***Trigger Warning – contains potentially distressing material pertaining to sexual assault
During the entire stay with my aunt, there were always women around us. Men were infrequent visitors. In fact, I could only recall one man being around us at a distance until one day I noticed that he had disappeared into the background. That man was the police officer who had given me the Billy club [after the sexual assault against me]. He would sometimes keep watch like a guardian angel in his police car in front of the apartment building. I never really noticed when he faded out of view, but after some time I realized that he was gone.
The second man was perhaps my aunt’s boyfriend – a man who I had not even notice existed until one day he came over to take us (my aunt, her child, and me) to the beach. I believe this man was my aunt’s child’s father. I gathered this by the conversation between the two of them on our way to the beach. Their body language with each other indicated that they knew each other well and were quite comfortable with each other. I also gathered that he was a married man with a family by way of the number of times he mentioned how it was hard for him to get away to see her, and by the very fact that he brought along a child whom I believed was his son.
From the start, I viewed this boyfriend of my aunt as a problem but not necessarily a threat to me. Even though I did not know him, I already knew I did not like him. He gave off bad energy. I remember how I felt uneasy around his presence. I did not want him anywhere near me, and I remember cringing on the inside of myself at the sight of his smile. I detected his words as lies and his overzealous kindness towards me as fake. The first moment that he shared a glance with me was the moment my facial expression gave off the glare that I was unimpressed with him. I believe he was aware that I did not like him.
I was a very discerning child. So I automatically knew that the relationship my aunt had with this boyfriend was improper. I also knew that the main reason my grandfather had whipped her years ago with a branch with thorns still attached from a rose bush was more because he was upset about the status of his grandchild’s father more so than his grandchild’s illegitimacy. I actually gathered this by thinking about the shared conversation between my aunt and her boyfriend while on the way to the beach. Then I reasoned that maybe my aunt had moved away to be closer to this man.
At some point during the ride, I remember a glance shared between my aunt and me from the side view mirror. Something within her eyes became overcast with fear. I believe in that moment (as I have seen so many times before with someone who realized I could expose them) she knew that I knew enough about her “secret” life to know the true story. She could visibly see I knew the truth and was not at all happy about being with her on her love rendezvous. Not that I believe I was judging her – maybe I was to an extent – but I remember thinking how I did not want to be on a trip with someone else’s husband and find myself in the middle of some crazy drama.
As I said before, not only did my aunt’s boyfriend pick us all up, but he brought a child along with him – the child I believed he shared with his wife. This child seemed to be a year or two older than my little cousin who was two or three at the time. There was just an overall weird vibe inside of the car. It was like a fake vibe that I wanted nothing to do with. I wonder now if my aunt was in fantasy lane pretending that we all made one big happy family when there was no truth to this at all.
In retrospect, I was so glad when I was able to get out into the fresh beach air so that I could feel the sand and water between my toes and soak up the sunshine. I longed to be one with the outside air and just listen to the sound of the ocean. Once we arrived to the beach, I attempted to distance myself. The car ride had been a long one, and I felt overstimulated from all the adult conversation. My aunt’s boyfriend had literally sucked all of my energy up into a vacuum, and I needed to regroup my thoughts and regather myself with some alone time.
I remember feeling as if the sound of this man’s voice was terribly annoying, and I wanted to get away from his pompous attitude. Likewise, I also wanted to get away from my aunt. I was not happy with her at all, and I was least happy when I was stuck to babysit my cousin and the other child. It turns out my aunt and her boyfriend really wanted to be alone together and were both intent on using me as a scapegoat to make their rendezvous and cover a lot easier to successfully navigate their romance.
I did play with the two children for a while because what else could I do? So we played, and we waded in the water, built sand castles, ran along the shore’s edge, and played a game of finding lost treasures. Eventually, I grew tired from exerting so much of my energy. I no longer wanted to play. I took the children back near the adults, and ran to the shore and watched as the waves moved in and out. I remember desperately wanting to be alone. So, I grabbed a towel and sat reclined underneath an umbrella to shield myself away from the sun. I eventually fell into a deep nap. I was exhausted, but the exhaustion I felt was like no other fatigue I had ever experienced before.
I had apparently slept for a long time and when I awakened, I felt sick. I felt very sick. I was so sick that my aunt accused me of trying to upstage and ruin her “date”. She cautioned me to stop being bratty, but I was really sick. I was achy all over and so zapped of energy that I did not even have the desire to “argue” back with her to defend myself. When it was time to go back to my aunt’s apartment, her boyfriend told my aunt that I did appear not to be well. So he offered to physically carry me to the car and into the apartment. I declined his offer both times even though he did his best to make “nice” small talk with me.
On the way into my aunt’s apartment, I walked slowly behind everyone because I really did not feel well. My aunt’s boyfriend attempted to stay behind with me. He then walked along beside me and told me how much he loved my aunt. I was unresponsive. Frankly, I did not care. To me, all he did was talk incessantly, and for whatever reason, his voice really got underneath my skin. Eventually, he made a comment that I needed to be nicer to him or he would not be nice to me, and then he reached over towards me in an attempt to touch me as if to put his arm around me. I was barely able to bark out a whisper, but I stopped coldly in my tracks and firmly look up at him and said, “I don’t care. You’re not a nice person anyway, and don’t ever touch me!”
Without waiting to hear a reaction, I kept walking straight into the apartment. Once inside the apartment, I collapsed on the couch. My cousin and the other child were sitting on the floor in front of the television. My aunt’s boyfriend came in, shut the door, and bypassed me without a word. He walked back into my aunt’s bedroom where I could hear him talking about me. Then both he and my aunt went back and forth about me in a heated discussion. The gist of what he had said was that my aunt really needed to get a handle on me or I would meet my match. I do not remember what she said in defense. I honestly do not remember if she had a defense.
Then my aunt’s boyfriend came out into the den area and sat down next to me on the couch. My aunt had walked out behind him and said something to me about apologizing to him. I remember staring blankly at her and then him. I felt as if I were a robot. There was no ounce of feeling inside of me. I was sick, but I turned to him and simply said, “You’re not my match … so leave me alone. You might be their dad (referencing my cousin and the other child), but you’re not my dad, and if you ever try to touch me again, I’ll tell my dad, and he’ll come find you. We both know you won’t be here, don’t we?”
My aunt looked at me with such an appalling anger that I thought she might snuff my life from the earth, and her boyfriend looked at me in both bewilderment and fear. I am not sure if his look was enough to snuff my life from the earth. So he gathered his child, said a few choice words to my aunt and then left. His last words to my aunt, “You better get control of this girl! Her smart mouth is going to be the end of her!” Yet, I was not afraid. I felt too sick to be afraid. I just wanted to be left alone. So I curled up on the couch and closed my eyes.
It was not my intent to be disrespectful, but that is of course how it came out to be for both my aunt and her boyfriend. My aunt had been all too apologetic to her boyfriend as he walked out the door. She did not want him to leave. On the other hand, I was all too unmoved to be bothered by either of them, and I did want him to leave. Looking back, I was an incredibly angry child, and I did not care, but I knew what this man was about, and when he reached out to touch me in what seemed to be a rather menacingly way as if to intimidate me, I snapped and lost my cool. I did not feel sorry. I did not feel sorry at all. Instead, I felt sick.
Although my aunt continued to go back and forth with me about it all. I did not have the energy to respond to her. I covered my ears and eventually fell into another deep sleep. It was either right before I drifted off or either while in the midst of my being half-awake that I heard her raising her voice, “What’s wrong with you? Are you crazy? Who do you think you are talking to another person like that? That’s not how you were raised! Who do you think you are making threats to an adult? What’s wrong with you? Why are you like this? You are too grown for you own good!” I was unmoved though. I was sick. I was very sick, but for some reason, my sickness was just not registering to my aunt.
My sickness seemed not to register to my aunt until I was unable to get out of bed for three or four days. I did not want to do anything because I was physically unable to do anything. I could not move, and I was extremely exhausted out of my mind. I vaguely remember my aunt having conversations of concern with her neighbor friends in the building. At times, I recall each of them coming in to check on me. I do not remember eating, and I have a vague memory of drinking orange juice through a straw. I just remember waking up in a hot feverish sweat a few times and feeling as if my body was a huge weight that I did not have the strength to carry. When my aunt made me get up to go to the bathroom, I sat up and cried because my body hurt all over.
I believe my aunt was told at some point by her neighbor friends that she needed to either call emergency services or take me into the hospital herself. My fever was only worsening, and I did not seem to be getting any better. However, my aunt did not follow their advice, concerns, or warnings. I think she was afraid. Plus, I think she had her mother and her sister (my grandmother and mother) coaxing her on what to do.
I remember my aunt being on the phone with my grandmother, but at no time do I ever remember either my grandmother or mother asking to talk to me. As was always the custom, my aunt never really made decisions without them. So I was either being forced fed some concoction I refused to take or would spit out, or I was being bathed in rubbing alcohol and some other stuff. I was never sure of the reasons behind my aunt’s decision not to seek medical help for me, but in the same way, she ceased from always seeking medical help for herself too.
Anyway, eventually, the fever I had broke, and my health returned to normal. Oddly, however, I woke up from the sickness a very different person. The precocious puberty had really set in more than it had before, and my aunt had to take me out to get refitted for a regular bra because my training bra was now too small. On top of what already was going on in my life and how I was already feeling about my body, I felt even more awkward and less myself. I not only felt physically different, but I felt mentally different as well.
After that beach trip illness, I was completely aware that I was no longer a little girl anymore, and in a way, it sucked because I felt like I did not have enough time to be a little girl. The summer with my aunt was about to be over, and I had progressively changed in more ways than I could mentally handle. Going to the beach – always one of my favorite places – quickly became synonymous with change. In fact, for years after that beach trip, I would not voluntarily go to the beach again until I was about 17 years old because somewhere within my mind I associated the beach with illness and great change.
Stay tuned for the next post.
My Voice Unchained 