Bridey Thelen-Heidel struggles to unshackle herself from her mother’s chaos in her debut memoir, Bright Eyes.
Bridey is tethered to her mom’s addiction to dangerous men who park their Harley-Davidsons in the house and kick holes in the doors. Bridey—raised to be her mother’s keeper, rescuer and punching bag—gets used to stuffing her life into black trash bags, hauling them between Alaska and California, and changing schools every time her mom moves in a new monster, or runs away from one. Desperately seeking the normal life she’s observed in sitcoms and her friends’ families, Bridey earns her way into a private college, where she tries to forget who she is—until her mom calls with a threat that drops Bridey to her knees. Watching doctors and police interrogate her mother at the hospital, Bridey realizes her mom has become a monster herself … and she doesn’t want to be saved. But Bridey does.
Bright Eyes is about the indomitable spirit of a young girl forced to be brave, required to be resilient, and conditioned to be optimistic. Ultimately, she uses the same traits that helped her to survive her mother’s chaos to break the cycle of abuse.
Bridey Thelen-Heidel is a teacher, writer and youth advocate. She’s given a TEDx, performed in Listen to Your Mother NYC, published in MUTHA Magazine, and is a frequent podcast guest. She has been voted Best of Tahoe Teacher several times, her work with LGBTQ+ students is celebrated in Read This, Save Lives and California Teachers Association’s California Educator. Bridey lives with her husband and daughter in South Lake Tahoe, Calif., where she teaches high school English.
Excerpt from ‘Bright Eyes—A Memoir’
Chapter 18—Baptism by fire
“…Mom hops out of the truck and grabs her green kitchen broom from the back next to the other stuff she packed “just in case.”
Whisking away loose pebbles and small sticks, Mom sweeps the dirt clean. It probably looks weird to somebody else, but I know she’s setting up house. It’s her second favorite thing to do—packing to leave is her first.
She arranges rocks around the fire pit then glances over at the truck, probably wishing she’d packed her peacock feathers and silk scarves to make the campsite feel homey—even if we’re only here a day or two until we find a place to live.
Seeing me standing still, she points to the woods. “Take Bephens and look for kindling!”
“You’re building a fire?” I pull my tank top away from my body to show her I’m sweating. “It’s a million degrees out.”
“Yes, smart-ass, I know. But it gets cold in the desert at night.”
I roll my eyes for Bephens to see, and when she tries to roll hers, we both crack up. “Let’s go get the crazy lady wood.”
“I heard that!” Mom yells.
A few minutes later, we return with an armful of the skinniest twigs I could find because I don’t want Mom building a bonfire. “Here.” I drop the sticks, and something red flashes in the corner of my eye. She’s holding a red gas can and a jar.
“Mom? What are you doing?”
She ignores me and fills the glass jar full of gasoline.
“You sure we need that?”
“It’s fine. This is the way we do it in Juneau.”
“But that’s a rainforest—”
Before I can finish pointing out why it might be different building a fire in a place that never stops raining versus the Nevada desert, everything happens in a flash. Mom pours gas on the fire, flames ricochet back into the jar, and she flings it into Big Creek, screaming, “Holy shit! Shit! Shit!”
In the knee-deep water, we watch the glass land on the rocky bottom. I’m about to say, That was a close call! when an orange and-blue flame flickers on the surface.
Then another.
And another.
In moments, the flames connect into a fiery blue-and-orange tail, whipping across the water and under the overhanging trees. I’ve never seen fire float on water and am hypnotized for a moment, watching the flames race away from us and toward the valley of dry desert sagebrush.
“Bridey! Put it out!” Mom hucks the broom at me. “Hurry!”
Barefoot and bare-legged, I jump into the water and sharp rocks stab my feet. “Ouch! I need my shoes!”
“There’s no time! You have to catch it!” She shoos me away down the creek. “Slap the water with the broom!”
All the quarters I’ve ever plugged into arcade games suddenly pay off as my eyes track the flickering tail darting left then right like Pac-Man swallowing flashing dots. Juking back and forth, I feel like the frog trying to get through traffic in Frogger as I raise the broom over my head and smack the flames under the surface—over and over and over—like clubbing stuffed rodents into their holes playing Whac-A-Mole.
Within seconds, the flames are gone.
Clutching the green broom against my chest, I hear myself panting and chanting, Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you as I slosh back upstream. Checking over my shoulder to make sure the fire is really out, I trip over a rock and stumble to catch myself. I look down and see my shins are scratched and bleeding into the cool water that’s numbing them. “Mom? Can you help me?” I reach for her hand, but it’s not there. I look around and see her standing by the truck, holding Bephens and watching from a distance.
Limping toward her to get a rag for my bleeding legs, my mind flashes back to Coho Park—her laughing with the other moms as she yelled for me to jump! And, because I was twelve and afraid of her, I did jump—embarrassed but obedient—asking, How high? instead of Why?
“Are you okay?” Mom asks when I get to the other side of the truck.
Ignoring her stupid question, I look for a towel.
Bephens comes over to me and carefully touches my shin. “Owie. You k, Bah-dee?”
“I’m fine.” I kiss her and wipe my skin harder than I need to because I’m actually not fine at all. A year away from my mom, and nothing has changed—still jumping in to save her, still putting out fires she not only makes but pours fucking gasoline on. The scratches and gashes burn now that they’re out of the cold water, and I blow on them—pissed that these aren’t her legs. Pissed because she should’ve jumped in the water. A good mom would’ve thrown herself into the fire instead of pushing in her kid, but even after everything I’ve done, this shallow creek was too deep for her.
Behind me, she lifts Bephens up and twirls her around, like a shield between us. “She did it! Bridey saved us!”
Watching them celebrate, I can’t believe she convinced me to stay—can’t believe I called my dad. He’d given me a chance to have a normal life, and I blew it because I don’t know how to be normal. A few hours ago, I was still flying back to Long Beach in a week, but now I’m at a campground in the Middle of Nowhere, Nevada—too embarrassed to call and tell my dad I lied about my mom being better or to ask if I can still come back.
Danny never makes it to Big Creek Campground.
In the morning, we head into town to find him. Passing by the High Fire Danger sign again, I want to steal it and hang it on the house we rent because our new neighbors deserve to know what the real danger in the valley is.