(It is at the end of it, as the pulse fades, hot water almost scalding at the back of my neck, that I think of him. I do not have his size, though that remains unclear. Everything appears much longer and taller and larger in memory than in reality. I have not seen, or heard from, him for almost two decades. I am sure that I do not possess the same duration, his potency to last. I further probe this comparison between my father and me, in the shower stall, my semen breaking up in the swirl of the drain, and I try to understand what evidence I have of this. What I pull from memory swells and encompasses everything that I am, and relieves me of what I am not.)
I am a child. It is night. (Was it? Or was it the normal time when my mother nestled me into bed, a kiss on the forehead, the house dark so that I would sleep easy?) I clearly see the clock, on a wall in the kitchen, across the living room, from my room. The kitchen light is the only light on in the house. My bedroom door is open. I cannot recall precisely the time, it is about eight. Staring at the clock, I listen, confused. What was I hearing? (It would not be until later, perhaps in junior high school, that I fully and truly understood. It is now that memory and knowledge melt, become clear to me, in this moment.)
My parents’ bedroom is next to my own, without doors, facing the living room. There are whispers. My mother does not want to, she is refusing. This much I understand. (Was it the same day that he had ripped the phone out of the wall? That he had struck her and her head snapped back, his thumb almost gouging out her eye? The same day that he had apologized to her as she checked the swelling in the bathroom mirror?) Through the wall: a repeating thud against it, she is whimpering, gentle squeaking of springs, (the sound of him bucking,) telling her to relax, whispering sweet nothings, ‘I love you’ mingled with her crying.
(This immediately calls forth: “I’m sorry,” he had said to her in front of the mirror, “I love you.” I cannot separate the two, the intonation in his voice is identical, though each was different.)
It is a long time. I do not exactly know for how long my mother has been crying, but the hands of the clock have moved a great distance. I hear a grunt and then, his body slumping onto the mattress, rolling over. (I can picture my mother stiff, face grimaced, eyes shut tightly, her tear-stained face hidden in the dark. But this is now, imagination, not then. I could not possibly imagine then. I cannot picture my father, or imagine his thoughts of what went on. However, I do understand custom. I am reminded of wedding vows that ask the groom, ‘..to honor and cherish..’ and the bride, ‘..to cherish and obey..’)
Then silence. (I assume that he had eventually fallen asleep when she finally moved again.)
Suddenly, through the wall: the quick feral movements of sheets unfurling, quick, sharp, desperate, her feet landing onto the bare floor, the sticky sound of skin on ceramic as she hurried out. I see her naked form cross the living room in the kitchen light, heading for the bathroom, darting, crouching. She disappears behind the kitchen wall. I hear the creaking of the shower knobs and the faucet hisses to life.
I think to myself (or was that later on, the glow of this memory trying to dawn upon me?):
mommy doesn’t want another me.
(Freud believed that by the age of three or four, children knew about the differences in the sexes. I always wondered if a child also knows about sex at such a tender age. What would become of that child if s/he did not know and suddenly found out through the rape of his/her mother?)
She is in the shower for a long time (I imagine now as I do the same, her scrubbing the same areas over and over). When she is done, she pads slowly into the kitchen, rubbing her eyes. She stops. She looks toward my room. I close my eyes. Soon afterwards, I feel her lips on my forehead, her fingers brushing through my hair. I sleep.
(It is a number of days after my reminiscence in the shower that I confront her to test the accuracy of my memories. “Yes,” she says, “I do remember that, it was the same day that his thumb went in my eye, do you remember that?” I nod. Her face darkens, her deep brown eyes sharpen on my own. “But listen. He did not rape me. It’s not rape. Your father did not rape me. I didn’t want to because of what he did to me earlier. Sometimes, in a marriage, one does and the other doesn’t want to.” I am fearful of pushing the issue, to try and convince her otherwise. I feel as if she is lying.