More Ghosts from the Past

When I was three years old, my mom and dad left me with the neighbor across the street all day long while they were at work.

Julia was a widow whose husband had died in a tragic accident. She had two sons, Bobby, 16 and Timmy, 5.

To make her situation worse, she had a stroke not too long after her husband died, leaving one side weak and her speech difficult for me to understand. She was kind to me, but a little... absent. Which of course makes sense to me now. I didn't understand much in those days. I was just three, after all.

I remember endlessly long days. Julia often fed me tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. I spent a lot of time watching the black and white television in her living room. Alone. I watched Underdog. Mighty Mouse. The Mickey Mouse Club. Captain Kangaroo. Sometimes she played dominoes with me.

I don't remember much about Timmy. When he came home from Kindergarten, sometimes we played, but mostly he did his own thing and I did mine. Which was watching television and waiting for my mom.

Bobby took an interest in me, though. He was always willing to come sit on the couch with an arm around me while we watched television. He let me try the electric trains in his room. He brought me lollipops and cookies.

Of course the savvy 50 year old in me sees warning signs all over that.

A 16 year old boy hanging out with a three year old girl?
Jesus.

Of course my mom and dad did not know.

Julia knew, but was unconcerned.

And the inevitable happened. One afternoon, by bribing me with cookies, he got me upstairs. He must have had a whole package stashed in his pockets, because it took quite a few to get me to go into the bathroom with him and even more for me to allow him to take all my clothes off.

I remember every detail so clearly. I can tell you the bar of soap in the wire soap dish on the side of the old fashioned tub was tan. The rug and towels were beige. The walls were green tile. I know how the bathroom smelled, I can hear the sounds of the birds in the big tree outside the window,

He got me to sit on the toilet with legs open, and exposed himself to me.

I'll stop here and tell you, I was not physically harmed. He was unable to accomplish what he had been trying to do with my immature body, and except for the mess (I thought he peed on me) that he wiped off me with toilet paper, which he quickly buried in the garbage can next to the toilet, it wasn't that big a deal to three year old me.

He made me promise not to tell. Told me it was a secret game, and that we would play again, only he'd have chocolate cookies for me the next time. He kissed me repeatedly, dressed me and carried me back down the stairs.

But I felt... funny. It just didn't seem right. I decided to tell my daddy.

So after our nightly ritual of bath and story and tucking in, he sat on the edge of my bed to hug me goodnight. And I told him about what had happened.

I didn't have the correct anatomical words to explain, but he understood immediately. And no matter what weird parenting stories I have to tell, no matter what other things he did or didn't do... this one, he handled perfectly.

He didn't miss a beat. Didn't stop hugging me. Didn't hug me harder. Didn't react physically at all. I do not have total recall with most things, but I remember exactly what he said.

He said, "I am glad you told me this. It was the right thing to do. Don't worry about it, I will take care of it. Go ahead and go to sleep now, Sweetheart, and forget it."

And I did. Completely. It went out of my mind for the next 22 years.

One night, as a 25 year old married woman, as I was falling asleep next to my husband, the entire memory burst into my mind.
Every single detail.
I was shocked.

Woke Eric up. I had to tell him about it. I was utterly stunned that I'd forgotten it so completely. It hadn't been a traumatic event, after all.

So the next morning I called my dad. Told him that I'd remembered it as I was drifting off to sleep, and asked him what had happened.

It's strange to me now to think that the daddy who took care of the incident was only 23 at the time. Younger than the adult woman who called him to ask about it 22 years later.

He told me that after we'd talked that night, he went directly across the street to Julia's house and knocked on the door. When the door was opened, it was Bobby. And he asked Bobby to step outside.

He took him around the side of the house and put him against the wall, one finger in the center of his chest.

And said, "If I ever see you within a hundred feet of my daughter again, I will kill you."

That was it. Eloquent. To the point. He said that Bobby was crying like a baby. And promised that he'd never bother me again.

He never did, either. My parents found me a new sitter right away, so I never went back. Bobby ended up in what was called reform school back then, and then went to prison when he was about 20. Not sure what for.

Dad said that he would have done things a little differently if he'd known more back then, starting with calling the police, but that he had just handled things the best he knew how.

Strange what stuff your mind stores. And doesn't store.