3. The Bombshell is Dropped
In the latter half of 2006 we had a significant family event coming up. We live a fair distance away from my parents, so for them to attend it means they need to come and stay with us. They’ve stayed with us before and that’s been fine – usually it’s only been my own in our home and my husband’s girls had both shifted to their mother’s back then. They had both developed a dislike for my parents and I could never work out what the reason was. Whilst I was saddened they didn’t want to live with us any longer I did recognise that teenage girls really do need to be with their mums and for whatever reason they chose for wanting to leave here, I hoped and prayed that as they got older they would see me once again as someone who really did love and care for them. After all, I’d brought them both up from a very young age.
This year was different. The older of the two girls had shifted back to live with us and was now in her early 20s. I was pleased she wanted to live with us again and she and I gradually got attuned to one another – me learning to be more careful in my approach towards her and she in her responses to me. We were starting to get on an even keel in living with one another.
But, as the family event drew closer, she began to get depressed, anxious, angry – just like she used to be, and we couldn’t fathom what was causing it. Often my husband and I would ask if she was ok, but she was always non-commital. That is, until one Sunday night. She’d been in a mood for a fight all day and that evening she picked one with her father, with both having raised voices. And then out of the blue, the bombshell was dropped. She accused us of not caring about her or about what happened to her. We questioned and asked what she meant and she told us that it wasn’t just the one daughter that had been touched all those years ago, but that she had been too. Further than that, my own daughter was also involved.
I sat in my chair in shock. Did I really understand what she said? Out of the fog I heard her father’s voice speaking, saying we had no idea what she was talking about and how could we possibly help. He told her that we knew something had taken place many years ago but no-one had ever shared with us what it was. She began to cry, as did I, and I told her how much I loved my dad and how hard it was to think he could be someone who would do something to little girls that was unthinkable. She told us she’d always thought we had known what happened but couldn’t bring herself to tell us – she’d only ever been able to share it with her best friend.
Her father and I took turns telling her how we had wondered for many years, how we’d prayed, talked, hoped that someone would tell us. How I had hoped it was some misunderstanding but because we didn’t know the actual thing we could only guess and it could have been anything. Her dad told her how we could never have acted upon something we had no knowledge of, but if someone could just tell us, then we could become active about it.
The realisation that something bad really did occur was beginning to hit me and it was the start of a big nightmare for me. My father, whom I’d loved and adored all of my life was beginning to demonstrate a different personality, someone I didn’t know. And right under our noses – well, almost. There was a short period of time when my husband and I went away for a few days and had left our girls in the care of my parents many years ago.
When we were told in 1997 that something had happened we were given no inkling of when or where, but as time wore on we started to see little things that indicated all was not right with my father, although we hadn’t put it all together. But in the following weeks after being told this ‘new’ news we started to put together bits and pieces of information, and memories of other things started to crowd in. The nightmare was not going to go away.