ZaLa means Good Luck

[anakitsune]

PART I

My story doesn't start with my birth.

My story started the day I realized I had a story to tell.

I was in the second grade. It was a normal Kansas elementary school, except perhaps a higher than normal population of Mexican students due to this schools "English as a second language" courses. My teacher was... well maybe I should use code-names here? we'll just call her Mrs. L. She was one of those teachers you just couldn't help but love, because she loved you. She was someone who seemed to legitimately enjoy her job and her kids. Imagine that. A teacher that was kind and understanding? Amazing.

Today we were going to watch a video. I remember the guest speaker trying to warn us we may not like what we see, that it might make us uncomfortable. I didn't pay attention to her warning, why would I? They turned down the lights and the video began.

"Good touch, Bad touch"

 It seems so obvious now. It's hard to imagine you would need something so simple explained. As the video played, a feeling of unease settled deep within me. Wasn't that example of bad touch awfully familiar? Wasn't the words that cheesy actor said as dark music played, words that I had heard before? These thing's were WRONG. But...

Didn't my own father play those games with me when no one was around?

If this makes you uncomfortable I have no words to make your squeamishness diminish. What do you do when you find this sort of thing out? It made so much perfect sense It hurt that I had never known. That's why I always had to hide when mother came home. That's why Daddy only wanted to see me alone. That's why he made me promise to never tell a single person.

I don't even remember the details of the video that saved me. Just the premise. The guest and Mrs. L told us that if we had anything at all to tell anyone there was a box on Mrs. L's desk. All we had to do was drop it in there, we didn't even have to put our name on it. The box was all the way across the classroom. Across a room full of children that, in my own mind, were watching anyone who approached the box to judge them.

I was determined though, I would not be a fool anymore. Now that I knew, I couldn't let this continue.

When I got home that day my father asked my brother and I to clean our room. As we shifted thru the toys and pretended to clean while playing with are toys, he called from the living room. He only called for me. He asked my brother to shut the door to the bedroom. We were alone. I knew what he wanted, what he always wanted. He expected me to take off my clothes and stand in front of him as I had obediently done so many times before.

I shook in fear as I looked into his bloodshot eyes and said "No. I won't do that anymore."

I expected him to hit me. In fact he raised his hand as if to strike me down but, the blow never came. He slowly lowered his hand as the look of determination stayed on my face despite my shaking. Maybe he just didn't want to leave a mark, maybe he actually cared. I couldn't say. My father sat me down on the couch next to him and struck his bargain. I could walk away. He would not try again. I wouldn't be punished or hurt. On the condition that it remained what it had always been,

"Our little secret."

And so it was. I kept it, for whatever reason. I pushed it all so far down that it warped. I didn't even believe my own memory. Did that really happen? No, my own father wouldn't do that. He wasn't like that. Daddy was good to me, he would never do something like that to his little girl. It must have been a nightmare. Something I saw or overheard in a movie. A scene in a book. I was just imagining it. I was crazy. The denial made things easier. I just shoved aside the truth and bottled it up.

I couldn't deal with the memories. So I tried to throw them away.

I kept his secret like a good little girl... until I got asked the question that changed my life once again. She was a family friend. Her mom was friends with my mom and my aunt, so we got stuck together at birth and told to be friends. So we were friends. I was staying the night over at her house. It was the seventh grade. We started a game of Truth or Dare. She stole a dildo from her mother's closet and dared me to touch it. She dared me to kiss her. I sat with locked lips as she tried to push her tongue past my defenses. She gave up. It was time for me to answer a Truth question. She thought for a bit then asked

"What is the biggest secret you have ever kept?"

I don't know what made me answer her honestly. Maybe it was the markers we had been sniffing to get high. Maybe I relaxed for just a moment. I could have told her anything and she would have accepted it as truth. Why did I tell her about the games my father used to play and the secret I had kept for so long? She was horrified. She had known me our entire life and this was the first she had heard of this. I swore her to secrecy. I regretted telling her but at least this was the end of it. She probably wouldn't even remember, she probably would think it was just a story.

I left the next day thinking no more of it. Her mother discovered her missing "toy". She confronted her daughter who produced the stolen item from her room. She was in trouble. Big trouble. She threw out the only distraction she could think of. My secret had now spread to two. It didn't end there. The story was repeated to my aunt, and from my aunt to my mother. I can't even guess what my mother might have thought. They had been married and together for fourteen years at this point. She probably got mad. She probably defended him. "He would never had done anything like that!" or "Why are you saying this you know him he isn't like that!" The worst part was she really believed that. My father was charismatic if nothing else. He was a salesman of cars, and of himself. He could convince you of anything. My mother was oblivious, blissfully so.

I wonder if she ever suspected him?

She picked me up from school early. She took me to the park and parked the van so that we faced a pond. She told me how she had heard some things, and she wanted to ask me if it was true. Again, I could have lied. I don't know what made me tell the truth. I could have said "oops I made that up" and took the punishment. I could have said my friend was just making it up herself, or she had misheard me. I could have said a thousand different things to make my mother sigh with relief and go on with her happy oblivious life. I could have kept the bottle deep inside and spared her from the pain. I didn't. I looked her in the eyes and said what she least wanted to hear

"I didn't make it up mom."

My mother picked my brother up from school. I don't remember what she told him then, or if she said anything at all. A family meeting was called. My father sat on the couch and my mother, brother and I  stood in front of him. She did the talking. She did the explaining and the asking. I didn't listen. I watched him. I watched my father's face and I waited for his response.

I've never wished to be crazy so much in my life.

Just tell them I lied. Just say I'm crazy. Say I made it up. Say I imagined it all. Deny it. Get mad. Ask me why I was such a crazy and lying brat of a girl. He did not. He remained silent as my mother asked her final question with a shake in her voice. "Is it true?" I know she wanted the same thing I wanted at that moment. It must have been weighing heavy on him for all those years. When the silence seemed to stretch forever, He broke. His face crumbled and he fell to his knees. "Yes!" he said as the tears rolled down his face and he shook. I remember my mothers fingers as they pulled me in towards her as I fell to my own knees.

NO. He was supposed to deny it. Did that mean that all those horrible things I had told myself weren't real, had really happened?!

That all the "dreams" were memories and that my own father had done those things to me?

Once the bottle was opened, everything inside spilled forth.

We shook and cried as a family. I remember the words my brother cried as my mother cradled us and pulled away from my grappling father. "Does this mean daddy has to go away!?" He was always a daddy's boy. He was worried, and nobody had any comfort for him. Only shock and confusion.

My father could only sob and say "I'm sorry" over and over as he tried to embrace my mother to no avail.

I don't remember what happened after that, I think that we tried to keep going on as a family. Nobody else was told. I think my dad must have been staying elsewhere. My friend must have been pretty shook up by it, because she told the school psychiatrist. Apparently even if it is said in confidence they were required to report these things to the authorities. I remember being called from the classroom to see a councilor. The looks from my classmates as I walked out burned into me and I felt sick with dread. I didn't remember doing anything wrong, what could I have done?

When I walked into the room there was the councilor sitting in his desk and a uniformed officer on either side of the doorway. They shut the door behind me as soon as I was clear. They told me that someone had come to them quite worried and had said some concerning things. My mother had been called but they wanted to talk to me before she arrived. I was tired of confessions.  I refused to talk until she arrived. When my mother arrived and saw the two officers she must have known what it was about. She told them the truth. Explained that it had just come out and they were addressing it as a family. The councilor said she was afraid that it would have to be filed, it couldn't be ignored now that it was out in the open.

My father was not allowed near me. A priest was called and my father had to attend classes that were supposed to help him control himself. My brother asked for him to come home every day. My mother spent a lot of time crying. I remember sitting in my room next to the front porch as my mother talked to the officer in charge of my case. She was asking what would happen next. I remember the officer saying that I may have problems forming emotional bonds or stable relationships in the future because of what had happened to me. That many "victims" had difficulties later in life due to the emotional trauma.

That's when I decided I would never let myself be considered a victim.

I was friends with the officers son, so I asked him out the next day just to prove I had no fear of relationships. Thinking back that behavior was probably more evidence to my psychosis then my normality, but I felt avenged. The officers son wasn't interested so nothing ever came of it. Eventually I was sat down with my mother and the officer explained that because the last incident occurred over 4 years ago they could not press any criminal charges, but if I wanted to press charges personally they could. I had the choice. I could allow him to come home, or I could keep him away.

I let my daddy come home.

My brother ran and hugged him and my mother didn't cry so much. I think that when he came home we all put it up and away in a little bottle like I had for so many years. We did not mention it. We did not acknowledge it. It wasn't addressed and we didn't talk about it. It went into the family vault and there it stayed. We went back to normal routines and we acted like the family we were supposed to be. My brother swore up and down that he was never touched and my mother forgave him for what he did. It had never happened... Except when I look into my Daddy's eyes, and see my secret reflected back at me.

*END PART I*