As a very young (eighteen-year-old) wife, there was a time when I had to move into the home of my mother and her boyfriend (the man who had sexually abused me from age two to twelve) alone. My husband’s life was taking him to Texas and I couldn’t go. The plan had been for three months. I could do three months!
I hadn’t lived with my mom since I was removed from her home at twelve. In the way most kids in similar situations long for their parents–even when it’s a very unhealthy situation–I’d spent those years of separation yearning for her. So much so that she was easily my very best friend. Looking back I see there was almost this sense of coming home that took me there, even though she lived in a brand new house and there was no evidence of me ever belonging in her life at all.
Sad about my husband leaving, and yet thrilled about “getting my mom back” (or something like that anyway), I went into that chapter of my life elatedly naive about what it would mean to share a home with him.
Where evidence of me was missing, his DNA was everywhere. In dinners and conversations, in grocery store runs, phone calls, and the evenings in front of the tv–the awkwardness of us hung as six-year-old cobwebs strewn thick and dusty, from every fixture.