Redemption (17 page)

Hot and Cold

still had dreams of going to college, but that college was in the state of Missouri and part of me wanted to go farther away—as far away as possible. I had taken the ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) test at school and done well. My scores were high enough to merit a good bonus if I signed up. I saw the military as a way out. I could leave my mom and dad in the dust, and then I wouldn’t have to depend on them for anything. I could still go to college if I signed up, but I would be able to pay for it myself with the GI Bill. It seemed like a smart plan.

I talked to an air force recruiter who had spoken at school. My stepdad, John, was in the air force, and I liked that branch the best. I hoped to do something with psychology, maybe something that could help heal people. I would have signed on the dotted line right away, but I was under eighteen. I needed a parent’s signature for permission. I knew I wasn’t going to get that, so I planned to keep this idea secret. I could always make a final decision about the military after my eighteenth birthday.

I never expected the recruiter to show up at my house. He knocked on the door one day about 3 or 4 p.m. Dad would leave work whenever he felt like it, so I never knew when to expect him. He was home.

Dad was cordial and shook the officer’s hand. He was in a uniform, and I think that scared my father. Dad had just started drinking, so he didn’t say much.

At least he waited until the officer left.

“You’re fucking some man in our house!” he yelled at me that afternoon. “How dare you let that man come onto my property.”

I knew better than to get upset. I just stayed calm and explained to him what was going on. I convinced him that I wasn’t dating the officer, but was planning to join the air force. He cooled off for a second and then got hot again.

“You will
never
go into the military,” Dad said, pacing around our living room. “All you do in the air force is clean up shit. You’d never make it. You’ll never make anything of yourself.”

His words hurt me, but I was used to them. They didn’t make me crazy with fury, though I did cry a little bit. Mostly, I was prickly inside—going numb. I would start fantasizing that I was on a plane headed to a beautiful beach in France—anywhere. I would pretend I was as far away from St. John as possible.

My dad wasn’t finished with me. His words brought me back down to earth. “If you do go into the military, I’ll pull you out.”

“You can’t,” I said, trying to show as little emotion as possible—trying to be there with him without really being there.

“My parents did it to me, and I can do it to you.” He was settling down, moving toward the couch. His voice became sharp and cold.

“How are you going to do that? This isn’t the same.” I knew how his parents used the only surviving child rule to get him out of the Marines after his brother Bill died.

“Sole surviving son works for daughters as well.” His eyes were full of hate and brutality. “Don’t you think I won’t use it.”

It took me a second, but I caught his drift. He was telling me that Christy was expendable. He would kill her in an instant to pull me out of the air force. All I had to do was push him. My shoulders shivered. I looked into his eyes, and I believed him.

Sex, Pain, and Love

don’t know what got into me. One night, I went to a party with Tom W., Ricky, and our friends. A guy who was five years older, Rob, came along with us. He had been the much-loved leader of the group when he was in high school. He was cool, and I liked him. But I wasn’t as interested in him as he seemed to be in me. He was a bit heavyset and not my usual type. That particular night, I decided I wasn’t going to be the designated driver. I might drink, but just a little. Once we got to our friends’ party, peer pressure got the best of me. Everyone was shoving alcohol down my throat, and I didn’t stop them. I wound up having ten to fifteen vodka shots. Being that dumb got me more wasted than I had ever been in my life. Of course, I don’t remember much of it. I know I ended up puking—a lot. Someone drove my car home for me, and my misery continued.

I slowly started to feel better the next morning—until I freaked out. I found an unexplained hickey on my neck. I had no idea where it had come from. Nothing gave me more anxiety than when I lost control. I was very mad—at myself and at whoever had put it there. Unfortunately, things like this happened to me sometimes. I would wake up in the morning with little bruises on my arms or legs. I’d just know my dad had been there—I’d smell him, or see some other sign of his presence. But my dad never left marks that were in visible places, and he never left a hickey. How could I have let another man do the same thing to me? I also worried that my dad would see it and punish me. If that happened, I would never hear the end of it from him. I could already hear the word
whore
burning in my ears.

I called Tom W., and I was pissed. I didn’t know whether to cry or tear my hair out. Then I called Rob and really chewed him out because I was fairly sure he was the hickey man. I told him he was a sick human being, and I never wanted to talk to him again.

A few weeks later, my stomach pains came back strong. These were the same ones I’d been having on and off since I was a preteen. By this time, everyone believed me. My cramps weren’t due to lactose intolerance. Steadily, I had been feeling worse and worse. The upper part of my pelvis hurt terribly before, during, and after sex. I didn’t think I had any option but to live with the stabbing, searing pain until one day, I doubled over. I couldn’t stand up straight. The pain blasted through my body, and I couldn’t even talk.

My dad took me to the hospital. Doctors did every test imaginable: STD tests, blood work, and white cell count. My white blood cells came out a little low, but that was no cause for concern. The pain was still unbearable, and I was moaning and writhing. Perplexed, my gynecologist scheduled exploratory surgery, a laparoscopy. The doctors cut me open to find out I was rife with infection. They were shocked. They cut out as much disease as they could from my uterus and fallopian tubes, but I still had more.

At that point, I had to stay in the hospital on intravenous antibiotics for at least one week. The pain from the infection and from being opened up was overwhelming. My dad visited me every day, but I wasn’t excited to see him. Somehow, I just knew this problem would point back to him. My mom was in Guam, and she didn’t even know. Christy didn’t have a car, and no one brought her to see me. Grandma Lannert was dead; my other grandparents didn’t know. At least my dad’s girlfriend, Rosa, stopped by. But no one at school knew why I’d been absent—and I didn’t exactly call Tom W. or anyone else to tell them what was happening to me. It was a lonely time.

That’s why I didn’t turn Rob away when he showed up at my bedside after I’d been there alone for a few days. When he heard I hadn’t been at school, he called my house over and over trying to find out what was wrong. Finally, my dad told him where I was and advised him to go visit me.

Rob came to my bedside every day after that, though I didn’t tell him exactly why I was there. He kept apologizing for the hickey, and he was so sweet that I had to forgive him. He brought flowers, balloons, and a card. But none of that mattered as much as having his company. His timing had been perfect, and I fell for him just like that. Homecoming was in a few days, and he asked me to go with him. I told him I would if I could get myself out of the hospital.

I begged the doctors and nurses to let me out in time for the dance. They told me I could go if I could hold food down. I did it. They were reluctant, but they discharged me. I was instructed to take it easy, and if I had any more pain, to come right back.

I didn’t feel very good—I had been diagnosed with pelvic inflammatory disease (PID)—but I made it to that dance. I had a dress at home, but it barely fit because I’d lost so much weight in the hospital. While I had been out sick, Rosa had bought me a necklace, bracelet, and shoes to match my outfit. For a second, I got to be happy. Rob provided so much warmth. He turned out to be a solid, caring, honest guy. We started dating seriously after that. We went out together all the time, and I completely adored him. Even his face had a soft, teddy bear–like quality. He had rounded cheeks and chestnut eyes. He was big and strong, but every muscle in his body was gentle. Some of my favorite times were when we’d babysit his little brothers together. He would play with them so tenderly, I could watch him with those children all day. There was something special about Rob; he was the kind of guy who’d be a wonderful father when that time came. He cared about me with the same lovingness. I didn’t think I was worthy of that kind of love, and every time I pulled away from Rob, he’d reel me back in. He made me feel safe.

We dated for a few months, which was a really long time for me. He knew a little bit about my female issues, but not too much. Dad wasn’t concerned about Rob at first. With other recent boyfriends, Dad had tried to make me stop dating them. He’d say I was grounded or tell them I wasn’t there when they called me on the phone. When he met guys, he’d act nice to their faces, but when they left, he’d tell me, “He’s a piece of shit and a loser. You’re not dating him anymore.”

Dad wasn’t like that with Rob. Most of the time, he really liked him. Dad did tell me to break up with him once, and I refused. Dad didn’t make me. He didn’t know that Rob spent the night sometimes. The only reason I could get away with that was because Dad was dating Rosa again. On nights Rosa stayed, I knew he wouldn’t come into my room. Besides, I had just been very sick. Dad went easy on me. He left me alone at night for a good long while. I went into the hospital in October and by December, he had bothered me only twice. I considered that a respite.

Dad felt really bad about my PID, and he could see how incredibly happy I was with Rob. I could see myself with Rob forever. Rob was the only guy who’d made me feel truly special. He was the only guy who ever got me to trust him enough to fall—and stay—in love. I also thought Rob could handle my dad if it ever came to that. Rob had already spent four years in the military, and he was big. Rob could protect me if I needed that.

But the pain from PID was still unbelievable. PID is an infection of the uterus, fallopian tubes, and other reproductive organs. It’s often caused by STDs, such as gonorrhea or chlamydia. But I hadn’t tested positive for any of these. The cause of PID is this: bacteria move upward from the vagina or cervix into the reproductive system. Then the infection invades the reproductive organs—especially the fallopian tubes—and inflammation causes normal tissue to turn into scar tissue. A small percentage of women get PID because they are sexually active very early—before the cervix is fully mature. The cervix is supposed to block bacteria from entering the body. It can’t do its job when it’s only nine years old.

Prompt treatment can prevent complications of PID, including the damage it did to my organs. Multiple episodes of PID cause more serious problems. I was seventeen, and I figured I’d had untreated PID since I was twelve.

I had to go back to my ob/gyn because of the pain. She told me there wasn’t much else to do; she didn’t even give me medication. She said I would have to learn to tolerate the discomfort because I had a lot of scar tissue, and that sex would probably be painful for most of my life, something I already knew. Then she told me I needed to be really careful when I had sex. While the chances of my getting pregnant were slim to none, I could have an ectopic pregnancy. That occurs when an egg gets fertilized and pregnancy begins and ends—painfully—in the fallopian tubes instead of the uterus. If not discovered and treated, the tube can rupture and cause a life-threatening hemorrhage.

The news—all of it—was devastating. My heart sank. My whole life, I had wanted to have kids. I loved children. I wanted to have them so I could love and protect them, so I could make up for some of the mistakes that my parents had made with Christy and me. I dreamed of having a happy family one day—one that had no ties to years of abuse and neglect.

At school each day I’d see all the teenage girls who were normal. Most of them would be able to have kids one day. Thinking about it, I would become physically sick, running into the bathroom to vomit. I cried all the time. I couldn’t stand the sight of babies on the street. I had been stripped of the one basic hope I’d had for my life—to become a mother.

I called another gynecologist and brought him all my medical records. I told him that I couldn’t have children. I said I’d heard about a surgery where doctors could open up the fallopian tube with a tiny balloon.

I said, “I want that. I want that done right now.”

He shook his head. “You’re seventeen years old, and there isn’t anybody in the world who is going to do this operation on a teenager. It’s unethical at your age.”

He didn’t understand. I told him I’d use condoms; I just needed to regain the
ability
to have children. I begged and pleaded, but he still said no.

Then he told me that on top of my PID, I’d probably need surgery every five years to remove the scar tissue that could keep growing. All he gave me was more bad news.

I was almost suicidal. But my grandmother had just died six months earlier, and I had new thoughts about life and death. I was a senior at this point, but my junior thesis had been on reincarnation. I wanted to know what happened after a person died. Could Mee Maw live again as a butterfly or a bird? Was I thinking wishfully, or was it a real possibility? Through my research, I began to believe in reincarnation like the Buddhists do. I read that if you kill yourself, your body becomes trapped in the place where you died. I hung on to the idea that the soul can only exist where life ended. I thought,
I can’t get stuck in this hell forever
. I also remembered my sickening botched attempt with Dimetapp. Suicide wasn’t the answer this time, but I sure thought about it.

I didn’t tell Rob what I was going through. He knew a little bit about the health issue, but not too much. I would just see him and cry for no reason. I had been visiting doctors trying to get fixed. I thought, if I have a problem, well then,
fix it!
If I could get back the ability to have children, everything would be okay with me. Everything would be okay with Rob and me, too. But that wasn’t happening. He didn’t understand where all my crying was coming from. He was patient, though, because he knew I’d been in pain. When we had sex, I’d cry again. It hurt physically and emotionally. Sex was a reminder that I was barren. I had nothing to give him.

I couldn’t look at my dad. I blamed him completely, and I was always mad at him. I hated him for what he had done and continued to do to me. I hated him for the things he’d made me do against my will. Before I’d been treated for PID, I could still bring myself to separate him into two people. I could see the traces of Daddy, the man on the tractor with me in Alhambra. But once I was told I would never have kids, he became just Tom. Something inside me changed. I stopped loving my father. I stopped making excuses for him. Everything just stopped. I felt numb when I thought of him. He knew it because for the first time, I started becoming aggressive toward him. Before I’d gone into the hospital, I’d given him two Rolling Stones tickets for his birthday. The show date was after I got out.

He asked me if I wanted to go. I told him, “No, and you’re lucky you got those from me.”

He didn’t understand. He couldn’t put my behavior in perspective. I was hurt emotionally and physically, but I’d always been hurt. Now I was damaged, but I was almost an adult. I was overcome with hate and anger, and he didn’t know what to do about it. I became a daughter he didn’t recognize.

Everything was bad all the time. I didn’t know how to separate pain from pleasure anymore. Life was too terrible too suddenly. I couldn’t function. I had to leave but I didn’t know where to go. I thought about telling Rob, because I knew he would stand up for me. But his mother and young brothers happened to live in Highland, of all places. My dad would be able to find them easily, and he would threaten to harm them if that’s what it took to get back at me.

I called my mother and told her that I was coming to live with her. She wasn’t tickled pink, but she told me I was welcome. Arrangements had to be made. My dad had to be convinced to let me go.