Years (minutes) later, I remember standing in my kitchen, hands pressed flat to the edge of the counter, directly adjacent to the living room. In the living room there was a couch, a coffee table, a recliner, and an easy chair. In the easy chair (grey with brown thread running through the rough soft comfortable familiar fabric) was my brother. In my brother, a longing he couldn’t express, and a rage I didn’t yet see. In me- a crushing terror I couldn’t define. Standing there, in the kitchen, with my hands pressed flat to the counter, so hard the knuckles turned white and bony- it was all I could do to recognize what I felt as terror, let alone attempt to pinpoint its source. My face felt exposed. My skin suddenly cold. My stomach living in my feet, and my heart in my throat. Was it Him that dis-located my organs like this? I didn’t know that then. I’m not sure I know it now. I only know that I stood stock still stationary gripping the counter when he asked me.

What did he ask me. He asked me if I remembered. And what did he ask if I remembered- Phoenix. He said Phoenix. Phoenix- a bird that consumes itself into ashes and eventually is reborn from those ashes. Phoenix- a place in Arizona; dry arid and desolate. Exotic, fraught with heat. He wasn’t asking me about a bird. He wasn’t asking me about the heat in Arizona. He asked me if I remembered Phoenix- if I ever thought about it; casually with one arm resting beneath his chin, eyes leveled at the television he asked me. No. I did not remember it. I did not think about it. ever.

I lied. I thought about it all the time. Alone, in the company of others, in silence in roaring sound I thought about it. I think about it still. Often. More often that I should. Or maybe not often enough. Who is to judge the correct rememberance of a childhood abuse? Who is to know? I do not.

I walked away from the kitchen. I walked away from the counter and my knuckle white hands. Walked away from the living room and the chair that held him. I did not remember Phoenix. I did not know that the bird was supposed to be reborn from the ashes. I only knew that it burned. My thoughts were of a bird- exotic, fraught with heat, and ashes.

When I finally told my mother what was going on, I cried. I don’t know if it was from shame, or fear, or relief. She was sitting on the edge of my bed, which at that time was still made up in Strawberry Shortcake sheets, and covered with a matching canopy. She’d come in to read to me before bed. It’s something she did every night that I can remember. I would lie down beneath the halo of light coming from my reading lamp, and she would sit beside me, reading page after page until her voice gave out, or I fell asleep. Though, truthfully, the latter happened rarely if ever; it was more often the case that I would beg her for just one more chapter, one more page, until she had to refuse me. To this day I am an avid reader. So it’s interesting to me that what I remember most from that moment is the halo of light from the lamp. I couldn’t tell you what book she’d been reading, I’ve no idea. I couldn’t tell you what she, or I, was wearing. I only remember the halo of light surrounding her, and the utter darkness beyond. It formed a perfect oval around her outline- like she was in a bubble or egg. The stark contrast of light and shadow is what makes up most of the image in my mind. I remember the darkness. I remember covering my face with my hands as I cried. And I remember that my mother, the woman who read herself hoarse night after night for me, didn’t believe a word I said.

I remember what I was wearing. Dark green sweat pants – the kind so obnoxiously prevalent in the eighties, with the bunched elastic ankles and waistline made of ultra thick spongy cotton. It strikes me as odd, now, that I was wearing pants at all- it was summer. Or at least it seemed like it. I remember the pants because I remember looking down at them when my brother and his friends pulled them off of me. I remember the blue canvas mat beneath me. It was one of those gymnastic play mats, shaped like a wedge, about six feet long. Kids used to do flips on them and wrestle each other. I remember looking down at my pants, at the mat beneath me, and noticing all the cracks in the canvas; looking at all the dried leaves stuck to the very edges of it, where the underside had been pressed against the ground all winter. I remember thinking that if I flipped it over I would find more bugs than I could count. I remember the sound of the wind in the leaves of the maple trees- a strange sort of fluttering, chattering whisper. I remember the color of my pants. And I remember the sound of my brothers voice, asking me if I wanted to play a game.

When I gave my first blow job, I was six years old. I say ‘gave,’ but it’s hard to give something away before you even know what it is, or that it’s yours to give. Perhaps it’s better to say it was taken. Then again, to say that something is ‘taken’ from you often implies intent on the part of the ‘taker’. And is it any fairer to say that you took something before you knew what it was, or that it belonged to someone else? I can’t say that my brother, who was nine, maybe ten, at the time, had any intent whatsoever to take something from me. I can’t say with any confidence that I wasn’t really taking something from him, and that those few months haven’t continued taking something from the both of us all these years of our lives.

This is, in the purest sense, a story. It is not intended as a confession. It is not intended as a testimony. It is not even a secret revealed. It is a story. And like all stories, there will be something of value to you in it- though I truly doubt I have any idea what that will be. Perhaps it will be a few hours of escape from your own life; an opportunity to become other than yourself. Perhaps it will simply be one line, one scene, you identify with and that sparks in you the moment of recognition; “ah, I know what it is to be there.” Or perhaps it will be an aching sadness that stays with you for the rest of your life, and follows you through sun and shadow. And, let it be said, that yes, I do believe sadness is a thing of value.