As a child, my grandmother’s house was reminiscent of The Secret Garden. Vine covered arbors, and a constant display of roses, hollyhocks, and daylilies, thrown about her sprawling yard in the most amazing bursts of colors.
Her house, set far back from the road behind a black wrought iron fence, was concealed from view by a small forest of white oaks and flowering dogwoods. The drive up to the house resembled a cul-de-sac. Smooth, black pavement dipped downwards to the right as you drove back from the street, spitting you out in front of the garage that connected to the house, before sharply cutting left, back uphill, and reconnecting to the main stretch of drive, exiting the way you entered.
I spent summers with my elbows and knees covered in band-aids from speeding down the hills of her driveway on a worn-in pair of roller skates or my older cousins 10-speed that wouldn’t fit me for another three years.
I sat in the back of my parents old brown station wagon that was parked at the side of the drive just as pavement dipped down towards the house. Our car, still a ways back from the main garage, was under the shade of a large oak tree with the windows down. It was late afternoon and the breeze dancing off the leaves of the nearby oak kept me cool from the summer heat.
Going ahead of my family to the car that day was normal for me. Always slightly introspective as a child, I was often most content being alone. Whenever I could, I would sneak off the field behind our farmhouse to sketch the far tree line of the neighboring property for hours, or get lost in the woods building forts only I was allowed in.
This particular afternoon, I had went ahead to the station wagon on my own, probably overstimulated by the many clashing personalities currently within the walls of my grandmothers home.
A tattered book with a dog-eared page sat to my left as I bit at the dry skin around my nail beds. I noticed a figure walking towards the patch of shade where the station wagon was parked. It was Richard, the man my grandmother was married to. I can’t tell you how long they had been married, but I will tell you that he was never considered to be a “grandfather” to any of us.
He was a cold man with steely blue eyes that felt like ice daggers piercing your soul the minute you made contact with them. As a child, he would taunt us about being poor—going to sinister lengths to make comments about how my family couldn’t afford food. During family functions we were locked in a basement until it was time to eat or leave, one of the two.
How my grandmother allowed this, I’ll never know. But I’m sure to allow it was easier to endure what was to come if she didn’t.
The hot sun reflected brightly off of his silver-white hair as he steadily approached the station wagon I sat in. My stomach sank. Not only was I a terribly shy child, but this mans presence shook me to my core. With the windows down in the car, I had no other option but to acknowledge him when he approached the rear passenger seat that I occupied. Awkwardly, I lifted my eyes to meet his.
With the nonchalance as if he owned the vehicle himself, the door casually swung open and he revealed a handful of ice, clutched in his left hand. The breath caught in my throat, unsure of what was about to happen next. Even with the thick heat hanging in the air, I knew this man was not bringing me ice to help keep me cool. Frozen in place with my back glued to the cracked leather seat behind me with cold sweat, he reached down with his free hand and pulled the front of my cotton biker shorts away from my small waist.
It was not until much later in life that I understood what happened in the backseat of the car that day. How many times my family was aware of this happening they’ll likely never admit and I’ll never know. But this is one instance they can’t deny—this is the one I remember, unfortunately.
The fact that he dropped dead of a heart attack while country line dancing 10 years later was apparently supposed to provide me with enough solace to deal with the fact that I was touched by this man as a child. There was no consequences for what he’d done. No repercussions. He was able to carry on and pick up country line dancing as if he wasn’t a child predator that lived among my family for years.