The Untold Truth.

“Whatever you have to say to me I can take it. Just tell me what is going on,” I begged.

My sister sat down her phone and looked at me like my dog just died. I could sense that there was something serious plaguing her.

“I do have something to tell you and before I do I need you to know that I did have a reason back then for keeping it from you.”

“Okay, I understand, please go on,” I said as I felt a stone hit the rock bottom of my stomach.

“Do you remember when your older sister was claiming that Dad was abusing her? That he touched her inappropriately? She ended up leaving and not coming back. Mom and Dad said that she was lying and they pretty much disowned her.”

“Yeah, I remember. They even took her pictures down off the wall. They told me she was lying and crazy and that she was making those things up.”

“Well, she wasn’t lying. I know she wasn’t lying. Because it happened to me too. When I was older and could speak up for myself you had just been born. I didn’t want what happened to me end up happening to you. So I told them that if he touched you that I would blow this entire family apart and speak my truth.”

They all lied to me. For my entire life.

My Mother.

My Father.

All my sisters.

They looked me straight in the face and they lied.

Tears spilled down my cheeks and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. It felt like my throat forgot how to work. I forgot how to swallow. My lungs spontaneously quit breathing in and out. I couldn’t make a sound even though every muscle in my heart and every brainwave in my head wanted to scream to the heavens. If you think about it, it was such a simple thing to do. To scream. I had no air. I had no vessel to carry that scream outside my body and it began to fester. It began to boil and there was nothing I could do to clean out the wound. So it traveled. Just like a lava flow it raced through my veins and it burned everything inside along the way.

The tears falling down from my cheeks did little to cool me as I fell to the floor. The impact hit me and acted like a reboot. The jolt reset my system and I was able to take a deep breath. Then it started. The eruption. I let it take over me. The first sob that entered the airways end up being relatively small in comparison to the absolute onslaught of sound that came after that first initial outpouring. All the love and companionship that could have happened in the absence of that lie came to the surface and gushed out.

When the eruption was over and the lava flow became just a trickle I could do nothing but lay on the floor and press my cheek to the cool vinyl tiles. My sister. The one I was led to believe was crazy and a liar. The one I didn’t get to spend much time with growing up and who is now dead because cancer ravaged her body, is not those things. She is not a liar. She is not crazy.

“Why? Why did everyone keep this from me?”

“I wanted you to have a father-daughter relationship with your Dad. I didn’t want to taint it with what happened.”

I covered my face with my hands and continued sobbing. It didn’t work. Dad was never there for me. He never hugged me like a Dad should. He didn’t even touch me. I couldn’t talk to him like a daughter should be able to talk to her Dad. He was present but it’s like he wasn’t available. It was like a blurry photo. You could see something there, but you can’t really make out what it is. 

“He abused you too?”

“Yes, he raped me. I guess he thought since he wasn’t my biological father that it would be okay.”

Bile and bubbles flowed up my throat. I sat up and crawled to the trash can then vomited the lunch we just ate on top of everyone’s used paper plates and plastic forks. When I was done I leaned against the bottom cabinets and rested my head on my raised knee. My mind raced to all those times that we would pose for him. Me and my sisters would put a bow in our hair and all stand in the same pose so he could take our picture. At the time I thought it was an innocent gesture. It makes me wonder how many of those innocent gestures were really innocent and how many he used for other purposes. Bile rose to the surface again and I leaned back over the trash to vomit whatever was left in my stomach. After the heaving stopped I got up and rinsed my mouth out at the sink.

“How many times?”

My sister looked at me and just shook her head. She either didn’t want to tell me or it was too many times to count. My hands flew to my face to shield me while I cried and I turned toward the window above the sink. After a few minutes I was able to master myself and I looked outside at our kids playing in the backyard.

“I don’t want them to know,” she proclaimed.

“I agree.”

I returned to the table and scooted my chair as close to my sister as I could get it before I sat back down. Then I put my arm around her and held her. It only took a few minutes before she finally broke and the tears started falling down her cheeks. I didn’t know what else to do so I just sat there and held her tight. I grabbed one of our cheap white napkins and wiped her face every now and then. I didn’t let go until all her tears were chased away.