MARYLAND
The Baltimore Sun
Jerri von den Bosch
We moved from Baltimore to a small suburb in Pennsylvania when I was 7 years old. I remember the day my mom enrolled me in public school. I was upset. I wanted to go to Catholic school like my friends and cousins back in Maryland. Today, I understand. My mother is one of the women featured in the latest Netflix crime saga “The Keepers.” She was sexually abused by A. Joseph Maskell, the former chaplain at Archbishop Keough High School in Baltimore, and a string of other men to whom Maskell gave access.
The trauma she and his other victims suffered is unspeakable. But that trauma has had a ripple effect, often overlooked, affecting their friends and families. We are the sounding board for victims even when we don’t want to be. Even when we believe we are incapable of it.
My family has spent the last two and half years hearing about “The Keepers” in its various stages, giving my mother space so she can be filmed with no pressure from the family, driving her to Baltimore for various meetings, and just listening to her talk about her abuse. What probably does not come across in the docu-series is that the sexual abuse that was committed against these girls at Keough in the 1970s is a 24/7 reality for them. It affects how they act, think and communicate. My mom does everything in a guarded manner. No amount of money, prayer or time will change her life now. Because of my mother’s abuse, she has only ever been able to be a friend to me, and a distant one at that. This may seem fun growing up, but children need parents, someone to set parameters and guide them.
My mom and I sat down a week ago Friday, the day “The Keepers” premiered, to watch it. We were excited to see our friends and cousins on Netflix, despite the gravity of the topic. It was funny to us that these very not famous people were on TV. We watched the entire series together in one day. Sometimes an expletive would fly, and sometimes there was radio silence in the living room. About three hours into viewing, I logged onto Facebook to find hundreds of messages of support from around the world. I told my mom and she broke into tears: “No one ever believed us before!” she said.
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