Did you make a mea culpa?

Did you make a mea culpa?

I need to think about what that trigger the beating GG, my daughter, remembers so well, because I want to answer her question: What could have done so bad a little girl of 4 years old to deserve such a beating? Will she forgive me and heal the relationship before it is too late?

First, I rested a little while, semi asleep. I have nausea. The big latte I had earlier in the night begs to be let out, because I have to go back to the time when I did something horrible.  

Now my memory is releasing the image. I’ll turn into words my feeling of shame. What I should tell that little girl who is now the mother or little girls to make the mea culpa she demands. Words that I have to catch and slam onto the laptop before they get a dip in the quicksands of my old brain, which, on account of the shame and the guilt I feel, make it hard to tell this story. I want to avoid remembering that moment of insanity. I want to skirt the stinking swamp, inhabited by the ghost of my wrongdoing.

I’ve read a novel by Alice Munro where she tells some painful stories related to her upbringing. The title of the first chapter left me speechless with shock: A Royal Beating, because it reminded me of my guilt. Reading it made me understand the rut such a thing caused in the child’s soul. The protagonist’s stepmother had a difficult relationship with the girl and told her husband for the umpteen time how she had disrespected her and got the spineless father so pumped up that gave his daughter such a beating to remember.

In my story, the one who received the royal beating was GG, a 4-year-old girl, and the punishment, the totally undeserved beating, came from a desperate woman, her mother. GG adored me to the point of saving one sweet to give it to me later, at my return from the office. What made me lose my mind and get a belt to give her such a punishment with it? 

My intention was to make her associate going to Ricky’s house with something horrible. I was wrong to think I couldn’t explain to her that risk in a way a little smart girl could understand. With calm, I could have been able to do so without spelling what that risk was. 

GG adored me, and I loved her dearly. When the belt fell on her tender body, I felt ashamed of myself, as every time I think of it. 

Why the beating? And why the belt? My father had hit me once with a belt and I was repeating the horror of his violent outbursts. And why “killing the messenger” when I felt like killing the man who let loose her animal instincts and played dirty games with children? 

Nati, the girl next door, had come to our house to play with GG and then they wanted to go to Nati’s house, which I agreed. After a while, GG came home and told me they had been to Nati’s uncle’s house and had fun. They had played, she said, a game of licking crème caramel out of a banana in a dark room. Dark room, banana, lick... Why in a dark room? Unless... Oh no! It was not a banana what he made them lick! Wham! The reality beat me with the violence of a Mar del Plata wave where the Atlantic Ocean is cold and rough, and slams you down and makes you roll and struggle to stand up.

My mind went berserk. My brain processed all the possibilities in a millisecond and came out with a frustration that found release with the beating.

I thought of all the outcomes at once. I still had the gun my mother had got to defend ourselves after a drunk neighbour broke into our house when I was about 15 years old. According to my mother’s clever intuition, he had come for me. Again, a man who can take women or children at will if they feel like it? Killing the bastard was not a good choice, I would have done no favour to my girl going to jail and leaving her motherless. What to do? I was no man to give him a good beating, or at list confront him aggressively man to man. Neither had a husband or relative to do it for me. I thought of the futility of going to the police, because when the drunk had broken into my house years earlier, nothing had happened. Accusing Naty’s uncle with his family? I would face the incredulity of the close knit family of the man, who was married to a good woman. They would not believe me. It would be easier for them to sever ties with me than accepting the shame of having a pedophile in the family who would cast a cloud of guilt onto the clan. I was single, with no family to rely on, and would face hostility and isolation in the neighbourhood, since all the fourteen siblings of the man around, including his own mother. They would certainly stick together and refuse to accept that they had a rotten apple in their midst. 

I went mad with frustration. So what did I do? “Kill the messenger”. How? I enacted what I have experienced at the hands my a violent father.

What I didn’t think was what effect it would produce in the little girl’s soul? She felt deeply betrayed because could not comprehend why I was punishing her. In her mind, she had done nothing wrong to deserve a punishment, let alone the beating. She only had gone to play with her inseparable friend. GG had permission to play with Naty, who used to come to our house all the time, and GG went to her house, next door very often. By extension, going to Nati’s uncle’s house around the corner was within the normal behaviour, because I knew her extended family. I betrayed her. Not only did I dish out physical pain but also the deeper pain or being betrayed by her mother, her only anchor. She no longer had her dear grandma to run to her arms and feel saved. A royal beating that left no scars in her body, but damaged her soul. My daughter presents me with the accusation each time I protest about how badly she treats me when I go to her house to help her with her babies, now teenagers. When she is rude to me, over demanding or unfair, I confront her, and we have a heated argument. Then, she shows me the bill. Ah! You are perfect! Don’t you remember that you have hit me with a belt when I was 4 years old? Did you make a mea culpa for it? What could have done so bad a 4-year-old to deserve such a thing? She concludes.

For the undeserved and barbaric punishment I’ll have a debt with her, like a rock tied to my neck for the rest of my life. 

She had done nothing wrong. I often think: “I should I tell her what had happened that made me lose my mind”. Shall I? Is it a good idea to disclose what had happened in Ricky’s house? Would she understand and accept my apology? I saw red and the main thing in my mind was to prevent further irreparable damage. How could I know that those preliminary games wouldn’t escalate? I was sure he was grooming the girls and might escalate to something worst. Will she comprehend that my intention was to safeguard her, even if I did the wrong choice? Will she understand?

GG doesn’t remember that came home and told me about the fun she and Nati had at Ricky’s house, so she still asks me what could have done so bad a little girl to deserve a brutal punishment like the one you inflicted on me? I went mad and gave her a royal beating, but she still doesn’t know why. 

Is it a good idea to tell her the whole truth? This is what I keep asking myself; Should I tell her?

I am about to turn 77, how can long I delay the decision of telling her or not?