“God please don’t let me be pregnant.”  I opened my eyes and checked to see if I’d started my period.  I hadn’t.  I pulled up my pants and went back out to the living room to watch Johnny Carson with my mother.

 

As I sat in the easy chair, sharp, stabbing pains shot through my abdomen, disproportionate to the laugh track set to Johnny’s monologue.  I headed back to the bathroom and sat on the toilet.  I held my belly in both hands as the pains continued.  When they subsided, the toilet was full of blood.  I cleaned up with a wash cloth, careful to wash out the blood under a stream of icy water.  When the last pink tinge was gone, I splashed water onto my face to dilute the sweat, dried off on the towel and went back out to the living room.  I felt like a murderer who had just made a pact with the devil to kill my unwanted unborn.    

 

“Are you alright?” my mother asked, glancing at my pale face as I sat down gingerly in the easy chair.

 

“I just started my period,” I answered.  “It’s a bad one…really messy and painful.”

 

“Oh. Okay,” she murmured, turning back to Johnny.

 

Two weeks later, serving a self derived Catholic penance at 17, I got pregnant to make up for the baby I had prayed to miscarry.

 

                                                         ~~~                  

 

Ruben was one of several people I supervised in a community program that installed double cylinder deadbolts for free to low income households.  We distributed flyers that told of our service throughout the downtown neighborhoods and then made appointments for the installations when qualified clients called.  It was a job that gave all of us a lot of time to get to know each other.

 

Ruben and I teamed up and went door to door attaching our flyers to screens, sliding them into newspaper boxes or under doormats.  He was a handsome young man, with olive skin, curly dark hair, brown eyes and full lips that curled into a trusting smile against perfect white teeth when he talked.  He was tall and gangly, with strong lean muscles.  He smelled of expensive cologne.  He came from the east coast; the only son of an affluent family. 

 

As we walked, we talked and Ruben told me he’d been sent to the west coast, because he got into trouble back home. 

 

“I was married once.  My wife and I fought all the time.  One night, I came home from work and she was gone.  She had taken all her stuff, too!  I was so pissed, that I loaded up the furniture in my truck and took it to the dump.  As I unloaded it, a drunk came up behind me and attacked me.  I fought back and he died.  I was arrested and I had to go to court.  If my mom hadn’t helped me, I’d probably be in jail.”

 

I didn’t believe him at first.  I thought he was trying to flaunt that dangerous air that young girls like in their men.  The next day, he brought a newspaper clipping to work to show me.

 

The jury had found Ruben not guilty.  He had convinced them it was justifiable homicide.  His mother moved him out to the west coast immediately, to protect him from the public outrage at the verdict.  She got his marriage annulled and pulled strings to get him hired at our company.

 

The little voice inside me that had warned of trouble since childhood started singing, “Watch out.  He’s too dangerous.”  I looked at him, trying to gain perspective.

 

He looked sad and lonely.  He had no family.  All he really had was his relationships with coworkers.  I silenced the cautionary voice.  Ruben really needed a friend and I was a sucker for the underdog.

 

~~~

 

When I was three months pregnant, I told my mother.  I asked her to tell my father.  I was too afraid to tell him myself.  She waited until I left the house to go to school before she told him.  When I returned home, she met my eyes with a curt nod and I knew he had been informed.  He said nothing, but I could tell he was not pleased. 

 

I misread his silence for slow acceptance.  I felt like I could talk openly about the changes I felt going on in my body.  We were sitting in the living room, watching television, when I felt my baby kick for the first time.  I jumped up and holding my stomach, I said, “Mom!  I just felt my baby move!  It felt like butterfly wings inside me!”

 

I heard a growl from across the room.  My father charged at me and at the last minute, extended his foot in a side kick that connected with my abdomen.  I heard my mother screaming as I staggered backward, trying to stay on my feet.  Then he was in front of me, trying to hit me wherever he could.

 

I pushed him away, shrieking, “Fuck you!  I won’t let you murder my baby!”  I reached for the doorknob, intent on leaving.  He forced himself between me and the door, physically blocking my exit.  I slumped my shoulders and lowered my head, watching him from my periphery, ready to defend myself if he came at me again.  The next day, I ran away.  I had to protect the second chance baby Lenn and I had created.

 

~~~

 

Ruben called me at home.  “Hey, guess what?” he asked.

 

“Tell me!” I said, holding the phone to my ear with my shoulder as I picked up and hugged my tow-headed four-year old.

 

“My mother bought me a house!  You have to come over and see it!” he said. 

 

“Where is it?” I asked.  He gave me a distant address.

 

“I don’t have a way over there.” I said.

 

“Take the bus,” he suggested.

 

“Naw.  I don’t want to drag my kids out.  The bus ride would take hours to get there and hours to get back.”

 

“Get a sitter,” he prompted.

 

“I can’t get a sitter on such short notice,” I said.  “I haven’t fed them yet, anyway.  Some other time.”

 

“I have a car.  I’ll come and get all of you, feed you dinner and bring you home.  Okay?” he asked.

 

It sounded like a good plan; a ride there and back and a free meal for me and my two boys.  “Okay, then.” I agreed.

 

Ruben was there to pick us up a half hour later.  He told me that he had a Jacuzzi in his back yard and that we should bring swim suits.  I gathered our suits and packed them into my purse.  We seated the boys in the car and headed to Ruben’s new house.

 

~~~

I walked as fast as my eight months of pregnancy would allow me.  When I got to Lenn’s mother’s house I found him on the wrap-around porch, drinking beer with five of his six brothers.

 

“Something happened to the money we had hidden,” I said to him.  I had gone home to check the hiding spot underneath the sweater I kept in a shoebox in the dresser when I found that Lenn had bought the beer he was drinking with his siblings.  Four of the five twenty dollar bills were still there.

 

“Well, maybe someone broke in and stole twenty dollars,” he said.  His brothers started to laugh as they realized his drunken gaffe.

 

“You took it for beer!” I accused.  “You can’t even tell a good lie!” I taunted, angry that he expected me to believe a thief would leave eighty dollars.  I was 17, but I wasn’t stupid.

 

Lenn slammed his beer down on the railing.  It foamed up and trickled over his fingers.  He slapped his wet hand across my face, then doubled up his fist and punched me.  Blows landed on my face, chest and pregnant belly as I backed up, trying to get away from him.  I put my hands out to block his punches and took another step backwards.  I screamed as I fell down the porch steps.  His brothers sat quietly and watched him pummel my back with his fists as I lay on the sidewalk, curled into a fetal position to protect our baby.  My muffled cries aroused no sympathy and garnered no help.

 

~~~

 

Ruben’s house was a one bedroom, one bathroom cottage with a big, fenced in back yard.  He took us on a tour of the house and yard and then asked if we’d like to sit in the Jacuzzi while he ordered pizza.  We changed into our swim wear and relaxed in the warm bubbling water, talking and laughing until the food arrived. 

 

My four-year old conked out soon after eating.  My nine-year old started to doze as he watched television.  I wanted to get them home and put them to bed, but I didn’t want to be rude to Ruben.  I wondered when I should ask to be taken home.  What was the proper etiquette for how long to visit after dinner and a tour?

 

~~~

My face was red and swollen from another beating.  A tear dropped on my three month old son as I bent to pick him up from his crib.  I picked up his diaper bag and walked to the door, holding back my sobs. 

 

Lenn moved to block the door.  “You’re not taking my son,” he said and he pulled him roughly from my arms.  He opened the door and pushed me outside.  I heard the lock click into place sharply, cautioning the birds perched on the wires above into silence.

 

I started walking toward the freeway.  My plan was to hitchhike eighty miles to the nearest city with Legal Aide and beg them to help me get a divorce.  Five blocks into the walk, I started worrying that my plan might not work out.  I might never see my son again.  I turned around and walked back. 

 

Lenn was standing outside the house.  When he saw me, he bent down and scooped up a handful of rocks from the dirt road that ran past our house.  He began to lob rocks at me.  I dodged them as I moved closer. 

 

“Please let me come home,” I bawled.  He threw another rock.  “I’m sorry.  I’m sorry,” I pleaded. 

 

Lenn looked at the neighbors standing in their yards watching us.  He dropped the rocks, grabbed my arm and pulled me into the house.  I heard my son crying in the swing suspended from the door frame.  I ran to him and looked into his face, trying to comfort him with a smile.  What I saw filled me with fear and I guarded the anger floating on the surface of my emotions.

 

“What happened to his eye?” I demanded, wincing at the blue bruising under my baby’s right eye.

 

“He bumped it on the door frame when he was swinging,” Lenn said.  He held my gaze, daring me to say more. I didn’t.

 

I held my son close to my body, soothing him.  I vowed never to leave him alone with his daddy again.  I vowed to find a safe way for us to escape.  At 18 years old, I vowed to protect my baby at any cost, even if it meant revising many of those behaviors of mine that caused Lenn’s episodes of rage.

~~~

 

Ruben invited me to go back into the Jacuzzi.  When I agreed to have one more soak, he suggested that my boys would be more comfortable on his bed in the room adjacent to the living room.  I carried my preschooler and coaxed my sleepy fourth grader to walk to the bedroom to rest.  Ruben started to shut the louvered French doors and I stopped him.  If my boys woke up in a strange place, they might be scared.  I wanted them to be able to see me.

 

Ruben poured two glasses of wine and took them out to the Jacuzzi.  We climbed in and talked as we drank.  When I finished the wine, I thanked him for his hospitality and asked him to take us home.  He smiled and nodded.  We got out of the water, dried off and went back into the house.

 

~~~

 

We argued in the living room, our voices getting louder and louder as we each tried to be heard by the other.  I found myself screaming at Lenn as loudly as I could, until I saw the look on his face.  His eyes focused on something past me.  With his mouth drawn into a snarl, he tightened his hands around my throat and bent me over backwards.  My hands gripped his wrists and I gasped as I tried to pull him off of me. 

 

He squeezed my throat as he walked me backwards, through the living room and into the bedroom.  Still I managed to scream; a squeak at first that intensified as I realized I might die.  As he maneuvered me past the bed, I let go of his right wrist and thrust my hand between the mattresses.  I stopped screaming and grasped what I had hidden months before.  I tightened my grip and pulled it out from its hiding place.  A second later I pressed the butcher knife to his throat.

 

I hesitated.  In that moment of hesitation, he knew I could not use it.  He let go of my throat with his right hand and pulled the knife from my grip.  The fury in his eyes terrified me.  He pushed me into the bathroom and threw the knife into the shower.  He kicked me in the abdomen, slamming me into the sink.  I screamed and I screamed and I screamed.  I could hear my one-year-old son screaming with me, from his crib in the bedroom.

 

Lenn turned away from me and walked out of the bedroom.  I heard the front door slam.  I ran to my frightened son and calmed him until the police arrived to take a statement.  The neighbors had heard our screams.

 

~~~

 

In the living room, I picked up my clothing and headed to the bathroom to change out of my swim suit.  As I walked past Ruben he grabbed my arm, turned me to face him and tried to kiss me. 

 

“No!  Please don’t,” I said, averting my face, surprised at the abruptness of his advance.  I didn’t feel that way about him.  Ruben was a friend, not a boyfriend.

 

 “C’mon!” he said, wrapping his arms around me. 

 

I took a deep breath and through clenched teeth, reiterated, “I SAID NO!”  I dropped my clothing, put my hands against his chest and pushed firmly.  He didn’t ease his grip. 

 

~~~

 

“What is this?” Lenn walked up to me as I sat on the porch, warming myself in the springtime sun.   He held out a subpoena for divorce court.

 

I wondered if I should run and decided it was too late.  Instead, I spoke with a measured softness.  “I’ve been thinking.  We’re just not good together as husband and wife.” 

 

“I don’t want this!” Lenn said.  “I love you.”  He shook the subpoena at me.

 

“I’m sorry.” I said.  “We treat each other better when we’re just friends.” 

 

He lowered the subpoena.  If there was any love for him left in my heart, the look on his face would have made me take him back. 

 

~~~

 

Ruben waited for me to look into his eyes.  When I did, I saw a coldness reflected back.  I felt adrenalin surge through my body.  My inner voice screamed, “Run!  Run!  Run!  Run!”  The inner shrieking accelerated as my heart rate increased.  I couldn’t leave my boys.  I had to make him let me go.

 

He tightened his arms, negating my pushing.  I struggled against his embrace and he kissed me, bruising my lips.  I pushed harder and Ruben squeezed tighter, pinning my arms between us.  I opened my mouth and begged with ragged breath for him to let me go.  He slid his hand behind my head and pulled me closer.  His teeth clicked against mine as he covered my mouth with his.  He reached down to pull off my swim suit bottoms.  I shakily freed one arm and pulled to keep them up.

 

In a moment, Ruben had me on the living room floor, grinding against me.  I was afraid.  I knew he had killed.  I was angry for not having more strength, the strength I needed to fight him off.  I whimpered, knowing I had lost the physical battle, but kept up the façade of fight.  He looked into my eyes again, with a wild look, a dangerous look that said he might kill for this.  He glanced sideways at the French doors and whispered menacingly, “You don’t want them to wake up and see this, do you?”  I hated him for playing my will to survive against my mother’s protective instinct.

 

~~~

 

For my 20^th birthday I gave myself the gift of change.  I packed a suitcase with summer clothing and an overnight bag with disposable diapers and headed off to California with my two year old in tow. 

 

I picked new friends, trying to break free of my tendencies to navigate toward men like my father.  Ryan was one of those friends.  Years later we became a couple and at 23 years old, I became pregnant for the third time.

 

“Mom?”  I held the receiver close to my ear.  “I’m pregnant with Ryan’s baby.”

 

“Well, are you going to marry him?” she asked.

 

“No, Mom.” I said.  “I’ll never get married again.”

 

“The kids at school will call your baby a bastard,” she said.

 

Knowing I was safe, I asked her from 900 miles away, “Will you tell Dad that I’m pregnant?”

 

~~~

 

I turned my head and looked through the white French doors to see my two sleeping boys lying on the down comforter in Ruben’s bedroom.  My breath caught in my thickening throat and strangled the metallic tasting cry that lay behind it.  My hands started to shake and the trembling moved up my arms and into my torso.  Fear permeated my chest and gave rise to the tears that flooded my eyes.  I sniffed, nonblinking and let my tears evaporate.  As I gritted my teeth and focused on giving up my body to the fight, I felt a nearly arid eye release a tear which rolled into my ear, muffling Ruben’s rapid breathing. 

 

I turned my gaze away from my sleeping sons and looked at Ruben.  The scent of sickly sweet coconut and sour sweat permeated the room.  Candlelight reflected from the popcorn ceiling above him.

 

“No,” I said.  “I don’t want them to see this.”

 

He felt me acquiesce and tore off my bottoms.  I lay there, ashamed and yielding as he slid his swim suit down and penetrated me, thrusting into dryness, his grueling rut producing multiple rug burns on my buttocks. When the Jacuzzi motor shut down, all I heard were short blasts of breath rasping past my ear, then a guttural groan as he finished his assault.  Ruben’s weight pushed the air from my lungs as he relaxed atop me.  I struggled to breathe and he rolled to the side, letting me put my swim suit bottoms back on. 

 

Afterwards, he grabbed my wrist pulling me up and towards his bedroom.  “I’m moving your kids to the couch,” he said.  His tone made the statement final.  I’d been defeated and I didn’t argue.

 

~~~

 

My water broke with the first contraction.  I gripped Ryan’s hand and begged him to coach me through the pain.  I found my focal point and breathed with each contraction.   After an hour, when they were five minutes apart, Ryan pried his hand loose to alert the neighbor who had promised to drive us to the hospital and to babysit my five year old. 

 

The neighbor drove at speeds way above the limit, slaloming around slower traffic.  Panting in the back seat with the contractions three minutes apart, I didn’t notice.

 

Twenty-eight minutes after arriving at the hospital, the nurse prodded Ryan in the back as they raced to the delivery room.  Ryan got there just in time to see our son being born.

 

The doctor held my quiet baby close to my face for a few seconds.  “He’s got a silver streak in his hair,” he said.  The streak contrasted with the wet mess of black hair plastered to my baby’s head.

 

“Beautiful boy,” I whispered to the newborn, created to put life back into a failing relationship.

 

My son whimpered.  The doctor handed him to a nurse.  Later I learned that he had to be put under oxygen.  They said he was born too fast.  He was doing fine when he came home just twenty-three hours after his birth.

 

~~~

 

I helped Ruben move my two sleeping boys to the couch.  They stirred, then safely settled into the soft fabric and back into sleep.  Ruben took hold of my long blonde hair and yanked me toward him, with brute force.  He cupped my jaw in his other hand and held my face to meet his dark, unwavering gaze.  I felt my muscles jump as they tensed and released against his fingers and thumb.  I thought about the drunk at the garbage dump back east.  My thudding chest felt heavy with the pressure of fear. 

 

“We’re going to bed.”  He squeezed my jaw as if he was contemplating how much pressure it would take to shatter it.  The rhythmic breathing of my sleeping sons was muffled by my pulse galloping loudly against my ears.  I nodded and his grasp loosened.  He pushed me towards the bedroom and followed me into it.

 

He pulled back the bed covers for us.  The ticking of the clock seemed to be counting down the remaining minutes of my life.  I couldn’t let my boys wake up to a dead mother in the morning.  I’d conceal my resistance and do whatever I needed to do to protect them from ever having that memory.  I crawled into his bed, and behind closed French doors, was silently assaulted twice more that night.

 

~~~

 

Ryan and I separated after our baby’s first birthday.  The breakup was volatile and emotionally violent.  I kept physical custody of our son, a financial point of contention for Ryan.

 

“Get down here!”  Harold’s voice trembled over the phone line.  My new boyfriend had walked my two-year old to the ice cream parlor.  “I had to hide him under a wheel barrow.  Ryan’s friend tried to take him from me.”

 

“Call the cops!”  I hung up the phone and ran out the door, barefoot.  I ran eight long blocks to the ice cream parlor.

 

My toddler was sitting on the hood of a police car, crying.  I ran to comfort him.  The officer stopped me, wanting to find out who I was.  When he realized I was the mother of the little boy sitting on his car, he let me hold my son. 

 

He listened to the story of our break-up, first from me, then from Ryan.  There was no custody settlement in effect yet, so the officer made a decision.  He drove me home with my youngest son on my lap.

 

We stayed inside for almost a year.  If Ryan didn’t have access to my son, then he couldn’t take him from me.

 

~~~

 

In the morning, Ruben drove us home and dropped us off with just enough time to be able to get ready for our day.  I stood, relieved and disgusted, in the longest, hottest shower I could tolerate, all the while thinking that I deserved what had happened to me.  I didn’t listen to my inner voice and because of that, I put myself and my boys in danger.  How could I have been so stupid?

 

I got myself and my boys dressed.  I took my boys to the sitter and dropped them off without the usual morning conversation with their caregiver.  I took the bus to work, looking out the window but not seeing the city as we drove through it.  When I walked into the office, Ruben was already there.  I felt my fear return as his warning look silenced me. 

 

After seeing his dangerous side, I knew that Ruben had killed that east coast drunk out of an uncontrolled rage the night his wife left.  Ruben was aware that I realized he was a murderer.  His unblinking stare communicated that I was lucky to be alive.  I planned to stay that way.  I kept my mouth shut.

 

Ruben stayed with the company throughout the week, then resigned.  He told everyone that his mother had got him a better job.  I didn’t know about that.  I did know he had gotten away with murder back east.  I also knew he was sure that I wouldn’t say anything about what he had done to me.  He had gotten away with that, too.

 

~~~

 

Thirty years later, Lenn, Ryan and Harold are but memories that helped mold me into a resilient force that moved slowly away from an abusive lifestyle.  Ruben was pushed to the recesses of my mind, to the place were I bury shame.  My rape happened at a time when society blamed rape victims for their assault.  I was ashamed that I had missed the signals; that I hadn’t listened to my inner voice when it warned me about Ruben.  I was ashamed that I had put myself in the situation where my sons became unknowing pawns in my rape. 

 

As I compartmentalized my trauma, I nurtured my sons, knowing my acquiescence offered them the option to be raised by me, from beautiful boys to wonderful men, who are the first generation of a cycle of abuse, broken.  I can be proud of that.