SENSITIVITY WARNING: Carefully consider the following before reading or listening. This essay discusses prolonged mental and emotional abuse of a child as well as incest.
Hear this essay read by the author.
The worst of my abuse was committed by a woman. Well, two actually. One of them was my aunt.
I grew up thinking she was magical. She was single and didn’t have all the pressures and responsibilities my mom did. She was always well-dressed in colorful, carefully-coordinated outfits. She had fascinating collections - dolls with their own elaborate wardrobes packed in carefully-kept cases, music boxes from Europe and a dresser-top array of perfumes in shapely, glittery bottles. She played the piano beautifully and was a talented painter. She frequently gave me thoughtful gifts with sweet notes. To my young mind, she was the epitome of a modern woman.
I was little and I adored her.
As I grew toward preschool age, I was allowed to spend more time in her room. I was now trusted to look-at-but-not-touch all the delightful wonders in her storybook, second-story bedroom. This bedroom was across a loft from one that lives dark and dangerously powerful in my memory.
Just the year before, my uncle had carried me into and out that room in a span of time that changed my life forever. He had plucked me from a kitchen table chair and dumped me back into it after. But this story is not about him or what he did.
But my aunt knew what he did. And she did it too. Sometimes, they did it together. I was four the first time; five, the first time with her.
By the first time with her, I was accustomed to how things would go with him. It wasn’t hard to understand - a simple pattern really. With her, I was immediately washed down a thorny rabbit hole of never-ending confusion about her intent and her sanity.
For her, the physical abuse wasn’t the point. It was a means of manipulation to get the first thing she wanted—my mind.
She wanted control of my mind in order to get what she really wanted—me.
My aunt was the cool Sunday school teacher. Her class was the one all the little kids at church looked forward to being promoted into. Or maybe that was mostly me because I loved her so much. It was the kindergarten class, though, so for a bunch of small-town, southern kids, reaching kindergarten meant you were about to learn a lot more about the world around you and the world beyond the gorgeous, southern middle Tennessee valley we lived in.
I am the oldest of three and none of our other cousins attended that church. I was excited that I would soon get to walk with her from worship to the classroom every Sunday. I wanted to be more special to this special aunt of mine.
After all, we share the same middle name - Arn.
When the time spent in her bedroom suddenly resembled the time spent in my uncle’s bedroom, I no longer looked forward to her class. I didn’t want to hold her hand as we walked across the foyer. I didn’t want to sing songs about Jesus with her. I didn’t want her to teach me anything else at all.
Time has taken none of this memory from me. She had paper flowers stapled to the ceiling of her room. I laid on that bed and only thought of paper flowers, not of anything that was happening. After, I went downstairs with a heavy mind. She had said things to me that she’d never said before.
“I want a daughter just like you.”
“You could come live here and be my little girl.”
“You know, Renée, your mom doesn’t want you anymore.”
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