Sister of Silence (7 page)

But I did.

I gave up on him forever, the first time I was raped. That’s because when I turned thirteen and all hell broke loose in my life, my father—the one person who could have protected me—was gone.

One month
after his promise to teach me to fly when I was fourteen, Dad didn’t come home from work. I wasn’t sure what happened, and Mom didn’t tell us. When she arrived late that night to pick us up from the friend’s house where we’d gone after school, nothing was said about why we went somewhere other than home on a school night.

Then, w
hen I got off the bus the next day and got home, Mom was packing our things.

“Why do we have to move? I like it here.” I slammed my textbooks onto the table.

“Because I said so, that’s why.” Mom sighed.

“Whenever Dad says that, you tell him that’s not a real reason.” I glared at her.

“Well it’s going to have to be reason enough this time.”

“But I have a candy route now, and someone else will take it if I’m gone,” I moaned.

By then I was a seventh grader at Musselman High School, and had begun making and selling old-fashioned stained glass candy the previous fall. It began as a fluke, after a family friend who knew how much I loved to bake gave me a book full of candy recipes.

I made a batch of cinnamon candy and shared it with my classmates, and it was an immediate success. They began asking for more and before long, I had my own business venture. Suddenly, upper classmen I didn’t even know would stop me in the hallway, asking if I was “the blond chick who makes that hot candy.” I took their orders and spent every weekend making large quantities of peppermint and cinnamon candy. Sometimes, I would carry twenty bags or more to school. Students began to recognize me, and I had never been so popular.

I
hated
to leave since the candy business helped me feel less shy than I usually did.

“Please Mom, I don’t want to go back to Independence. I have new friends here now,” I told her.

“I’m sorry Daleen, we just can’t stay here anymore. You’ll get used to being home again with your friends there. Besides, you can take up your
Grit
route, too. I’m sure your customers will love having you back.”

I ran into my bedroom and plopped down on my bed, staring up at the ceiling.
Why can’t I just stay with Dad?

But I knew that wouldn’t work. Living with Mom made more sense because I was the oldest.

She’ll need my help with the girls
.

It was several months before I learned the real reason we’d left. Dad had called Mom from jail that night he hadn’t come home, whining about being arrested for driving drunk.

We only saw Dad on weekends after that, and by the time I turned thirteen, my parents lived in separate houses, in towns 200 miles apart.

Over the next few years our visits became less frequent, and Dad never did teach me to fly. When he went to work overseas, the visits stopped all together, leaving me vulnerable and destined to become a pawn in someone else’s plans.

Back then, I understood nothing—and thought I knew everything. From thirteen to sixteen, when most girls experience shopping trips and teenage angst through
many quickly broken puppy love relationships, I experienced a combination of forcible rapes, and rapes without force when I was silently compliant, which only enhanced my feelings of guilt and shame.

Eddie was always taking Kim and me places, and in plain sight he was a gentleman. The kissing and fondling began when no one was looking.

“Knock it off!” I scowled at him. In return, he smiled and tousled my hair like a big brother.

I had fallen asleep on the Leigh’s sofa one night, when I awoke to find Eddie standing over me. “Can I have a goodnight kiss?”

“No,” I murmured, half asleep.

He reached under the covers but I grabbed his hand and smacked it. “Don’t ever do that again!” I hissed
the words.

“All right, if that’s what you want.” He stood up slowly and turned away. Only when I heard his bedroom door close did I allow myself to exhale. Though relieved he had gone, I was also sad. For what, I didn’t know.

In spite of my resolve and his promises, it kept happening. I longed for someone to show me attention. Eddie did that, talking to me as if I was his own age. I told myself I trusted and loved him, and convinced myself he wouldn’t do anything to break my trust. But he always did.

My shame cut long and deep on the first day of high school, as I wondered if anyone noticed the change in me. I felt like the scarlet letter “A” was branded onto my chest.

I was excited to be a freshman, but I also felt different.

You are different.
The voice in my head always reminded me.

Living among the mountains, the coal mines, and the cornfields, I knew most girls my age were still virgins. They might have experienced petting, but that was about it. Living in God-fearing homes, they knew sex was only for married people. Otherwise, they risked the wrath of their father’s belt.

But the sexually active girls made no bones about it. Labeled “loose,” their actions were chalked up to having a bad home life. It explained—but didn’t excuse—their promiscuity, and they talked openly about sex.

In gym class all I could do was listen silently. “We were just necking in his truck and before you knew it,” a big-bosomed girl named Cathy said, “
he unfastened my bra!”

Cathy’s cohort Paula joined her friend’s raucous laughter. They snickered loudly until the physical education teacher, Mrs. Niles, glared at them.

“You two want to do laps, or do you think you can finish warming up like everyone else?” she demanded.

“No ma’am,” they replied.

I looked far above the bleachers to a window where light had somehow found its way through the grime, and wondered how Mrs. Niles had missed it. Concentrating on tiny details inside the gymnasium kept me from hearing things I longed to know about, but which simultaneously repelled me, as I tried to figure out why their experiences were so different from mine.

T
hey even seemed to enjoy sex. For me, every time Eddie touched me, I wanted to die.

Maybe it’s me. There’s something wrong with me, or else I would like it, too.

But they couldn’t know I really was one of them, that I wasn’t a virgin. I didn’t want anyone to know. My friends would think I was a slut—like the girls who had sex with every guy they dated.

After gym, we filed past Mrs. Niles toward the showers. For all her gruffness, she had a heart of gold. She treated her students with respect and expected excellence in return. I admired her and sometimes envied the close relationship she had with her basketball players, girls whose athleticism—unlike my own—wasn’t confined to volleyball and swimming. I knew they confided in her, for after class they often lingered at her office door.

Maybe I could talk to her. She’ll know what to do. Or, I could talk to Mom. Couldn’t I?

Always reserved, Mom wasn’t easy to talk to, especially about sex. The very topic seemed to make her uncomfortable. Besides, it took all the time she had to care for my sisters, along with
now cooking for the two boarders we had taken in.

I longed to confide in her, yet I knew I never would. I was too ashamed. I hated myself for allowing the sex to continue, feeling totally responsible.

Instead, I buried myself in my books so I wouldn’t think about it. If I wasn’t studying, I was reading. But where I once read mystery novels or dime store romances, I now read harder, grittier pieces like
Helter Skelter
, which led to terrifying nightmares. And quite often, I woke up thinking I was the pregnant Sharon Tate, about to be murdered.

Winter arrived with a vengeance when a heavy snow began falling in January, and didn’t stop until the mountains were buried beneath a twenty-inch blanket. During the month-long school closure, Neal, an older boy who drove the kind of van most fathers feared their daughters going anywhere near, began flirting with me.

Not long before, Eddie had lost his job and went to
Tennessee to find work. He didn’t even tell me goodbye. In defiance, I responded to Neal’s flirtation. He invited me to a sled-riding party not far from my house, but when Mom said I couldn’t go, I climbed out my bedroom window and jumped into the deep snow below.

Walking up the hill, I knew my mother might find out, but I didn’t care. As I drew closer
to my destination, I could see a bright glow and I heard the sound of muffled chatter. Rounding a corner, I saw a rough-looking crowd gathered around a big bonfire.

“Hey Daleen
.” Neal grinned at me.

“Hey
.” I waved, feeling awkward beside his friends.

Someone offered me a bottle of beer, which I turned down, and what I thought was a cigarette. I didn’t want them to think I thought I was too good for them, so I took
few drags, inhaling deeply like my father always did. The nicotine from the cigarette seemed to open my brain, causing everything around me to become exaggerated. Then I realized it was marijuana.

“So you wanna ride?” Neal moved beside me, and I suddenly felt very liberated from my restrictive mother.

“Sure.” I shrugged nonchalantly.

“You can sit here
.” Neal motioned to the empty spot on the wooden flyer in front of him. As I sat between his legs and wedged my feet against the sled’s metal steering bar, he pulled me even closer.

“How’s that? You ready?” Neal’s beer breath warmed my ear.

I nodded, acutely aware my derriere was smack up against him. Pushing off, we went flying down the hill. Part of me hoped he would kiss me, another part feared he might. Neal stood up when the runners ground to a stop.

“Here you go,” he
said as he extended his arm. I let him pull me up, until our faces were just inches apart, when a loud voice intruded.

“That was some ride, huh?” Neal’s friend Jackson and a few other teens pulled up next to our sled. “Makes me want another beer.”

The moment was lost, and Neal grabbed our sled. We headed back up the hill as the runners from other sleds cut through the snow, swishing by in a blur. Back at the top, I warmed my hands before the fire, and tried to figure out how or where I fit in. I knew Neal’s friends lived to party, which was why the booze flowed freely, and Jackson had even had a brush with the law. No doubt, before the evening was over, the alcohol would be ditched for something stronger. What that was, I didn’t know.

And I didn’t want to find out.
Nor did I want to become one of those girls—the ones who got pregnant. Since I had gotten my period, I knew that was definitely possible. A baby was the last thing I wanted.

Try as I might, I couldn’t sustain my initial excitement, for it wasn’t my type of fun. If I chose to become one of them, all I could see was a future with nothing in it. That wasn’t what I wanted for myself.

I rode down the hill several times until everyone began pairing off, but when Neal brushed a strand of hair from my eyes and asked me to stay, I was no longer the rebel, happy to have broken out of her jail cell bedroom. The last ounce of defiance had drained away, and I headed home. I knew my irate mother was waiting, but I could handle that. Because I would also find in her those things I was most comfortable with, which had always sustained me and given me purpose.

I had so much free time during Eddie’s absence I started hanging out with the girlfriends I had neglected. Looking back, I wasn’t sure how it happened. Somehow Eddie gradually took more and more, until there was none left for anyone else. But soon, I was having slumber parties where we stayed up half the night eating popcorn and watching movies, or having rowdy pillow fights.

During the big snowfall, Dad returned from Martinsburg for a weekend visit, and taught me how to operate the snowmobile he used at remote job sites. Roaring through the white fields gave me a sense of control and power I craved. Little in my life was within my control, so those hours spent on the snowmobile, my hand on the throttle as the big machine went faster and faster, gave me that. Not only did I have complete control sitting astride it, I was the only teen in the neighborhood with a snowmobile, so I achieved immediate popularity, as neighbor kids waited for an invitation to join me. Which I gladly extended, happy to have friends join me for the night rides I loved, when the silver moonbeams bounced off the ice-encrusted snow, casting reflections in every direction.

When school resumed that fall I was a sophomore—who was free of a boyfriend. Boys suddenly went out of their way to get my attention, and I instinctively raised my guard until they lost interest. But I didn’t give the cold shoulder to a new transfer student who began teasing me. The day I looked up to see Jay Alexander striding down the school bus aisle, a mischievous twinkle in those robin egg eyes
, told me exactly what he had in mind.

“Is this seat taken?” Jay’s smile was blinding, his teeth even and white.

I gave him a nervous smile and a half-nod, and he sat down.

“I didn’t think so,” Jay grinned. I couldn’t help but notice the way his blond hair waved and curled over the edge of his shirt collar.

We began sitting together every day. If he had football practice after school I missed the way he made me laugh, so I began making excuses to stay after myself—just to watch him practice. When friends teased us about being a couple, we both denied it was anything other than platonic, but I knew Jay enjoyed seeing me squirm whenever someone said it. I began wondering if it was his way of hoping our relationship might become romantic.

After I met Jay, I began wishing I had never known Eddie, and found myself hoping he never returned. Jay wasn’t just nice; he was sincerely interested in what I said, and teased me about being “a brain.” The best part, though, was
how different the physical contact was with Jay, which only occurred during those daily bus rides, when our shoulders or maybe our legs would lightly touch.

Jay could never know that after the first time in Eddie’s bed, I had secretly promised myself to him. But with Eddie gone, I began having second thoughts. He never called or wrote, and any news I heard came from Kim or his mom. The day after I told myself we were through, Eddie returned. I came home from school to find his truck in our driveway. I was so disappointed, and found myself thinking about Jay.

I slammed the heavy front door as I went inside, yelling for Mom.

“I’m in here,” she said.

In the kitchen, Mom was scraping her famous butter cream icing from a bowl. A chocolate cake sat near her elbow, and Mom placed the last dollop on top.

“What’s Eddie doing here?”

Mom turned away from the cake. “He’s out back, unloading firewood.”

“Jerk,” I muttered under my breath.

“He got a new job, in the coal mines. Isn’t that great?”

I stayed silent.

“Look, I know you’re still mad at him for leaving, but he even offered to bring us coal from where he works. He’s really eager to help.”

I bet he is!
But what else is he eager for?

“As long as you don’t expect me to entertain him. I’m too busy to spend time listening to those tall tales he tells.” I turned away, but not before I caught her quizzical expression.

“What happened to make you so crabby?”

I shrugged. “Nothing. I just think, sometimes, he isn’t exactly honest.”

“Well, he’s always been prone to exaggeration, but if he’s here helping, what difference does it make?”

I headed for my bedroom, needing some privacy. “None, I guess,” I grumbled.

But as Eddie became a regular visitor, it grew hard to ignore his efforts to gain my forgiveness. It wasn’t long until his playfulness caused me to talk to him again. I convinced myself he was a good guy because he always wanted to help, and I learned he was really proud of being a union coal miner. He talked of little else and I could tell he felt less like an outsider, and more like he had joined the ranks of his closest friends, whose families had been in the mines for generations. He seemed to believe being a coal miner gave him a special status.