On a loop

For the past few days...

I am 8 years old. And a few months (those few months are important when you're 8). Mom is really sick - she has cancer. She wears wigs all the time, because she doesn't have any hair. I remember the first time she went totally bald - the chemo made most of her hair fall out anyway, so she and dad went to the bathroom, closed the door, and a few minutes later both emerged. Mom had no hair at all. So, yeah, she doesn't. The wigs make her look old. Maybe everyone over 30 looks old when you're only 8.

So I'm eight years old. And my mom is leading my dad out the front door, her tiny 5-foot frame pulling all 6'4" of him toward the front door to leave. And he is crying, and saying, "I'm sorry" over and over. I don't know what is happening but I love my dad and I'm sad and scared. I know they fight a lot. Is this about that?

Later, when he is gone and mom is home, I beg her to tell me what happened. For the longest time, she won't tell me. She doesn't want to hurt me. She doesn't want to scare me. She doesn't want to destroy her little daddy's girl. But I persist, and she relents. And all of the sudden I am terrified of my dad. I can hardly believe he did those things, but my mom loves me, and she wouldn't lie to me, and I can tell by how sad she is and everything that has happened, that she is telling the truth.

Suddenly my feelings for my dad are a tornado. I love him but I fear him. Not in the way I usually do - not in the better behave, better show respect, better be good or you'll get in big trouble kind of way. No, I'm scared of him because he hurt my sisters, my best friends.

I don't see him again before we move from our home in Virginia to my grandmother's home in Illinois. Nobody tells me this, but we are moving there so that my grandmother can take care of me when mom dies. Nobody tells me mom is really going to die. Nobody tells me if I will ever see my dad again.

We start seeing a social worker. She asks if he ever touched me. She asks all kinds of questions that I don't really want to talk about. And I hate talking to her. I hate that she thinks my dad is a monster. I hate that we can't have real milk at Grandma's house, because she is poor and we get water mixed with powdered milk. I hate that everything is different here. And I hate missing my dad.

A few weeks after she dies, my dad calls. He wants to know how I am, how mom is. Nobody told him she died. None of the adults, the ones who are supposed to love and protect and care for me, told him. I have to tell him that his wife died. I have to hear him cry.

I am 8 years old.