And I hated her because she hadn’t seemed to notice that I’d changed so much since we’d come back to Bakersfield. Because she didn’t notice that I was sick all the time or that I had sores all over my legs. Because when I fainted in the hot sun while waiting in the lunch line at school, which happened often, I felt I had to lie to the school nurse when she asked if I’d had breakfast.
I also hated my mother because I knew she wouldn’t believe me if I told her about Steve. Either that or she would blame me.
Mostly, though, I hated her because I hated myself.
I saw Steve only once after we moved away. He drove me to the river one afternoon in his old red pickup. I hung my arm out the window, letting it glide up and down in the wind like a bird. It gave me a feeling of freedom, even though I felt trapped sitting next to Steve.
When Steve asked my mother if he could pick me up to take me to the river, she had seemed happy that he wanted to spend time with me. But she didn’t ask me if I wanted to go and I didn’t know how to tell her I didn’t.
I felt frightened sitting there next to him. I knew there would be a price to pay for this outing. But I seldom got to ride in a car and hardly ever got out of town to the country, so I focused all my attention on the land and the foothills and the trees as we sped past them. I inhaled the smells of fresh air and sagebrush and listened to the sounds of calling birds and the distant rush of the river as we approached.
Steve had two inner tubes in the back of the truck. He carried the tubes down to the swiftly moving river and plopped me inside one of them. I was scared but excited at the same time. He jumped into the other tube and we rushed down the river, over small waterfalls, circling around in whirlpools and finally ending up where the river dwindled into a creek.
Then came the long walk back to the truck, but I was high on the thrill of the ride. I felt happy, really happy, a feeling I seldom ever felt. There was no mother there to criticize me. I didn’t have to be careful to not embarrass Momma and I didn’t have to worry about what other people thought. I was free to be myself.
But my feeling of freedom was short-lived. When we got back to the truck I started wiping the sand out of my crotch with my towel, and Steve yelled at me, “Don’t do that in public! Somebody will see you.”
I was surprised by his reaction. I didn’t understand what the big deal was. After all, he’d told me I should never be ashamed of my naked body—that it was a beautiful thing. Now he was angry with me for wiping the sand out of my crotch. I was confused but I did what he told me to do.
A few weeks later, my mother had to take me to the doctor. I had a bladder infection. The doctor told my mother that somehow sand had gotten way up inside my vagina. My mother never asked me how that could have happened. Of course, looking back on it now it was either Steve’s fingers or his penis that had pushed the sand up there. I don’t remember anything about what happened. As was always the case, I had disappeared while he did those things to me.
When Steve dropped me off at home, he once again warned me that he would kill me if I told anyone. “We only live a few blocks away from you and I’ll be watching you,” he said ominously. For months after that, I froze in fear every time I saw an old red pickup truck. But I never saw Steve again.
chapter 15
I was already full of shame—already felt like there was something very wrong with me—before I was sexually abused by Steve. The abuse just confirmed what a bad person I really was. I was only nine years old, and yet I felt as if everyone could see what an evil, dirty, unacceptable human being I had become. I felt so damaged, so worthless, that I was surprised if someone was kind to me. And because I felt so undeserving of kindness, I either pushed the person offering it away or I sexualized the relationship.
After the abuse I hated being alone with myself. I hated myself and so I went in search of someone to distract me from me. I roamed the neighborhood looking for anyone who would play with me or just let me spend time with them.
There were twins, a boy and a girl, who lived a few houses down from us, on the opposite side of the street. They were close to my age and, after a few weeks, I made friends with them and we started playing together after school. They went to a private Catholic school so I got home before they did and would wait for the bus that dropped them off in front of their house.
The twins’ parents owned a restaurant and their back patio was filled with pots, dishes, and cooking utensils. We could get lost for hours being cooks, waitresses, and customers. Most times their parents didn’t come home until early evening, so we had several hours to ourselves.
Both the twins were a little
