My mom emailed me today to tell me that my cousin “Gary” has died. I don’t want to use his name.
He was 43, 12 years older than me. My mom didn’t know exactly how he died. It wasn’t like a car accident; she thought it might be a heart attack: something medical and sudden.
Here’s the deal. When I was 18 and he was whatever, he tried to force himself on me. It was his brother’s wedding. I was pretty darn drunk: I’d had alcohol before, but these were my first bar drinks. I was also melancholy because I had graduated and moved to another town in the same week. I had wanted to talk to another cousin, the one closest to my age, about my college anxiety, but he was preoccupied with his girlfriend.
So I’m outside, crying and hiccupping. He follows me outside, asks why I’m crying. I start to stutter an explanation, while he says, “Where did you get these enormous breasts?” He grabs them, tries to jam his tongue in my mouth, and is moving on to my zipper when I spill my drink, with fresh, cold ice cubes, on the back of his neck. (And his tux. I hope that was a problem with the rental shop.) While he’s yelping and picking out ice, I scramble away and tell my parents I want to leave. They see how loaded I am and don’t question it.
So that would have been it, and I would have been one of the classic ones to never tell anyone because I didn’t want to relive it. But the next day, my mom wants to go out for cheesesteaks, and I get grease on my skirt. We go to my aunt’s, Gary’s mom’s house, so I can change. I go into the powder room to rinse out the skirt, then I hear Gary’s voice outside. My mom couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t come out until she brought me a pair of shorts. I kept saying I didn’t want to expose myself to Gary, and she kept saying “Oh, we’re family!” Finally, I heard him settle down in the living room, and went upstairs the other way. I didn’t tell my mom even then; it wasn’t until we were driving back home. Lotta good that does, but lotta good it would have done anyway. My mom’s reaction was “I wonder if I should say something to Jane (her sister and Gary’s mom) about it?”
So my mom tells me this, and I say, “You know, it doesn’t negate—”
“Don’t say it. That’s in the past.”
So I don’t say it. But then she suggests that I give Susan (his now-widow) a sympathy call. I have nothing against Susan, but I hardly know her. And I can’t exactly tell her he was a good guy to have as a relative.
Am I doing what my mom says—focusing on one bad memory and nurturing it? I don’t have a lot of memories with this guy, period. He was so much older, we didn’t have much contact, if you’ll pardon the expression. So it may be my only distinct impression of him, but it’s a helluva one. It wasn’t the betrayal of trust that’s so traumatic to people who’ve been molested, but it was very unpleasant, and as I say, I don’t have anything to counter it.