The passive-aggressive note board read something different every day. Its original purpose was to write reminders—mother’s idea—and we would collectively contribute to it, whether it was a doctor’s appointment, a phone number to call back and job interview dates and times. That was the purpose, until it became otherwise.
The heavy, carefully-written, uppercase letters with sharp edges burned into my mind and I hated him even more. The authoritative tone, while dormant for a while, had returned, not in yells but in written words. It was the most passive way to demand anything, and being in the kitchen where everyone passed, it sat on the wall, a fat display of hypocrisy and power-plays.
This morning, after my steady awakening, the awakening of a person with no obligations, I saw it. My otherwise pleasant morning was interrupted by the letters. I imagined him waking up early before work and writing out the whole list of chores to do, using words like “please” to make it seem better. I imagined his short, stumpy arms reaching and writing these orders and I gritted my teeth.
It was a reminder of my resentment, especially since my mother probably put him up to it, she who was more passive and unable to control anything. He was her lapdog, yet she was the *****. What a sad life.
Today it read “Rent is due for last week. 50.00 each. No one is doing much of anything to help.” I wondered if my mother saw it and I figured she had, and my disdain for her grew even stronger at the thought. After the catastrophe of my last living situation, my mother welcomed me to return home and live in her and her husband’s house. It was reassuring to know that my siblings were there and I had allies, but I knew there would be a personal toll on accepting defeat. “Yes, I did just graduate college, no, I don’t have a job, no, I don’t know what the **** I’m doing.”
No one is doing much of anything to help. What an ironic sentence. I felt the very same way about Social Services, when I confessed to a beloved college professor that I had experienced trauma as a child, the kind that latches onto your soul and ***** it dry, taking all the sustenance, leaving identity hollow. It was the trauma created by a seemingly trusting adult, a person with the ability to intimidate and discipline children, an unexpected *******. Mother didn’t believe me. Social services didn’t care. No one is doing much of anything to help.
I stared at the board for minutes, barely blinking, letting my retina absorb the sentence and its meaning. Do they expect me to pay for this? He never did. I was eleven when it first happened, it happened consistently until I turned twelve, and once again when I was 15. He tricked me into thinking drinking was fun. Mother was never around of course, like she never is. All while looking at the board and thinking about these things, it was harder to think of who I hated worse.
They both ruined me. They both got off. Justice didn’t exist, and I refused to remain a prisoner for committing no crime. I thought about Genesis and Eve’s crimes. The crime of woman. The crime of sexuality. At the time, I didn’t realize a prepubescent girl was an object of ****** desire. When I did, it wrecked me forever. In my solitude, sitting in the kitchen of a huge house of secrets, empty except my presence, I concocted a plan. “What a wonderful plan!” I exclaimed internally, and I poured myself a bit of *****. I drank it, winced with the sharp taste of alcohol, and poured myself a bit more. No one would be home, and it’d be perfect.