My Story, Part IV

C. got a job teaching at Polk Community College and so after Mother's school semester ended in Gainesville, we returned to Roseland, packed up, and moved to Winter Haven, Florida.

This was a huge move for us. I had spent the last six years in a tiny village and although Winter Haven was hardly a metropolis, it was big compared to Roseland. The elementary school I was to attend for sixth grade had more students in it than in the entire elementary school I'd attended before.

To make things even more difficult, I had gotten a little bug called Ground Itch, or Creeping Eruption in one of my feet and it had not been treated properly and my left foot was an oozing mass of actual real worm tracks that itched to the point of insanity. The foot was wrapped in gauze and then I wore a cotton sock over that (which the pus did leak through by the end of the day) and I was on crutches.
Good look to have, entering a new school where I did not know a soul.

We moved into a rental house and my room was directly down a short hallway from my mother and C.'s room. The molestation continued and because I had my own room (which I had not in Roseland), I became easier prey for C. He would come in to tell me goodnight every night and spent what seemed like hours in my room. I can't figure out, for the life of me, where my mother was during those nighttime hours. I know she'd gotten pregnant again and was probably tired and by the time I was ready for bed, perhaps she was ready to lie down herself. Or was washing up the dishes or something. I don't know but I know that he would come into my room and sit on my bed and somehow, someway, he would manage to get his hands on me, all the while pretending that nothing out of the ordinary was going on at all.

I was, by this time, completely in fear of him. There was never a moment of the day or night when I was not. Sometime during this period of my life, my mother had to be in the hospital several times. To give birth, yes, but she also suffered from different ailments and knowing I was alone right down the hall from that man was terrifying. He never went past a certain level but I never knew if he would push it. I feared horribly he would. I think I am blocking a lot that happened in that house.

I remember there was a funky old bathroom that someone had built into the back of the garage there and I loved that bathroom. It was far away from the rest of the house and it had a hook and eye lock. I used to go in there to read. I would lock the door, sit on the cement floor with my back to the wooden wall and go far away into whatever book I had in my hands.

That was only place I felt relatively safe.

Mother had two babies within a year of each other. When the second one was born, the first baby was put into my room. His crib was in my room and I took care of him as if he were my own. I loved those babies with all my heart and soul. I learned to change and wash diapers. I carried them on my hips. I learned to sterilize bottles and make formula and mix Gerber rice cereal with bananas for them. I learned how to calm a crying baby and I learned to give them their baths. My role as the little mother was complete.

And at about this time I started my period and as I recall, the molestation stopped. I think.

Well. Wouldn't you just think I'd have been able to breathe a sigh of relief?

Of course I couldn't. Because although the physical manifestation of it had ended, the psychological component certainly had not. C.'s disposition changed even more. He became sneakier in all things. He seemed unhappy all the time. If he was glad to be the father of two fine redheaded baby boys, I don't remember him showing it. I doubt he ever changed a diaper. I can remember him looking at me as I was doing homework or reading or sewing and saying, "Get up and go help your mother," while he was lying on the couch, watching television.

And I never, ever went to bed without fearing that he would come into my room. And of course I wasn't allowed to have a lock on the door.

C. and Mother bought a house down the road. It was a lovely house, across the street from a lake, and I can remember overhearing a conversation between them and Granny Matthews who was visiting about which bedroom should be mine. C. wanted me to have the bedroom right next to his and Mother's while Mother and Granny M. held the opinion that I should get the room farthest away from theirs. It was obvious, from his argument that something fishy was going on. Finally, either Mother or Granny Matthews asked the question, "C.- why can't she have that room?" And he said, "She'll be entertaining boys in there. She'll let them in in the middle of the night and we won't know."
I was twelve. I had never even held hands with a boy. The thought was unimaginable. I spent all my time at home, helping with the babies, or at school or Girl Scouts.

"What in the world are you talking about?" Mother asked. Granny Matthews was equally appalled and voiced that in no uncertain terms.
"She's just a little girl. Why would you even think such a thing?" she asked.
And of course he had no answer. None that he could give, anyway.

And I got that room. But I never ever felt safe in it for a second. I did get a lock on my door, but it was a bolt lock that he put on the outside of it so that I could keep my little brothers out of my room when I was not in it because they were mischievous little boys who loved to get into my room and plunder. A lock on the outside of the door.

And the way the house was set up, my room had a window which I could see out of into the family room where C. had begun to stay up late into the night to watch TV. By now, I believe he was addicted to codeine which he had been prescribed for migraines. But he'd started taking it to prevent the migraine, or so he said, and he seemed out of it half the time. And while that light was on it meant he was awake and was at my end of the house while Mother was asleep in their room, upstairs across the house in a room they'd built over the garage.

To this day, I cannot bear to be able to see light when I go to bed. I want things completely dark. Darkness means safety. Light means someone may be awake, may be watching, may be thinking things that I don't want to know about and can't bear to ponder. I know the reason I need for it to be dark but it doesn't make the need go away. Sometimes I even get up in the night and throw a towel over one of the LED lights that every device in the world has now. A fan, a phone charger. When Mr. Moon is out of town, I sometimes cover up his clock which has a large and very bright digital face.

And then I can sleep. But I still have nightmares. To this day I have nightmares about that man.