When I was little I loved to look through the family photo albums. That's back when scrapbook was a noun and not a verb, and it contained actual scraps of newspaper articles. I loved to look at the photos of aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents. There were photos of my twin cousins that I loved looking at in particular.
The twins (as most twins are called I guess) were so beautiful even as little girls. I remember this one photo with a boy in it who was far too old to have been their younger brother. I asked my mother who that boy was. She told me he was their father's "other son" and he'd been "sent away". I was told not to ask anymore questions about him and that photo disappeared soon after.
I have a brother who is two years older than me. I loved my brother as much as I hated my brother. I was the typical little sister. I followed my brother everywhere he went and I wanted to do everything he did. If he went fishing, I wanted to tag along. If he played kickball in the empty lot with his friends, I was hanging out in the outfield.
My brother was the type of brother who didn't let anyone pick on me. He had lots of friends who wanted to, but he would either tell them to shut up or he would shut them up. I admired that about him.
I didn't admire; however, when he would sit on my chest and see how far he could let his loogies drop before sucking them back into his mouth. I admired him even less when he sat on my chest with his knees on either side of my head while dangling spiders over my face.
You're probably either laughing or wondering why my parents did nothing about it. My parents didn't do anything about it because I didn't tell them about most of what he did to me. It's not what you think, he didn't threaten to do something to me if I told. I didn't want him to be sent away. No matter how mean he was to me, he was my big brother. I didn't want him to disappear and then all of the photos of him and of us together to disappear.
About once a month my parents would go out with other couples. I don't know exactly what they would do, but they would dress up and we typically wouldn't see them until it was time for us (the kids only) to go to church the next morning.
It was one of those nights when my parents went out. One of my older cousins was babysitting us. What that really meant was she was either making out with her boyfriend on the sofa or out front in his car. My brother came into my room and molested me. Sure, I know the word now, but then all I knew was that he hurt me. Sure, he'd hurt me in the past by punching me, pushing me down, kicking me, but this was different. This was something I knew I had to tell my parents about.
I laid in my bed waiting for my parents to come home. I heard the third step from the bottom creak under my father's weight. He didn't turn on the light in the hallway, but I kept trying to will it to come on. I wanted to make sure it was him. "Daddy!" I cried out into to the darkness. He answered back and tears began to flow.
I don't remember all of the words. I do remember me saying, "he said we were going to boogie. I don't like to boogie!" Most of all I remember my mother saying, "If you EVER touch her again you will be gone! I will send you away so fast your head will spin!"
I never told my parents anymore about what he did to me. I didn't want him to go away. I loved him. And I hated him!
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