Installment 2 of Photo project
My Older Sister, Rachel, Holds Her Naked Doll Close
Rachel, my older sister, holds her doll close to her, cradling it as she leans at the edge of the picture. In the background, to the right, the back yard, in Aberdeen Maryland, is in ruins. The yard is small. A chain link fence surrounds it, boxing in the mess of brightly colored toys, the dingy grass, the play area where children obviously don’t clean up after themselves.
Rachel’s hair is the same color its always been, strawberry blond. The Ramona Quimby haircut frames her face. She wears the expression of child who knows too much, as if she begrudgingly allowed my father to take the picture. Her doll wears no clothing. Its cloth body and plastic extremities splay out, crooked and disheveled.
I hear the sound of my fathers camera, his voice telling her to hold still and smile. The picture lies. It tells deceptive stories about our childhood. Everyone smiles in pictures.
I don’t know where the innocence went. I don’t know when the smiles turned to screams. I don’t know the first time my father hit one of us or why he did. My sister, and all of us, had a short lived childhood.
I wonder when my father became the kind of man who hits his children. But, I know that wondering about it now will only make the memories more painful.
I recall my families first Christmas, or was it Thanksgiving, after the divorce. With my father gone we drank wine and beer. We settled ourselves at the dining room table, the backyard through the windows was dark behind us. The smell of turkey and potatoes being washed done with alcohol. I don’t know who told the first story or why we began the journey into the past, but I do remember that as the yelling turned to tears in each of our eyes, my heart began to close itself again.
Jessica sobs. This is the part where I stop speaking. The stories my older sister and older brother Karl and Rachel tell are affecting me physically. I feel myself burgeoning with anger, my fists clenching hard around my wine glass, my insides tightening. I feel my body attempting to steel itself against the words they speak. My brain tries not to listen, to shut them out. But, the memories still come. They will always come.
I don’t want to hear about the blood my fathers hands have drawn, striking with fists and, of course, the old bamboo walking stick my grandfather gave him. I wonder what Popo would think if he had ever known.
Even I didn’t know it had been this bad.
There was no real moment when I forgave my father for what he did to me. I only know that eventually I resigned the need to talk about it. I embraced my struggle to relinquish the emotional power my father had over me and some time later the battle was over. I have learned to open my heart again. But, along with acceptance came the ever insistent inability to forgive him for what he had done to the rest of my family. For those stories told at Christmas dinners, I will never forgive. For those moments etched into my mind, for the memories I now have of all the family functions where tears overflowed, there is no forgiveness. For that, my heart is steel and for that forgiveness will never come.
Copyright Grace V Hanel
Rachel, my older sister, holds her doll close to her, cradling it as she leans at the edge of the picture. In the background, to the right, the back yard, in Aberdeen Maryland, is in ruins. The yard is small. A chain link fence surrounds it, boxing in the mess of brightly colored toys, the dingy grass, the play area where children obviously don’t clean up after themselves.
Rachel’s hair is the same color its always been, strawberry blond. The Ramona Quimby haircut frames her face. She wears the expression of child who knows too much, as if she begrudgingly allowed my father to take the picture. Her doll wears no clothing. Its cloth body and plastic extremities splay out, crooked and disheveled.
I hear the sound of my fathers camera, his voice telling her to hold still and smile. The picture lies. It tells deceptive stories about our childhood. Everyone smiles in pictures.
I don’t know where the innocence went. I don’t know when the smiles turned to screams. I don’t know the first time my father hit one of us or why he did. My sister, and all of us, had a short lived childhood.
I wonder when my father became the kind of man who hits his children. But, I know that wondering about it now will only make the memories more painful.
I recall my families first Christmas, or was it Thanksgiving, after the divorce. With my father gone we drank wine and beer. We settled ourselves at the dining room table, the backyard through the windows was dark behind us. The smell of turkey and potatoes being washed done with alcohol. I don’t know who told the first story or why we began the journey into the past, but I do remember that as the yelling turned to tears in each of our eyes, my heart began to close itself again.
Jessica sobs. This is the part where I stop speaking. The stories my older sister and older brother Karl and Rachel tell are affecting me physically. I feel myself burgeoning with anger, my fists clenching hard around my wine glass, my insides tightening. I feel my body attempting to steel itself against the words they speak. My brain tries not to listen, to shut them out. But, the memories still come. They will always come.
I don’t want to hear about the blood my fathers hands have drawn, striking with fists and, of course, the old bamboo walking stick my grandfather gave him. I wonder what Popo would think if he had ever known.
Even I didn’t know it had been this bad.
There was no real moment when I forgave my father for what he did to me. I only know that eventually I resigned the need to talk about it. I embraced my struggle to relinquish the emotional power my father had over me and some time later the battle was over. I have learned to open my heart again. But, along with acceptance came the ever insistent inability to forgive him for what he had done to the rest of my family. For those stories told at Christmas dinners, I will never forgive. For those moments etched into my mind, for the memories I now have of all the family functions where tears overflowed, there is no forgiveness. For that, my heart is steel and for that forgiveness will never come.
Copyright Grace V Hanel