Chapter 3

My aunt sent my sister some pictures from our childhood. Some were really good. Some brought out some memories. I noticed that none were from our time spent in hell. I say that now. As I do not think I conciously thought it at that time. They were true snapshots of our little family in various celebrations and holidays.

I can picture my siblings, and I, happily swimming in a pool. We were with our father at a nearby hotel. I cannot quite fathom the timing on some of them. Was this before we went to the shore? Or another summer afterwards? It really isn't clear and I've tried to visit that time but the feelings are raw. I really want to cry, and I think that I will. Perhaps that will open me up to some more of that darkness and I really do want it all in the light.

I still visit with the guilt at times. If I had been a normal child I would have ran home to mommy. I would have told her what those really mean boys had done to me. It makes so much sense looking down on the scenes in my mind. I know it is more the sense of guilt in not knowing if that little girl in the pit had been saved. Did the incident prompt her to find the courage to speak up to her own parents? Or did she bury it into her own secret, dark, hiding place?

I feel another interlude coming on. These thoughts are wanting to make it out onto the page. They want to come out into the light of day.

Industrial Valley Bank. Or IVB as it was known. The acronyms invade my solitude. I was working in the local library at the time. I do believe it was 1974. I was 15 at this time. I had gone to the bank to cash my paycheck. I can picture a passbook as the teller would have put it into the little printer to show my recent deposit. The running total on my savings account neatly printed on the page. I know I would have requested to keep out twenty dollars for spending money. It could have been less.

I can see the light turning green for me to cross the busy highway that cut through our little town. I can see the people on the opposite side begin to cross over as I did the same from my side. I can hear the screaming of brakes as a car, with a terrified young woman driver, stopped about 12 inches from my legs. I remember looking down at the front of her little car; then up into the car. She had flown through the red light. It appeared she was reading directions from the paper in her hand. I will never know what made her look up and realize she needed to stop. I nearly joined the statistics of pedestrian deaths due to distracted driving. This, my 2nd brush with death.

An end to that interlude. And I laugh as I realize it was nearly an end for me. I know I did not have a wish to die. I just can't recall if I was relieved, or disappointed, that she had missed hitting me. That is the darkness coming out into the light. I need to talk to my therapist on this one. Hell, I need to talk to her about all of this. Hidden in my memories, and not visited yet in her office.

Anyway, back to 1970. The divorce announcement. The little kids suddenly fatherless. I guess I say that as it would be hard for our dad to visit us. Ten hours away from North Tonawanda. I know I can't make excuses for him. He made his own. And whatever he had going on in his life would severely impact his children's lives over the remainder of their lifetime.

I really can't find anything from 1970 up to 1972. I can picture fleeting moments from that time. The trains in the basement. The broken antenna stump on mom's Olds Cutlass. I can still see the scar on my lower arm. I was running by and happened to catch it on that piece of ragged metal. And then we were moving out of our grandparents home and into our own apartment in the next town over.

It could have been in late 1971. It makes sense as we were in our next school as we sauntered into 1972. I try to interlace these memories with the constant of school time. Starting in September. Ending in June. Many memories blurred by the dullness of the time. I can look at this and feel I was running on auto-pilot. I was meandering in life. I had no direction. I didn't even know that I needed one.

I will try to visit those years and see if anything comes out. If not, I'll slowly move on and see if any visit me in the next interlude of my life.