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Do you remember when he molested me?
I pushed hard through my reluctance to utter those words. I dared them to cross my lips. When they did, the immensity of the moment made me suddenly lightheaded, detached from myself as if I was listening to someone else speaking the words through my head.
My life changed over the long hot summer I turned thirteen. He was the older boy next door and at almost three years older than I, he was the closest thing I had to a big brother. But when he lured me into his lost and desperate world, everything changed. No didn’t work with him. And soon, no didn’t work with me. Our only witnesses were the basement furniture or the tall reedy grasses of the nearby wooded fields, the green heavy canvass of my Sears pup tent that winked a promise to hide our secrets and the silent duck hunters printed all over the thick flannel lining of the sleeping bag that softly held me with lies of comfort and soothing complicity.
“Do you remember when he molested me?”
It was supposed to be a rhetorical question. Because she did remember. How could she not? We had both been ignoring the secret that, really, everybody knew. He got caught molesting little girls in the neighborhood. But as one of the only boys, my secrets remained. My mom sat me down on a basement barstool.
“Do you know what your friend did?” she asked. This was suddenly very serious.
The question that I dreaded came at me flat out and direct.
“Did you do anything with him?”
I can still see my penny loafers swinging below me over the yellow and orange shag carpet, trapped in the nightmare of divulging my biggest secret.
“Well… maybe. But just to see why he was doing it.”
The truth was too dark to admit, that I let him because . . . I couldn’t even answer that to myself.
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My answer fumbled from my lips like an absurdity – as if I was suggesting that by subjecting myself to his whims, I was conducting some type of scientific experiment. We weren’t having sex. I was merely playing along, studying him and trying to figure out how to fix him. Right. As soon as my daft response spilled out, I knew mom wouldn’t buy them. The truth was too dark to admit, that I let him because . . . I couldn’t even answer that to myself. The truth was so dark, I couldn’t even see it. I couldn’t see anything. I was thirteen. And suddenly I was lost in a mess of awkward lies and confusing truths that all spoke to the darkness of me. I looked up at her. And I cried.
“Please don’t tell dad! Please!” My whole life was suddenly redefined and directed into a simple plea. I was a filthy child. My secret was out. And the only remaining hope was containment of the damage and of my shame.
My mom was suddenly calm as if something resonated an acceptance within her. “We’ll see. We’ll see,” she said blankly. And then she got up and left. That was that.
And she never asked me about it again. Ever. Until this moment at her kitchen table when I swallowed hard and broke the silence of thirty years with what I thought was a rhetorical question with an assumed answer.
“Do you remember when he molested me?”
If he knew what was going on between he and me, he seemed happy to hold our filthy secrets. Was I the sacrifice to save the others?
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Those first weeks after he was caught were a surreal fog. I think the only thing my father told me was that he was not getting enough love at home and that he needed a friend to help him through this tough time. He told me that I should remain a good friend and help him stay away from the girls. That did not work out so well, for, after a few days of what seemed like genuine contrition, his demons crept back. He knew that my dad offered me to him to help him stay away from the girls. He reminded me of that. When my prescribed course of one-on-one hoops, hikes, biking trips and swimming didn’t work, he had his own ideas on how I could keep my promise. So the abuse continued with more secrecy, frequency, darkness, and hopelessness than ever before.
Did my mom tell my dad? I didn’t know. Everything my dad said, every bit of body language, every twitch of facial expression was a clue for me to study, but I could not figure out. I wasn’t about to bring the subject up again and ask my mom, despite the gnawing curiosity. It became the “big mystery” and my default guess was that he probably knew. That guess formed the basis of my relationship with my father. If he knew what was going on between him and me, he seemed happy to hold our filthy secrets. Was I the sacrifice to save the others? All I knew was that intended or not, the girls were saved. My father and I became pleasant strangers. He was my dad and I loved him as much as I knew he loved me. But I had not a clue how to cross that heavy pane of bulletproof glass and get back to him. I spent twenty years waiting for that special magical moment that I would feel worthy enough to step into his regard. Twenty years. Until that awful day that he was so suddenly gone.
Everything left unsaid between us became a crushing weight of regret. Months rolled by. Friends saw me increasingly depressed and didn’t know what to say. Except for one friend who gave me a card.
“Call him. He’s really good.”
Okay, I thought. Maybe a therapist is what I need.
I kept him there until it was too late to change all that and embrace him in the kind of father and son relationship we should have had. In a heart attack instant, it was too late.
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It was in those sessions that I finally understood what had happened to me. And it was in those sessions I finally saw the cost of carrying those secrets. It cost me the smiles I threw away from friends, the esteem of teachers I dismissed, the accolades and rewards in life I earned but could never accept, the opportunities in life I never felt I deserved to take, the smiles I used to give so freely but no longer did. Above all the costs, the one that cut right to my heart was the lost relationship I should have had—but didn’t—with my dad. I just couldn’t own it, and though I loved him dearly, I kept him at arm’s length to spare him the disgrace and disgust of me. I kept him there until it was too late to change all that and embrace him in the kind of father and son relationship we should have had. In a heart attack instant, it was too late. My hopes would remain a wish I would never have. And I’d be damned if that was going to play out again with my mother.
The problem, however, was how to cross that huge gulf between us. I could finally start the process of forgiving me. I was just a boy. And I could forgive my dad. I never gave him a chance, and maybe he never knew after all. I could maybe even forgive my molester. He was defective. He got caught and nobody did anything to help him besides throwing anger at him. I suspect he wanted to be good, but had no clue how to do that.
But what was my mother’s excuse? I lost my dad and the overwhelming weight of grief almost destroyed me. I could not also lose my mother. Neither could I imagine her explaining why she never saved me from him after I told her that day in the basement.
I wanted to give her the easiest out I could. I did not want to put her on the spot, but could not possibly imagine a way not to. I needed to confront her, but at the same time, I wanted to protect her from what I was about to make her face. Yet I knew that the only thing worse than confronting her for answers was to allow our relationship to continue without any, on another long road to regret.
“Mom, I need to talk with you about something.” It was just her and I, face to face in the house alone at the kitchen table. And she asked what.
“Do you remember when he molested me?”
I watched her age in the silent wake of my question. Every little wrinkle on her face seemed to etch itself deeper. By the time the words left her lips ten seconds later, she was ten years older.
“No. Molested? You were molested?”
“Mom. We talked about it when he got caught.”
Silence again. Our eyes were locked on each other. In a plaintive voice, spoken as if she wished she could give a different answer but there just wasn’t one, she said, “I don’t remember.”
It was her way of coping with the unbearable thought of what happened to her little boy—a thought that was more than she could bear to hold in her conscious heart.
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And then it hit me. Maybe she didn’t remember. My mind traveled back to that moment in the basement, to the question she asked me. Did you do anything with him? I gave her the answer I so desperately did not want to give. I never considered that it may have been an answer she equally desperately did not want to hear. Perhaps we each found a way to sit with our truths in the comfort of the lies we told ourselves. Me? I just didn’t look at it. My mom simply repressed it. It wasn’t forgetting. Or ignoring. Or even pretending. It was her way of coping with the unbearable thought of what happened to her little boy—a thought that was more than she could bear to hold in her conscious heart.
Or it was a nice theory. It was the best I had. I knew my mom was honest and strong. She was humble enough to face herself squarely. She had a conscience. Sure, she could have lied, but she didn’t. She looked me square in the eyes and I looked into hers. And she just didn’t. As for repression? I admit I was 90 percent convinced.
The remaining ten percent was easy. I simply built a bridge of grace to her. I looked at the cost of believing and not believing and decided that the latter was a price I was no longer willing to pay. He took enough from us. This is where I took something – a bit of magic and stardust, and a leap of faith to believe in something brighter than the darkness that stole so much from me. If I was wrong, then that would be my regret. But it never was. And I never looked back.
My mom and I enjoyed the years that followed. The anger was gone as were the questions. The smiles we shared were once again deep and genuine. The hugs when I would visit were of the heart. We were fully present for each other, and no glass existed between us. In later years, she developed Alzheimer’s. In her delirium, she would call out my name in her sleep. And I would hold her hand and tell her softly that I was there, where she would settle into a quiet sleep.
When she slipped away, there were tears. But no regrets. The simple bridge I built to her – that simple ten percent – was what remained. It was a bridge of love and forgiveness, and I can stand on it today, look up at the stars with a smile, and say, “Mom.”
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Male sexual abuse and assault is a subject that many people find difficult to acknowledge, let alone discuss. If you need support, please go to the Bristlecone Project.
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