Home Alone

A Grand View      

     For nine years, I had taken the right turn at the top of Grandview Drive onto Joseph Avenue, once a week, sometimes several times a week, to visit Mom and Dad.  For the last 26 years, it was to visit Mom after Dad passed away in 1999.  There was nothing noteworthy about taking that turn onto Grandview.  It was simply the last turn a few seconds away from pulling into the driveway.  There were countless reasons for me making the trip: mowing the lawn, raking leaves, shoveling the driveway, washing my car, or doing menial tasks around the house to lend a hand.  Mostly, it was simply to visit my parents.  I'd be treated to a home cooked meal, watch a game on television amid conversation with Dad, or spend Sundays and holidays with other visiting family members.  Over the last two and a half decades, it was to see Mom, enjoy her company, and usually be fed something a hundred times better than my usual diet of microwavable and take-out food.  But now everything's changed, and things will never be the same again.  Mom died last September. 

Make Rape Evil Again

Laura   

My first personal experience with sexual abuse was when I was a junior in college.  Donna and I had shared a few Psychology courses over the previous three years and became friends.  I'd visit her from time to time in her dorm room in Dickinson Hall, and Laura roomed a few doors down the hallway from her.  Donna introduced the two of us, and we hit it off pretty well.  After a few weeks and a couple dates, Laura and I commenced our first make-out session on the bed in her dorm room.  It seemed to be going okay for a minute or two but abruptly took an eerie turn.

     Laura's lips suddenly froze and her body, which was partially under my own, stiffened like a mannequin.  When I pulled back my face from hers, I saw she wore a catatonic stare, and her eyebrows furrowed and stuck in position.  Her eyes locked onto mine, but her gaze wasn't looking at me as much as it was looking through me, as if her focus was locked on something ten feet behind me.

"Laura? Laura? Are you okay?" I asked.  Nothing.  No response.  Not verbally, not physically.  Her stare was hauntingly lifeless and cold.  She looked like a corpse, with unblinking eyes and a complexion faded to ghost white.

"Hey, what's wrong? Laura...? What's going on?"  I asked, unsuccessfully trying to wake her from whatever trancelike state she was in. Her hands were up against my chest, and she slowly grabbed onto my shirt and clenched it tightly in her white-knuckled fists.  She coiled beneath me. "Stop...stop", she whispered.  Then louder, "Stop! Stop!".