She is a sweet and happy girl. Twelve years old already. My perfect daughter, and her childhood is everything my own was not. I remember thinking this as she dropped the dough, one spoonful at a time onto the cookie sheets, criss-crossing the tops with a fork... just the way you mark peanut butter cookies. She was very meticulous. She had her back to me but I noticed she kept drawing her sleeve up to her face. I wondered, is she coming down with a cold?
I stood beside her and turned to look at her face, and I saw tears running silently down cheeks.
"What is this, Shelly? Why are you crying?" I gave her the handkerchief out of my apron pocket. She took it and lowered her head.
"I am ashamed, Mother," she said, the fork and the spoon on the counter beside the mixing bowl, both hands now to her face, hiding her eyes with the handkerchief.
And my heart felt like it had become rock, rising into my throat. So many times as a child I'd felt shame, and now I felt fear and a sort of panic, but I smiled at her and said, "Oh, Shelly, now it can't be all that bad." My voice cracked a bit, but I was thinking I know my children have a good life. I've made sure of that.
"Tell me, sweetie, what could you have possibly done to make you feel ashamed? You are such a good girl."
"No, I'm not, Mother," she said, looking at me now, "That's not what Father says."
Joseph. How could he say anything like that to his daughter? She must have misunderstood.
I've known Joseph most of my life. He's eight years older than me, but when we married he was 34 and I was 26. He knew about the pregnancy when I was 19 years old, just like the whole town knew before I could leave there and take up residence at the hospital campus in a city far away. That was where I worked as a student nurse to earn my board, and where I gave up the baby I couldn't possibly keep.
I returned to Acme three years later with a Graduate Nurse certificate. I soon found a job in a Bellingham hospital and got an apartment there. I was a pretty young woman. No one in Bellingham had any idea of what I had lived through, but I still felt very shy around my age group. I didn't socialize much, and the thought of dating did not enter my mind. What would I tell a man about myself? What could he understand and how would he judge me?
Several years later, I went home to Acme for a family wedding. Enough time had passed that I thought I could enter the church with my head up, and there were people there who loved me afterall. My sister and my two brothers were certainly beloved by me and I'd missed them so much. I helped with the reception dinner, making a potato salad and setting up the hall. And that's where I saw Joseph watching me. I smiled at him.
He asked if he could sit with me at the dinner. I was a bit shocked, but pleased, and said yes. He was so kind to me, and seemed so proud to be with me. He said my eyes were a beautiful blue, and that he'd always admired them.
And he was a constant companion from that day on. He drove the hour to Bellingham every weekend and slept on my sofa. He was ardent, affectionate, and I encouraged him. I can't say I was totally proper, but we were away from Acme, and here I was an independent woman, and not conventional by the day's standards. Joseph asked me to marry him within just a few weeks of dating and I had to say yes. This was better than I'd hoped for. Now I could come home with new respect and rejoin my family. My father, that horrible man, had died while I was living in Bellingham and so there were no obstacles.
We bought a farmhouse with ten acres. Enough land for a few cows and a place for chickens. Joseph took care of all that and I kept the house. The children arrived, the school years began, and we made lifelong friends with neighboring families, strong ties to the church. Joseph and I hosted the youth group in our home. We were busy and happy.
Then came that day when my twelve year old daughter was saying she done something bad. And everything changed. I asked Shelly again, why would your father say you were a bad girl?
And as she spoke, I could barely hear her voice.
I was remembering when I was twelve years old myself. The sound of my father's boots hitting each step as he came up the stairs to read to us from the Bible like he did every night before we went to sleep. First in the room I shared with my sister, then in the room my two brothers shared. And I remembered his hands under my nightgown, and the horror knowing that my sister could see, but he did not touch her the way he touched me. And I remember the cold air in the room and then I remember... nothing.
My daughter stopped speaking and looked at my blank face. We just stood there looking at each other for I don't know how long. Shelly hugged me and went upstairs to her room.
When Joseph came home from work, I told him to move Shelly's bedroom furniture into the room above ours. I said this is not open for discussion, just go do it. And if I ever hear your footsteps above my head at night I will kill you.
He did not say a word. He did what I told him to do.
The boys will be alright.
