Melissa would always remember it and at the same time would not be sure—for several years—if it really happened, or if she was even more “cock-eyed” than her father told her she was.
It was a warm summer dusk with moving dots of light from fireflies. Her mother was in the hospital for a hysterectomy, and Melissa prepared dinner for the girls and her father. Salad, her specialty; baked potatoes with sour cream and chives; fish sticks. Simple.
Table cleared and sponge-wiped, dishes in the dishwasher, coffeepot set up for tomorrow, and homework done, Melissa prepared for bed. Melissa’s mother had never liked anything ‘feminine’. So, when Daddy had given Mom a pink, translucent, down-to-the-floor nightgown, sleeveless, with an 8-inch ruffled collar, her mother was disgusted with it and with him. Mom had given it to Melissa, who liked it. Melissa was wearing that nightgown.
Her bedroom was across the hall from her parents’. A William-Morris-wallpapered bathroom sat at the end of the hall, between the two bedrooms. She routinely slept with her bedroom door ajar a couple of inches, so the light in the hallway would spill enough light into her room to orient her if she woke up.
In the middle of the night, Melissa heard from her parents’ bedroom, a barefoot step land heavily next to her parents’ bed. Then a second. The sound had to be Daddy. Mom was gone. The footsteps went into the bathroom, slapping the tile, then the sound of pressured urination. The toilet flushed; the footsteps came out.
Melissa usually slept on her right side, facing away from her door. She liked to look out of the window at the soft glow from the Early-American-styled lamppost gilding the sycamore tree on the front lawn.
The footsteps moved towards her room. He must be disoriented. He’ll realize it. She looked at her door and saw a hand block out a chunk of the strip of light. That hand pushed her door open. I’ll just stay still.
He said nothing, got in bed behind her, spooning her back. He was naked, as he always was when he slept. Melissa thought he must be having one of those moments in which he was equating herself with Mom. People always said of Melissa, “You’re just like your Mother.” Melissa had mixed feelings about that. She wanted to be known as herself, not like someone else. She was also flattered because she knew they meant it as a compliment. He put his left, uppermost arm over her arms which she had pulled around her chest, to protect her breasts from exposure. He pressed an erection into her lower back.
She could never remember whether he pulled at her underpants, or just mentioned them. “Don’t ever let boys get in your underpants. You won’t be able to stop yourself. You don’t know what is always on their minds. I do.”
Melissa was hurt and angry. But not for the reasons you might think. She was also silent. What most bothered her was that he had no idea what was going on in her life. He had no idea of who she was. She could barely say “Hi” to a boy in the school halls, much less have one anywhere near her underpants. The other thing that bothered her was that he saw her as being unable to contain herself. That was anything but her problem. Her problem was that she was unable to express herself.
She lay there, stiff, pretending to be asleep, and after a few minutes of no response from her, he left with no further ado.
The next morning at breakfast was surreal. The girls and he were at the breakfast table. Melissa had put out several breakfast cereals, a pitcher of milk, one of orange juice. She had plugged the coffeepot in so his coffee would be ready for him. He sat directly opposite her, and matter-of-factly said, “Pass the Cheerios, please.” She picked up the box and as she handed it to him, felt fear shaking her intestines, lungs, and heart and dared to look in his eyes. She was expecting some sort of look there in his eyes, some sort of expression to show that he knew something earthshaking had happened the night before. That everything between them was different. But in his eyes, nothing. Blankness. Melissa’s head swirled. Did she make it up? Was it a dream? Was she really unbalanced, the way he thought of her?
She knew she could never tell anyone, least of all her mother. After all, her mom’s husband had, in Melissa’s mind, been unfaithful. It would hurt her mother too much to tell her. Melissa knew she should be quiet. That would be best for everyone. Feeling sad for her mother about the unsuitable husband she had, Melissa felt a desire to honor her in some way and decided to visit her in the hospital.
That night, she drove to the hospital. Her mother was in a double occupancy room and while Melissa was still in the doorway, Mom introduced her roommate, Mrs. Bailey, to Melissa. Melissa, feeling rather removed, like a glass wall surrounded her, responded wanly, “Hello, Mrs. Bailey, nice to meet you.” She took a step closer to sit on the chair next to her mother’s bed.
Her mother took one look at Melissa and began thrashing her head back and forth on the pillow, tears streaming down her cheeks. “You have a big ring of dirt on the inside of your collar. How could you embarrass me like that?” Melissa couldn’t understand how her mother could see dirt when her pageboy haircut covered her collar. Melissa fogged over at this point. Years later, she figured her mother had been on medications that had caused her to hallucinate. But at the time, her mother’s reality made Melissa doubt her own.
What she remembered next was parking the car at the base of a big electrical tower. (It was a family point of pride that her grandfather, a well-known electrical engineer, was credited with inventing those towers.) Melissa could no longer bear her pain. She took her sandals off, leaving them on the floor of the car, in front of the gas pedals. Barefoot, she felt the hard metal running perpendicular to her feet as she climbed up to the top platform.
She sat on the platform, about 25 feet high, looking over the hilly landscape for several minutes. Tiny houses with tiny lights. Electrical currents bordering the platform sang zzzt-zzzt in concert with crickets chirping. Several pigeons landed on the perimeter of the platform and unceremoniously plopped their guano. When she realized the lowliness, the ‘ignominiousness’ of poop in the midst of what she thought would be her dramatic and heroic act, Melissa started laughing at the irony. And decided to climb back down and drive home. Which she did.
She was sure nobody in the family would believe her about her father. So why expose herself to ridicule by telling anyone. Quiet was safe. At least saf-er. Quiet was what they wanted. And the main rule at home was, “As long as you live in my house, you will do as I say.” She had not conceived of the possibility of choosing her own rules at the time. Growing up sure has its advantages.