and out of foster care with their only goals being to find out what happened to their mother and find a new home outside of the basement.Out From The Underworld by Heather Siegel is a memoir about a dark childhood, but it’s also a story of hope and proof that patterns can be broken. The writing in the story is excellent and the characters seem like people you would see in your every day life, because they are. This is a story about neglect and abandonment but none of the characters in it are bad, they are more like shades of grey. Everyone has their own issues and what we have in this story is three siblings who learned that the only people they could trust 100 % was themselves.I was impressed with the detailed memories that Heather has of this period of her life and I loved the fact that it seemed like this book was written from a kid’s point of view. Meaning that it wasn’t written from a viewpoint of an adult looking back on her childhood, the impression I got was that Heather was remembering everything from when she was a child and writing it as she saw it from her younger self’s viewpoint.For instance one of my favorite scenes was early in the book when Heather’s grandma is complaining about her life and says she wishes she could move to Canada. Heather’s sister right away asks what’s stopping her from moving to Canada. Her grandma acts shocked and mentions several reasons why she can’t pick up and leave. I thought this was a great example of how children and adults look at the world differently. For kids its easy as saying this would make me happy so I’m going to do it, while an adult is more cynical and will come up with several reasons why they can’t be happy.Another thing that really sticks out about Out From The Underworld is the realism. Heather talks about some horrible things in her childhood but she describes good times also. She brings up some fond memories of one of the foster families she lived with but we hear of the family’s dark side as well. We also hear how everyones lives get better when Heather’s father gets a regular girlfriend but things eventually go bad. Another shade of grey in Heather’s life is her father. There are several instances in the book where you see that he is not really a good parental figure, but you also see instances where he shows love for his kids and because of his own upbringing never knew how to be a real father.Out From The Underworld is a coming of age story by a woman who has suffered through more than most people suffer through. You hear about Heather’s world view and you see her opinions on life, working and school change as she gets older. The best part of this book though is that all the kids in the book managed to go on and live happy lives, but not all the people in the book had the same transformation. I think Out From The Underworld is a great example of how a memoir should be written and I hope other people who live under similar circumstances read this book and learn that it is possible to escape the cycle of a bad home life.

[kathleen.pooler · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I was hooked into this story from the first page of Heather’s prologue when she recalls a day she visited her father with her baby daughter. With heartbreaking detail, she presents the heart of her story—how the father she loves has not changed his ways. I sense there is a painful childhood story behind her words and I am driven to keep reading. She starts the story the day her mother left her, age five, her eight-year-old sister Jaz, eight and her baby brother Greg in a motel room while she left with a stranger named Slim, stating, ”If you need me, I’ll be upstairs.” It ended up being the last time they saw their mother alive.The author then takes us on the grueling journey of trying to find their mother while living with their father who has been forced by his own lack of ambition to live in the moldy basement of his parent’s home. The squalor and dampness of the setting are palpable. Their grandparents who live upstairs are cold and non-responsive to their grandchildren’s needs, leaving them feeling even more abandoned. The author’s ability to bring the reader into the scene through vivid sensory details is stunning. Her child’s voice is so realistic and believable that I immediately bond with her and her sister Jaz as she takes me deeper into their horrific story of neglect and abandonment, out from the underground basement apartment, through foster care and back to the basement. This voice is reminiscent of Frank McCourt’s voice in Angela’s Ashes and ‘Tis and of Jeannette Walls in The Glass Castle. The reader can feel and taste the hollowness, confusion and terror of children left to fend for themselves. Her humor provides a sense of relief for the reader as a sense of resilience in these children is highlighted.As painful and dreary as these circumstances are, Heather turns this story into a message of love and transformation. Despite the abandonment she feels, she never stops loving her father or hoping he will change for the better. The strength and resilience of these two sisters is awe-inspiring and serves as a consolation to the reader. In the midst of all they endure, they have a close bond that gets them through.Heather then brings the reader through to resolution where the children all find their way out of the underground to healthy, productive lives. The reader sees this strength in these children and therefore feels hope throughout the story. They not only survive, they overcome and in doing so provide a message of hope for all who have endured childhood neglect and abuse.Heather’s writing is concise, descriptive and riveting. Once I started reading this memoir, I did not want to put it down. In addition to be an engaging, satisfying read, I highly recommend this memoir for anyone working with neglected or abandoned children.