I slowly became aware of birds chirping outside my bedroom window. I knew I was laying curled up on my left side, sheets wrapped tightly around me, but I wasn’t quite awake yet. My body was floating down from sleep and into the real world. I let my mind push back awareness of the birds and cotton sheets, just to drift a bit longer with the luxury of no alarm clock on a Saturday morning.
In that lucid state, an image of short, tumbled dark hair against faintly lit trees and a night sky drifted across my mind. A memory. I let my memory’s eye travel from hair to face. It was my sister, Meg, as I remembered her from our childhood in southern California in our Cass Avenue home. She was grinning at me.
The image pulled back, and I could see her on the diving board of our backyard pool. She was looking straight down at me, grinning, and poised as if ready to cannonball and splash water all over me. She was naked. The flood lights on the side of the house lit her up, making the floodlight in the water under the diving board almost unnecessary. I could see the trees behind her, and a bit of night sky, and the tops of the tall, wooden privacy fence.
From the angle of the memory, I knew I was in the water. I was on the side of the pool closest to the house, looking up at my sister on the diving board. It was night. I was there.
My eyes flew open. No, I wasn’t. I sat straight up in the grey dawn, burying my face in my hands. NO. I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there.
My breathing stabilized and I dropped my hands. Of course I wasn’t there that night. My sisters and I skinny-dipped tons of times in that pool. The privacy fence, trees and shrubs made it impossible for anything but a helicopter to be able to see into that backyard, and no one lived there except four female children who swam like fish and one mother. We must have skinny-dipped tons of times. Didn’t we?
I pushed away the doubt and reached for my cell phone. 6:42. No reason for me to get up yet. I needed to unpack and do laundry, but I had all day. I decided to get some coffee and curl up with Netflix on my Kindle.
At this point, I wasn’t stepping toward the hospital, I was tumbling uncontrollably downhill toward it.
TRIGGER WARNING
Saturday, May 31, 2014 2:00 a.m.
I woke up drenched in sweat, breathing heavily and my heart pounding as if I had been running a marathon. My jaw hurt, and I forced myself to stop clenching my teeth. My ears were ringing with screams, even though my small bedroom was dark and silent as the grave. I rolled onto my back, kicking off my sheets, and just lay there for a bit, letting the nightmare finish receding.
Another nightmare. Again. How many nightmares have I had? How many more will I have?
The ebbing fear was being replaced by rising anger. I pulled the spare pillow into my arms and squeezed it punishingly, my arms becoming boa constrictors, reveling in the pain of unaccustomed muscle strain. My throat was tightly holding back my voice, my limbs were consciously keeping me in my bed, but every other part of me wanted to stand up and scream into the blackness – she was raped! and Mom just watched!
But of course, I didn’t. It would wake my daughters. Thinking about them had a calming effect, and I could feel my anger relax into cynicism. Bad things happen to children all the time, and this news was forty years old. Can’t do anything about old news but set it aside and forget about it. Anger was a waste of time. Statute of limitations was long gone, and who would put a new widow in jail for something that happened so long ago? Certainly not Meg. If she were to press charges, she would have done it already. No, there was nothing that could be done. This was old news. Children were raped all the time, were probably raped today, even this very minute. There was absolutely nothing that I could do.
The pillow slid to the floor, and the tears came.
P.S.
In less than an hour, I cycled from fear to anger to helplessness to depression. Worse than that. I went from bone-crushing fear to violent anger to a puddle of helplessness to the bleakest depression. The difference? It was just as much in my body as it was in my mind and soul. Adrenaline, blood pressure, heart rate, muscle contraction, even sweat glands – dozens of physical responses to dozens of emotions were tumbling uncontrollably downhill together, and all I knew was that something wasn’t quite right with me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
Beth’s flight was delayed, which would have put her behind for work, so she and I drove back up the East coast together. I was working on about four hours of sleep after hearing what Meg had to say, and by this point, Meg had told Beth. As you can imagine, it was part of the conversation on our way home.
We told each other that we didn’t remember it ever happening to us in childhood, but shared stories of incidents that had happened in our teenage years. One thing that has often puzzled me, is the question – is it rape if it doesn’t physically hurt?
My second year of marriage, my husband and I had a pretty strained relationship. He had put a sledgehammer into the dining room walls and told me that if I ever disobeyed him again, I would be next. I had left him the next day when that happened, but as a young mom with an infant, I had nowhere to go and very little money, so I went back to him.
Anyway, I was pretty scared of him and terrified of sleeping in the same bed, but equally terrified not to. Every morning, he would have sex with me, and I would lay there pretending to be asleep. I’d be laying on my side, facing the wall, keeping my eyes closed and my breathing as even as possible while he did what he needed to do. Then he got up to take a shower, and I cried quietly.
It didn’t hurt. I don’t know if it was because I had a baby by then and I was bigger than before, or if it was because he was a fairly small man, as those things go (I have no idea why I’m trying to be delicate, habit I suppose), but whatever the case, the only thing that hurt was my heart. I was 20 years old and felt completely powerless, too scared to say no, and feeling I had no right to say no even if I could say it out loud.
If he had tried to wake me up, whispered my name or shook me or something, I would have pretended to wake up and pretended to enjoy it. I learned at a very early age how to tell what someone else was feeling or what they wanted, and to respond in kind so as to appease. Appeasing people is the best way to avoid pain. I know different now, but back then, obedience and a believable smile was my M.O. for survival.
Anyway, on the drive home from North Carolina, Beth tactfully told me she thought what he had done was certainly a violation. (Guess where she learned tact? From the same metal cooking spoon that I did.) We shared other stories of rape and molestation that had happened to us at various ages (statistically, it’s not uncommon for women to be assaulted more than once in a lifetime – no, it doesn’t just happen in crime-ridden urban streets or third-world countries).
And, we talked about Mom. Imagine a 12-year-old girl in the mid-1950’s living in rural Spokane, her mother was in and out of the hospital with who knows what, and her father could only visit her once a week. I have no idea why. I never met my mother’s parents. I don’t even know their names, and I don’t even know if they are alive. Mom doesn’t know either, although in 2014, it’s pretty sure they aren’t alive now. Anyway, this girl was raised by her grandmother, a strict Victorian-like woman who believed children should be seen and not heard. Who made Mom go out to the backyard and pick the branch that she would be beaten with. Who turned a blind eye whenever her son would come for a visit and spend time alone with his little girl sitting on his lap.
(At least, this is what we think happened to her, based on bits and pieces she’s said to us over the years. Not everything she said matched with what she said at different times to each of us, but so far this much seems to be true. We don’t know enough family on her side to know for sure what happened. She didn’t like us to be in touch with anyone on her side of the family.)
I have no problem feeling compassion for my mother. Even if her story isn’t true, I know enough about human nature to know that something terrible happened to her. No way could she be like this and have had a loving, safe, childhood. No way. I completely understand why she spent the rest of her life self-medicating with alcohol and feeling less than whole without a man. I even understand why she beat her children. Given all that, my sisters don’t understand why I struggle to forgive her. With the new information that she stood by and allowed a man to rape Meg made me even more angry with her, and less inclined to forgive her – ever. And Beth and I spoke a lot about that on the way home.
I can’t do it because her life got better, and she did nothing to heal. Her fourth marriage was comfortable. No children, a good middle-class income, travel, a garden, great health care, and no worries. Plenty of time to get counseling, join AA, get to know her children as the bright, successful women they turned out to be.
She didn’t do any of that. She wallowed in self-pity. She snapped and criticized her girls, and criticized the way we raised our own children. She would be drunk by noon, making it pointless to call her because she wouldn’t remember the conversation anyway. My sisters and I led this horse to water time and again for decades, and she refused to drink it. She prefers to believe she never beat us, she never caused us any harm, she doesn’t have a drinking problem, and her life is just fine, thank you very much, and we should butt out.
Three of us girls have children, and we have never left our children alone with this woman. No way. And, we have never beaten our children. We don’t even spank them. And guess what? The kids – most of them are adults now – are really great people who do good in the world. Spare the rod and spoil the child? You bet. If providing a loving, safe, encouraging, filled-with-laughter home is spoiling a child, you bet. We did it, and we’d do it again. Yes, I hold Mom to my standard. I grew up in violence, too, but I didn’t take it out on my kids.
My mother belongs in jail, and I said as much to Beth. I believe what she did to us was criminal. And if the only way I can hold her accountable is to insist that she speak to me with respect or not speak to me at all, then so be it. If I decided to cut her off from her grandchildren because her drinking is inappropriate, so be it. My sisters disagree and believe that her tragedies grant her compassion and leeway. I grant her the compassion, but not the leeway.
I dropped Beth off at her car at the airport, and pulled into a nearby restaurant to sit quietly and think. I thought about Meg and the diving board. I thought about Mom. I thought about my two marriages. I thought about my conversation with Beth and her reaction. My mind chased thought after thought, as if there was some kind of answer in the muddle, but the clouds just got thicker, darker. There was a hot, angry storm on the horizon, but I kept averting my eyes, holding onto the numb cold.
After about an hour of staring at the menu and nibbling on french fries, I got back in the car and drove the rest of the three hours home. I walked in the door, was hugged by my daughters, and burst into tears. And it wasn’t because of the 14-hour drive, lack of sleep, or the funeral. I was safe, loved, not required to be responsible for anything, and my mind and body knew it. Now I could collapse.
Mom had gone to bed early with a bottle of something or other, her reward for not showing up drunk to the funeral, and to be fair, I probably would have done the same thing if I had lost a husband of 30 years. Her early withdrawal allowed the four of us sisters to relax and sit up talking late. We were all stressed and exhausted, and as much as I missed my sisters, I really needed to lay down, so I, too, eventually retreated to the guest bedroom at Mom’s that I was sharing with Meg. I remember being comfortably stretched out, reading my Kindle in the dark, waiting for Meg as she finished her bedtime routine in the guest bathroom.
It was a small room. The daybed with its trundle pulled out took up almost the whole space. There was cat hair everywhere. I had made the mistake of setting my black dress down on the bed before putting it on, and ended up swiping off hair throughout the funeral. It wasn’t really a funeral – more of a wake. He had chosen to be cremated, so the vase was sitting on a table surrounded by pictures of him throughout his life. Over about four hours, a good hundred people came through to sign the guestbook and share their condolences with Mom. She bore up very well, and was visibly grateful for the many kindnesses expressed to her.
Meg came in and we lay in the dark talking some more. She told me she thought it was very brave for me to put aside my pain and anger to help Mom through this time. I admitted to her that I didn’t do it for her, but for my sisters. I would always be there for my sisters. Not that I had been – my roller-coaster life was more about my own survival and that of my kids than it was of being any help to my sisters, and I still carry a lot of guilt about that. I ran away from home, swearing to come back for them, and I never did.
I remember she and I talking about that guilt for a bit. Then we talked about how hard it was for me to reconcile the sad, fragile widow of today with the scary child-beater I remembered from decades past, and the snide, contemptuous termagant I had known throughout adulthood and as recently as four years ago.
Meg is a family therapist and lay minister. Her practice has been growing steadily. We talked about that, too. Then she told me about a therapy she had about ten years ago. I don’t remember what it was called at this moment, but basically it was body-based. The therapist has you focus on certain parts of your anatomy that are physically troubling you, with the idea that there is a memory “stored” there. Not really stored, but triggered or associated with that spot. Somatic! Yes, that’s the word.
Then she said there was something she wanted to tell me, a memory that had resurfaced through somatic therapy ten years ago, but that it was difficult to hear. I said “of course” and wondered aloud why she’d wait ten years to tell me something that was troubling her, and told her she can always talk to me. And she said this was different. Then she told me.
She remembered being about 9 years old and waking up from a bad dream. (This was in our home out in California, after Mom’s divorce from Daddy Two, whom we thought was Daddy One back then.) She got up feeling scared and went to go look for Mom, and found her in the back of the house by the pool. She wasn’t alone. She told my sister that they were skinny-dipping, and invited her to join them. So she took off her clothes and did.
When Meg said she remembered standing naked on the diving board, I felt myself suddenly feel cold all over, and I reached out across the space between our two beds to take her hand. We held hands over the empty space in the dark as she finished her story.
She remembers being at the side of the pool and someone pulling her up by the arms out of the water. She doesn’t remember any faces, but she remembers a penis being put in her mouth. They didn’t stop there. She remembers being raped. At 9 years old.
The room was dark and silent. I think I whispered her name once, but for the most part I just lay there, holding her hand and feeling what I am feeling now as I type this. Cold. Numb. Tears brimming but not spilling over. A tightness in my chest and difficulty breathing.
She asked me if I was okay, and I think I said something like “you’re the one that this happened to – are YOU okay?” And my concern tumbled out of me in dozens of choked words. We talked about her treatment, how she was able to handle dealing with Mom over the years, who else among the sisters knew at this point (Amy knew), that I thought she should definitely tell Beth, and why she was telling me now.
She said she wanted me to understand that if she could forgive Mom, then I could. That’s a big thing to forgive, but she did. She said she wanted me to try somatic therapy to see if it would help me get to the bottom of my anger toward Mom, so I could heal. And she asked if she could walk me through it right then.
No way. I withdrew my hand gently and told her that it had been a long day and I had a long drive back to New York ahead of me, and we should go to sleep. I told her how much I love her. I don’t remember if we hugged or not, but it wasn’t necessary. Us girls can hug with just words and feel the same. We are all very close, much more than sisters. Almost like survivors of a war camp.
I didn’t tell her that I felt weakened, that I just knew that if I tried to find memories associated with that bothersome area on the side of my abdomen right then, I was pretty sure I would do more than just cry. I don’t know what I would have done, but every instinct in my body was screaming – don’t think about it! Don’t touch it! Just don’t anything! So I shut down. You ever do that? It’s a mental shut down, but I can feel it. My body was just laying there, unmoving, but my senses could feel myself withdrawing as if I were shrinking to something smaller than my skin and bones. I shrank until there was nothing but my mind, then I shuttered that, too. Eventually, we fell asleep.
At this point, I could have sworn that I had never been sexually assaulted as a child. Looking back to this night, I think my body was remembering but my mind was still protecting me. Gosh, I’m tired. I need another cup of coffee.
P.S.
About ten years ago, the four of us girls had an intervention with Mom about her drinking and the abuse. That’s for a later blog, but I remember that she told us that her father had molested her every Wednesday when he came to visit her, and it had gone on for as long as she could remember. I wonder now if that time with Mom is what triggered Meg’s memories. I’ll have to ask her.
Erase and Start Over 