Long summer nights in the sweltering southern heat called for makeshift fans out of old newspapers. I heard the constant sound of Mother’s bedroom fan clicking as if it would die at any moment. When she was away, we grabbed her fan, took it into the den, and faced it toward the front door, trying different angles. We were searching for sanctuary from sweat. We took turns talking into the fan to hear our voices morph into some robotic creature, and we’d have a moment of refreshing comfort.
Not long after my father was hauled away to the county jail, Mother and Herman announced they were taking a vacation. Mother came home with a present from Herman—a shawl to wrap around her head. They were going to Turkey, and she couldn’t dress like an American there.
I remember thinking how odd it was for them to go on vacation without taking us, and how weird it was that she had to wear a headscarf. We had never gone on a weeklong vacation, although our father always managed to work hard enough to pay for trips to the aquarium or weekend getaways to Martha’s Vineyard. Mother was going out of the country for the first time, and it was obvious from how she pranced around that she was excited to have a man of wealth. Our father’s income was modest and every dollar was stretched with eight children and a stay-at-home wife. I can only imagine the sacrifices he must have made to care for us all.
Mother and her new man never invited us kids to do anything or go anywhere. Not lunch, supper—I mean nowhere. This reality was such a contrast to having a father who wanted us with him everywhere he went. Now the most we ever saw of this man with the badge was at our front door when he picked Mother up or dropped her off.
When Mother told us she would be leaving for two weeks, part of me was relieved to the point of celebration. The other part of me was sad that she didn’t want us to go with her.
Mother gave RaeLynne and Abbeygail instructions for watching us and told me that all my chores and the after-school rules would not change. I realized things really weren’t going to be much different because in Mother’s normal routine, she’d leave us for days at a time, only coming home to take a shower or get clothes. To help RaeLynne during her trip, Mother asked her stepbrother, our uncle Talmon, to check on us periodically. He lived upstairs in the studio kitchenette. A few times he’d come in through the back door, find RaeLynne, chat for a bit, and then go back upstairs. For the most part, we were totally on our own.
While Mother was away, I slacked on my laundry chores. The piles of dirty clothes had stacked up so high that it hit midway up the wall. Mother was scheduled to return in a couple of days, and the sight of three huge baskets smashed against the wall made me panic. I never managed to get to the bottom of the baskets, but I washed, dried, folded, and put away as many loads a day as I could. I could usually do about four or five.
I’d drop my book bag and hustle through the long entrance that started at the front door and ended at the kitchen back door. Our screened-in back porch was directly behind the kitchen. Rust on the window frames had chipped the paint and scattered it on the floor. A few pieces of old dirty furniture lined the back wall. There were tools, paint buckets, broken wooden chairs, and a slew of other leftover items strewn around. The smell of mildew from the fierce Florida rain was ever-present.
Our washer and dryer were isolated inside a small corridor on the back side of the house, with just enough room for one person to navigate. I reached inside the washer, catching my shirt on the rusting metal edge. It scraped my skin and made a hole in my shirt, but most of my shirts were torn so it wasn’t a big deal. I had bigger things to think about.
Although the back porch wasn’t inviting or pleasant in any way, I learned to cultivate a space of peace. Every time I shut the kitchen door behind me, I walked into a world of beauty. A world I had created for myself.
I could be anyone I wanted to be, and I could be loved. As I did my family’s laundry, I made up songs about how they loved me and how God loved me. I thought back to the times when Mrs. Cindy told me stories about God’s love. I daydreamed of my future prince, who one day would gallantly save me from the wicked witch who chained me to this wretched dungeon. I sang songs to the air, and I turned the cramped room into a space of rest for myself. It was as if God himself came into that filthy laundry room with me—his love-drenched presence absorbing all my grief. The hours, days, and years I spent in the laundry room taught me how to dream.
Who am I?
Who do I want to be?
I was very young when I began asking these questions. Most of the answers came the night Mother whipped me after Father was taken to jail.
Who am I? I am not Mother!
Who do I want to be? I want to be someone who has a loving family.
I was convinced my desires and dreams would be reality. Someday.
Mother returned from her vacation and asked me to get her brother from upstairs because it was dinnertime. I opened the back door, walked through the laundry room, and bolted up the outside stairs on the back of the house. I flung open the door. It startled my uncle, who jerked his gaze away from his computer screen.
Leaning into the door, I announced, “Uncle Talmon, Mother told me to tell you it’s time for dinner.”
“It’s not dinnertime! Come here, you little brat!” he said as he grinned at me. His hands moved up toward his face in claw shapes.
“Haha! No, Uncle Talmon, don’t get me!” I screamed as I ran into his living room. Chasing after me, he scooped me up by my hips and spun me around. We stared into each other’s faces, laughing.
“You won’t get away from me, little Laundry Lady! Oh, no, you won’t!” I laughed as my little feet flew beneath me. As he put me down, his shirt flew up. My feet touched the floor and I was level with his belt.
His pants were undone, and he was exposed.
My face went stone-cold, and my body was completely still.
He stared back at me, unable to speak. I had never seen a man this way before. I had never even seen my father in his underwear. He made a point to always be covered in front of us girls.
Shell-shocked but aware that this was something bad, I blurted out, “I won’t tell anyone; just let me go.”
In that moment, his demeanor completely changed. His face transformed from fear to evil. It was like something became unleashed. It was terrifying.
“My sister hates you. She won’t care if I punish you.” He released my arms and told me to pull down his shirt. I did as he asked and ran out the back door down the stairs to the laundry room. His laugh echoed in my ears.
Why did this happen? Was it my fault because he was tickling me? Did I do this to him? With that first experience of a new form of abuse, I became trapped inside the words I had heard for years. You are ugly. Nobody loves you. You’re a stupid bitch. You are crazy. This is all your fault. Your father hated you. You are too dumb to read. You’re an idiot. You slut. You dirty whore. On and on these thoughts plagued my mind.
I could hear the crunching of the pecan shells underneath his shoes and the creak of the broken screen door as he opened it. I stopped pulling laundry out of the washer. I held my breath, hoping he wouldn’t walk toward the small corridor. But he did walk toward me, and I could smell him. My body shuddered in disgust. He grabbed me, one hand around my waist and one around my mouth. I kicked and screamed. I bit his hand, and I wept bitterly. Couldn’t someone catch him? Couldn’t someone see him hurt me? Someone should care. His laugh rang through my mind as I struggled to be free from him. I was in the fourth grade, and my tiny frame was not strong enough to stop a grown man in his twenties. I was crushed by him.
“Your mother will never believe you,” he whispered into my ear, his breath hot. “It doesn’t matter what I do to you. She will never be angry with me. I am her brother. You are nothing to her.”
The door was open, and I could hear the laughter and chatter of my brother and sisters. I was desperate for one of them to find me. I was crying and yelling at him to stop, fighting back as hard as I could. He put his hand over my mouth in an attempt to shut me up.
“I’m almost finished. You f—king better stop moving.”
As I turned my head to the side, tears ran down my cheeks. I looked out past my bedroom door and into the hallway. But no one heard me. No one came in. No one saved me. I lay hopelessly underneath the weight of evil, and I begged God to take my life.
How did I escape the reality around me? How did I maintain sanity in a world that told me daily I was worthless? How did I manage to survive the unapologetic exploitation that came for me every morning? I closed my eyes, dreamed of a faraway place, and ran away.
I drifted away every time I went out on the back porch to do laundry, every time I put my head down to sleep, every time I had the opportunity to be alone with my thoughts.
With this new predator out to hurt me, I felt even more lost. Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, months into years. For almost four years, I was raped in every corner, every closet, and every bed in our house. No one heard me. No one saw me. No one helped me. Talmon knew I was the outcast. And because of that, I was an easy target.
To cope, I pulled out all my hair, strand by strand. It left bald spots all around my head. This invited new torments, new nicknames, and new wounds to be healed. My hope pushed me to believe that one day, the Lord would redeem me—and my family. I was sure I would have the fairy-tale ending of Cinderella—and the redemption of Joseph from the Bible.
Months later, I was in the laundry room, not singing or dreaming like I once had done, but helplessly going about my chores. I was a hollow being. As I folded my baby brother’s wrinkled T-shirt, I was paralyzed with grief. Suddenly, a presence took over the laundry room. It rendered me immobile. I listened to the silence. Then my fear slowly turned into unspeakable joy. The darkness that surrounded me inexplicably turned into bright light.
What was I seeing?
What was happening to me?
A blanket of perfect peace enveloped me. My heart burst with laughter. I looked up to the ceiling and saw nothing. But when I closed my eyes, I saw the living God arrayed in all his glory. Love surrounded me. I began to hope again.
Hope is a fearsome thing.
It moves men to war. It compels mothers to pray without ceasing. It convinces women to stand firm in the face of absent love. As this transcendent hope welled up in me, I saw the beauty of life. It was as if God reached into my body, pulled out my beating heart, and placed it underneath the heavenly lid of a glass jar. This supernatural experience is the moment I grasped the awakening power of hope.
I have cleaved to it ever since.
A bruised reed he will not break,
and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.
In faithfulness he will bring forth justice.
Isaiah 42:3