Three's a big girl, then

As a child, I was something of an insomniac. Like other kids, I would fight to stay up with my parents. But I don’t think it was simply a case of not wanting to go to bed. I actually didn’t want to sleep. I wanted to be alert, awake just in case something happened. I don't think nighttime scared me as much as bedtime did, for, as children, we went to bed when it was still light out (about 6:00 during the school year, 8 in summer).

I think my anxiety about bedtime began when I was three.

We moved around quite a bit while I was growing up. When I was three, we (myself, parents, two younger siblings) moved to California. We lived just outside of Los Angeles, and this is where my memories begin. I’m not certain of the chronology, but three big events happened:

1) Fourth of July celebrations! Our parents got us ready for bed, and as soon as it grew dark, my family went out onto the street where neighbors were setting off fireworks. A kind man gave each of us children a sparkler to play with. Poof ! I went up like a firework myself. The sparkler had ignited the cheap, blue, synthetic nightgown I was wearing. I must have passed out. I woke up in the hospital, smelling something horrible (disinfectant? burned skin?).

The next day my mother drove me to my grandmother’s house nearby to show off the nightgown’s remains. She appeared proud of my having been burned; she was clearly excited as she told my grandmother about the sparkler.

(Years later a friend of my grandparents told me that he’d been the one to give me the sparkler, and that when I caught fire he threw me to ground and smothered the flames with his own body. My mother says he’s full of nonsense. I don't know who to believe--I think all of the adults on that July 4th were drunk on ring-pull cans of Coors).

2) First Earthquake! I woke up in the middle of the night because the bed was rocking. My mother, nude, was crouched over me, holding me to the bed (my siblings were cradle-bound at this point). I didn't know what to be more scared of--the earthquake or my mother. Bless her. It was her first earthquake as well.

3) First Abuse! My mother's brother agreed to babysit my siblings and I while the parents went out to play. It was a regular evening, uneventful. When it was time for bed, I helped fill my siblings’s bottles with sugary water and prepared for bed. When I came out to the bedroom to say “goodnight,” he said that, since I was the eldest, I could stay up a little bit later than the babies. I was delighted. I started to watch t.v. with him. I was so young I didn't quite understand what it was he was watching, but I do remember a laugh track, so I'm guessing it was a sitcom. Just a few minutes after I'd settled down ont he sofa, though, he picked me up and bent me over the couch, across the armrest, and he assaulted me.

And then the typical post-abuse story: he told me I was a big girl. A good girl. I wasn’t to tell my mother; I went to bed feeling sick, dirty, ashamed, and unsure.

The next day, I was playing in our empty garage, which smelled of old oil on warm concrete. I was setting “table” on a large, overturned cardboard box. The dishes were cheap, tin toys with Charlie Brown characters on them. A door connected the garage with the kitchen, and it was open while I played. I could see my mom getting things ready for lunch, and I could hear her talking on the telephone. When I heard her hang up, I called out and told her all about the previous night's event. I don't know why I just ignored my uncle's directive. Perhaps I was just a brave kid. Perhaps I wanted my mom to know my uncle thought I was a big girl, a good girl.

She didn’t respond. I went inside to see if she’d heard me, and I found she was on the phone again. When she replaced the receiver, she said “Grandma and grandpa know, and you aren't to tell anyone about this.” Nothing more was said.

Inconveniently, perhaps, I remembered all of it, in a rush, when I was 12. I don't know what provoked the memory (I think my uncle might have been planning to move into the area). Regardless, I remembered. I told my sibling about our uncle had done to a three year old girl. I thought relating the event was perfectly acceptable; all the grown-ups knew. Surely there wasn't anything to hide. Well, my sibling went to the family adults--including our mother--to report what I'd said.

My family--including my mother--told my sibling that I was a liar. They told me I'd made it up. I was misremembering. I had to apologize for telling horrible stories. They pretended I'd concocted the event in order to grab attention and to scare my sibling. Even though I knew I was right, the feelings of dirtiness and shame escalated, compounded by guilt and humiliation. I was pushed out of the family's safety net, usurped by a sibling's need to feel safe around my uncle.

When I was 18, my mother confirmed my story. She justified forcing me to lie by saying "we just didn't talk about things like that back then. We thought it was better if nobody knew" She's right, I know, but that doesn't curb the betrayal I feel. We haven’t spoken of it since.

Two years ago my uncle shot himself in the chest with my grandfather's gun.

Years before, his wife had left him, taking their two little girls with her to another state (I'd always wondered if he'd forced his attentions on those girls, but it could be that he'd never touched a child after me). Following his divorce, my uncle wandered. He actually spent some time doing the hobo thing and jumping trains. Alcoholism and drug abuse incapacitated him to the point where he couldn't work. So he hang out in bars and received disability checks for some ailment.

I felt ambivalent when he died. I still do. I understand the tragedy of a life wasted, of the pain that must drive one to suicide, but I know that if he'd never touched me, everything in my life would have been different. That one action kickstarted a chain of actions. and here I am.