Anonymous #3

I really don’t know where to begin. I suppose I can start where I last remember something good about my childhood. My parents were still together, and we lived in California. I can honestly say I was somewhat spoiled! My father was a truck driver, and my mom did odd jobs and mostly stayed at home with us. When I say us, I mean my older sister and brother, myself, and my little brother. My world as I knew it would soon be turned upside-down. Little did I know what lie ahead of my young life…
 
In 1980 my parents moved to Arizona. Most of my mother’s family was here, so I think she pressured my dad to bring us out here. As far as I can remember, things were okay for about a year or so. We did the usual family stuff; birthday parties, vacations, weekend outings, but eventually, things would turn sour. My mom married very young (my dad was her second husband), and when her first husband passed away, she was forced to take on the role of both mother and father to my older siblings. She met my dad, and things seemed to look brighter for her. (I’m assuming!) But I suppose that she never got the chance to really have a life outside of her children, and the opportunities that were presented to her were usually looked at as distractions, because they would take her away from her kids.
 
My parents started fighting more often, and what it boiled down to was that my mom felt trapped. My father worked on the road, and was not home much; my mom cleaned houses and didn’t really have much of a social life. So, when my dad did come home, she wanted to go out and have a good time with or without her spouse. My dad wasn’t really the outgoing type, so he offered to stay at home and keep us kids so that my mom could go and have some fun. That was his biggest mistake, in my opinion. She started going out more often after that, and soon would even go out when my dad was not home and we would just stay home by ourselves. I guess that’s not really a big deal, being that my sister was 14, my brother 12, and I was 7. The thing that bothered me at the time was that my little brother was only 2.
 
One day, when my mother hadn’t been home all night, my dad told us to get up and start cleaning the house. He told us he was going to pick my mom up, and he would be back in a while. What we didn’t know was that my father had caught my mom having and affair and was on his way to murder the man she was sleeping with.
 
Things after that were kind of a blur to me, and I have a hard time recalling what happened next. I just remember my father dragging my mom in the house, knife in hand, and telling us to stay in our rooms. We were terrified, but did as we were told. My older brother was yelling at my dad to leave my mom alone, but my dad just told him to stay away, and he wouldn’t hurt her. By that time all I remember is policemen in our front yard telling my dad to come out of the house. He finally went out there, and they arrested him. My mother had fainted by a tree in our yard, and I was just crying. A police officer took me by the hand and escorted me to a patrol car. They took me to the police station and kept asking me questions. I can’t even remember how I even got home after that. Things were a mess.
 
Fast forward about a month and I am living with my grandparents in Phoenix. My mother has since jetted off to Mexico to be with her lover. He recovered from the stab wounds my father gave him, and they left the minute he was released from the hospital. I am going to school, just trying to forget the fact that neither one of my parents is here, plus I am having to defend myself to my siblings and my grandparents. They really don’t like me. I’m sort of a burden to them all. Being that my older siblings’ father died, they received Social Security checks, and my grandparents are able to support them that way. I, on the other had, have nothing to offer them but a headache. My little brother is just cast off to whoever will baby-sit him, since he is so young, and doesn’t require much care besides feeding and changing.
 
So begins the molesting. My grandfather is a religious man, thumping his bible at every opportunity. My grandparents go to church three times a week, twice on Sundays. I am usually forced to go with them, since I am the one that would cause trouble at home, they say. I hated it. I could not wait until it was time to go back to my familiar hell-hole. Mostly because I couldn’t stand listening to my grandfather talking about God, and then coming home to touch me. It was nauseating. The touching began soon after we moved in with them. It first began with just tight hugs. He would offer me a dollar or two if I would just be quiet. At first I agreed, thinking, “He’s my tata, he’s not trying to hurt me.” I wish I was right. Slowly, over the course of about a year, it began to escalate into more that just hugs. Finally, one day before going to school, he came into my room for whatever reason, and tried to ‘hug’ me again. I screamed,” No, leave me alone!” My grandmother and sister were in the kitchen and heard me yell. He quickly handed me two dollars and headed down the hall. As I walked through the house I could hear him telling my nana and my sister that I was being disrespectful, and would have to find someplace else to live. I thought that was the best idea in the world. But, I was wrong again….