After my sister and mother silenced me, the house went silent also. Neither my father or mother looked at me. But the first Monday evening Mother got ready for her church circle meeting. I was appalled that she could leave me alone with Dad. I will never forget watching her go to the front door. Her hand on the knob. she turned and looked at me, undecided perhaps, then walked out.

I could not sit in my usual spot and watch TV and Dad at the same time. Nor did I dare shower and retreat to my room. With only a heavy curtain for a door, I would be trapped. The evening passed one long minute at a time until Mother reappeared and I felt safe going to bed.

Sleep was nigh impossible. My mind churned. What did I do to cause Dad to do that? Did I smile wrong? Was I too friendly? Was it wearing my pajamas and cheap pink quilted bathrobe from the shower to the bedroom? Of course he would not hurt me, he admitted to being in my room but said he was just trying to show me how much he loved me. I was a horrid girl to accuse him, but I felt it, I remembered every part of it. The record played on a loop throughout the night and I startled awake at every shift in the air.

I began drinking, lost my babysitting job and took to hanging out in Fredonia, a college town a few miles away until 3 in the morning; I did not tell my parents I lost my job.

Bad news was on the horizon already though. My sister Joyce came to the house to plead with our parents to do something to stop brother Dennis from stalking sister Valerie. They turned her away, naturally. But Joyce did manage to get me away from the farm and the relative safety of her home for a summer job. Valerie had moved to Rochester to put distance between she and her stalker. Joyce was sure, as Dennis had molester Rozella, Sheila, Sharon, Charlene, and was now stalking Val, he would turn to me, the last little sister he had. He was 35.

I met another very nice boy. Geoffrey. A gentleman and headed to dental school in, either Toronto or Montreal, I enjoyed his company, but I was now a “bad girl” and again I was baffled by his not making a move on me. Was there something wrong with him? Or me?

One evening my future husband, Fred showed up with an engagement ring. He said he could not bear the thought of losing me. I jumped at the chance.

Fred wanted to drop out of college. But with the draft in place and the Vietnam War raging, he was sure he would immediately be taken. He said if we married he would be safe. At the end of summer, when it was time to return to the farm and super-hyper-vigilance against Dad, Dennis, and Reed I cooked up a plan with Fred to claim I was pregnant and we had to marry.

I dropped out of my senior year about two weeks in and Mother bundled me out the door and gleefully I left my childhood hell behind. Or so I imagined. The reality was it all went with me; I was who my experiences created, a paranoid, angry, reclusive woman-child with only crude coping mechanisms to get me by but in truth no longer worked.

Nightmares haunted my nights and I was constantly aware of people out to get me. Of course there was nobody lurking behind me. my neck hairs prickled constantly just the same. It was a hell of a life I had jumped into.

It has been voiced by my ex-husband, (to cover his own bad acts I assume) that the worst thing to ever happen to me was being poor. It is laughable that he even believes he is an authority on my childhood. He remains a ridiculous, pompous fool. If only that had been my major stumbling block.