Cara Remembers

Two sisters, 3 years apart in age, sitting together on the carpeted living room floor, just inside of the doorway, innocently hugging each other the way little girls do. It was morning, and it was quiet and peaceful, and the two young sisters were having fun. The living room was large with a high ceiling and several large windows letting in the morning sunlight.

The girls’ father walks into the room, sees the two little ones hugging and kissing each other, and pointedly separates them, sternly telling them that “girls don’t do that.”

As time passes, one sister, the younger, rebellious one, aptly called Rebel (a fitting nickname,) takes every opportunity to touch her older sister; but Cara stops hugging. Period. Cara no longer hugs Rebel and she doesn’t hug her mother any more, either; Cara no longer hugs anyone…

Now, whenever Cara’s mother hugs her (Cara’s mother was a hugging person, warm and wonderfully loving,) Cara doesn’t return her mother’s tight hugs. Cara simply stands there with her arms at her sides until her mother is done with the hugging, because, after all, “girls don’t do that”: her father told her so.

(Later on in life, Cara would come to regret her inability to hug her mother…

It wasn’t that Cara didn’t feel a deep love for her mother: she just couldn’t bring herself to respond in kind. Daddy said that girls don’t do that, and Cara wanted desperately for daddy to approve of her. Daddy, handsome, strong, dark-skinned, muscular, with shining white teeth and a deep voice, was Cara’s North Star. He could do no wrong.

Cara’s father did not like cry-babies, either, so Cara never cried.

Cara’s father loved sports, especially baseball, so Cara excelled at sports. Baseball was the one thing that her father did with her. He taught her how to bat and how to catch, and how to run down hard-hit long balls, and how to field, and how to just be great at everything that involved a hard ball or a softball, or a bat or a glove. She learned to play ball like a man – that’s how onlookers described it whenever they watched Cara play. In this way, Cara made her father proud.

Cara, who was also the first-born, basically idolized her father, so she tried to do everything that he liked, and since he did not like hugging or crying, Cara neither hugged nor cried. Ever.

Cara was too young to realize that when, during an argument her parents were having in the kitchen at the table one morning (the table top was red and white, with room for four people; her father sat at the head of the table right next to the stove, with her mother at his left, and Cara on his right,) her father was just being hurtful towards her mother when he said some of the things that he voiced. (Cara’s father worked long hours in a town 60 miles away from home and commuted daily.) Because his wife was VERY attractive (but apparently, unbeknownst to him, also extremely faithful to him,) Cara’s father constantly accused Cara’s mother of cheating on him with his friends.

On the day of one particular argument between her parents, Cara was present when her father said some very horrible words, voicing an old accusation; and Cara’s mother challenged her father to say the words directly TO Cara, and so Cara’s father did exactly that.

Cara’s father hesitated at first. His arms were both on the tabletop. He rubbed his face with his right hand, looking miserable. Then he looked directly at Cara. He said, plainly, without emotion, “You are not my daughter.”

Cara’s eyes widened. She searched her father’s face to see if he was joking.

Her father, her idol, was not joking.

Cara ran from the red and white kitchen table and into the big dining room. She dove beneath the large round oak dining room table, behind the tablecloth, where no one could see her, and she cried. Cara was much too young to negotiate the politics of vindictive adults: she only knew that the person she idolized most had just rejected her, and so she cried, and she hid there for a long time.

As time passed, Cara’s father never amended his statement. He never apologized.

Cara never forgot. Cara remembered.

As time passed, Cara witnessed many “fights” between her mother and father. They were fights in as much as they began with yet another accusation by her father concerning her mother’s imagined infidelity with one of his “so-called” friends; actually the fights always consisted of her father beating her mother.

Cara remembered (it was another of her very first memories) being outside on their wraparound porch (it was painted white, and it held a seated swing for two, as well as several iron chairs) facing the unpaved road that led into their driveway past one of the yard’s giant oak trees.

Cara remembered that it was a very beautiful morning. The sky was light blue and there were fluffy white clouds floating around, and it was mostly quiet and peaceful with the exception of Cara’s father straddling her mother’s chest, slapping her mother repeatedly.

Cara remembered feeling helpless; wringing her little-girl hands, just standing there crying, not knowing what to do; not knowing how to help “mommy.” Cara didn't know how long the situation lasted: she simply remembered the feeling of helplessness and the fear that her father would cause her mother to “go away.” Cara did not know what to do. The memory stayed with her for the rest of her life.

Cara remembered that sometime later on, when Cara was in the third grade, a brown-skinned boy named Johnny joined her third grade class. Johnny was a bully. Cara was a quiet, unassuming small-bodied girl: she tended to mind her own business and to stay out of trouble.

Of course, that was exactly the kind of child that drew out the meanness of Johnny, but Cara didn’t know that at the time - Cara tried to stay out of Johnny’s way as much as possible. It worked for a while, but one day (again, it was a very nice spring day, and it was recess so all the lower grade students were out in the schoolyard, enjoying the clear day, standing in groups talking to one another; laughing and having fun,) something about Cara caught Johnny’s attention, and Cara became a target for him.

Cara remembered that Johnny started running past Cara and her friends, pulling on Cara’s ponytail hard enough to snap her head back. Each time Johnny pulled on Cara’s ponytail, Cara demurely asked him not to do it.

After having had her head snapped back several times, something unexpected happened to Cara. She fought back.

Cara didn’t realize that she had fought back until later on when the school principal pried her off of Johnny. Cara had been sitting on top of Johnny, just like daddy had sat on top of mommy, and Cara had been hitting Johnny, slapping Johnny, making sure that Johnny would stop pulling on her ponytail, and Cara remembered that Johnny’s eyes were closing as she felt herself being lifted off of him. Cara had no idea when the fight had begun. All Cara knew was that she had no memory of anything that had occurred between the last time Johnny had pulled on her ponytail and the sensation of coming awake to discover the principal pulling on her skinny little body to get her off of Johnny …

Cara remembered crying and crying, sitting in the principal’s office, waiting for her mother to come get her. Crying and crying.

…and then Cara was in the back seat of her parents car, sitting on her mother’s lap, and her mother was talking about how important it was not to express anger the way her father did.

It was as if Cara had come out of a deep sleep. For all of the things that Cara remembered, she did not remember anything that had happened after her mother had come to get her in the principal’s office that day.

Cara NEVER remembered any of it. Whatever had occurred between the time of her fight with Johnny and her sitting on her mother’s lap on the backseat of her family’s car remained forever lost to Cara; however, she never fought anyone after that. In fact, Cara actively avoided any sort of conflict from that time onward, if possible, even though she could not avoid witnessing her father’s continuing physical abuse of her mother.

Cara feared for her mother every day, every week, every month.

Cara remembered that her mother was totally devoted to her father, but that her father was a jealous man, easily misled by the taunting of his friends (especially when her father had to drive 60 miles to work and back every day to provide for his family and his very attractive wife.)

Cara remembered that her father always came home at night, and when he wasn’t too tired, he would toss the ball with her, or take her to the park and hit long fly balls to her or hot ‘short-hoppers’ to her and allow her to practice her batting and fielding skills with him. Cara remembered that her prowess at the sport of softball greatly pleased her father, so she worked very hard at being excellent at softball. She had many admirers because of her skills playing softball.

And yet, Cara’s father never once told her that she was his. Not once.

Cara remembers.