By then, all my eyelashes were gone.
Someone had told me that if I lost an eyelash and it landed on my cheek, I could make a wish and it would come true.
I got carried away.
Or I kept wishing.
So I didn’t have any eyelashes left.
Mom had taken me to a counselor because something was visibly wrong.
Two times, she took me.
But, I didn’t talk.
No way was I going to risk more or worse, of what was already going on.
Fourth grade.
That was the year the science teacher came, although he did not figure prominently until the next year.
Fourth grade was the year of kissing in the coat closet.
A girl and a boy were picked and pushed into the dark coat closet together.
It was probably the first kiss for some.
For me it was just another time to shut down.
I was a shell, an empty shell, it was better that way.
No one could hurt me and I could not feel my body when I removed myself from it.
I remember Edna was in that class with me. She was an abuse survivor. She fought. She became better friends with my older sister in the grade above me because I was a pacifist. I wonder if that was because of the enmeshment.
So she became my sister’s eyes and ears in the class. If I made friends, whether I was doing good or bad, and various other tidbits she would give my sister for my sisters favor. Some of it was true, some of it was not. All of it was punishable.
If I won at tennis, later on my sister would hit me with the racket.
Telling mom had stopped when Mom did not intervene and the punishment got worse. That was years before.
Sometimes my sister would hit me while I was sleeping. When I woke up, she would say- you bitch, you burped, get down and kneel to me for an hour.
I can remember several times of falling asleep kneeling.
Pinching. Pulling my hair. Poking me with pins. If I turned a corner and she was there I was in for it.
That was my daytime life.
For the coat closet kissing, I got a broom shoved in my vagina. I was told that was really what he wanted to do to me.
The only times my sister was gentle was when she looked to me for sexual comfort. And then only sometimes.
The stroking usually ended in a flurry of pain as she acted out on me what was done to her.
I felt so empty most of the time, so vacuous. I was like a walking robot. Doing well academically was fun for me as long as she did not find out. But if I did anything that would make me look good in mom’s eyes, there a dangerous jealousy in her that burned against me because I had Mom for four years more than she did, and she blamed me for it.
The night time stuff continued. The daytime stuff continued.
I guess we all just continue to try and put one foot in front of the other until we can’t anymore.
But, God.