Years later, I learned that Chick’s mother had come over to tell my mother she didn’t want me over there anymore. She said I was too seductive with Chick and she didn’t want her son to be accused of anything. When my mother told me this, I was shocked. By that time I’d been in therapy for years, trying to rid myself of my shame, but as soon as she told me this information it surfaced like a rotten egg. I felt so horrible that my mother had known this about me but had never said a word. She’d kept it to herself, just like all her other secrets. Didn’t she ever wonder why I had been seductive with Chick? Didn’t she wonder whether maybe I really had been sexually abused by Steve the way I said I had? Didn’t she ever make the connection?
Around this time I also befriended a young woman across the street named Cecilia. She was in her late teens and was very dark and exotic looking, so she stood out in our all-white neighborhood. I thought she was probably Mexican but I secretly hoped she was a gypsy like I’d seen in the movies.
Cecilia lived with her mother, who was seldom around, and she seemed as lonely as I was. I liked her because she treated me more like an adult than a kid. We would sit on her front porch in the evenings and she’d tell me all about her boyfriend, who was in the Army. She told me that they’d had sex and she was afraid she might be pregnant, but she didn’t want to tell her boyfriend because she didn’t want to worry him.
I got the feeling that Cecilia wouldn’t be shocked if I told her I’d been sexually abused, so I told her I had a secret and she had to promise not to tell anyone. She promised, so I told her all about it.
I unloaded my burden in an attempt to get rid of some of its poison. And maybe because I wanted to be as different from my secret-keeping mother as I could possibly be. It felt good to not have to carry around my secret. I felt a little lighter. And Cecilia didn’t seem shocked, though I could tell she felt bad for me.
After a few weeks of me hanging around Cecilia, my mother once again sat me down. This time it was to tell me to stop going over to Cecilia’s house. She didn’t make as big a deal about it as she had with Chick, but the message was basically the same: she’s too old for you. I pleaded my case but my mother stood firm.
The next time I saw Cecilia on her front porch she gave me a big smile and called me to come over. I walked up to her porch and told her I couldn’t stay—that my mother had said I couldn’t hang out with her anymore. She looked at me with suspicion and asked me why. I told her my mother said she was too old for me. But Cecilia didn’t seem to believe me.
That evening, as soon as my mother came home, there was a knock on the door. My mother answered, and as I peeked around the corner to see who it was, I saw Cecilia. She looked angry.
“For your information, I’m not a Mexican like most people around here think I am. I’m Syrian. My father came from a country called Syria. Just so you know.”
With that, she turned on her heel and stomped off. But before she did I saw tears in her eyes.
My mother turned to look at me. “What did you tell her?”
“I just told her what you said—that she was too old for me.”
She looked at me suspiciously. “You didn’t tell her anything else? Like telling her I didn’t want you over there because she was a Mexican?”
“No, I didn’t,” I said with conviction.
“I better not find out you’re lying,” she warned. Then she opened the door and walked out toward the driveway.
I waited a few minutes, then peeked out the window to see if she was going to Cecilia’s. She was.
I don’t know what was said between my mother and Cecilia, but the next time I saw Cecilia she didn’t smile and she didn’t wave.
It seemed to me that everything good was always taken away from me—Pam, Sandy, the twins, Chick, and Cecilia. And lately it seemed that whenever I found someone I liked, someone who liked me, my mother put a stop to it. I just couldn’t win. If I hung around kids my own age or younger the part of me that wanted to be in control took over and I did things that could hurt them. But if I hung around older kids that wasn’t okay either. I just couldn’t seem to find my place in the world.
chapter 18
I felt the pressure again, bearing down so hard that I had to stand still with my legs together and tighten my buttocks hard to hold it in. The strain was so great it made my legs tremble. Finally, the pressure subsided enough for me to continue playing.
It wasn’t until Linda’s mother called her in for lunch and I was forced to go home that I finally sat on the toilet. I’d held it in so long that now I was constipated. The pain was excruciating, so I distracted myself by fantasizing, a trick I’d learned early on as a way of escaping painful or scary situations. In this fantasy, I’d had an operation to cut off my belly. One clean cut and the wad of fat in my hands disappeared and I was left with a nice
