Despite the fact that I had severed ties with my family, or that I hadn't confided in them for years, I still craved their love, attention and protection. So while I tried my best not to let them know that I still loved them, I always tried my best to protect them. Perhaps this is why it was such a blow the first few times that Ophelia tried to kill herself. How could she leave us all behind like that? How could she just toss us aside like refuse? In my mind nothing much had happened in her life to make her truly resent the land of the living. However, that was swiftly about to change.
At the ripe age of 13, I took to singing outside our apartment until it got dark outside. I didn't want to be around anyone, but didn't have anywhere else to be. Maybe it was that I couldn’t stand the sound of the television. Or my dad arguing with Insider, Entertainment Tonight, Channel 3 News, or the political pundits, but I had to get out of that apartment. I just couldn't take it anymore.
Ophelia and Rowen had recently come back from Washington State where they'd been renovating the house our parents owned up there. It always felt so strange that we lived an apartment our entire lives, while some other family or slough of families lived in what should've been our home. Rowen and Genevieve said this trip was a way to get Ophelia away from her poor excuse for friends that were quote, “nothing but bad influences”. But I knew the truth; it was just another excuse for Rowen to get closer to Ophelia while I remained unloved and unwanted. No one was interested in spending any quality time with me. I felt like a weed in a garden, unsightly; that is until I could sprout enough seeds to blow on the wind. Until someone could make a wish on me. Until someone could hold their hopes, dreams and deepest secrets in me; like their own personal journal.
Ophelia had decided that she obviously couldn't bear to listen Rowen either, so she sat at the top of the stairs reading a book or writing in her journal. Or perhaps she'd stopped writing in her journals at this point because our parents were hell bent on reading every grimy detail of her life. An unacceptable breach of trust that caused me to stop writing anything down myself, for fear our parents might find out my hidden thoughts, desires and experiences. Not that there seemed to be many seeing as how Sebastian no longer needed me. Let's face it, I served no purpose for him anymore. All I truly wanted was to be loved by anyone, but I was busy mastering the art of pushing people away. Either way I was pacing around the small patch of grass outside the apartment signing along to whatever CD from whatever band I was listening to at the moment; drowning out the noise of the world, and the noise of my mind.
I turned around mid-pace and mid-song to see a young man leaning on the mooring at the bottom of our steps. He was casually talking to Ophelia about me of all people. I took my headphones off and barged in on their conversation because something about this person was too charming. He was overconfident and smoothly slithered his way into Ophelias’ sights. He introduced himself as Vladimir; however, our family calls him "He who shall not be named” in homage to J.K. Rowling. Vladimir wormed his way into Ophelias’ heart by striking up a conversation about her younger sister and how he "admires that I know all the lyrics to so many songs". He spoke to her about his little brother and they bonded over this and their equal hatred and disdain for their parents. I could see it Ophelias' eyes, their love story would begin in a true Romeo and Juliette fashion.
However, nothing good would ever come of Vladimir’s presence in Ophelias’ life. She fell in love with him and he quickly became her new pet project. Vladimir was only 16 but he didn’t go to school because his mother was an escort and she needed him to drive her around to meet her clients. Vladimir smoked a lot of weed and had no intentions of ever working a day in his life. Vladimir had a violent younger brother who got them evicted from the apartment complex we all lived in because he threatened another child by pointing a toy gun at said child in the community playground. Needless to say, Vladimir and his family were all the same kind of desperately angry, and willing to do anything to escape it.
Rowen had unfortunately gone to Montana right after Ophelia and Vladimir started dating, which left plenty of time and space for them to carry on their tacit love affair. When Vladimir’s family was evicted from the apartment complex, Ophelia made a makeshift bed for him in the storage closet of the empty aparment downstairs. Ophelia brought him a blanket, food and of course he never went anywhere without multiple copies of Hustler. I guess masturbating is really one of the finer things in life when you’re living in a downstairs storage closet, which is funny considering Ophelia and Vladimir had sex constantly.
Ophelia and Vladimir carried on like this, relentlessly and without shame. I'd come home and they’d be naked on the couch underneath our grandmothers’ afghan. Having sex on the bottom bunk of our shared bunk bed or taking a bath together. As an obviosuly non-sexually active teen troll, I was infuriated and mostly disgusted with my 16-year-old sister. How could she be so casual and nonchalant about having sex in our parents’ house? Or having sex at all for that matter? Especially with this guy who clearly wasn't good for her. The concept seemed utterly disrescpectful to her and our family at the time. Little did I know that when I turned16 it would seem like everyone else was having sex but me, so to be fair I can forgive her for the indiscretions of young love. We've all made my share of bad choices, so who can blame her?
The sneaking around and lying just seemed to be something that Vladimir was accustomed to and he'd drug Ophelia and her name through the mud with him. This was something that he'd continue to do for over 11 years of her life. Needless to say while I respected that Ophelia and Vladimir truly may have loved each other at some point, he was a bad egg and neither were a good fit together. They were like two puzzle pieces that accidentally got smashed together because they looked like they should fit together, but were off by just a few millimeters. I always saw Ophelia as classy, witty and smart, and this conniving low-life was not her caliber of person. This young man was headed nowhere at a breakneak pace.
With Rowen absent and Genevieve constantly working to pay the bills, our mother, remained oblivious to any of this. She most certainly wasn't aware of these behaviors or that Vladimir was living in the storage unit underneath our apartment. That is until one day she forgot something at the house and turned around to come get it. Out of the corner of her eye she saw someone scuttling through the bushes just off of our bedroom balcony. She slowly ascended the first set of stone stair steps to the door, inserted her house key into the lock, opened the door and found the lights were on despite having left the house and turning them off not minutes earlier. The smell of something having recently been cooked was in the air. Upon further inspection, the door to our balcony door was ajar, as if someone had hopped off of our balcony and to the graveled ground two stories below.
When Genevieve confronted Ophelia about it, at first she tried to pretend that this couldn't be true. Our mother simply must have forgotten to turn off the lights. But after intense questioning, Ophelia caved and regaled our mother with Vladimir’s sad tale of woe. Our mother was unconvinced of his plight and beckoned our father to return at once and resolve the situation at hand. Yes, Rowen stormed in as if to save the day because Genevieve was, “clearly in denial” about Ophelias’ behaviors. When in all actuality our mother was just stuck trying to work full-time and raise two teenage girls on her own, which is truly a two if not three parent job. Hell, it should be a community effort for girls like Ophelia! I’m pretty sure this is where the saying “It takes a village” actually originated. And just like that, within days of being back, our father somehow arranged for Vladimir to become a ward of the state and he was sent to a boys’ home in Prescott, Arizona.
Rowen, having ruined Ophelia’s life by taking away her one true love, flew back to Montana not weeks later as our grandmother was now ill and unable to take care of herself. He was clearly under the assumption that the problem had been addressed. Our father, imagining that we lived in the world he grew up in, forbade Ophelia from contacting Vladimir or Vladimir from contacting her, or so he thought. However, our parents need to rip these two star-crossed lovers apart only drew them closer together. This jus made their desire to be together all the more unbearable and intense.
At the time, even though I didn't show my family that I loved them, I wouldn't have deliberately disobeyed them in quite the manner Ophelia had. Our parents held the strict belief that girls that slept with men outside of wedlock were filthy and whorish. A product, no doubt, of Genevieve’s Catholic upbringing. Yet considering Rowen slept with many women before our mother, it shocks me that he held the same beliefs. He even used to say gruesome things like, “If I gave a girl a ride home from school she knew the deal. I didn’t ask for money but she knew what she was in for.” Ick! Not cool Dad! Not cool! Extra rapey sounding, and disspaointing. How could these people have ever been my role models? They were only ever human.
It started with Ophelia trying to contact Vladimir by phone, and then she started stealing our mother’s car in the middle of the night and driving it to Prescott. This was not a small drive; it was around 230 miles round trip and she would make it once a week in the dead of night while our mother slept. Unfortunately we shared a room so I became an accomplice to the whole charade by chance. Sadly for Ophelia, I'm a light sleeper and she couldn’t put anything past me. So the first time that she started to get dressed in the middle of the night I awoke with a shock,
“Where do you think you are going?!” I chided her.
She hushed me, “I’m just going for a drive is all. Stop talking so loudly.”
“You can’t drive by yourself! You don’t have your license! You only have your learners permit, so that’s ILLEGAL!"
Ever the good girl, I couldn't imagine Ophelia breaking the law intentionally.
“God! Do you always do what everyone tells you?” she scorned me in hushed tones.
No, I thought. Maybe I like to do what I'm told sometimes, whatever, pshh!
“It’s illegal! There are laws for a reason! Where are you going anyways?” , I questioned.
“Nowhere.” she said.
Oh really? Nowhere, hmmm... isn't the definition of going for a drive to go to another destination?
“Well clearly you're going somewhere or else it wouldn’t be some big secret!” I raised my voice in suspicion, just loud enough to let her know I could wake up Genevieve if I wanted to.
“Shut the fuck up! You’re going to wake up mom!” she hissed.
“Oh! You’re going to see Vladimir, aren’t you?” I accused, my voice dripping with disdain.
I was starting to get irate now. How could she be so defiant?! What had our parents ever done for her other than try to protect her from scum like Vladimir? All they ever did was cater to her, ugh! What a selfish little bitch.
“Look, it’s only for tonight." she said lying through her teeth. "If she wakes up I need you to cover for me, okay?”, she pleaded.
Silence passes between us for a minute as I let my disappointment and general displeasure for the situation sink in.
“Look, I’ll teach you how to drive one night if you just don’t say anything to mom about it.” she bargained, knowing all to well that if there wasn’t anything in it for me I would rat her out in an instant.
“Fine. But what do I say if you get caught?” I asked.
“I won’t get caught.” she stated, grabbing her purse and carefully slipping out the crack in our bedroom door.
“Be safe!” I half whisper-yelled.
But I knew that it was too late to stop her. Ophelia knew as well as I did that our mom had been asleep for hours and her snoring was only growing louder. I stayed awake hoping that she’d come back in one piece. I thought for certain that she;d be dead by morning, having crashed my mother’s car or worse yet, been caught in the act of stealing from our mother!
Eventually I must've fretted myself to asleep but when I awoke Ophelia was safe in her bed and our mother had already left for work. I plopped down off the top bunk and shook Ophelia awake, which she was more than irritated by.
“How do you plan on getting away with this? Mom is going to find out at some point! How are you going to keep her from looking at the mileage? What about the gas in the car?” I bellowed.
I'd spent all night thinking of the plethora of ways in which our mother could discover Ophelias’ dirty deeds. However, it seemed as if Ophelia had already covered her bases. Ophelia sat up and responded; groggy though she may be she divulged her plan.
“There’s a mileage reset button, you idiot! And I have a job dumbass; I make enough money to put some gas in the tank. Plus, I just make a note of how much gas she had in the tank before I leave and I fill it up to that point. She isn’t going to find out so just calm down. I’m going back to sleep.” she said fluffing her pillow before resting her thick and oversized head on it.
“Everyone gets caught Ophelia. Everyone gets caught.”, I prophesized before leaving our room to go eat some Cheerios.
Boy, was I ever right about that! Several weeks later Rosette came over to spend the night; an almost non-existent occurrence in our household. Our mom bought us pizza and we all watched TV together until our mom finally excused herself to go to bed. Ophelia, Rosette and I watched Saturday Night Live and the Simpsons. While we lay there laughing at the jokes and cynicism Ophelia sketched a picture of me laying down on the couch.
Her finished product was astonishing, the details were sublime, and I never knew she could draw like that. I was lying lengthwise on the couch wearing her mock flannel shirt, which didn’t button around my now obnoxiously large boobs so I had to wear a camisole and leave the top three buttons undone. My left arm was tenderly cradled above my head while I rested on a pillow, propped up against the edge of the couch. I didn’t know she was more than just a writer. The detail was flawless and it began to dawn on me that Ophelia was so much more than the reckless character I had made her out to be in my mind. She was sensitive, kind, smart, creative, a flawless writer, and she saw me for who I was. To her I would always be that misunderstood little girl lying on the couch watching the world go by without me. In her eyes, I was both delicate but strong, reserved yet outspoken, unbreakable yet broken, harmonious and discordant, carefree and worrisome concurrently; I was a dichotomy. She saw through the falsehoods and airs that I put on better than anyone I knew. Through her sketch for the first time I saw that I was one constant contradiction after another; a persistent firestorm of inwardly conflicting ideals. I'm sure she still has that sketch somewhere, buried in a box, or a notebook full of looseleaf papers and ideas.
Rosette, Ophelia and I chatted until Ophelia initiated one of my driving lessons. We left the TV on so as not wake Genevieve and we drove down to Quick Trip, a local gas station, to get a soda. I was sure to get a small soda so that I could finish it before getting home. I wouldn’t want to leave any evidence that we'd left the house either by car or on foot (as we had been known to do). Afterwards we drove to the junior high parking lot and Ophelia let me drive around for a while. I mostly drove in circles because I didn’t know what to do. I wished that I could share this moment with Sebastian or the boys, but I settled for sharing it only with Rosette and Ophelia.
After doing several doughnuts in the junior high parking lot, Ophelia cut our ride short because it was getting late and she needed to make her trek to see Vladimir. This was the closest we'd been in a long time, and of course Vladimir had to interrupt. Ophelia dropped Rosette and I off at home and she began her millionth journey to Prescott, unaware that tonight was the night that she would be had. Rosette and I inserted the house key into the lock and twisted carefully hoping the creaking of the deadbolt would be masked by the television. We slowly crept up the stairs and I closed our bedroom door so she could imagine that Ophelia was asleep in her warm and comfy bed. Rosette and I both took turns using the restroom in preparation to lay our heads to rest. We lay down on separate couches, I turned the television off and we said good night to one another.
Not five minutes later Genevieve shuffled from her bedroom to use the restroom in the hallway. Something that she NEVER did as she had her own bathroom in the master bedroom. I'm sure she did this for the sake of checking Rosette and I to make sure we were safe and sound. She turned off the light and stepped closer to us in the darkness, perhaps to take a closer look at our sleeping faces. Then from our mothers’ mouth not two feet away from me came the blood-curdling question,
“WHERE IS MY CAR?!!!!!” she growled as if she were a more intelligent Grendel from Beowulf.
Ophelia and I had forgotten about the large living room window that peered directly out onto the carport where our mothers’ missing vehicle should be sitting.
She repeated it again with more fervor, “WHERE IS MY CAR?!!!!”.
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Obviously, neither of us could've slept throught he first or second question. But the first time that our mother had uttered the words I'd pretended to be asleep. Now in a flash she'd turned on the light next to the couch that I was pretending to sleep on and began shaking me. Rosette sat up shocked and unable to move for fear of incurring Geneveives’ wrath. Or perhaps she was concerned for my personal safety.
“I don’t know!” I screamed back into Genevieve's very close face.
“What do you mean you don’t know?!” she shouted back.
“I don’t know! I don’t know!” I repeated, hoping that she wouldn’t see through my blatant lie.
Genevieve unhanded me and stormed into our bedroom, which only infuriated her more. I knew exactly what she'd fined, a badly crafted lie.
“WHERE THE HELL IS YOUR SISTER????” she raged.
“I don’t know! I swear I don’t know!” I was pleading for my life here.
Genevieve started back at me to get to the bottom of this because by now she knew that I had to know something of my older sister’s whereabouts. I jumped off of the couch and grabbed Rosette's hand on the way. We made it to my bedroom and shut the door just in time to stave off my mother who was now banging on the doorframe behind me like a mad woman. I swear to God if she had an axe she would've come through the door saying, “Here’s Johnny!” just like Jack Nicholson in The Shining.
I could feel Genevieve becoming more aggravated and then I heard her pick up the receiver to the landline and begin dialing. I was baracading the door to our room with my body, while Rosette sat on the bottom tier of our bunk bed. I told Rosette to toss me the cordless in preparation to listen in on Genevieve and Ophelia's phone conversation. My mother called several times and got no answer. Finally, on the fourth of fifth try Ophelia picked up the line either on her cell phone or Geneviev’s cell phone.
“Where the hell are you? Where the hell is my car?” Genevieve screamed into the phone with so much rage that I thought her false teeth would come out.
“I’m out. I’ll be back in an hour or so.” Ophelia stated calmly.
“Like hell you will! You get your ass back here right now! Or I swear to God I'm going to the call the cops and report my car stolen!!!!” she yelled into the receiver.
“No, you won’t.” Ophelia replied with stern consternation and confidence that her own mother wouldn't turn her into the police.
“Like hell I won’t! You think that you can just take my car in the middle of the night and go see your low-life fucking boyfriend?”
Hurricane Genevieve was growing louder and more intense by the minute, with no concern for our sleeping downstairs neighbors.
“I guess you shouldn’t have left your spare key out.” Ophelia retorted as if she were entitled to use my mother’s vehicle whenever she damn well pleased.
My mother was silenced by her audacity and Ophelia filled in the gap in the conversation with this last nugget of bravery,
“If you won’t calm down then I’m not coming home.”
Who was she to be making demands? Did she think she was the parent in this situation?
“You have one hour Ophelia and then I’m calling the cops!” my mother slammed the receiver down on the hook and swiftly scoured the house for her cigarettes, which she began to quickly chain smoke.
Ophelia realized that someone was still on the line and quickly scolded me,
“Roslyn, why didn’t you fucking call me?”
I explained that there was not time to call her and that our mother had seen the car was gone and went berserk on me.
“Please come home. She’s going to kill me because of you!” I pleaded.
“I’m on my way back right now but it’s going to take me more than an hour. Well, unless I speed the whole way home.” she sounded concerned for the first time since she’d been found out.
“I’ll see you when I get home Roslyn.” she said before disconnecting the call.
Great! Nothing but dial tone and here Rosette and I were sitting in my room. I'm still sitting like a stone in front of the door and Rosette is still sitting on the bed.
“I think that maybe I should go home.” Rosette muttered sheepishly.
“No! That’s only going to make it worse. Please stay for me. This is all going to blow over soon.”, I lied.
She couldn’t just leave me in this house with my infuriated mother. Rosette and I remained in silence for the rest of the night, me against the door and Rosette feigning sleep on the bottom bunk bed. I didn’t open the door until Ophelia had come home and eventually barricaded herself by the door instead. I gave her a quick hug and watched as she sobbed uncontrollably on the floor, knees bent, arms crossed atop her folded knees with her head between her folded arms.
The punishment was severe for this unfathomable crime. Ophelia’s phone was taken away and my mother began to hide her keys and spare keys in a safe that neither of us knew the combination to. This was worse than the time my parents caught Ophelia smoking in the bathroom and removed all of our doors from their hinges. When I complained about that all that Rowen would say was, “You can thank your older sister for that.”
With no way to talk to her beloved Vladimir Ophelia spent the rest of the summer writing to him. Writing was a medium that she excelled at normally and with such a detailed story to describe to Vladimir I’m sure the letters were a welcomed sight in the mail. I also have no doubts these letters compounded their feelings for each other as they felt no one understood their love. I’m sure that they felt, much like all young lovers do at some point, that it was always them against the world.
Normally Ophelia would write her letter and drop it in the outgoing drop box in the apartment complex when we walked to get the mail for the day. This day was different though, it was a sunny Friday in Summer and Ophelia was antsy, bored and hell bent on walking to the post office, which was at least three miles from our home. I asked if she wanted company and she declined, so I didn’t press the issue. I didn’t want to walk outside in the hot, dry summer heat of Arizona anyways. I might be willing to take the bus, ride my bike, roller blade or skateboard but not walk three miles without any water.
I asked Ophelia if she knew when she'd be back because Genevieve would get off work and we were going to head to Costco once she got home. She said that she didn’t know and since her cell phone had been taken away she had no means of communicating with me once she’d left the house. She stepped outside with her rather packed envelope in hand wearing a white Rainbow Brite shirt and faded bell-bottomed blue jeans with holes in the knees.
Hours passed and I did what kids normally do all day on their Summer vacation. Eat, sleep, watch television, go for a walk on the canal and talk on the phone. After several hours I started to get worried. Our mom had made it home and had offered to go pick her up but when I reminded her that she didn’t have her cell phon, and that she was probably on her way home, we decided to wait. Dusk was starting to peak on the horizon when we opened the door to go search for Ophelia. As I pulled open the door Ophelia practically stumbled into me, she was sweaty, her white shirt now slightly dingy and flustered.
“Hey,” I said, “we were just about to go look for you.”
“Oh.” she half-replied.
“We are going to Costco, remember. Are you coming?” I said.
“Sure. I’ve just got to go change first.” She muttered.
“Mom is in the car. I’ll go wait with her, okay?” , I asked sensing that something about Ophelia was off.
“Yeah. Be there in a second.”, she replied without making eye contact and slowly ascended the second flight of stairs to the living room.
“Did you tell mom I went to the post office?” she asked knowing that our parents had told her not to call or write Vladimir.
“No. I said you went to the library instead."
This was a much more believable lie seeing as how Ophelia always had her head in a book, she was like a real life Belle from Beauty and the Beast; well, without the singing and the cursed beast prince. I closed the door behind me and waited in the car for what seemed like an excessively long period of time. So long that my mom had finally turned the car off and opened her car door to go check on Ophelia. As the automatic seat belts unfurled their snake like grasp on my chest, I saw Ophelia descend the stairs and begin cutting across the grass to the car. Genevieve got back in the vehicle as Ophelia opened up the sliding back door and settled into the seat nearest the left side window where she stared mercilessly out onto the pavement below. Genevieve asked her what was wrong once during our car ride and she responded with “Nothing”. She remained silent for most of the night until we all finally retired to bed.
The next day proceeded as though it were business as usual. Ophelia was interested in going sunbathing in her newly thinned body so she invited me knowing that I'd behave myself. I would keep the splashing to a minimum as always and leave her alone while she listened to music in her striped navy blue and white polka dotted bikini and unbuttoned jean shorts as she soaked up the Summer sun.
Seeing as how the 90s and early 2000s weren’t very big on sun safety Ophelia used baby oil instead of sunscreen to achieve the appropriate shade of tan. I helped her get the baby oil on her back and quickly hopped into the pool. About halfway through Ophelias tanning session she hopped into the water to cool off. She got back out of the pool just as a woman and her son were arriving to swim. Her son was ogling at Ophelia for quite some time as she lay on her back minding her own business allowing the water to dry off of her sun kissed skin. After about 10 minutes of her son staring at Ophelia, this women walks over to Ophelia and tells her that she needs to “put some clothes on” because her son is “young and vulnerable”.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is a prime example of what we call “slut shaming”, which I'm sure we're all guilty of. The bikini Ophelia is wearing in general makes her “slutty” for showing off her physique. It is because Ophelias’ physical form is attractive to the opposite sex that it is her responsibility to cover up her body. It's obviously her responsibility to prevent young boys and men from being tempted. Just another manner in which we tell women that they're subservient to men and continually propagate rape culture. In this situation it wasn't this boys’ fault for being unable to control his urges it was Ophelias’ fault for being desirable in the first place.
This same situation happened to me when I was younger as well and I don't wear bikinis as a result. All because someone shamed me into thinking I was being immodest since I have larger boobs, like really? When in reality it isn't my fault that I have large breasts. Don’t these people think that I’d like to wear a cute string bikini without feeling completely exposed? What about button up shirts? I’d love to wear one of those without needing to worry about the middle button exposing my décolletage. More to the point, I'd love to not have men stare at my chest when they talk to me even though I’m wearing a high neckline shirt. My eyes are up North, boys. Or have men respect me instead of making comments on how I must be dumb because I’m blonde and chesty. Since when did being blonde and having large breasts constitute any part of my intelligence? When I tell men what my degree is in they almost always look at me and say, “Really? I wouldn't have thought you’d be a Biology major.” Sexism is a frustrating concept that women deal with on a daily basis. I and many other women would truly love to be seen as all of the things that we truly are instead of just as an object.
Anyways, I digress and sexism is a concept that I'll cover in our another chapter so let's return to the situation at hand. What should've happened was that this mother should've addressed her son and explained to him that this young girl was not an object but a human being; instead she felt the need to shame Ophelia. No, instead she let her child believe that he shouldn't respect women that wear what they want. By doing this she has now taught him that he has the right to turn women into sexual objects.
As a result of this woman’s inappropriate behavior we left the pool in a huff because this woman clearly had no class or strength to discipline her own child. Ophelia and I talked shit about this woman and her son the whole way home. However, at the time our parents were of the same mind, and I don’t think that my mother knew Ophelia had bought that bikini in the first place. And as our father always liked to say, “When you dress like that you’re just asking for it”, another golden nugget of rape culture.
Once we arrived at our apartment, I clopped up the stone steps to our doorway first and I mustered a, “Hello”, when we entered. Ophelia chimed in after me with a, “Hey”; we were both clearly still in deep shit for the car-stealing stunt Ophelia pulled. We plodded our way up the carpeted steps only to see our mother chain smoking on the couch. Our mother told me to go to my room or leave the house, which meant that something serious had transpired during our absence. Everything was fine when we had left the house this morning to go to the pool.
I chose to stay in my room, as I wanted to remain involved in what was going on. I left the door to the bedroom open just a crack so I could hear what they were talking about, but my mother quickly shut it. However, not one to be easily deterred I pressed my ear up to the door for a better listen. It sounded like a bad episode of Charlie Brown.
“Womp Womp Womp… Then why would your friend Sophia call to tell me something like that?” my mom questioned.
“I don’t know why she would call to say that?”, Ophelia responded defensively.
“Womp Womp Womp. I need to know what happened yesterday, Ophelia!” our mom was in tears now.
“Womp Womp Womp. I don’t want to talk about it mom. Can’t we just let it go or something?”, Ophelia was in tears now.
“We need to file a report if it’s true. What if he does this to someone else? How could you live with yourself if he does this to someone else?”, our mother sobbed.
“Womp womp womp… We’re leaving! Bring the clothes you wore the other day.” Our mothers’ word was final.
The door flew open and boxed me in my right ear. I toppled over myself and onto the floor only to see Ophelia in tears. Her eyeliner and mascara had begun to wash down the sides of her face and she silently began to gather her clothes from the hamper and stuff them into a plastic grocery bag. This was the first time that I hadn’t seen Ophelia cry like she was Mary Tyler Moore. Instead of all the sobs and drama it was a silent, rage and shame filled crying; the kind where tears just roll down your cheeks unabated.
We piled into the car and headed down to what I suppose was the police station or at least part of a police station in downtown Mesa. I had no idea what we were doing here but Ophelia was hauled away into another room with a doctor. A woman in a lab coat and our mother sat sobbing on the chair next to me in the lobby. I was confused by the whole situation and must've looked distraught because the receptionist came out and handed me a teddy bear to hold. The bear was warm in appearance, fuzzy, light brown, with dark brown beaded eyes and a red bow tie. I remember trying to hand it back to the woman and she said,
“No, you need someone to hug right now.”
I held onto the stuffed bear for dear life but couldn’t help feeling guilty. I kept thinking that Ophelia would relate this to the time that I'd ripped off her toe nail at McDonald’s and gotten free ice cream. I didn’t deserve the bear because this was my fault. I'd waited in many a waiting room trying to brace myself for the news that Ophelia was dead but this was different. I knew that this time the news was that she would live and sometimes that is a far worse fate. My mind began to race, if something had happened to Ophelia the other day it was because I wasn't there. I hadn't protected her and that was the one thing my parents had always asked of me. I hadn't been there when she needed me. Even my parents’ would later blame me for not walking with her that fateful day.
The woman in the white lab coat came out to speak with our mom, which seemed like a million years later. Ophelia wasn't with her and when I asked where she was both parties ignored me. I clutched tighter to the bear that many a sibling or child had most likely clung to as I listened to their conversation.
“There is evidence that she was raped.” the woman said in a firm voice.
Our mothers’ sobbing had intensified and she was unable to respond. I had no idea what the word ‘rape’ meant at the time, but I knew that it was a terrible thing, otherwise our mom wouldn't be so torn apart by the news. I felt my stomach drop a little bit as our mom continued to blubber.
“She says that she got a clear view of his face and that she goes to school with him but that she won’t press charges.” the woman’s frown line grew deeper as she said these words.
“Why not?” my mother implored.
“She said that he made a threat on her life and your lives as well. He knows where you live.” the woman went on to say that this was not uncommon when the attacker has a weapon in hand.
“She’ll be out soon she’s just getting dressed.” the woman said but before she turned to leave she handed our mother a card. “For if she changers her mind.”
The woman in the lab coat began to walk away and the rage set in for everyone. I cannot imagine what Ophelia must have been feeling. A mixture of emotions that are all together indescribable as they are felt all at once and are all consuming. Some pathetic excuse for a human being, nay a monster, had violated her yesterday. Then today, against her will, her own family had forced her to be physically examined. Not only that, she'd been told she was being too sexy today by some strange woman whose son was objectifying her.
Did she have any say in anything anymore? Was this truly her fault for being too attractive? Is it possible that she could be giving off a vibe that invited this type of behavior from men? How powerless she must have felt not only in that moment but for years to come. I’m sure that night she'd wanted to come home and collapse into a ball in the shower. That she had wanted to try and wash away the pain and the disgust of what had been done to her, but instead she went on with her life like it was business as usual. Why? Not to hide herself from the pain but to hide the people she loved from the pain as well. What we saw as a cruelty to be excluded from her misery and shame was simply a kindness in disguise.
We never talked about the incident again after that. I never wanted to know the gruesome details because it was a pain that I couldn't handle. I have never hurt another living soul but had she told me who the bastard was I would've slaughtered him myself without a care, in an effort to rid the world of him and people like him.
One day before we moved back to Washington I came across a story that she had written about the incident and the scene blackened my heart. Enraged that she would remember this person and this experience forever, most likely in her nightmares. Anytime she walked alone in broad daylight or at night it would be his face that she would see. Part of me wishes that she would share the story so that others who have suffered the way she had would be inspired to come forward and have a support network. Yet the other part of me wishes desperately that she would never have to relive the experience again. The only comfort I have now is the knowledge that the human brain works in mysterious ways. For instance, when you remember an incident you are not actually remembering the incident itself but the last time that you remember that incident. This gives me hope that over time the memory itself will fade, become distorted with time and hopefully less painful and less prevalent in her minds eye.
I am sure that our mother told our father, and in turn our father likely made some inappropriate comments about how he didn’t “believe” in rape. That is right folks, some men truly believe that rape is a fabricated concept. They believe that women throw consent in your face and then take it away at the drop of a hat. I’m sure that he stated how it must have been what she was wearing. Or how she shouldn’t have gone to the library alone in the first place because she put herself in that position. Other clever rape culture tactics of blaming the victim for the crime committed against them.
However, at the time I idolized Rowen and believed him to be at least partially correct. I began to let the incident and our father's words affect me by attempting to become an even bigger tomboy. I tried to hide any femininity I may have had so I wouldn't suffer the same fate as my poor older sister. I wouldn't give consent and take it away. I wouldn't dress provocatively. I wouldn't go places by myself because this was, as our father had described, the magical recipe that leads to rape. I see now how ludicrous these ideas are and I feel so disheartened that my poor father and other men raised in our society believe these things to be true.
After hearing and compiling all of these thoughts and experiences I began to believe that Ophelias’ torment was somehow my fault. If I hadn’t been singing outside she never would have met Vladimir in the first place. Without me she wouldn’t have been walking to the post office, or as our parent’s thought the library. She wouldn’t have been lured by temptation to sleep with Vladimir to begin with. In my eyes, I'd failed to protect my older sister and now she definitely had a reason to want to leave the world of the living.
I had provided the smoking gun that could seal her fate and it is something that I still feel guilty for today. Yet I see now that no matter how many times my parents or I would say that I should've protected her, I couldn't have protected Ophelia that day. She couldn't have protected herself that day, and that is what her attacker was counting on. That is what any attacker is banking on, the fact that they can take your power away from you. So for those of you that take all the blame on yourself, know that try as you might, you can''t protect the pople you love from everything; its just not possible.