For clarification as well, given that so many articles cite Joshua’s memoir as supporting RD’s claims of abuse by her ex.
Judge for yourself. Below is literally everything he writes about RD’s marriage and divorce.
I’ve noted before that his writing about the topic at all is odd, given the context of his memoir, and the fact that he otherwise barely mentions RD; he mentions his 4 adopted siblings exactly once.
The timing of his memoir is also interesting. He began to write it the year he was first accused of molesting his sister (2013) and published it after he was arrested on those charges (late 2014).
His focus on Rachel is entirely in his chapter 10, “Selway by Headlamp,” which otherwise has nothing at all to do with Rachel or family. Chapter 11 moves on to “The Tao of River Trash.”
He starts off: “I’ve decided to take a walk in the dark because I’m worried about my sister.” Says she’d called and told Joshua her ex was behind on child support but that she couldn’t afford more lawyer’s fees to make him pay.
(Note- most of the chapter is about his walk. RD-related content is inserted every other few pages or so).
He quotes his father that divorce, unless because of adultery, is equivalent to adultery, which Joshua says was the language he knew for blaming the victims, but that he had no sense “of the tangled stories and half-truths, the murky war of a custody dispute.”
Later. This is the ONLY time Joshua personally witnessed any “abuse’ by the ex:
When RD’s son was 3, during a visit by Joshua to their parents’ house (2003 or 2004, one or two years AFTER the alleged molestation of his adopted sister, BTW).
Joshua suggested taking his nephew swimming near Yaak Falls. The ex said no, not with my son. Joshua replied he’d be careful, and that RD’s son was “my nephew, for God’s sake,” and shouldn’t be cooped up all summer. He says the ex repeated no, and added- “that goes for her too,” (RD), and went inside.
That’s it.
Later. He says he wrote RD and told her she had to stand up for herself, and that the ex, not RD, replied, telling Joshua to MYOB and to not put ideas into RD’s head. Joshua writes: “He was reading her messages. Things were worse than I thought.” (Hello, Joshua. Maybe she showed it to her ex to rile him up, to say…look, honey, even my family thinks you don’t treat me right).
Joshua wrote her ex that it is his business when “your control interferes with her life. I will defend her right to privacy and freedom.” No response, so he called RD. RD told him things were OK but that she didn’t want him to write “because it made things worse,” that the ex hadn’t hit her but that he’d “thrown her by the hair twice,” bumped into her with his hip and knocked her down, and that he woke her up every day by being on top of her, that it was “freaking her out.”
Later. He says she refused to leave, that the ex was trying to do better. Joshua read up on domestic violence, including the “victim’s denial.” He called “all of their family friends” and told them about the “hair pulling" and the “prison of that house.” They wouldn’t help.
Then, in October of the same year “ a few friends helped (RD) orchestrate a separation.” That played out with 2 deputies escorting her to the door where separation papers and a restraining order were served and she left without their son “because she had no legal right to her son and no proof of the danger he faced.”
Later he writes that his sister has been trying to explain to him that she is living a “self-contained hell. Living with relatives. Looking for work. Trying the patience of the few friends left…In place of fear, just a life grinding itself into dust. The indifferent world.”
Last thing he writes about her, still in the middle of writing about taking that walk in the woods:
“Miles away, my sister stirs in her sleep (….) A flicker of worry crosses her face…she will notice mold along the wall and think of the cough she hasn’t been able to shake for weeks(….)she will wonder why taking control of her life has made her feel so powerless..” (…
“ I will think soon enough of my hand in my sister’s divorce.”
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IMO, odd in many ways. I’ve concluded for myself that the chapter may well have been written as a message directly to Rachel, whether as a plea or a threat, who knows.
ETA...although RD accused her ex of abusing their son, the court ruled after investigations that there was no evidence to support her charges and the ex received full joint custody of their son.
. And lutefisk ? Nooooooo. Never tried it. Wasn't even tempted. I remember seeing it in the one and only grocery store in town, in frozen foods. It was the only fish for sale, fresh or frozen. I love fish, am accustomed to having a large variety to choose from, but even fish-starved with only one choice there was no way I'd volunteer to eat lye-cured cod. Yuck!
who deserves it all.
