Shower Confessional

"Shades of Gray" from Michelle DuPuis

Our bathroom is 11-year-old Faith’s confessional.  The combination of warm running water, steam, and the familiar smell of Suave Strawberry shampoo mingled with Johnson’s Baby Bath unhinge my youngest daughter’s emotions.  The shower curtain, drawn between us like a confessional screen, provides just enough privacy to unlock her inhibitions.  The warmth and security of the steam blanket wrapped around her often extracts long, pent up thoughts and fears from the darker corners of her mind and shoos them out into the open where I can help her turn them over and make sense of them.

Our ritual starts with me running her bath or shower and asking her to go upstairs for her robe and pajamas.  She returns and closes the door behind her.  After she’s settled cozily beneath a blanket of bubbles in the tub or has pulled the shower curtain and warmed up, she’ll often call for me to return.  We’ve had some of our most important conversations in this sanctuary.  
On a recent Sunday night, there was another installment in our running sessions, one that I was not prepared for.

“Mom?”

“Yes Honey?”

“Can I talk to you about something?”

“Of course, Sweetie.  Always.”

“Mom, last time, in the summer, I talked to Ryan.  He’s a really good person to talk to about this stuff.  I trust him and he… he knows.”

I was caught off guard.  Not many of my daughter’s conversations begin with reference to her 29-year-old step brother, Mike’s oldest son and my former stepson.

At a loss for words, I waited, knowing that she was summoning her thoughts and feelings to the surface.

“He told me not to tell you because you’d probably call Children’s Protective Services again or something and get dad and Wanda in trouble.  He said it was okay and not a big deal and dad didn’t mean it.  He said it happened to him too when he was a little kid.”

My heart was caught in my throat.  I could barely breathe.

“Mmmmhmmm...”

I was glad for the curtain between us.  I didn’t want Faith to see the apprehension in my face.  I worried that she might not have continued if she had.

“Ryan said, when he was a kid, dad scared him too.  He used to get super mad….like, remember?  When Dad yelled ‘Shut your face, Faith! Shut your face!’ And I didn’t even know who he was?  Well, like that.”

“What happened that Ryan said you shouldn’t tell me, Faith?”

The story, like a pent up stream of water, came gushing out.

“Well, when I was getting ready for Gospel Christmas last night, and I thought I looked cute.  I had on my leggings and this cute shirt and top.  But then Wanda came in.  She didn’t even knock.  I don’t like it mom, when she barges into my room.  All she says is ‘it’s just me, don’t mind me,’ but sometimes she just says nothing.  Even when I’m in the shower.  I don’t like it, mom.  It makes me uncomfortable.”

This was another subject I’d need to get back to with Faith.  For the time being, I steered her back to the story about her outfit, and Gospel Christmas.

“What happened after you got dressed?”

“Wanda hated my outfit.  Like usual.  She said I looked ‘weird.’  She got me jeans and a tee shirt, and Mom, it was Gospel Christmas.  I wanted to dress up for once.  It’s the holidays, and at night, and downtown.  I don’t get to get dressed up that much and I liked what I picked.  It wasn’t weird.  But oh no, Wanda had to tell me it was ugly.  I’m so tired of her telling me what to wear!  Why does she always care about how I look so much?”

Faith was fuming.  She was not timid or crying.  She was definitely mad.

“Then, I slammed my drawers when she went downstairs.  Then, dad stomped up the stairs REALLY loud and fast, like when he gets super mad.  He ran into my room and I was scared mom... he was scary.  He slapped my face.  Mom, I know I probably shouldn’t have acted so mad at Wanda.  I was having a temper.  I was having a meltdown.  But dad was so mad, and he just slapped me right on my face.”

Mike had hit the children before.  About a year ago I got a call from then 16-year-old Claire, telling me through sobs that her dad had spanked her after she had an argument with Wanda.  It had resulted from another yelling match between them, this time about an upper ear piercing Claire had not gotten permission for.  I’d called both my lawyer and our family counselor immediately.  They both asked the same thing:  “Did she call the police and is there any bruising?”  No, and no.  Again, they both said if there are no bruises, and the child did not call the police, there was nothing that could be done.  I made a mental note for future reference.

I hadn’t noticed any bruises on Faith’s face, but I’d double check after the shower.

“How hard did he slap you, Faith?”

“Not hard.  It wasn’t hard mom, it was just a slap.  But Mom, isn’t that not okay?  I don’t want to be one of those kids who gets abused.  God, Mom, it sounds so weird to say now, ‘my dad hit me.’  I shouldn’t have acted so mad mom, but he didn’t just talk to me.  A parent should act like a parent, you know, like talk to their kid about it.”

The last time Faith and I had a long conversation about parenting, I tried to give her some tools to use to make sense of the different parenting styles she’s encountered.  I used my sister-in-law as an example of how a good parent, who is firm but constructive and loving, handles discipline with her young boys.  She and her husband never lose their temper and would never hit or scream at their kids, no matter how stressful the situation.  They are always in control of their actions, no matter how carried away the boys might get.  When my kids have felt bad before, and come clean to me about things said in the heat of frustration and anger at their dad’s house, I’ve asked them - “Do you think Katie or Brian would ever scream at Evan to ‘shut your face’?  The last time Emma just laughed in understanding of the absurdity that such good parents would do such a thing.

Last December their stepmother’s mother, Grandma Crater, had dropped the kids off to Noah at the mall by the airport.  Noah had noticed that she was driving her daughter’s car, and asked me later, “Doesn’t she have a breathalyzer in her car?  I don’t think she can drive another car.”  We had driven to the beach that weekend with the kids and they openly dished on the matter, which appropriately ended up with an open Child Protective Services case and interviews with the kids.  Their dad and Wanda had accused the kids of lying about feeling afraid and disallowed them (attempted to, anyways) from talking to me at all about Wanda’s family.  I had taken the opportunity to use my sister-in-law and her husband again as parenting examples in discussions with my kids about this matter.

“Can you imagine Katie and Brian saying that their kids were lying about seeing liquor bottles in the front seat?  Or that the breathalyzer was just for asthma?”  They just laughed.  It was nice to realize that my kids were now old enough to see through most of the BS without any help.  I knew it stung Mike and Wanda because they rarely missed an opportunity to accuse me of fabricating stories, and their radio silence on this matter with me was surely due to the file sitting somewhere in a CPS office with their names on it.

“Faith, I’m so sorry, Honey.  But you’re right -- it’s not okay for him to slap you, even if it isn’t hard.”

In the past, Mike had made a big show of telling Ryan, and then later our son Jackson, that it’s never alright to hit a girl.  (I’d taken it farther and told all my kids - “Don’t ever hit anyone”).  Yet here he was, a 50-plus years old, 6’3, 230 lbs., breaking his only cardinal rule again.  He slapped our 11-year-old daughter right before taking the family to “Gospel Christmas.”  It seemed like an episode of a really bad Afternoon Special about child abuse.

“Ryan said, it happened to him too.  He said, when he was little, Dad poked him in the chest, like this” —she poked her head outside the shower curtain and pantomimed an angry, tightlipped face, bugged out eyes, and motioned a stiff, repetitive jab to the chest and throat.

“He said dad poked him so hard, he at first felt like he couldn’t breathe.  Then, dad saw he might have hurt him, and he felt bad.  He said he told him he was sorry, and hugged him and asked if he was okay.”

I was temporarily at a loss for words.

“But mom, Dad didn’t say anything like that to me.  I was so mad.  I was crying.  I was crying and crying like crazy.  But dad didn’t act like anything happened after that!  He just acted normal.  Not mad, not sad... like nothing even happened.  He ALWAYS does that!  I don’t get it!”

Her anger had bubbled over and Faith was now crying.  Tears were flowing as she stood in the shower, warm water pummeling her from above.  I knew what she was talking about.  I’d written down all my dreams, in a journal, when I was married to her dad.  They reflected what happened in my life with him.  Mike, in my experience, lacked the ability to know or acknowledge when he’d done something wrong.  To this day, I always wondered how he could do what he’d done to our family and marriage back then, and just seem to forget.  Or worse yet, he’d ended up blaming me for how I’d reacted to what he’d done.  When I made him move out, he’d been angry with me too.  He’d told me how selfish I was.  He was two people, A Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde character -- a jovial, loving father one minute -- a swearing, angry, monster who could barely restrain himself the next.

I used to think (hope?) that it was just me.  Either I overreacted to his temper, or I’d done something that deserved that level of anger.  I hoped that he had since matured, and having gotten away from me as his wife, he wouldn’t lose his temper anymore.  Apparently, I was wrong, and my kids are stuck dealing with it.

I remembered something else Faith had said.

“Faith, what happened in the summer that you told Ryan about and he told you not to tell me?”

“Well, I was so scared of dad back then too.  I took a nap one day, you know, during softball, when I was on that team at State.  I woke up too late, and I was really tired, and dad was mad.  He was so mad.  He told me to hurry up, I was late for softball practice, and he pushed my face.”

She’d turned off the shower, wrapped up in a towel and showed me her open hand, fingers splayed straight and her arm locked, exaggeratedly stiff.  Again, her face was imitating a mask of seething anger.  I’d seen that face a long time ago myself, on my ex husband when he was frustrated with me.  Faith was sobbing now.

“Mom, I don’t know what to do.  Dad acts like it’s nothing.  Ryan told me not to tell you.  Most of the time, dad is nice.  Before he’s been nice, anyway.  But mom, he’s not my dad anymore.  I just don’t even want him to be my dad anymore.”

We sat together on the edge of the tub.  I held her shoulders as they shook.  I worried about what to do next.  The last time I took Claire to the counselor and called my lawyer, it didn’t sound like there was any way I could stop what I knew was going on at the other house.  If I said anything, I might be accused by my ex and the kids step mom that I was, to use a few of their favorite phrases -- “stirring things up,” “just trying to make us look bad,” and “trying to make yourself look good.”  If I confronted Mike, I was afraid that it would make things actually worse for the kids based on past experience.  A few years ago I’d urged Faith and Jackson to speak to their grade school counselor.  They were upset with some things going on at their other house and they kept saying that they want to live with Noah and me.  I’d told them to talk to her about the issues at their other house because she would listen and document the problems.  Instead, the counselor called their dad, without them knowing, and asked him to come to the school that day.  The kids walked into her office and saw him sitting there.  She proceeded to tell him what the kids had told her about Wanda, and how their step mom treated them and talked to them.  Mike told the counselor he didn’t know it was that bad, that he’d talk to Wanda and things would change.  Jackson and Faith told me when they got home that day, the first thing Mike did was tell Wanda that the kids had been talking about her to the school counselor.  She was furious.  They held a family meeting later that night, and their dad cried and told them he didn’t want them to someday move out, like Ryan had when he’d gone to live with his Grandma as a teen.  My kids didn’t want to hurt their dad.  They didn’t want to anger Wanda.  Wanda and their dad told them that if they moved in to live with their mom, they would leave their school, and neighborhood, sports teams and friends.  They were told not to go the counselor again.

“Faith, you have to help me so I can help our family.”

She nodded weakly.  I could tell she was exhausted.  Spent.

“Faith, I know you don’t want to get your dad in trouble.  I know you are not that comfortable talking to a counselor, but honey, it’s to help your dad too.  You have to think of how telling the truth can fix things.  It’s not being mean to your dad.  It’s not ‘telling on him.’  He shouldn’t hit.  You know that.  He’s the one who says that even.  Dads shouldn’t hit girls; not anyone.  YOU shouldn’t have to worry he’s going to hit at all when he’s mad.  It’s not okay.  I need you to talk to our counselor with me.  He knows your dad.  He will want to help him.  He remembers what we talked about with Claire last year when she moved out.  You can’t be afraid right now about hurting your dad’s feelings, or getting in trouble with Wanda.  Let’s at least meet him and he can give us some advice.  Maybe he’ll know what to do.”

I was also exhausted.  My kids were not in immediate physical danger that I knew of, but how close was the breaking point?  Things were not getting better.  The fact was, Mike was having a hard time staying appropriate and in control of himself.  His “Jekyll” character was still simmering just beneath the surface, and I’d be a bad parent if I waited for a bruising or a call to the police by one of the kids.  I would need to take another look at what it would take to get temporary custody.

Faith was limp.  She leaned against me.

“Mom?  I just want him to be away somewhere.  Put away.  Where he can’t touch me or see me or talk to me.  I want to tell him how I feel.  I want to just tell him how mad I am but not be afraid.”

My 11 year old daughter was saying what I’d thought but never been able to say, almost exactly

10 years ago, when our family first fell apart because of Mike’s lack of restraint and control.  Would my 13 year old son follow in his father’s footsteps?  With all the empty sermons his dad had spewed about not hitting girls, my tender, smart, loving son had told me recently that when his step mom had grabbed his arm, and he’d knocked her hand off of him, he’d told her, “Don’t touch me.”  He said she was furious.  “Then I’ll just have your dad touch you,” she said to him.  After telling me this story, he added:   “If Wanda ever does try to hit me, I’m going to punch her in the face.”   And with venom I’d never seen in Jackson’s calm blue eyes, little he belted a tight fisted punch into the air in our kitchen.

“No.  Jackson, I don’t care WHAT the circumstances, or HOW mad you are.   You don’t ever hit anyone.”

“I don’t care.  I’m going to hit her if she hits me.”

“Jackson, if you hit Wanda, YOU will be the one in trouble.  You are bigger now.  You are a teenager.  If you hurt or hit someone, it is called ‘assault,’ and you could go to Juvenile jail or have a record.  Or, worse yet, really hurt Wanda.  You cannot EVER hit. Violence is not the answer.”

“Mom.  I don‘t care.  She makes me so mad.  It’d be worth it.”

I called the counselor to set an appointment the following day.  As much as I worry about putting at risk the trust my kids put in me when they confide in me, I cannot stand by and not do take action to protect them, and maybe even Wanda and Mike, in the long run.

The Sun and The Wind (and the space in between)

Faith snuggled against me as I lay down next to her after tucking her in.  Since her infancy, I have put my youngest to sleep with bedtime stories and mommy/daughter talks about life, our day together, feelings, ideas, and most recently, stories about fairy tales, myths, parables, fables, and legends.

One benefit of being a non custodial parent is that you realize some of the most important moments with your child are not necessarily in the day-to-day things.  Although I miss that part of parenting, the hours spent sitting on the sidelines of their sports events or hustling them out of bed and to school aren’t always the most formative experiences for them.  Although those duties and tasks are undoubtedly a building block in the relationship bond with our children, it's the space in between those moments that is often most precious.  Like a spring garden, when we stop manicuring and pruning so intensely and slow down to give life a chance to breathe is when our blooms often appear. 

Tonight, Faith wanted me to tell her a fable.  We've begun telling stories to each other, then taking turns guessing what the moral of it is. 

“What’s a ‘moral,’ mommy?”

"You know, a lesson about what was learned and how you should live your life."

Faith patiently waits until I get to the end, knowing that I’ll be quizzing her on what the moral is.  I recently shared this fable with her...

The Sun and The Wind

"Once upon a time, the Wind challenged the Sun to a contest in order to find out who was stronger.  The Wind insisted that it was all powerful and wanted to prove it.

"Tell you what... " boasted the Wind, "whichever one of us can get the coat and hat off that man walking below will win."  He snickered to himself, certain that his brute strength and gusts of cold air would force the man’s clothing right off his body.  The Sun sat back calmly to watch the Winds' effort.

The powerful wind blew and blew.  Gusts of swirling cold wind scattered leaves and tossed papers about, and made the branches of the trees bend and groan from its pressure.  The man pulled his coat tighter around himself and gripped the brim of his hat, fighting off the chill and making sure he would not lose his possessions. 

Soon it was obvious that for all the Wind’s boasting and angry gusts, the man's coat and hat would not budge.  The more the wind blew and tried to force them off, the tighter the man clutched them to himself.

"Harrumph," said the Wind.  "If I cannot make the man's coat come off, then neither can you."

The Sun smiled and didn't say a thing.  Rays of light radiated downward, washing the man in heat.  The man raised his face toward the Sun, and feeling the temperature rise, he took off his coat happily and removed the hat from his head, welcoming the warmth.

Faith sleepily smiled and yawned, then, as our custom, ended my story with her version of the moral:

"The wind thought it could force someone to do something, but the sun helped the man and made him feel good, so he did it on his own."

I am not with my children every day or close to as much as I’d like, and that is something I've had to live with.  But what helps and seems to make it a little easier is knowing that I still have them during these times that are "the space in between."  And it's those times I cherish and try to make the most of.

Hopefully when they are grown up, my warmth and love will outshine the coolness towards me that they are exposed to at their other household, and no matter where they are, we will always be connected in our hearts and minds.  And their blooms will be radiant. 

Writing a Wrong

Photo of the book Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

I sat in the passenger seat of our car with my notebook spread open in front of me, gleaming and white, ready to absorb whatever ideas, thoughts, and stories I might bleed onto it.  My counselor, Gloria, had recently read to me a poem I’d written in a previous session with her, and when she saw the look of shock on my face at the raw power of the words contained in it, she pointedly said -- “Sophia, start writing again.”

Writing was the only safe way I knew how to exorcise the corrosive memories smoldering inside of me.  Six years had passed since the day my old life had abruptly ended, but my blood pressure, which had never been extraordinarily high, was beginning to escalate as the past began creeping into the present.  I couldn’t account for the midnight panic attacks and racing heartbeat that would rev inside my chest, like an out-of-gear engine when you step on the gas.

So there I was, sitting in the car, trying to obey Gloria’s advice.  I stared at the notebook and pen that I’d bought for the sole purpose of dumping the trapped memories that were suddenly roaring to life in the form of physical ailments, trying to come to terms with the fact that the words apparently weren’t going to write themselves.  Outside, the rain turned to hail.  I heard it on the rooftop of the car, smattering and pinging, as I watched my husband Noah and his soccer team chasing the ball, completely unfazed by the spring storm.  I finally put the tip of the pen on the paper.  Once I started writing, there was no holding back.  Years of turmoil, frustration, and black humor poured forth from my heart and head, through my hand, onto the paper, pure and unfiltered.  I couldn’t get it out fast enough.  Later, I would describe my experience writing the “Big Bang” chapter of Illumination as an almost uncontrollable bodily function.  I felt as though my body was expelling the story, vomiting uncontrollably, allowing toxic waste to exit in giant heaves.

I was writing again.  I’d written since I first learned how to.  Journals, short stories, poems, even timid beginnings of novels eventually discarded.  Writing was my original and most precious form of self-expression.  Even my ex-husband, who was devoid of the ability to compliment me, used to say I could write.  Writing about one’s own experiences (“ME-moir”) can seem gratuitous.  It is certainly one way to expel the demons.  But it’s also a way to call them back to you – to bring them to life so you can look at them when they are standing still in the full clear light and possibly make sense of them.  My demons were more manageable once I could see them laid out on paper in the form of black and white words.

In all of my writings online, I’ve been surprised not to have elicited more negative comments and harsh words or judgments about my life decisions.  But the other day, I found one that took a direct shot at me.  A woman wrote in response to a piece I'd written for the Post Divorce Chronicles:

“I’ve read your articles for many weeks here and I have also read a ton of your blog and I keep telling myself to keep a open mind to you and the ways of your family,...and I’ve decided I just don't like it I don’t like the way you have chosen to live and to blog and to put your self out there for the world to see, I think the likely hood of your children resenting you is very high.”

The French have a word for whatever thing frightens us most, a “Bete Noire,” or “black beast.”   I know why I made the choices I did for my family years ago and, truthfully, I’m not always at peace with those choices.  I will be haunted by the guilt that comes from them.  It is nearly impossible to know if I did everything right.  And beyond just defending my choices to myself, I do wonder if it’s okay for me to write about them.  The commenter claims my children will one day resent me for doing this.  Is she right?  I don’t think so but I can’t say for sure.

One thing, however, she might not have known is that, to shield and protect my children, myself, even my ex, I have changed all of our names.  But even though I use a pen name, I do not want to hide my story any more.  I do not want to carry it around silently.  It was eating at me from the inside out.

When I began writing and regurgitating my past, my story, it was impossible to stop.  It feels like the reason I’ve gone through all that I have.  And the pen really is mightier than the sword.  When I am angry or frustrated or scared, my thoughts and words congeal in my head and stick in my throat, like a giant hairball of emotion.  When confronted by a hostile or aggressive person, I freeze.  Like an animal that poses as a statue, I hope the attacker will miraculously forget that I am standing there, or be deceived by my lack of motion, and leave me in peace.  In person, I am inept at fighting back.  But I can write.  Buffy used a wooden stake to vanquish her demons.  I use a pen.

Most of the response to my writing has been positive.  I’ve seen enough responses to my book and my blog entries to know that my stories give a voice to other women who thought, as I did, that they were alone in being a non custodial mother.

“I shouldn’t read your blog at work… Here I sit. At my desk, tears rolling down my face, because this the closest I have ever come to having someone who has been there, and lived it tell me, it's going to be okay. And It means the world to me. Thank you.”  This, from “Anonymous,” is just one of many examples.

Grace Paley once stated -- “We write what we don’t know we know.”  Sharing our stories is a way of processing our thoughts and experiences so we can make sense of our lives and give meaning to them.  We should be brave enough to write nakedly from our own point of view.  Only then will our stories be free and, if we choose to share them, free to affect the minds and hearts of others.

Four years ago, almost to the day, along the banks of the mighty Columbia River, the heavens opened above me and poured down as I hunkered in my car and quietly began writing.  By the time I finally looked up, Noah was headed back, looking both refreshed and exhausted from his game.  Without ever stepping out of the car, I realized I too was out of breath and exhausted.  My fingers ached and my heart was slowing down again after pounding away in my chest.  I had been running for years from my Bete Noire, but now, I was staring at it in front of me, captured on paper, and finally in my control.

Tomorrow's entry - Slaying a Demon.