Picture Perfect

Our family was like a picture perfect chocolate cake. Three layers of rich, thick icing swirled to a delicious fudge confection. It looks great on the outside, mouth watering. But when you slice it that’s when you see the maggots. But if you don’t all you get is the best looking cake in the bakery.

I re-wrote part of the dream this morning but there are a few things that stick out about them that I thought I’d process out. In the actual dream no one paid attention to her odd behavior. They went on about life like nothing was out of the ordinary. In real life people saw what my mother did to her children and didn’t do a damn thing to stop it. They went on about life like nothing was wrong. They saw her beat my lips with a wide tooth comb until they bled. We sat in a gathering hall when she did it. Perhaps they were shocked, too shocked to act. Or maybe they didn’t see that because it was pretty empty and people were leaving. We were towards the front. I didn’t kick or scream as I laid across her lap. Now I’m back peddling because I wonder just how obvious it was that she was hurting her children? For real, who on earth would think this woman who you never saw out of a business suit, who made a good 120 grand a year working for GM would actually be a sadistic pedophile? Was it obvious to anyone but me and my sister? Did she have us so frightened that we didn’t even let on that things had gone horribly awry at home? I mean hell, we were dressed in those little velvet dresses with the patented leather shoes, a little hat to match. We were polite and picture perfect. Could people see past the image projected and see the truth, see the scars under our dresses, under our hats and on our hands?

As I got older and I wasn’t so silent anymore the mother had a few questions to answer at school. When social services got involved she pulled us out and we were on the run, living in the car or changing our address on paper to get us in a different school. Man, she really must have wanted us around for her games. She sure went through a lot of trouble to keep us to herself.

I try not to wonder about the girls in the club she started when I was in the 4^th grade. Girls from my school and from my neighborhood came over and she took us to pizza parties and to the skating rink. She skated with us, she played baseball outside with us, played kickball and ran up and down the street in foot races. The kids in the neighborhood loved her. She wasn’t wearing a suit then I suppose but you let us leave the house even for the grocery store and she was dressed like she was going to a meeting. Anyway, I remember racing with her up and down the street at that 4^th grade house. She always ran faster than me. Even when I got older, like the 6^th grade she still ran faster than me. It was a standing joke between us for years that my old mother could out run her youngest daughter. I thought it was funny and still kinda do. That is actually a good memory, playing sports outside with her. But the girls, did they ever become victims of hers? Did she grope outside of home? I don’t know the answer to that question and I suppose that I never will.

Man, people must have thought we were the best family on the block. Our mom took them skating and swimming, played sports with them and dressed her kids well. Funny though, the kids never came in the house so they only got to see what the mother wanted them to see. Had they come inside the picture perfect image would have faded in filth covered walls, stripped beds and mice that out numbered the times she beat her children senselessly.

Picture Perfect
March 29, 2007