I reached far back under the bed and pulled the orange out into the light of the small bedroom. The mold had grown since I last touched it. I tapped my small fingers at the mold, feeling its wetness. The blackish blue was alive and I felt deep joy in it. Holding the orange close to my lips, I blew puffs of air at it, hoping to make it multiply. I felt powerful with it in my hand, powerful watching the mold taking over the bright orange color. It was my secret. I lay flat on the floor, lifted the covers away from the hem of the blankets and pushed the orange back under into the darkness. I would wait another five days to look at it again. As I slept over it each night, I relished knowing the mold was eating away at the fruit’s skin.
***
I’m an old woman. My life has been lived in three parts; who I wanted to be, who I pretended to be and who I am. All parts found their place, their foundation, by the sexual molestation of my five-year-old, little girl body. My future, a Monet, all bright colors and fuzzy focus, stolen by my grandfather and many uncles that pleasured themselves at the expense of a child. I became taller, older, but the memories never left: memories like holograms, replayed over and over again, changing who I deserved to become. Becoming devalued became my biggest battle.
I looked forward to summer when I was allowed to stay at my grandmother’s in a small farming town of 300 people, most related to me. Through my early childhood and near beginning puberty, my grandmother, a plump, white-haired, smiling woman with a magical imagination, tended me in summer. My grandfather, a stoic non-person, disposable-camera kind of a man, was her opposite. He resided with my grandmother in the little white farmhouse but never seemed a part of it or the day-to-day activities of caring for the land surrounding it.
I sat in a big living room chair in my nightgown the first time my grandfather molested me. His hands were cold and wrinkled. His face was frozen as he felt his way under my nightgown, one hand inside me, one hand inside his trousers. He smelled of rancid bacon. I did not move nor resist. He was my grandfather. I was five years old. I had no reference. His face changed as he pleasured himself at my expense, eyes squinted, saliva coming from his mouth. Then it was over.
He left me in the big chair and walked away. I went to the bedroom where Grandma always put two handmade quilts on the bed I slept in when I visited, dressed, and ran outside. I climbed the ladder to the hayloft where my cousin and I had spent many summer afternoons. Peering from the loft window, blue found at the peaks of the trees in the late summer mornings shone through. Two mouser cats came to sit on my lap. Grandpa’s memory faded.
As summers came, I looked forward to being with my grandmother. Being with her on her little farm where lilacs grew and grapes rested heavy on an arbor was my one reprieve from the chaos of my home. She spoiled me with homemade bread and fresh canned jam. She told me magical stories about treasures being left in the berry briars by elves, and when I went to look, I found them. Colorful beads dangled through the wild berries; shiny stones in small blue bags rested there. I gathered them, excited to show them to Grandmother. She always clapped her hands and smiled. “I just knew the elves came!”
In the afternoons in summer when shade was hard to find, my cousin and I sat in the hayloft. He and I shared summers playing in the creeks, riding my uncle’s horses, turning the pigs loose at slaughter time so they would not be killed, although they were always caught and served up at family tables. My cousin had his secrets, too, about his sexual identity, and I kept the secret my entire adult life. He was the brother I always longed to have, and he loved me unconditionally. But I never told him about Grandpa nor about his father or his father’s brothers who violated me. It seemed he had enough to carry.
My secret was like light passing through water. Sometimes I saw it clearly. Sometimes the water was too thick. Each time another piece of who I might have become was taken from me, I felt like a shadow. I knew I needed light but I blended in the dark so well, no one could see me. I learned to send my mind to a mesmerizing dance between the wind and the curtains when Grandpa’s body was on top of mine. I learned that there was no one who would lift me up and save me. When my uncles pleasured themselves at my expense in their barns and fields, my future, to call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on this earth, became buried deeply.
My mother, caught in her narcissism, depression and struggle to be heard, would not, could not save me. Unconsciously I chose summers with Grandma that, would, for a handful of months, allow me to get my own breath away from my mother. The double-edged sword was sharp, something I only realized much later, once my damaged skin was shed.
I was ten years old when my grandmother told me I no longer could come to stay with her in summer. My heart was broken. The only woman who was a constant joy in my life no longer wanted me. There was no explanation given. I cried, asking her why but the answers never came. I clearly remember my spirit breaking that day. I remember believing Grandma no longer loved me, that I must have been so dirty, so damaged from my grandpa and the uncles’ hands that now, Grandma no longer wanted me. There would be no more big, warm hugs. No more elves who left shiny treasures in the briars for me to find. No more playing in the orchards and in the creek with my cousin.
I saw my grandfather one last time shortly after, in his casket. My mother, insistent I view my grandfather in the dimly lit room. His eyes were closed tightly and appeared to be glued shut. His hands rested across his midsection. I have no memory of feeling anything except numbness. Even now, an old woman, I ask myself, “Did my grandmother know?” Did she have suspicions that she brushed away under her religion because to know the truth would be too much to bear? I loved her so. My heart and mind, both child and adult, have no room to grasp it.
***
I’ve learned time will take all things by wind, by water, or self-love. It has been a journey I never wished to take. Each time I had a new relationship as an adult, I chose those who I thought needed me to fix them. Broken, the day would come for me to face it, learn from it and heal. Feeling unlovable is spiritual hell. A child sewn up like rag doll by those who were meant to protect me changed who I was, left vacant spots where sanity, good parenting, honesty and living life on life’s terms was something I thought I’d never know. It’s not that I was ever lost; I just never understood what a home was supposed to feel like, much less find my way there.
Being banned from Grandma’s was, in many ways, my turning point. It took me down emotional paths I might not have traveled down. Pulling the orange from under my bed and watching it die. Seeing the decay before my eyes and finding pleasure in it, I learned through countless hours of therapy, was a tangible event that not only could I see and touch but could control. I smile now when I think of it and I understand. Although I am constantly reconstructing a pattern of something forever lost and which I cannot forget, I recognize it and accept the growth and know where the brokenness comes from. I’ve learned it takes a strong woman to hold the darkness, wait, hold some more, wait for what I did not know, but held on long enough for a tiny light that was conceived in the dark to shine.
I’ve accepted that Grandpa and the uncles died not knowing nor caring. They died with my emotional blood on their hands. I’ve learned that my sisters and cousins were also violated and each have had their own struggle in how they have come to claim it. I sit looking out at the trees swaying hard in the strong wind. I envy trees and how they never have to remind themselves to breathe. I’ve forgiven others. I’ve reclaimed myself. All has been monumental but worthwhile work. Should I leave this world tomorrow, I’ve done my very best to heal. I am much more than can ever be written. I don’t know if it was from perception or from nerves to senses, or if it comes from the bones or the blood, that I kept fighting. I re-read my journals often to remind myself of all the ways the world tried to break me and didn’t. The hell I felt and sometimes still tastes like fresh cuts.
All the pages between then and now. All the times I wanted to forfeit my breath and didn’t. I lived. I live.
Photo by Ekaterina Shakharova on Unsplash
