It was a beautiful 3 story house that sat upon a hill, a dream house to me. It sat directly across from a drive-in movie theater and had a matching playhouse in the front yard...I felt as if our luck was turning around. I remember my brother and I sitting on the balcony of my bedroom, I was 3 and he was 8, we'd watch movies on the weekends that the drive-in would show, we couldn't hear the sound but we didn't care. Mom and boyfriend one seemed happy, my cousin wasn't around as much so my mom had my grandma stay with us quite often. My grandma wasn't the loving grandmotherly type, but, she was better than the usual sitter mom would stick us with. During the day, my mom left me with an older couple, The Bean's. They only kept a few kids and luckily I was one of them. They were so wonderful to me, they felt more like grandparents to me than my real ones and they would often offer to keep me for free on the weekends, which of course my mom took full advantage of. Mom and boyfriend one were hardly ever around, it was mostly my brother and I with either the cousin or our grandma, that is if it wasn't our weekends to go with our dads. It was so difficult seeing him leave with his dad, it was if he was leaving me behind. I was glad that Mom most often scheduled our weekends with each of our dad's at the same time. My brother's bedroom had the coolest feature ever...when you'd open his closet, there was a small door in the back and if you'd open it, it took you to a small attic like room that became our secret clubhouse. If I ever build a house, I would want my kids to have that secret room because it became a respite from the rest of the world.
One memory that I have so deeply ingrained into my mind was of an evening that mom and boyfriend one decided to go out to their usual drinking spot. I didn't want her to leave me so I started crying and begging her to stay with me...she left anyway. I went to the window and sobbed so heavily as they were driving away, which obviously annoyed my cousin. She screamed at me to shut up and go to my room, I didn't. The next thing I remember is feeling intense pain in my legs and hearing piercing screams come out of my mouth, but the pain in my legs continued and spread all over both of my legs. I don't remember anything after that...I guess that's where our minds help us to allude our bodies in order to endure trauma. My cousin had grabbed a belt out of boyfriend one's closet. The belt was full of straight pins, I don't know why it was still to this day and I don't know how my cousin didn't see the pins, but it happened. As she struck my legs over and over again in the dark room as I stood at the window screaming for my mom, the pins stuck in my legs. She struck me in anger over and over again before she noticed the blood streaming down my legs. My legs were covered in these bleeding pin holes, little baby legs of a 3 year old girl. I honestly don't know what happened after that, my mind has shielded me from the details of that memory. If you ask my cousin about the event, she gets upset about it still now, almost 37 years later. As for me, I'm still not sure how I feel about it all, but I can tell you that I never felt love for her again after that evening.
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