“There had been signs….” – earliest memory

I took pride in my presence of mind and rejected the possibility I’d ever overlook anything amiss or fundamentally threatening. Like, I’d know if a serial killer were trying to abduct me, and I’d get out of it. I’d know what to do if the house caught on fire. If any man ever laid a hand on me, no question I’d kick him out of my life and never look back.

That was innocence. And naivete. And pride. The cliche is nauseating.

Back then, the substance of my greatest fears and repulsions were standard for a young mother: husband cheating, child choking on something she ate, car wreck. The dark, unspeakable things of humankind were completely removed from my world of possibilities, and my head was untouched by suspicion, depravity, or despair.

It’s spring—and the melting snows of memory recede and leave shining white bones of things I should’ve seen in the season they happened. I should’ve known.

~~~

I think the first time something scratched inside me was at the carnival. We were both 8th-graders. First date.

Dean and I waited in line for the ferris wheel. God, I was such a flirt. I can feel it now, even today, the self-aware preening—how I rolled my feet on their sides over and over, pushing my fingers back through my long hair, laughing at everything he said.

Dean shouldn’t have been so relaxed. He leaned back against the rail with his arms crossed over his chest. He wasn’t cocky or aloof at all—rather shy and self-conscious but very comfortable. He enjoyed the attention, and I loved giving it to him.

Then abruptly, his twin sister, Dana, was suddenly between us. She grabbed him like she hadn’t seen him for weeks.

Even at thirteen, I knew siblings could be intensely protective and territorial. It’s the way of the world and so often, a good, good thing. Besides, Dana was beautiful, popular, kind.

“What are you up to?” she asked him.

I expected him to mention going on the ferris wheel with me, but he shrugged. “Not much.”

“Oh,” she said. She clutched his jacket and stepped up onto his shoes, then leaned against him leaning against the rail. The back of my neck ignited.

I got a flashback of seeing one of my teenaged babysitters french-kissing her boyfriend in front of me when I was little. A mixture of embarrassment, repulsion, and fascination.

But in the shadow of the ferris wheel, the fascination dropped off like a severed head. Something scratched my insides. Or maybe a tiny, tiny splinter lodged somewhere deep, deep, deep down. I wouldn’t think of it again for 20 years and wouldn’t understand it until much later than that.