One morning, while living in the crappy house in Antioch, I was woken up by a golden retriever jumping on me and barking in my face. I was terrified. We did not have a dog. I got up and ran to my mother, who was sleeping on the fold out sofa with a person I'd never seen before. I told her that a dog got in the house. She laughed and told me it was just Billy's dog.
I was in second grade. And I had no idea who Billy was except that he was big, had a beard and tinted glasses, and was in bed with my mom. She told me to go back to bed. I remember feeling displaced. Whatever small amount of care I got from her was suddenly given to this man.
My memories are fuzzy at this age. I know I get things out of order, but I also know that meeting this man was the start of a long chain of trauma and bad memories for me. My mother gifted me a collection of photos from each year of school, once. You can see a drastic transition in my weight and appearance after 2nd grade.
I remember that the house was large, had a sunken living room, and a huge fenced in back yard. We lived directly across from a lake. I don't think Billy had a boat, or if he did, we never used it. There was a yard full of conifers in the front.
We had a sitter at this house. I think her name was Anita. She had a boyfriend. I think his name was Tom. She was ginger and short, he was tall and balding with a mustache. I have memories of them talking about their genitals and making me go on walks to other people's houses. There were geese that pecked me near one of them. Its all so foggy, but I think these people hurt me. My mother says that she fired the woman when she heard her tell her own son that "I brought you into this world, I can take you out." I don't know if that's true.
I have memories of having a panic attack. I don't know what triggered it, but I couldn't breath and couldn't stop crying while we were driving. My mother parked the car in Billy's driveway, turned around, and smacked me across the face. Her ring split my lip wide open. She got out and left me in the back of the car. I remember being suddenly silent. Shock? I noticed blood on my hands and check my lip in the mirror. It was cut wide open and swelling up. I knew she'd get angry again if she saw it. I remember internalizing that. It was my fault and I was only going to get in trouble again. So I stayed in the car for an hour, squeezing the blood and water out until my lip was flat again. It was dark by the time I went inside. She didn't speak to me that night.
Karen and I had a joint birthday party in the front lawn while we lived there. Aunt Linda came in her flight attendant uniform and tried to cheer me up. She was always reaching out to me when I was little. I probably should have told her what was happening. I didn't. At this particular birthday, I was attacked by a swarm of wasps that were nested in the ground at the base of a tree. My mother scolded me for crying and wanting to stay in the house. I lost my brand new Barbie's glitter shoes during the attack. I was shamed for that, too. Linda left.
I remember always trying to please Billy. I made him a club sandwich (from my first cook book) and put toothpicks in the halves, like the book said. He bit into a toothpick and I got in trouble.
My mother made mandarin chicken for dinner once. She liked to try new foods, sometimes. He told her that little oranges did not belong in his food and forbid her from making it again. Fucking idiot. It was MANDARIN chicken. Putz.
I remember him punching the wall and throwing my mother. I remember there being blood in the kitchen sink one day and my mom told me to never mind it. I remember trying to run away. I remember having nightmares where the house was on fire and I crawled to my mother's room to wake her but I couldn't speak. In my dream I screamed as loud as I could but no sound would come out. I remember having panic attacks. I remember stealing. I remember trying to teach my cousin how to have sex (where the fuck did I get that from??) at 8 years old.
I have nearly zero memories of the back yard except that it was large, fenced in, and the grass was tall and dry enough to irritate my legs. I must have been out there though, as I have memories of crying at the fence and memories of looking up at the back of the house to where the bathroom window was. My mom says we never went out there. She's wrong.
I was sent away to Pennsylvania for a summer, while we lived with Billy. Last year, I asked my mom about the time we lived with Billy, saying that I had a hard time remembering some things. She brushed it off, saying nothing happened. Then why the fuck did she send me away? I think she knew something was up. When I got back, Billy's golden retriever looked like a completely different dog. Mom said I was making things up, but that sticks with me. He'd poisoned his own cat while we lived there and I sometimes wonder if it really was a different dog.
Billy would drink beer on the roof and shoot a rifle over the lake on the 4th of July. I watched him point it at the dog. He terrified me.
He didn't take care of the house. My mother did all of it. The yard was always over grown and dying. There was a bunch of crap tarped to the side of the house. I think it was our stuff because the furniture in the house was all Billy's.
I had two friends over once and they were so scared of Billy that they came into the bathroom with me when I had to pee. This was shocking to me, as I didn't like people seeing me any kind of naked. I was already ashamed of my body and hated it.
I remember not doing well in school during 3rd grade. I was in trouble all of the time. The teacher was old and horribly mean (She'd go out of her way to point out my disheveled clothes or unkempt hair. She'd yell at me in front of everyone and ban me from recess.) I started wetting my pants at school by the end of 3rd grade and into 4th. I was too afraid to ask to use the bathroom. I once felt my bladder release in the middle of class, overflowing my chair and soaking my red overalls. The 4th grade teacher was nice about it. She cleaned me up and the nurse helped me change. I had to keep a change of clothes in the class after that. A grungy kid found them once and held my underwear up for all to see. The teacher was mortified, but that was nothing compared to the betrayal I felt. I stopped wetting my pants at school and started wetting the bed at home. Billy told my mom he'd start beating me if I didn't stop. I remember hiding and bawling. He terrified me, as I'd seen him punch holes in the wall and throw my mom before.
I had dreams of being able to twirl fast as a tornado and flying far, far away.
I remember trying to be good, the best girl I could be, but it was never good enough.
I remember that my brother started having problems, too. He was beat up by his boy scout den. He was cornered in the school lobby and punched in the face. He would poop in the bathtub. Billy just said he was pathetic.
Once, I saw Billy grab the back of my mother's chair and flip it with her still in it. She fell down the steps into the sunken living room. I remember moving a few days later. We moved back into the ramshackle house in Antioch. Things didn't get better for us, but Billy was mostly gone.
She started working two jobs and trying to sell MLM on the side. She was exhausted and overwhelmed. We were a burden to her. She had black-outs from exhaustion. My cousin things my mother was binge drinking, not exhausted. To him, I say that we didn't have money for alcohol, so I doubt it. The worst was when never showed up to pick us up from CCD. The priest crammed us in the back of his sports car (making sure to tell us that his car wasn't meant for kids and taking us home was highly inconvenient for him). When we got home, my mother was passed out on her bed (which was located in the corner of the dining room). She was still in her coat, keys still in her hand from dropping us off that morning. The priest stayed just long enough to make sure she was awake, but she was not okay. She couldn't even remember having taken us to church. She couldn't remember work the previous day. She was convinced that she was dying and laid all of that on us. She wanted me to remember to bury her beside her father and what bank her accounts were at. I was maybe 10.
Billy came back into our lives from time to time. I still tried to please him, but he never stayed. He helped my mother build a giant swingset in our yard. Another time, he took us all to Chuck E Cheese. But we never moved back in and eventually he faded away.
