The factoid with legs
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.