Hello Faithful Reader,
I hope this month’s edition of the Black Birdseye View finds you well and in goo spirits. I am well. This month I am sharing an excerpt from a book I am writing. I hope you enjoy.
Mama said it never happened. She said she never slapped me across my face and told me that Jackal was her man. She said I made it up and that I was a spoiled child. Mama said I made it up because I could not get my way about something. I stood confused, trying to remember a time when I was spoiled.
Somehow my mother tricked me into questioning my sanity. I was halfway believing that I could have possibly made up a story accusing an innocent man of being a child molester.
I struggle to string together memories from a childhood that is all but forgotten but for bits and pieces. It's funny how our norm is what we do, even when it's not normal at all.
Mama married Jackal when I was so young that I don't remember the wedding. I have seen photos, though. They got married at Grandmama's house in the country. To eyes that didn't know better, we were a perfect family. We went everywhere as a family. To call my childhood sheltered would be an understatement. I never had friends over. I never went anywhere with my friends. If it wasn't about school, it wasn't happening. I have never gone to a sleepover. I never learned to ride a bike, and I don't know how to skate. Our life was in that little house on the little hill on Gray Road.
I can't remember when it began, the touching. I know every chance he got, he had me in his lap. He liked to wrestle and play. He liked pinning me. I remember the tan shorts he had on when I looked down and saw his penis. I remember catching him outside the bathroom window watching. I remember him playing and falling on top of me. I remember him coming into our room at night fondling doing what a normal good man would never do.
All this while eating dinner as a family, playing board games as a family, watching TV as a family, and trying to be "normal."
I remember telling Stormy, my oldest sister, what Jackal did. Her cold-hearted response was,
"If he never did it to me, why should I think he did it to you?"
I didn't speak to Stormy for over a decade behind that statement. For some reason, Stormy was the one person I thought would have my back. She didn't.
I remember attempting to tell my younger brother Daniel what Jackal did only to have him say (twice),
"I don't wanna talk about that. I don't wanna talk about that." He's always been sensitive.
My baby sister, Stone, was a child when I left home.
BACKSTORY: Stormy, Daniel, and I are children from a previous relationship our mother had. Stone is the product of Mama and Jackal.
Jackal is not my father. I never knew my father as a child. Good or bad, I had a whole real daddy that I was not allowed to mention.
The truth of the matter is that I had a full-grown daddy with a whole mess of cousins less than 2 hours away, but he got replaced with Jackal.
I don't know what went down between Mama and my biological father, but I do know for a fact that he didn't get to be anyone in my life by no choice of mine. I am a firm believer that people only do what they are allowed to get away with, and with Mama, she let Jackal get away with the raping of at least two of her daughters' souls. If there was a semblance of a father in the picture, Jackal might have hesitated for fear of consequences. That house on the hill was a nesting place for a predator who told my grandmother he fell in love with Mama's kids before he fell in love with her. Now that is some weird shit to say.
On the rare occasion when guests came to our house, Stormy, Daniel, and I naturally went to our rooms. We didn't come out unless summoned.
"Sing that song or dance that dance,"
Mama would say. We naturally obliged. Mama has always had a way about her. She is persnickety by nature and hateful and sweet at the same time. One minute Mama would use the broom handle and pretend it was a microphone. She would sing and dance and perform for us children. In the next minute, the cut of her eyes and the tone of her voice was something completely different. She is eccentric, and I don't think she knows it. As a child, I recall my mother taking my sister and me to a resale shop. It was like an old-timey flea market. Mama bought Stormy and me outfits that were from the same era as the TV show "Little House on the Prairie." It never seemed odd. It was just what it was. She was a loner. I never knew her to have a friend. It was just her and her, Jackal, and Stormy, Me, and Daniel. I omit Stone because she was very young when I left home.
I remember one time when I was in high school. Our entire family went to this building downtown. I remember because it was raining, and I had on a yellow raincoat. It was the same day I got glasses. Everyone went through the door before Mama and me. Right before I went in, Mama grabbed my arm and said,
"Raven, when you go in there, they are going to ask you to write your name on a piece of paper, and when they do, you write the word on this paper for your last name."
She handed me a little sheet of paper with the word "Caudle" written on it. I was confused because I had a whole different last name before that day, and I never heard the phrase caudle before. I had so many questions, but Mama was in control, and you didn't question her. I went into the building and signed what I later discovered to be an adoption form. I never asked Mama about that little piece of paper.”
That’s al for now 😊
Until next time,
Always,
Robin
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