At my grandparent's house during the John The Murderer era.

It was a dark place, with a cavernous bathroom, small squares of mint-green tile above the white, a pedestal sink, the tall window adjacent to the toilet covered by a pullcord shade. Outside of the bathroom, the rest of the old Wilmington rowhouse loomed: shadowy rooms; marked-up walls in need of paint; hardwood floors scratched and worn from decades of footsteps, the worst places covered by faded area rugs; a raggedy couch there, a threadbare recliner here; the folding tables with chipped veneer. Because the windows were painted shut, the air was stuffy, smelling of overcooked food.

I don’t remember other kids. I don’t remember playing. I do remember lying on the floor (or was that a cot?) for my nap, but not sleeping. Maybe that’s why the bathroom is so solid in this elusive memory – those that don’t nap are made to stand in the bathroom. Bad girl.

Tears and stubbornness. It wasn’t fair. No one could make me sleep in this place.

The woman who ran the home-based daycare knew John the Murderer (click here for more on him), my mother’s ex-boyfriend. So when he showed up after the breakup, after we moved out, when he came by to pick me up during naptime, she let me go. I was quiet and polite – this was important, to go along, to not make him angry, to stay safe. He took me to a store, had me pick out a huge stuffed animal to take home, and returned me without harm. It was a somewhat threatening attempt to get back into my mother’s good graces. When that didn’t work, he pursued us to my grandparent’s place, "kidnapped" my mother for a brief time, another sketchy story of violence that isn’t mine to tell.

Recently, when my little one, my sweet, sometimes maddening almost-three-and-a-half year old was behaving just like a preschooler should, testing boundaries, being frustrating, I felt the anger flame up inside of me, the low boil going immediately to steam. After calming down, I thought about my life at his age and how small and defenseless and maddening I must have been myself, a little person in the midst of some very bad things, trying to protect her mother, to keep it together. The past was reaching out to slap me in the face again, the suppressed anger of long-ago, the abuse I both witnessed and experienced.

I’ve asked my mother to tell me what happened while we were living with John. Some of it I vaguely remember (or know from past conversations)– being made to stand at the table for meals, his physical abuse of my mother, his tendency to drink – but there are gaps in my knowledge. I need to know, to confront it, to feel the suppressed feelings. It will be another step toward emotional wholeness, a step toward being an aware parent.

My mother has agreed, apologetically, guilty, worried that I will be angry with her. There is no cause for worry. I just need to know.

It's the next hurdle.

Tags: John the Murderer, existential angst, The Little House