Sister of Silence

by Daleen Berry

  I stood there, feeling like a deaf-mute and far more awkward than ever before. I wanted to turn and run but a fear he would think I was a child and wouldn’t like me anymore, that he would laugh at me, or even worse—ignore me—glued my feet to the floor.

  Then I walked across the room toward him as he put the magazine on the nightstand.

  The hard vinyl floor was cold, so cold it made my toes curl up tight as I hesitantly took each step. Then I perched on the edge of the bed and tried to talk intelligently, but my thoughts were jumbled. He told me how pretty I was, and how much he liked my hair. Though clad in a long nightgown, I began shivering, and gooseflesh covered my arms and legs.

  “Why don’t you get under the covers, just to keep warm?” he asked in a sweet voice.

  I bit my lip. My entire life had been one of strict religious upbringing: I knew what morals were, what good girls didn’t do, and getting into bed with a grown man was on that list.

  “Come on, I promise I won’t touch you. Nothing will happen.” He smiled as he scooted the covers away to open up a spot on the bed beside him

  I hesitated, feeling stupid and childish while he waited for me to do something. In one motion I quickly crawled onto the bed, lying down beside him with the bunched up blankets between us, ignoring the screaming inside my brain.

  This is wrong. Leave, now! Get out quickly!

  For what seemed like a very long time, nothing happened. He didn’t even touch me. Then he leaned over and kissed me gently, and I began to feel warm as my body flushed at his touch. He smelled like fresh soap and deodorant, and I believed he was big enough to protect me from anything. He already had, by keeping an eye out for me at the basketball games I sometimes attended, scaring away any boys who tried to talk to me or teased me.

  Though warmer just lying near him and feeling his body heat, my shivers would not stop, and I clamped my teeth together to end their continuous chattering. Just then, he reached over me and pulled the chain on the nightstand lamp, casting the room into darkness and deep shadows. He scooted closer and pulled me toward him with a gentle hand on my shoulder. I couldn’t move a single muscle. My tongue felt paralyzed, as though I’d never speak again.

  And then his hand left my shoulder and I felt the blankets come over me at the same instant he moved even closer and pressed his body up against mine. I was afraid to move, even more afraid to breathe. My heart thumped so wildly inside my chest I knew he could hear it.

  I’m in bed with Kim’s brother…I’m in bed with Kim’s brother . . .

  The words kept vibrating inside my head, reminding me what I was doing was wrong, even as another part of me pushed them far, far away. I knew his parents were sleeping, just as I knew they’d be mortified if they awoke and realized I was in bed with their son. They would think I was terrible!

  “I have—have to g-g-go upstairs—to Kim. Now.” My teeth chattered with each word, and in spite of the warmth seeping from his body into my own, I felt like I would never get warm.

  “It’s okay. Everyone’s asleep,” he whispered into the darkness. “We aren’t doing anything wrong.”

  I could make out his face just inches from my own as my eyes adjusted to the darkness and I grappled with my thoughts, feeling confused by the battle between my common sense and my body. Then his lips found mine.

  His kisses became more persistent, and at first I enjoyed them. Still, I was confused by the feelings they seemed to be awaking in me. But those kisses soon became sloppy, and I tried to wipe away their wetness in a way he wouldn’t notice. But he was in a hurry and I soon realized he was blind to anything I said or did.

  “No, stop it.” I managed to push the words out in a whisper as I turned my head away to get his tongue out of my mouth.

  Fear filled me and I swung my legs to the floor, trying to raise my torso at the same time. He grabbed me and pushed me down and suddenly I was trapped beneath him, unable to move. He reached down and pulled up my nightgown and then, tugging at my panties, began trying to grope between my legs. I tried to press them tight together, but he used his knee to pry them apart, moving his legs between mine.

  I just lay there, not moving. Part of me knew what was happening, yet the biggest part of me didn’t want to, couldn’t possibly believe it was happening. That’s when a voice inside my head began speaking to me.

  Oh God no!

  I was forced back to reality by his movements. With one hand cupping my chin, he kissed me. At the same time I sensed he was using his other hand to do something beneath the covers.

  He’s taking off his shorts!

  “Here, give me your hand.” Now his breath was hot against my ear, and I couldn’t stand to feel it. The smell of sweat reached my nose—its dampness clung to me and suddenly I felt like I was going to vomit. But I knew, had seen, how hot-headed he could be, and at that moment I was more afraid of angering him by saying no again, so I slowly moved my hand, just a little. He guided it to the part of a man’s body I’d never seen before, let alone touched. When I felt the hard thing there, I flinched and jerked my hand away. Seconds later, it was hurting me as he tried to push it into the small space down there. All the while, he kept telling me everything would be all right.

  “I won’t hurt you, I promise. I’ll be careful, and it will feel so good, it really will. You’ll see.”

  But it does hurt.

  I stared at the ceiling, using an imaginary pencil to trace every single outline in the white tiles. Moonlight shining through the bedroom window illuminated them, and I tried not to miss one tiny squiggle.

  Up and down, over and around, through a loop and crossed in the center. Up and down, over and around, through a loop and crossed in the center.

  I imagined I was floating up near the ceiling and traced the tiles at least a hundred times, paying no attention to whatever was happening with the strangers on the bed below.

  But the pain became too real, ripping my mind away from the tiles.

  “No, this is … this is wrong. We can’t do this. Please don’t!”

  I wasn’t sure if I spoke the words out loud, or said them inside my head.

  “Did I hurt you? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  It was over in what seemed like mere seconds. Still sore from what had just occurred, I didn’t, couldn’t move. My eyes wildly searched the tiles again.

  Up and down, over and around, through a loop and crossed in the center. Up and down, over and around, through a loop and crossed in the center.

  Then I felt a dead, suffocating weight on top on me.

  I can’t breathe. Help me. Please. I’m going to die.

  “Eddie? Eddie!” My whisper was urgent. I couldn’t stand to feel him there. I had to get away, before I died!

  “What…what is it?” he mumbled. Then, as if he was waking up from a deep sleep, his eyes opened and he kissed me again, just the faintest touch against my swollen lips. I turned my head, wanting only to be out of that room, away from him and that horrible, pungent smell and everything that had taken place.

  “I have to go! Please, let me up!” I told him. He rolled off and away from me. Then he reached down and pulled up my panties. I froze at the touch of his hands on my skin again. I wanted to run, but my limbs refused to cooperate. Instead, I slowly got out of the bed, tiptoeing to the door.

  “Thank you,” he said from where he was lying.

  Thank you? He was thanking me? For what?

  Then he anxiously added, “You won’t say anything to anyone about this, will you?”

  I shook my head, unwittingly becoming a co-conspirator in the secrecy that would shroud my life for the next several years.

  “That’s good, because we’d both be in a lot of trouble.” The sickening sound of his voice came from somewhere behind me. It seemed to reverberate from the walls, bouncing throughout my brain.

  We’d both be in a lot of trouble…we’d both be in a lot of trouble…we’d both be in . . .

  I left his bedro
om without looking back, closing the door as I did so. Going into the bathroom, I gingerly wiped myself with toilet paper, hating the feel of the wetness down there. I was horrified at the red stain on the paper, and I stared at it dumbly.

  The redness stayed there, but it made no sense.

  Instead, I saw red roses and a red house. The roses were at the bottom of four stone steps, hidden between two large Catawba trees and some shrubs at the edge of our property. I ran down the steps into the yard and lingered to touch the scarlet roses, the delicious fragrance wafting up into my nose and clinging there. I broke off some of the silky buds, bent to keep the low-hanging branches from smacking me across the face and emerged into the clearing of our yard with a small handful. I looked up to see our beautiful red brick house, bordered by my mother’s beloved lavender lilac bushes on one side, dark green rhododendrons on the other, and the row of wispy ferns that grew from a thick blanket of moss that bordered the creek far below.

  I looked down at the roses in my hand, thinking I would carry them inside for my mother, who would smile and place them in a Mason jar, when I realized they were bleeding. I looked at the roses again and saw bloody paper instead, and I closed my eyes tightly to keep from seeing it. Some part of me felt swollen and sore, but I couldn’t figure out where it was.

  Then I remembered. And realized how bad I was, to let it happen.

  What have I done?

  Tiptoeing up the stairs, I moved slowly so it wouldn’t hurt so much. Easing myself into the twin bed beside Kim’s, I turned toward the wall, curled up in a ball and wrapped my arms around myself.

  I’m not a virgin anymore.

  I saw myself on stage at the spelling bee, where I’d been standing a few weeks ago. I stepped up to the microphone.

  “Virgin. Your word is ‘virgin,’ not that you would know it,” a voice said.

  I hesitated, wrapping a strand of hair around my finger. “V-i-r-g-i-n. Virgin,” I said solemnly, staring at the judges before me.

  “Intercourse. Your word is ‘intercourse,’” the same voice said.

  “Could I please have the definition?” I whispered.

  The voice was sharp. “You have had sexual ‘intercourse.’ Now no one will ever want you.”

  I felt tears welling up behind my eyes and angrily wiped them away. “Intercourse. I-n-t-e-r-c-o-u-r-s-e,” I choked out.

  In reality, I’d taken first prize that night, but now the words tormented me, the imaginary judges passing judgment on me in a bizarre contest I couldn’t win no matter what I did.

  Hours later, after staring at the darkness, willing myself to block out the images floating around in my mind, of bodies and letters and stern, unsmiling faces, I finally fell asleep.

  The next morning I woke up and looked around the room, feeling like I was going to be smothered by the big purple flowers on the walls. Memories from the previous night came flooding back, sweeping over me in one great, endless wave. I buried my face in my pillow, willing myself to smell nothing but the clean laundry scent of it.

  Then the recollection was gone, and instead I was tracing the ceiling tile. But the memories became twisted and merged with my counting repetitions, and it happened again and again. Over and over. I tore myself away from the thoughts and closed my eyes in anguish.

  I had given myself to a man whom I loved, but it had been wrong, because we weren’t married. I felt soiled, dirty and disgusting.

  I wanted to take a hot shower to wash his touch away, to rid myself of his scent that still clung to me like a spider clings tenaciously to its web.

  After breakfast, I went to the bathroom and stood staring at my reflection. The girl that peered back at me was no longer the same person. I began to tremble as I stood there, and I heard his voice as he placed my hand against his hard skin, remembering.

  “You’re so pretty. If only you weren’t so pretty, you wouldn’t do this to me…Look, you did this to me.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block out the memory, wondering how I could have thought I loved him. Oh why, why did it have to happen? Now I’ll never be clean for another man, for the man I would’ve married.

  In that second, I knew what I had to do: I had to marry him, because I was damaged and not fit to be another man’s wife. I had already been used.

  “You have had sexual ‘intercourse’. Now no one will ever want you . . .” The voice from the previous night returned to taunt me.

  The day passed slowly, but it did pass, as did each day after it. I learned to keep a smile on my face, freezing all emotions inside so no one could see them. I began living a lie, because the truth wasn’t something I could face. The truth, I somehow sensed, would destroy me.

  The first rape made the subsequent ones no easier; I began avoiding the mirror in the bathroom at home or, if I had to, I would stare at the reflection, daring that girl to tell me how bad I was. Something inside me had snapped, which I didn’t discern until years later. I began hanging out with the girls who had bad reputations, many of whom had boyfriends who were six, seven or even ten years older than they were. I also began smoking with them every morning before school, a short-lived practice that stopped after one pack of cigarettes, when I found I detested the aftertaste they left in my mouth. Other bad habits, like my self-loathing, were harder to break.

  So after the rape, almost overnight, I became something I never had been: a rebellious adolescent who provoked the adults around me. It didn’t last long, but its impact was so intense that the memories remain clearly and painfully imprinted on my mind to this day.

  My new crowd, as well as some of the “good girls” who remained loyal friends, decided we were going to break the rules by wearing shorts on the last day of school. I packed a pair in my gym bag and changed into them from jeans once I got to the girls’ restroom. I soon realized most of them had backed out, so in the end only one other girl and I took a stand against the school’s dress code.

  Attending school in a rural area where rule breaking wasn’t tolerated, and where students were expected to show more than the usual amount of respect for teachers, was never a problem for me before that day. And on top of that, my mother had been, in a way, part of the educational establishment. She wasn’t a teacher, but when money was in short supply, she’d worked part-time throughout the years as a substitute cook and janitor. Nonetheless, even her sporadic role as an employee in the school system meant more was expected from her children. Until then that’s all I’d ever given—and then some—in both my academic studies and my attitude toward my teachers and classmates.

  But not so that day. The rebel within me fought to break loose, to fight back, and to make a statement about people in positions of authority. The first teacher I passed did a double-take when he saw me, and ordered me straight to the office. Once there, the principal, Mr. Woodrow, wasted no time in ordering me to the locker room to change my clothes. He wanted to know why I would do something so unlike me, but I just glared past him out the window, refusing to speak. When I got up to leave, he tried to say something else, but I brushed right past him.

  As I left the office, Mr. Woodrow called out after me, “Do you hear me, Miss Berry?” I continued walking. I felt an arm reach out from behind and grab me, and I wheeled on him like a wild animal. Screaming. Kicking. Saying words I’d never thought, much less spoken.

  “Mr. Hess, come here!” Mr. Woodrow yelled to a nearby teacher, and they both tried to restrain me.

  “Let me go! Let me go!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. “You bastard! How dare you touch me? I hate you, you son-of-a-bitch!”

  The entire scene occurred within moments, but it felt like a lifetime, and I vaguely became aware that teachers were peering from their classrooms to see where all the commotion was coming from. Together, Mr. Woodrow and Mr. Hess finally managed to subdue me, and I found myself sitting in a chair in Mr. Woodrow’s office, four strong arms making sure I couldn’t move. They needn’t have bothered, for all the fight had gone out of m
e and I sat there, unseeing, refusing to give way to the tears behind my eyes.

  An hour later I sat in the car with my mother, and felt her disbelieving stare on me.

  “Daleen what’s wrong with you? I hope you realize how much reproach this brings on God and your family. I would never have expected something like this from you.”

  I said nothing, for there was nothing to say. Not when I didn’t even understand what had happened. Nor would I three months later when summer ended, school resumed, and the rebel within would escape once again.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I like to think I survived a nightmare that lasted thirteen years because I was surrounded by love and tenderness as a young child, sheltered by parents with reasonable expectations and moderate discipline. Their love stayed with me when I began to question the world and my own place in it, giving me a warm cocoon to curl up in. At the same time, with alcohol being such a strong force in our lives, that cocoon was bound to crack and wither away, just as the fragile remnants of a shell provide no protection once a newly hatched moth is free to roam on its own.

  I loved hearing my parents tell the story about how we came to be a family. In 1961 my college dropout father was fifteen years her senior when he met the “California girl” who would become my mother. She wasn’t tall, standing almost eye level with my father, but at fourteen, Eileen Freeman had a full figure. Her large, deep-set blue eyes matched Dad’s, and she had pulled up her thick, brown hair into a chignon, making her look about eighteen. But her most distinguishing feature was probably a dark, oblong mole. No bigger than the end of her pinky finger, it lay just below her right eye, giving her an exotic look. Dad was smitten from the moment he met her. Mom said he refused to marry her until she was “grown up,” but after he got drunk one night and said he would, she held him to his promise. That’s why, when she was sixteen, they ran away to get married in Reno, Nevada, where she wasn’t considered underage.