Grammy stays with her son several months out of every year. As fate would have it, our visit has fallen at the same time. I am grateful. When everyone leaves, or a compromising situation arises, she is there for me. She takes me for a walk until the others show. These walks are some of the most loving memories I have. Grammy turns out to be my “Guardian Angel”. I think she knows exactly what her son is all about!
If Uncle is doing this to me, he must be doing it to his beautiful boys.
Father is coming home. We get to leave. We get to be in our family home again. Safe.
Seems to me that I hide my exasperation well, until it comes time to sleep. My dreams are unwelcome. I resist at all costs. Though it angers my parents, I continue to give them the extra kiss goodnight. Perhaps I get thirsty or hear a noise. Maybe I hear them call me. Maybe they changed their minds and want me to stay up later! I want these to be the moments I confess my dirty uncle’s secret. I chastise myself for not coming clean. I berate my moral character. This lack of reverence would prove the justification I needed for my later years of drug abuse and rampant sexuality.
In my dreams I would tell. I would tell all. No holds barred. In my dreams my uncle murdered me. My father murdered my uncle. My mum died lonely. Auntie hated me. Sometimes all the men in my family raped me for what I deserved. I was never innocent. Those dreams were from another time, for another time. I was not to know “sweet” dreams again until my late twenties.
How was I going to cope with this mummer I had become? I felt like an impersonator of myself in my own home. On the outside I was myself. On the inside, I was dark and angry. How could a love be so absolute one day, and utterly gone the next? Where did the good Uncle go? My emotions were conflicting relentlessly. There was a silent battle raging inside and no rescue insight. I had to tell someone! My older girl cousin was the lucky beneficiary of all my uncertainty. I was to know my trusted intimate.
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