Child Abuse- A Parent's Story

I am finding it hard to breathe as I attempt to work through the reality of what has happened in the last year. The support from people who have read my blog has been amazing but as I sit at my computer screen to begin this week’s writing I feel so utterly alone. I am learning to be ok with just me. I tell myself I am strong enough but abandonment seems to be a common thread with a comfortable seat in my life. It holds me down.

I sat beside my son on the couch. I began a tug of war with his blanket. Not a fun game like parents plays with their children at bedtime but an attempt to find my child hidden below his secrets. He was sobbing. My mind does not recall every question I asked but it went something like this:

“Are you afraid of getting in trouble?”

“No.”

“Do you feel ashamed?”

“Mmmhh”

“Honey, I love you. Do you know there is nothing you can ever tell me that would change that?”

“Mmmhh”

“Justin, can you tell me what happened?”

He groans.

“Honey talk to me so I can help you. Would it be easier if I asked you questions?”

I could barely make out his response, “Yes.”

“Does it have to do with another person?”

“Mmmhh”

“Does it have to do with your Dad?”

“No.”

“Does it have to do with Uncle Martin?

“No.”

“Does it have to do with Jerry?”

He groans, “Yes.”

My mind begins to race and yet stand still in that split second. Inside I was screaming NO but I couldn’t stop. This moment was about Justin and not about me. I didn’t have the option to stop. I couldn’t hide because I was too scared to deal with it. I was in automatic. I kept going.

“Did he touch you?”

I was startled when the blankets flew back and he sat straight up. With an utter look of terror he began to scream, “Mom I’m not gay! I’m not gay. I swear Mom I’m not gay.”

I grabbed him into my arms and wanted to pull him inside of me. I wanted to protect him with all that I had but I was too late. He fought my touch while he screamed, sobbed and gagged.

“Justin, this is not your fault. What someone else does to you does not make you gay or make you anything. Jerry was wrong and I am so sorry this happened to you. This is not your fault.”

He sobbed uncontrollably and gagged. I held him so tight. I couldn’t get him close enough. Now I was the one who wanted to hide him. I held him until I felt the fight in him go and he collapsed into my arms. It was just the two of us. It felt safe but it felt so raw. I wanted to stay there in that moment and keep both of us hidden away from the world. I kept repeating that it was not his fault, I loved him and he was going to be ok. I was brought back to the moment I held my helpless new born in my arms. It felt like it was just the two of us. Here we were the two of us again in this dark house and I held my helpless son.


He asked if he could go take a shower. We both got up and I got the shower started. I briefly excused myself to make a quick phone call. I called his dad, told him to get to the house as soon as possible and then I called my sister. I kept it brief because I needed to be with Justin. I explained it was worse than pot. I told her Jerry had touched Justin. I still don’t understand her response but she said, “Oh my God, I knew it.” I was in such a daze. I just left it. The words floated there in the unexplained. To this day I wonder was it just a moment when she recognized what we had all missed or was this just another well kept secret that she maintained for her child. I may never know the truth because what I am sure of is that the truth is of no value to her or her family. I told her I would call her tomorrow.

I walked back into the bathroom where Justin was showering and I found him sobbing. I asked if I could hold him. He couldn’t answer. I opened the shower door and stepped in with all my clothes. I scooped him up and let the water run over both of us. I held him in my arms. The water provided us a hiding place. I let myself cry. The streams running down my face were from the warm water of the shower, at least this is what I let myself believe. No mother should have to feel the tears of regret and heartbreak as she holds her abused child in her arms. Justin found strength in me as he clung to my saturated body. I told him it was going to be ok. He was ok.


I looked him square in the eyes and said, “I am so sorry. It was my job to protect you and I failed. If I had known I would have stopped it. I didn’t know.”

“I love you so much. I am so proud of you.”

The truth is I could never be more proud of anyone in my life. He broke the silence. My nine year old little boy did what some grown men and women are still not able to do. He fought to have a voice. He risked the rejection and judgments. He is amazing for what he did that night and for what he endured in the days to come.

My conversation with my sister had been brief. I needed to get Justin home so we could talk. When I turned to head toward the door I had a thought. I stopped in my tracks and turned back to my sister. I asked, “Can you do one thing for me? Would you please go tell Justin if Jerry ever does anything he should not, ask him to tell me.” My request seemed to hang in the air and I was unsure if she intended to leave it there. She gave an unconvincing nod. Without explaining anything to the rest of my family I took Justin out the door and walked slowly on the path which led to the car. My sister came running outside calling Justin’s name. She took a hold of him and looked him in the eyes. She told him exactly what I had asked. I was so grateful. I knew that was hard for her to do and I felt like she did it for me. When she said it I hadn’t realized that it was another twist in the combination which would open my son’s heart.

Justin and I didn’t speak on our short drive home. We left my mom’s house with the sun still shining while it rested on the hilltops but by the time I pulled into our driveway ten minutes later it had dipped itself behind the mountain as if to evade what was coming. The house was dark. I walked in, turned on a soft light in the living room and asked Justin to sit down.

I made my voice as soft and tender as possible, doing my best impression of June Cleaver from Leave It to Beaver. I wasn’t accusing or argumentative. I was still somewhere floating on a cloud of peaceful oblivion. We talked about the pot. He explained they had done it three times. He told me Jerry kept his stash in the DVD box and on top of his brother’s play structure in his back yard. He seemed scared as he told the details. I appreciated his honesty. I explained there would be consequences for the drugs and to my surprise he rattled off what he was willing to do, a list that placed him in servitude for a good portion of his fifth grade year. Drugs are serious and he needed me to make a stern statement against them but his consequences were over the top. It made me wonder if other drugs were involved. I sat him on the coffee table in front of me, eye to eye of equal height. “Justin, they are going to have Jerry take a blood test. Is there anything else that you need to tell me?” I gently asked. Justin looked horrified. I can’t explain what I saw in my son’s eyes at that moment but it was like everything he had been enduring bubbled up and rested in two blue pools. His voice was trembling while he asked, “Everything?”

He began to cry.

Still oblivious to what was happening I thought it was more drugs but I didn’t question.

His crying was now beginning to steal his breath as he tried to get out what had sunk from his eyes and now had a grip on his chest. “Mom, it has to do with the bed,” He said.

Swept away in my mind’s ignorant diversion, I connected what he was saying with my marriage of twenty years. I had learned in the last six months through lie detectors and counseling that my children’s father is a sex addict. He is addicted pornography and masturbation. I let my experience with his father turn me sharply off course and foolishly I assumed he was confessing that he masturbates. This was just another idiotic moment on my part. He is nine years old for God’s sake. But my mind was carried away in a thousand conversations which ended with a relieved chuckle. I took his hands into my own, continued with my gentle mommy voice and said, “Oh honey, that is normal. Sometimes boys play with themselves. I want you to know that it is suppose to feel good but it is also designed to be shared with someone you love and hope to spend the rest of your life with. It feels good but when there is love it is the best thing in the world.” It sounds so cheesy now as I scramble to recall exactly what I said but sitting with his hands in mine the words seemed perfect.

All this talk and the pot smoking was just the thunder before the storm. The flood gates opened. Justin began to sob. He got up, threw himself onto the adjacent couch. He grabbed the blanket laying there and hid himself just as the sun had done earlier. The hands wrapped around his chest appeared to tighten their grip. His breathing was labored. He buried himself further under the blanket and cried.

Why was he hiding from me? I accepted what he said. I had not judged him. I tried to make him feel normal and yet he was reverting before my eyes to the helpless infant that I once coddled in my arms. Then the horrific moment spun out of control. Like a vacuum, I was sucked from everything I once knew to a world full of fear and pain. I sat helpless and exposed as out from under the blanket a third being appeared, not a person with flesh-laden bones but a presence which was undeniable. It was a monster so grotesque I wanted to run away but it held my son as its captive. I felt the need to fight. I needed to muster up the strength to delve into what was in front of me. I finally had a glimpse. For the first time I knew. My stomach turned and my heart raced. I sat immobilized in the dimly lit room and across from me was this beast. I felt powerless watching the way he freely encircled my son and devastated as his name rolled off his tongue with a hiss like a serpent, Shame.