I have a Swiss cheese memory of the past. My sisters remember way more than I do. I don’t remember a single birthday or Christmas, even though I know we had them. I have some wonderful memories, scary memories, and glimpses of scenes about nothing in particular. I have many memories of beatings. This is one of them:

I loved the soap bubbles in the sink. They were so bright and they caught the light with greasy rainbows. I took off one of the rubber gloves so I could catch the floating ones with a bare hand. My sister, Meg, was standing on her tippy toes next to the sink, hands clutching a dish towel under her chin against the sink’s edge, round eyes smiling at the bubbles, too. We had already filled the rolling dishwasher, but were now washing the things that wouldn’t fit by hand. Mom had left us to watch T.V. in her room some time ago, and it felt good, just the two of us, to giggle over bubbles.

I lifted a dishcloth to watch the soapy water run off of it from as high as I could reach, which was pretty high given the chair I stood on. Meg laughed out loud as it splashed some bubbles onto her face, and she slapped the water so I would get wet, too.

“What the hell is going on in there?”

We both froze, six- and five-year-old eyes locking. I wanted to quickly pick up something to wash, but I made the mistake of glancing over at the door from her room to the dining room, across from the kitchen where we were. She had yanked it open and stood there, with glowering eyes and hair standing all over from her head, the most terrifying monster I had ever seen in my frequent imagination. I just stood there, completely frozen. I could her Meg quietly whimper, “no, Mommy”, behind me.

“You are not done yet?!” she screeched terribly, striding over to us and reaching into the dishwasher. We both knew what that meant, but neither of us could move. Meg had backed into a kitchen corner, and I shrunk down into the chair, trying to make myself as small as possible without leaving the spot. “You think this is a joke? I give you a simple chore to do, and you think it’s funny?”

And there it was. The large, metal cooking spoon with slight scraps of buttery mashed potatoes still clinging to it. I screamed before it even landed, covering my head and sliding off the chair, hoping to get away. I felt her strong grip on the top of my arm, pulling me back into her iron hold as that spoon came down, again and again, on whatever part of me was exposed.

Meg was trapped – mom, me, and the chair I was standing on all blocking her way out of the kitchen. Not that it mattered. Mom would have followed us down the hall and cornered us in our rooms. There was no escape. I felt her release me, and I fell to the floor, sobbing and too frightened to move. I could hear Meg screaming, knew she was being beaten, but my arms and legs were like heavy lumps of ice, a snow girl with soft bubbles breaking on her yellow glove, who could do nothing but lay there on the floor, battered and unable to block out her sister’s cries and screams. I heard Meg being thrown into the lower cabinets, and felt that iron grip pulling me up from the scruff of my tied-dyed t-shirt collar, baring my back and shoulders and behind to that spoon again.

I don’t remember what happened after that. I can tell you that, as an adult, I am the most thorough and quick dishwasher you will ever meet. I have never owned a metal cooking spoon. And as soon as I can afford it, I will hire my very own Alice Brady, and never, ever, pick up a broom or scrub a pot again.