Commanding the Wind, Part 2

In this episode, the author shares a gut-wrenching retelling of the events that unfolded after the watershed moment of trying to enter the Marine Corps. Things with her father are no longer tenable as she grows more ill at ease with his treatment of her. Trying to get help with a seemingly hopeless situation, however, only spirals her quickly into a devastating confrontation with her grandmother and casts her into exile as her family turns their back on her rather than face her truth.

There are three needs of the griever: To find the words for the loss, to say the words aloud, and to know that the words have been heard.

-Victoria Alexander

I don’t remember how I got back home to O’Fallon, MO from Winn Army Community Hospital on Ft. Stewart, Georgia, either. Last thing I remember was an ulcer-producing phone call with maybe my grandmother or my father from the receptionist phone in the receiving area of the behavioral health unit. I could swear I remember them saying they wouldn’t pay my way back and I was trying hard not to hyperventilate. I was on a mandatory 21-day hold for psychiatric evaluation and issued a dishonorable discharge from the Marine Corps, grounds: fraudulence. I assumed they meant the positive drug test, but they might have meant being bipolar and schizoaffective. I lied to the recruitment officers that I’d never had any kind of mental health diagnosis before when, in fact, I’d already had several. Anyway, I can’t be sure because I never spoke with another military officer again; it was some low-level cleric that issued me the discharge papers. From there, after the expiration of the 21 days, the hospital released me on my own recognizance and there’s just the feeling of that cold, heavy phone receiver against my check and the sound of my labored breathing as I struggle to make out their words, “You’re on your own, kid.” It goes black again from there. The next thing I remember is sitting in church with my grandmother, not during the service, but during a choir rehearsal on a Wednesday night. She was telling me a story, an old parable, about a mule.

She asked me, do you know the story about the mule and the well? I shook my head that I didn’t. She said, “Well, there was a mule in town that wandered off and fell down a well. And everyone in the town gathered around the top of the well to check on the mule. But no one could see to the bottom or hear anything. So, they assumed the mule had perished in the fall and his carcass lay crumpled below. So, everyone thought it best to bury the mule in the dried-up well.

“Several townsfolk got shovels and started tossing dirt down into the well. But the mule was not dead down there. Just had some bruising in his legs and was curled up nursing his wounds when dirt started to fall in his mane and ears. He looked up and thought, ‘They’re burying me.’ So, the mule staggered to his feet in the little space there was down there deep, and with each shovelful of dirt that was dumped on his head, he shook it off and stamped it down into the ground.

“They went on like that shoveling and the mule stamping, until foot by foot of new soil in the well, the mule climbed his way out.”

My grandmother looked at me and smiled almost approvingly. Often my grandmother looked at me with fear or concern or disapproval. But in that smile, there was almost hope. I imagined the townspeople smiled just that same way at the mule as his head poked out of the well. I understood, of course, the meaning of the parable and told myself, perhaps fueled by what appeared to be her belief in me, that there was no depth to which I would ever fall that I would not climb my way back out of ever again in my life. I was resolute; it was a fact. (Which was good because I had not yet fallen my furthest.)

My grandmother insisted that I live in her house and follow her *program* to get my life back on track. She had me going to church services three times a week, Wednesday nights, and twice on Sunday. She put me in the church choir which also practiced Wed evenings before the service. She had me to go to Celebrate Recovery, the world’s creepiest 12-step program, where I sat across from portly, balding old men in polo shirts and khaki Dockers confessing teary-eyed to secret sex addictions or inclinations toward pedophilia while I sat there scantily dressed, promiscuous, indiscrete, and oversexed by my secret child-molested upbringing. But at least there were doughnuts.

She also had me going to this Christian counselor. I lay all this out because it is the bitterest of ironies how my grandmother’s strict, controlling, know-it-all, holier-than-thou healing program unearthed the most embarrassing of all secrets she would ever have to face, that she would have done anything to keep repressed and buried. Her grandiosely created program for my salvation was the very catalyst that created a thenceforth permanent rift between me and my family, sent me spiraling thousands of miles away on a dark, tormented, yet mystical and beautiful quest for my own divinity, my own redemption…

So, she had me seeing this Christian counselor. That she was Christian was an important part of her bio for potential clientele. She cared for mental health but according to traditional Christian principles, which, in my experience, are more toxic than healing. I don’t really even know how I was able to communicate to her that I feared I was being, and had been as a child, sexually abused by my father. Even then, I wasn’t entirely clear on it. My relationship with my dad was strange at best. I had all these fuzzy memories cloaked in a bad feeling. At this point in my story, he had been remarried for more than a decade. His wife was a heavily repressed Christian women, strict, stern, quiet, ruthlessly judgmental, asexual. I’m not sure why my dad married her because it wasn’t love, as he drunkenly confessed to my mother, his first wife, just a few weeks before the doomed nuptials. I imagine he did it to please his mother, to have a full-time babysitter, and possibly another scapegoat, even if all these motivations were only subconscious. He is a man is pathologically incapable of taking responsibility for his own choices, or typically, lack of choice. He’s spent his entire life in what must be an exhausting acrobatic act of balancing the blame on anyone else, mutually convincing several parties it was the fault of the other, and deftly erasing himself as an actor from his own story.

When he would need to make excuses for disappointing my sister and I, not being able to go on some trip or something to that effect, it was always somehow our stepmother’s fault, something that I fell for enthusiastically until I was about 13 or so and it dawned on me one day, like a humiliating bucket of ice water, that the man was relentlessly full of shit. And of course, monkey see, monkey do. Even though being around him gave me the absolute worst of feelings, I kept my father close because he cosigned and even seeded and funded my worst ideas and bailed me out in a money-is-no-object kind of way when those ideas turned out disastrous. So basically, when my dad wanted to hide out and avoid doing some actual parenting, he had her to blame. And when he wanted to act out and indulge in something self-destructive and depraved, he could pin it on his troubled, helpless daughter. Don his hero costume and justifiably slip out from his self-made kennel under the cover of trying to rescue her. In reality, when I got home from Parris Island, and before I left, he would call me when he knew my grandparents were out, offer to pick me up so we could go out drinking and buy some weed.

I realized in my teens that whenever my father told his stories, he always cast himself as either the hero or the victim. He did this especially when he talked to his mother, my grandmother. Like how his first marriage to my mother couldn’t succeed because of her drinking; he never spoke of his drinking, much less of his plying her with her favorite whiskey just so she’d let him back in the house. And my grandmother never probed his stories for holes or for the other side of it, which is how she must have silently taught him throughout his life that his actions were irrelevant. As I recall it, he would spend a weekend committing debauched acts at my house, encouraging my mother to drink with him, getting blacked out drunk, invariably starting a fight between them, a fight he would finish with a right hook square to my mother’s nose. And I would hear that familiar thud on the floor. To speak only of what he did to my mother. Then he would tell my grandmother, right in front of me, without flinching, “Oh, yeah, Mary was drinking again so I had to go over there to help the girls.” It’s only as an adult that I realized the power that he had, to lie right in front me, knowing I knew the truth, and being absolutely confident of my silence, my complicity. My grandmother died without me ever really having told her the truth about her despicable son. Well, except that one time I tried after I was shamefully discharged from the military…

Somehow, I’d gotten the nerve to tell this counselor about the suspicions I had that my father had molested me as a child, in addition to the physical or emotional abuse we endured or witnessed at his hand. Since childhood I had been haunted by a handful of memories that behaved like intrusive thoughts, pictures inserted very persistently and inconveniently over the years into my normal stream of consciousness. They were just fractions of seconds long and really, the way they felt, I know no other way to describe it other than that they made perfect sense, but the on either side of the memories was always pure, deep, impenetrable black. No context, no timeline, no way to prove or know for sure that it happened. They still sneak up on me from time to time when I seem to be in a completely different state mind, like an annoying roommate that you didn’t know was home who walks into the room just as you’ve settled down to relax. Some of these memories, in no particular order, are:

1. In my bedroom, I must be about 4 because I have the Duckwings bed tent on my bed. It’s daytime, I’ve done something bad and am in trouble, my dad takes me into the bedroom to spank me with his belt. But then he takes down both our pants. I look out the window and then it goes black…

2. I’m older, maybe 9 or 10, because it’s from right before he started going to the church singles group (where he met my future stepmother), and we’d stay at my grandmother’s house on the weekends, in my uncle’s bedroom, his waterbed. My younger sister and I are in there asleep, and he climbs awkwardly into the bed and starts spooning my sister. He starts kissing her neck and running his hands over her, muttering about how much he loves her. He might’ve been drunk, but that doesn’t make sense because he usually wouldn’t go around my grandma like that. Anyway, my sister doesn’t like it. She protests, swats his arms away and curls up tighter. I reach my arm out and stroke my father’s back. He rolls over and puts his arms around me. Black again…

3. I’m not sure how old I am in this memory, maybe like 6 or 7. There was a time after my sister was born where my mom wanted a divorce, wanted him out of the house, but he was able to weasel his way back in on the weekends. I had the middle bedroom still, and my sister was a baby in her crib in the end room. The wall my bed was against was the same one the couch was against in the living room on the other side. I’m lying in the dark in my bed listening to them carry on in the living room for hours. Sometimes the music’s up loud, sometimes low and they’re talking. Sometimes they’re being lovey-dovey or laughing. Sometimes they’re fighting violently. I recognize the sound of it settling down but my father insisting they each have another glass. I hear the clink against the coffee table. I hear murmuring. I hear an actual thud as my mother’s limp body hits the floor. I hear my father’s sigh. The creak of the couch springs. The footsteps in the hallway. A knot tightens in my stomach and even though I’m suddenly much more awake than I was a moment ago, I pretend to be asleep as he gets in bed with me. I do a light, jerking swat at his touch and roll over, pretending to be asleep as he presses up against me. Black…

That’s all for now.

Anyway, in earlier sessions, I told this bullshit counselor about these memories. She was concerned about me still having a relationship with my father, and I was closed mouthed about it. She wanted us to start using this book and workbook on surviving childhood sexual abuse from some Christian author. I had to order it from the store and ask my grandmother to take me to pick it up. I kept it in the plastic bag and worked on it in secret. I hid it under my pillow and took it out at night. I don’t think my grandmother ever found it.

Something had happened with my father while I was staying at my grandmother’s and seeing this counselor. Something that was actually pretty routine, but it was starting to feel weird. Gross. Uncomfortable. It was starting to ache to keep it in. One day, during a session with this woman, I wanted to see if she thought it was weird too. The other day my dad called while my grandparents were gone and told me to shower so we could go out. He would come over and get me. I never asked what we were doing, or why. I knew we were going to go get beer and liquor and weed and go park somewhere and get fucked up. I wanted to get fucked up, but to deal with this awful feeling. I felt so trapped by it. To get the drugs I needed, I’d have to let him do what he wants to me. But I needed the drugs because I let him do what he did to me. When I was around of him, part of me would go numb, play dead, I’m not sure. The part of me who knew how wrong this was. Another part of me, the part that was scared of him and wanted to get through, would perk up and play this flirty daughter role. Sometimes I could see myself, floating just above; although I had no control over myself, and it was painful to watch. Mostly, I would just leave my body completely. To this day I have no idea how I had the energy to play that role so enthusiastically for all those years.

The incident that I told my counselor about, that I wanted to reality-check, was that I got into the shower, and when I got out my dad was there at my grandmother’s. We were there alone. I came out in a towel and my dad wrapped his arms around me, open-mouth kissed me, and ran his hands down to my ass, where they stayed and he pulled me close. Honestly, it goes black there, too, and always has, although, I do recall we drank Guinness and smoked weed in a parking lot in town somewhere later that day. It was wintertime and dark early.

The way I remember it now, it’s like the bad things that followed happened all on that day. The counselor realized I was still being sexually abused. She was listening intently as I told her the details and became confused. “Wait, when did this happen?” she asked, expecting me to say maybe high school. “Wednesday,” I said. “This Wednesday?!” she clarified aggressively and took to her feet in righteous indignation. And from there, she proceeded to blow up my life entirely, what little remained of it.

She started on this tirade about getting me safe, getting me away from my father. She said she had the righteous indignation of the Lord, but her voice was shrill and panicked as she picked up the phone to call my grandmother. A horrible ringing started in my ears, and I went a little dumb as I sank slowly in a stupor back onto her sofa. I was overwhelmed with several new layers of reality. She confirmed for me that this disgusted confusion I was left with after what was really a commonplace occurrence with my father was because it was, in fact, not okay. Still, I wasn’t entirely sure that this was “sexual abuse,” and, if it was, I was indescribably humiliated that I was 26 and somehow hopelessly complicit in my own abuse. I was suddenly horrified that I was so compliant, that I eagerly fluffed up and protected his ego, when my body felt wretched at doing it and there had always been the clear voice somewhere outside my psyche telling me it was wrong. I came to learn much later about grooming, and I still don’t think my father ever did any of this consciously. He manipulated me, everyone, from some inarticulable place of instinct. I believe somewhere deep down, in a place he keeps locked away, he knows how deeply wrong it is what he’s done. But on the surface, he actively creates alternative versions of his life, alternative interpretations of his actions. And with this hall of mirrors he constructs, he keeps the people who could stop him very, very far from the truth.

I also realized that my whole family, especially my grandmother was about to know the truth. That, of all of it, was the most terrifying part.

This counselor wanted to involve the police that very afternoon. She launched into explaining to me my statute of limitations for pressing charges. All I could hear was ringing in my ears; there was a thick, horrible churning in my stomach. She lectured about my legal and moral rights, while I was just registering that I was being abused. Somehow, I talked her down from calling the police. She told my grandmother we wanted to have a special family session. She kept insisting how important it was to get me away from my father and safe. She naively expected my grandmother to be concerned, helpful. I don’t know why this counselor would expect a reaction so…healthy from a family that nursed and enabled secret drug and alcohol addicted predators. Probably because she was, you know, bullshit.

So the bullshit counselor rehearsed with me how I would tell my grandma what was happening while we waited for her to arrive. I told the counselor it would be easier if I could show her the book to begin the conversation. My grandmother and grandfather came to the session, looking very put out and uncomfortable, although my grandmother remained a patient and polite Christian woman about the whole thing and my grandfather sat silently in the waiting room. Grandma came in, sat in the chair opposite me, and faced me. The counselor asked her if she knew what this was about. She said, ‘No, I don’t believe I do, I guess we’re here to talk about Sarah’s recovery.’ The counselor verified that was true and signaled for me to tell her what we had discussed. When my grandmother looked at me again, she became worried, because I suppose she could see how badly I was shaking and stuttering to speak. I said, ‘You remember how you took me to Barnes & Noble to get a book?’ as I held it out for her to see the title, The Wounded Heart: Hope for Adult Survivors of… Her brow was furrowed, her jaw dropped slack as she let out a weak, “Yeah…?” I began a sentence with, “My dad…” and my she turned sharply away from me and said to this counselor in almost a scolding manner: “You know she’s a liar, right? She’s sick and she makes up stories? That’s why we’re trying to get her help.”

I think I ceased to exist in that moment. For quite a few years. After that there was just a lot of ringing in my ears, watching my feet hit the ground, wondering if I was walking in a straight line. I can’t really track what else happened at that office that day. When whoever in the family told my dad what was happening at this Christian counselor’s office, he showed up there outraged. He’s screaming out there and somehow several other members of my family are there, too, in the parking lot. They’re surrounding my father trying to call him down. Except my uncle, my father’s only brother who is also a father of two girls. He falls back quietly to me. He’s walking me out of there, putting me in his car. He is a good father.

I can’t quite tell what my dad is shouting, something like, “This is ridiculous. Let me talk to her.” I don’t think he means me, though, I think he means the counselor. My mother never comes to me. She’s trying to reassure my father, calm him. She’s saying something like, “We’ll get to the bottom of this. I’m sure it’ll be fine.” But I’m trying to focus on my footsteps and my uncle’s voice who’s saying, “Let’s get you home, kid.” But I think I know in my bones at that point that I no longer have one of those.

I go back to my grandmother’s house where she ices me out for a few days until I call my best friend from college and arrange to go stay with her in Oregon. I bought a one-way greyhound ticket and packed the three suitcases I owned with what I could. The uncle who stayed with me in the parking lot, he came by the house every day after that. He never said it was to check up on me, but he fixed us both sandwiches while he was there. No one else talked to me. I asked him to take me to the train station and to please not tell anyone. He stood there with his sandwich, stunned for a moment, but immediately softened with a bit of a sigh. And he gave me nod. Yeah, he would do that for me. On the drive downtown, he asked me, “You know where you’re going? You got a safe place to land?” I told him about my friend and assured him I’d be okay. I don’t know what my uncle told anyone, but it doesn’t matter; no one else ever came looking for me. Leaving, I had solved this problem for them.

It wasn’t until years later that it dawned on me what it meant that my grandmother never let me finish my sentence. I had a book about surviving sexual abuse in my hands and all I said was “My dad…” but she never let me say what I had to say. She was instantly indignant. Which is the part I understood at the time. 10 years later, I realized not just that she was indignant, but that she cut me off. She did so because…she knew what I was going to say. She had always known, probably, even if buried somewhere deep. But if she didn’t let me say it, then she didn’t really have to deal with it.

All that was human of me, good or bad, stayed there on the floor of my little bedroom in my grandmother’s house in rural Missouri that day, as I tossed aside things that wouldn’t fit in my suitcase, abandoning them, maybe forever.