Have You Seen These Children? by Veronica Slaughter
If you’ve ever doubted the resilience of children, it will do the heart good to read Veronica Slaughter’s memoir. A tale of deception and hope, Have You Seen These Children? follows four siblings, kidnapped by their father, through four years on the run. Their mother, devastated and helpless, does what she can to find them and get them back.
It’s a culture war and a war between the sexes, a war with children as collateral damage, as most in wars, but this one starts with love.
While stationed in the Philippines during WWII, Bob Slaughter falls first in love with the islands, then the people and then a dark-eyed beauty named Lily. She’s cultured, well-educated and remote, accompanied everywhere by her personal maid. Slaughter is determined to marry her, and he concocts a scheme to appeal to her kind and honest nature. Lily should have known then, we readers should have known, but Bob is a pretty good talker, an enigma we never quite figure out.
He wins her heart, or at least her consent. They marry and have four beautiful children together. Life is good, embraced by the Filipino culture, family and sunshine; but Bob has another plan. He wants to go back to the United States where he promises a better future. Lily, a good Catholic and a good wife, packs up the babies and off they go.
Lily’s an amazement. In the U.S., she manages to earn her master’s degree despite Bob’s erratic behavior, abuse, drinking and constant unemployment. It’s a mess, a bigger mess just waiting to happen — and it does.
During a visit to Lily’s parents in the islands, on the pretense of going to the beach, Bob spirits all four children away back to the United States, each child with nothing but a bathing suit and a change of clothes in a plastic bag.
Here begins an odyssey of stealth, poverty, thievery, romance and quick cash. The four children — Valerie nine-years-old, Veronica eight, Vance six and Vincent only three at the outset of the four years that follow — see the world through little kids’ eyes. An abandoned farmhouse is a country paradise, living out of a pick-up truck is an adventure and a box of discarded clothes from the local church is like Christmas. They tumble through life with empty stomachs, in dirty clothes, but they don’t weep and wail. They pack up and go from town to town, state to state, school to school; they’ve learned not to question their father’s intentions.
Have You Seen These Children? will touch your heart and make you hope. Little Veronica is a brave storyteller and a tiny hero. She will give you insight into the lives of so many families in similarly sorry situations and encourage you to think differently about the courage of children.
