…dirty…bad…I wish you’d never been born….I never loved you…count, or I’ll start over again…bad…worthless…you’re nothing…cry, damn you (no)…I hated you after he was born…darkness…pain…mother love…pose for Playboy someday, won’t you, your tits are big enough…you slut…enjoy having the boys after you, don’t you….filthy dyke…fat pig…hey, look, it’s the white whale…I wish you were dead…why don’t you go ahead and kill yourself, I’m sick of you anyway…bad…Bad…BAD…you’re nothing, anyway, and never will be anything…
“He kicked the dog, can you imagine?” Her words hang there in the silence, between the three of us. Speechless, my brother and I stare at her. The screams of a mortally wounded kitten seem to reverberate through the room, even though the television is silent. We stare at her, but we can hear a black and white kitten screaming, and ourselves wailing, and Mommy insisting that I fetch the broken, screaming kitten so Daddy can finish the job when he gets home. “No, Mommy, please, don’t make me.” “Isn’t that just awful? He’ll probably be a serial killer or something.” My brother and I look at each other, and then away. Our silence makes us accomplices in the pretense that it never happened. For a moment, we bond again, just like when we were kids. She doesn’t remember. She doesn’t remember any of it. In her mind, it never happened. Sometimes, I still hear kittens screaming.
…bad…liar…I found out you were a girl and turned my head away…I always wanted a boy…go sit in his lap (no)…if you were normal, you’d do it, too…I always knew there was something wrong with you…you’re just jealous of him, because you’re a dyke…
I screamed it to the heavens, but no one believed me. No one wanted to. It’s easier, isn’t it, if it’s fathers molesting daughters, instead of mothers molesting sons? And I’m the one that’s dirty for saying it, for bringing it up, for even thinking it. I still feel guilty for not doing more to protect him. Wasn’t that my job, as the older sister? I feel guilty for not being a boy, because then it would have been me, and maybe she would have left him alone. Maybe he would have been the girl, and safe, from that at least.
In my mother’s world, none of this ever happened. Both what I’ve already written, and what I will write someday, when I have the strength and the courage to finally speak the truth, all of it. I spent too many years as formless as a shadow, trying to be whatever it would take to make my mother love me. Anything, no matter how destructive it was to me. Always praying that this time, it will be enough, this time, she’ll love me. Nothing was ever enough, not even that night…that one night that never happened. Because mothers don’t do that to their children, even or especially, their grown up children. What happened that night? Nothing, because it was all a dream. It had to be. And yet, if that was a dream, then maybe everything else was, too. But isn’t it odd how the bad dreams stopped, once I no longer saw or spoke to my mother?
The demons had been quiet for a while, but they started up again today. So I went out, out into the sunshine and fresh air. Demons can’t abide sunshine and abhor fresh air, where they must be silent. And I realize with every breath, every step I take, that I am finally free. With every word I write, I remember that it had nothing to do with me, I just happened to be there. Words have power, and today, maybe for the first time ever, the power is mine. I’m alive, I’m free, and there’s a black and white cat purring in my lap. And for now, that’s enough.
