LEFT

The wind is starting to kick up outside, it is a cold November night. Unusually cold for the late fall. The leaves have all fallen off the trees, the snow hasn't melted off the ground from the storm that came in three days ago. The temperature hasn't gotten above 17 degrees fahrenheit since Thanksgiving. I desperately need sleep but something is troubling my mind. I look over at the clock on the nightstand and try to read the time but my eyes can't seem to focus. I am cold and I need to go to the bathroom but I know I probably won't get back to sleep if I get up now. It seems like I have been laying in bed for hours trying to talk my mind into sleep by my body isn't cooperating.

The alarm goes off and I can't believe it is already six a.m. I think about sleeping in today, it is Sunday but I have a handful of children who will wonder why I am not in church. I don't want to make an excuse so I drag myself out of bed and go to the bathroom. After I shower and put on my robe I go to the kitchen and make a pot of coffee. My body is sore and I am moving very slowly. A thought flashes through my mind, where did that come from? Did I have a nightmare last night? I don't remember falling asleep at all. I feel sick to my stomach and I don't want to think about these bad thoughts. I sit down with my first cup of coffee and pray. A tear drops from my eye and slowly trickles down my face. I ask God why, why me, why any child?

The wind has stopped, there are no birds outside this late in the fall, I am in total silence but I feel my heart beating, my chest heaves and I begin to cry out to God. I feel separated from the rest of the world, not in a physical sense but in a spiritual sense. I feel like a traitor or a liar as I hide behind a facade of the thirtysomething woman who has never married because she just hasn't found the right one yet. I know there is talk about my "preference" but no one ever asks me directly about it. Very few in the church even acknowledge my presence. The childrens' parents ask how I am and we have small talk about what we did in Sunday school class but other than that, well let's just say the flock doesn't flock to me.

My mind can't seem to get out of the past this morning. I am remembering the first time I awoke with my older brother lying on top of me. I felt sick and it hurt, I knew he shouldn't be there but I didn't know what to do. I was three or four and wasn't strong enough to push him off me. I was also frightened, I had seen my brother do this to my sister and my sister was taken away from the family. When Sissy left I remember my mom crying and later that night she came to my room and told me that I shouldn't talk to anyone about things that happen at home. I nodded my head to acknowledge that I understood. Even at that young age I knew that what happened to my sister was a bad thing. I thought she was taken away because she was bad - I didn't see her for more than thirty years after that.

My sister is coming to my house for Sunday dinner today. She is bringing her new husband with her. I haven't met him yet but we have spoken on the phone and he seems genuine enough. I am nervous about meeting him, wondering if he will know that I am a lesbian. I haven't told my sister and she hasn't asked. Sissy, I still call her that, was raised in a very sheltered home and is naive to the ways of the world. She is on her fourth marriage now and each one has ended because her husband left her for another woman.

My cup of coffee is cold, I have only taken a couple of sips but I don't want anymore. I contemplate telling my sister but I am afraid that she will leave me for good. She is the only family member that I have left. Everyone else has cut their ties with me because of my lifestyle. I smile at this. I have two brothers in prison, another brother is dead and the youngest brother, one of the two that molested me, is a lawyer, just like me. I am ashamed to be in the same field but fortunately I live in an entire different state so I don't have to associate with him - ever. My oldest sister is married to a very wealthy, lying, cheating jerk! She acts as if she has the perfect life and disowned the whole family as soon as she left home. I was six at the time and the only girl left with four brothers to do whatever they wanted to me. Fortunately it was only the two younger ones who decided that I was created just so they could experiment on me.

I look at the clock and it isn't even seven yet! I have made all the preparations that I can for dinner, I cleaned the house thoroughly all day yesterday and the paper hasn't been delivered yet so I decide to get on the internet for my morning news fix. The news has become like a soap opera for me. I watch it, read it, listen to it every day but if I missed it for an entire month I would still know what is going on.

The headline jumps out at me as if it is actually screaming my name. Now I know where my feeling of dread and sleepless night has come from, "Mark Green, Released from Prison". Mark is six years older than I am. He was doing time because of me according to my family. When I was 13 I got pregnant and in my fifth month the school nurse called me into the office under the disguise of routine health checkup. By this time I couldn't hide the fact I was pregnant and I didn't want anyone to know my dirty little secret so I lied and said I had been raped by a stranger. Needless to say she didn't buy it and they had social services come by the house on a surprise visit. Did they get a surprise! My mother had my brothers tie me to the bed and put a gag in my mouth. She got a wire hanger from my closet and as the social service worker walked into the room - totally unnoticed by all - my oldest brother was thrusting the hanger deep inside my cunt.

My mother served two years for child neglect and child endangerment. My brother Dan was put in a juvenile facility until he was 18 and then was released and his record expunged. My brother Mark had to do five years and then he was released as well. My family blames me because they say his incarceration ruined any future he might have had and now the only way he can survive is by turning to crime. Of course Dan is always defending Mark because he doesn't have a choice if he doesn't want to be exposed for the rapist he really is - so that is why I have moved far away. I guess this feeling of isolation goes back to my childhood. It began as an emotional and physical isolation and now I feel a spiritual isolation from the church - the one place that I should be feeling acceptance, love, understanding and hope.

I look at the clock and another hour has flown by. I get up from the computer and head to the bathroom to wash my face. My eyes are red and blurry - quite obvious that I have been crying. Sunday school starts in less than an hour and I still have to do my hair and make-up and of course put on my Sunday dress. The only reason I even own dresses is to go to church in. After the abortion I was put in a foster home and that is how I came to be a Christian. God does work in mysterious ways.