Can You Hear Me Now? (eBook)

MY MOTHER, KATE, was a beautiful woman, raven-haired with the red highlights of her Irish ancestry. At 5'7', she was tall, slim and long legged, and built like a Barbie doll. However, she lacked the confidence one would think beautiful women have. Shy, quiet, nave, gullible and passive, she was the perfect woman for a man like my father. Mom stayed with him for twenty-five years and left him only when her mother discovered he was cheating. He cheated on my mother my whole life. I thought husbands just did that. Grandma had proclaimed, 'We are not having that! What are you doing with him?' I can only imagine my mother's reply. Bryan was my father. He was 5'7', the same height as my mother. While tall for a woman, 5'7' was short for a man. Mom never wore heels. 'It bothers your father,' she would say. Otherwise, he was attractive, well built, and charming. People always liked my father. We moved around so much I doubt anyone ever got to really know him. Dad was a violent child. He had 'problems'. They called him 'Poor Bryan'. He couldn't seem to get along with anyone for very long and was passed around the family from aunt to uncle to cousins. At sixteen, he violently raped his cousin and as was the practice back then, the courts gave him an ultimatum: join the military, or go to prison. My father joined the military, got married, and went on to breed his own victims. The first child protection laws were enacted in 1966 when I was eleven years old. Until that time, to rape, beat, or otherwise abuse your own children, although immoral, was not a crime. People looked the other way. It was believed, and some still believe, that what goes on in your family is a private matter. By my father's own words, I was six months old when we first 'played house'. I was told that I started it. In my preteen years, during his time in the Marines, my father was in an explosion that blew his legs off and killed his colleague. Instead of being a wake-up call, the accident made him worse and encouraged his belief that nothing could touch him, since he was now a war hero. I have three living brothers. I am the oldest. Curtis was nine or ten months younger than I and died a questionable crib death at six months. John is nineteen months younger. Gabe is seven years younger and Bryan the youngest, was born sixteen years after me.