#Trigger

Today is the Day

A short story by Yve Chairez

from the book Criteria for Normalcy

1.

Today marks seven months since my divorce.

  I married my husband in a desperate attempt to try and live normally. I knew our marriage wouldn’t last forever. I didn’t feel womanly enough to be a wife, or sensual enough to be a lover. As a result, I didn’t know how to treat him the way a man should be treated, and I wasn’t motivated to try.

  My husband implored me to see doctors about my problems. The psychologist said that I had to be patient, and I had to be considerate of the fact that my husband was never going to fully understand what I had been through – so I was expected to be the bigger person in these circumstances and excuse any lapse in consideration on his part. Such a thing takes quite some time to get over, she said, and a lot of conscious effort needs to be made to come to terms with it. I was exhausted enough simply trying to live day to day. Hearing that I was simply going to have to continue living this way didn’t provide any hope for my future – or ours, as a family.

  The gynecologist said, very casually, that I was “lucky” the man I was molested by had only inserted his fingers inside me; otherwise the damage could have been worse. I have scarring on my vaginal walls, but it is “only” slight and isn’t anything to worry about. The muscles in my pelvic area do not function normally, but I am “lucky” that a life of sudden incontinence and defensive tightening – which made it nearly impossible for my husband to enter me – are the “only” permanent effects of what he put me through.

  I like to think I might have turned out witty and attractive if he hadn’t done what he did. But instead, I am paranoid and awkward. Being molested stifled my social development and self-esteem. As a kid, I wasn’t happy and carefree. I didn’t think many things were funny. I didn’t see the use in having a good time. Anything good was overshadowed by what I knew was going to happen when I went to my grandmother’s house after school.

  I didn’t enjoy lustful looks from boys as a teenager; the looks made my pelvis hurt. And I didn’t enjoy loving touches from my husband when I was married. I was simply fed up with feeling fingers down there. I had been forced to feel them since I was three; I dreaded the touch. My husband’s fingers were always polite, but that wasn’t enough to make the feelings of dread go away.

  Tension and repulsion are part of my being. They were the very first emotions I remember having and they were reinforced so often that they have become everlasting. My husband couldn’t change that; no matter how hard I cried and begged for him to figure out how to make me feel better, he couldn’t. I have never been able to achieve orgasm; my clitoris has been desensitized to pleasure. My body doesn’t want pleasure if it has to be delivered in the same ways he had delivered pain and humiliation. My husband grew exhausted of feeling unwelcome inside of me.

  I tell myself it could have been worse. I tell myself I was lucky I wasn’t raped. But I wonder, had I been raped once by a stranger, as an adult – as a strong, confident, rational adult who had not been molested day after day, year after year, as a child – I might have had a chance at a better existence. Had I been raped, maybe my mother would have been outraged; she probably would have comforted me and called it an injustice. I like to think she wouldn’t have considered it something trivial, something that I just needed to wait out, something that I needed to stop making a big deal of in order to keep our family at peace. If I had been raped as an adult instead of molested as a child, I would have understood it wasn’t my fault; I might have known who to turn to. I could have made him pay. I would have at least enjoyed a portion of my womanhood before it became exactly what made me a victim.

  I didn’t want to have children. My husband talked about children non-stop, always pointing out how much fun they would be and how much meaning they would bring to my life. But I didn’t believe a baby girl should be forced to have a mother who couldn’t teach her the joys of being a woman. And I didn’t believe a baby boy’s female role model should be me. I had nothing worthwhile to pass on to a child. No wisdom, no words of encouragement, no nothing. I knew I would emotionally withdraw from my children if they ever really needed anything from me. I didn’t want to be close to a child; I didn’t think I possessed any traits that were worth them getting close to.

2.

Today marks one year since I lost my baby.

  I didn’t make it far enough along for the gender to be determined. I only knew I was pregnant for eight days, but from the moment I read the word “Pregnant” on the home test, I knew my baby was going to be a girl. I’ve always heard that mothers just know.

  I assumed that motherly feelings came naturally, magically, once a woman finds out she is pregnant. That didn’t happen for me. I didn’t feel like a mother that week. Instead, I felt like a bitch for considering bringing someone into a world of emotional burden. I was ashamed for the fact that a poor defenseless being would have to forever suffer in the aftermath of what happened to me. I hated myself for the fact that any time she looked into her mother’s eyes, she’d only see someone who was no longer there – someone who had never even gotten the chance to be present. My daughter wouldn’t see anyone she could look up to.

  The night before my first prenatal appointment, I awoke to an excruciating pain in my side. For over an hour, I paid it no mind. I thought it was in reaction to the nightmare I’d just had.

  But it was in reaction to the fact that she was gone. She had failed to descend into my womb from my fallopian tube, the doctors said. I asked why they couldn’t pull her down manually; they said she had never actually been alive. Her umbilical cord, her lifeline, her connection to me, had never had a chance to materialize.

  They cut me open and removed the cells and tissue that should have eventually became my little girl. All of her matter was simply tossed away. It was said to be of no significance. But her genes were in there, in all of that matter. She was in there somewhere. I hadn’t been able to bring her to life, though. That was no surprise, really, since I myself was dead inside.

  I was absolutely certain she would have been molested as a child. Mother’s intuition. I tortured myself – and, inadvertently, her – with thoughts of how incompetent I’d be at dealing with it when it happened. I was scared I would passively accept the tragedy as something inevitable that most girls go through.

  I wouldn’t be able to tell my baby that time healed the pain. I wouldn’t be able to say I’d help her through the emotional madness. I wouldn’t be able to promise she’d eventually start to feel okay. I would probably shut down and wish I hadn’t brought her into this world. Time hadn’t healed my pain; I didn’t know what it was like to be helped, and I knew I was never going to be okay.

  My weeklong pregnancy was characterized by nightmares of him touching her the way he touched me when I was a child. I couldn’t stop him from doing it to me then and I wouldn’t be able to stop him from doing it to her either. In one of the nightmares, he plunged his arm elbow-deep into my womb, sloshing blood around as he molested my tiny daughter who didn’t even look human yet. With his other hand, he molested me. I watched on, hour after hour, as he looked at her unformed fetus face and felt between her fetus legs for something that wasn’t even there yet. She was helpless. She couldn’t move away. She couldn’t know what he was doing was wrong. She had no choice but to trust any person who happened to loom over her. She had no choice but to let him touch her the way he wanted to, even if it caused her pain.

  I never once saved her in any of the nightmares. I didn’t know how. Nothing I did or said ever stopped him. Even in my belly, even in my imagination, I couldn’t keep my daughter safe.

The worst part about being pregnant was that my nightmares weren’t only of him molesting her. I had nightmares where I molested her, too. The nightmares were out of my control. All I thought about while I was pregnant was sexual abuse. It was always at the forefront of my mind. I could never push it aside. Whenever I saw parents hug and kiss their children in public, or change their diapers, or comb their hair, I saw the gestures as very inappropriate – very sexual. Every interaction between mother and child or father and child looked like an act of molestation. The thought of holding my daughter close didn’t feel right. The sentiment was marred by the way he used to force me close to him.

  I didn’t want to be a mother, but I wanted to watch my baby grow up. I wanted to know what a little girl who hadn’t yet had her innocence fondled to death acted like. But I was afraid I would resent her for being happy and free and full of hope.

  When I tried to imagine what I wanted my daughter to learn from life, I immediately thought of sex. I wanted her to be in touch with, and have a strong understanding of, her own sexuality. I wanted her to experience lust and orgasms. I didn’t want her to shy away from being touched. I didn’t want sex to make her uneasy or afraid. I didn’t want her to go through any experience that would make her feel less than beautiful. I wanted her to find a man that she couldn’t wait to get in bed with. I wanted her to find immense pleasure in sex before someone came along and forced that pleasure away. I wanted her to experience happiness at the thought of motherhood.

  I didn’t want to be a mother because I was repulsed at the inappropriate thoughts I had of my daughter. I didn’t picture her as a tiny infant smiling and wiggling her toes. I pictured her as teenager, or young woman, having sex and enjoying it. I saw my daughter arch her back and heard her moan. I thought of how seductively I wanted her to walk. I thought of sexy things I wanted her to say to strangers on the subway – things that would make them yearn to make love to her at the next stop. I wanted her to give in to the seduction of well-intentioned men and women. I wanted her to seduce them back. I wanted her to practice masturbation, with friends, with boyfriends. Had I been able to find any delight in masturbation, I might have found it hard to resist showing her how to do it myself. I wanted her to be familiar with her body, so she could discover what she liked and have steadfast control over her sexuality.

  I was no better than a child molester for these thoughts.

  Though I sensed deeply that I loved her, my disgusting thoughts made me consider abortion. The notion was sickening, but I couldn’t help thinking she’d be better off that way. The most convincing reason for going through with my pregnancy was the realization that killing a little girl was much worse than molesting one.

  Then again, death is over in a few seconds, but being molested has made me feel like I’ve been half-dead for over a quarter of a century.

  Since losing her, I feel even deader. I have started wondering if her preciousness would have inspired me to get help, to speak out, to seek a true love, to reclaim my sexuality. All seemed like daunting, useless tasks when brought up in therapy; it seemed more exciting to die than take on such things. But I can’t help wondering if seeing my daughter would have given me reason to take them on – to create a better atmosphere for her, one where I could be a semi-respectable mother and she could be a carefree little girl.

3.

Two months to the day after her death, as I sat touching the scar she was taken from, I confessed to my husband the horrific things I had been dreaming of and thinking of while pregnant. I wanted him to say I hadn’t somehow scared her away with all the nightmares and all the thoughts unbecoming of a mother. I admitted I had been reluctant to become a mother, but wished I had been given the chance to after all.

  I thought maybe he and I would talk about trying again one day, about finding happiness through this nightmare, about working harder to overcome my issues, about rebuilding our relationship. But, instead, he rose abruptly, slapped me hard across the cheek, and yelled that he had known all along it was my fault our child died. He said my withholding of love made my womb an uninviting place, made her hold back, made her stay put, made her curl up in my fallopian tubes and die.

  And I sit here today, a shell of a woman, as I’ve always been, and I am no longer trying to find any sustenance. For a week I had sustenance, but my ruined body and mind couldn’t keep it alive.

  I’d known all along that it was useless to try and be strong. I don’t know why I had ever been determined not to give up. Everything positive in my life is always, always overshadowed by what he did to me.

  And so he stripped me of my clothes, my childhood, and every joy associated with being a woman: motherhood, marriage, and my sexuality.

4.

Today marks the day that I’ve decided there’s no reason to continue on.