By: Mia L. Hazlett
4/15/13
Our dinner last night was so special to me. They had all met up before, but I was always the one who couldn’t make it there. I’m so happy I didn’t miss last night. I needed that night out. I hate getting snippet pieces of information from over five or six different phone conversations with everyone. Sitting there last night and hearing what was going on in everyone’s life made me appreciate my circumstances…at least a little bit.
I guess it hurt me the most that I couldn’t share what was going on in my life. I had to wear this happy mask and make myself appear indestructible on the outside, when in reality my life had been shattered three weeks ago. Absolutely shattered to pieces!
The relationships Tasha and Dawn had with their mother-in-laws was the relationship, which existed between my mother and I. It always had been and most likely always will be. My mother was a housewife and my father was an attorney at a prestigious (I’ve always hated that word) firm in downtown Boston. What was prestigious? His title? His salary? His partners? Whatever it was, I never heard “firm” without “prestigious.”
Somehow, this prestige boosted my mother’s image of herself and how she thought others should perceive us. If there was a point of perfection that existed beyond perfection, than that was how my mother wanted to be perceived. I almost ruined that for our family at the tender age of 15. I was raped by our babysitter’s boyfriend.
I had one older brother and one younger. My parents and their prestige led them to vacation and leave us with one of my father’s fellow attorney’s niece to babysit us while they were away. She was twenty-something and would always have her friends and on this one occasion, boyfriend, over to the house.
Point is, he came into my room this one night, drunk. He raped me and I conceived a child. My mother never believed me and told me I was to never say anything about it. I was home-schooled and never left my house. Literally, I never left our property. The backyard to our pool was the only place outside I was allowed. A home-birth was arranged with papers and a social worker or adoption lady, whoever that lady was who took my daughter or son.
Life continued as normal, for my “prestigious” parents anyways. At least my brothers believed me. They found the guy. I don’t know what happened to him, but whatever it was, was relayed in a quick wink from my brother when I asked why his shirt had blood on it one night. That was the best wink I ever received in my life.
I really never imagined I would ever have to revisit that year in my life, until the letter I received 3 weeks ago. That social work lady took away my daughter that day. The same daughter, who hunted me down and now wanted to know why I had given her away. There was a 25 year-old person I never met, who lost her adoptive parents in the past 5 years and now wants answers from me.
A Young Writer Coming Up 