Ministers and Moving

As I've said before, my mom drew the weirdest of people into her life. Generally, the children of her odd friends were my playmates. There was a family building a log cabin who lived their summer in a circus tent. They were vegan and had twins; a boy and a girl.

During the summer we participated in the play "Annie" for the locals and went a few days a week for practice... nerves always got the best of me and I was sure to break out in hives that a dose of Benadryl would easily cure. I spent a lot of time with the twins that summer.

After their house was built in the fall I went to spend the night with them. We ate vegan pizza and the twin’s biological father came to see the new house. I though it was really neat how the step-father and natural father of the twins were friends. The girl twin was a hateful little princess and would get mad if I tried to sing while she was singing. Soon I found out why she was so hateful.

After going to bed that night her biological father, who was a minister, attempted to put his hands in my underpants, thinking I was asleep. I simply rolled over avoiding him until he left the room. I waited a few minutes as anger boiled inside me. I thought that because everyone in the town knew my secret, they thought I was fair game. I finally summonsed some courage and jumped out of bed and went downstairs to tell the mother. She was shocked, but got him to confess that indeed he'd tried something on me. After that the matter was simply dropped. I felt as if I wore a scarlet letter and my mistrust in the "clergy" deepened. I never saw the family again (they went to a different school and were not members of our church).

It wasn't long before my mother announced we would be moving to the town she went to school in about an hour away. Grandma would be moving to California with Papa to be near the auntie. My world was shattered. On one hand, no one would know, but to lose my grandmother again was devastating. I did look forward to more modern conveniences, but to be alone with my mother left me feeling defeated.

We moved to “government assisted housing” aka the projects and I finished out my sixth grade year in a new school. I didn’t bother to get to know my classmates and couldn’t tell you any of their names. At this point I was living one day at a time and sometimes an hour at a time. Isolation swallowed me.