No Love In Sight

by Pegi R
(Ohio, USA)

My older Brother S always tried to touch me from as young as I can remember. One night, my uncle picked me up out of bed, touched me, and passed me to several other relatives who touched me.

One day while playing in the woods with Brother J, Brother S came out of nowhere and threw me in the back seat of a old Jeep and said he would show me what you do on a date. I got away.

Age 11, taking a bath, here comes Brother S now 16, who ordered me to get on the floor and lay down. I refused. We got in a screaming match and he finally stormed out.

Brother S shoved a picture of our Mom naked in my face and claimed he took the picture, he said he had sex with her and so did his friend. Nobody was hardly ever home when I was 10-12. I was skin and bones.

One night I caught my 2 brothers and Sister T getting ready to put rat poison in Stepdad D's coffee pot. Sister T tried to get me to jump off the train bridge to get rid of me.

Brother J would knock me out cold to impress D. D threatened to kill me all the time. One day when I got off the bus, Brother J knocked me out cold before I got to the front porch. When I woke up it was dark out.

When I was 15, I spent the night with Sister T one night. I went for a walk and out of nowhere, JR jumps out of the bushes. JR quickly drags me to the field/side yard and throws me down and he and his brother attempt to rape me. Someone hears my screams and tells them to get off of me. But he tells us all 3 to get in the trailer. My sister tells me to go to sleep and we will deal with it tomorrow. I wake up the next morning, they are talking quietly in the kitchen. My sister tells them to not worry about it, she will tell me I dreamt it.

At 16, my friends were noticing the bruises from D and were telling me I had to get out of there.

A black friend at school said her cousin JB would take me to my dad's. She said to be down my road at 5. She pointed him out to me on the bus that night. He picked me up, refused to take me to my dad's, kept me all night and raped me. (You don't tell anything when you know nobody cares anyway.)

The next morning he let me call my dad. Dad told me to call the cops. The cops put me in protective custody after my mom tried beating me up through the cop car window and my stepdad assured them he intended on killing me. The cops drove up to the back door of the hospital and said we can do this the easy way or the hard way. I can tell them I had sex or they can take me in there while they all hold me down to find out. So I said "I had sex."

I was in a group home for awhile.

The Judge asked Dad if he wanted me. My dad stood up and said "No" then sat back down, looking straight ahead. Something broke inside.

I had a plan. I would go home so D would kill me and go to prison, then Mom would get this man out of her life and at least my baby brother would be safe.

Mom said D promised to be good if I came back. Good wasn't going to get me killed. So when I saw he was being good, I thought I am not going to sit here and wait for the next time he gets drunk and loses it or wait until I am afraid again. This is going to happen on my terms, while I am strong. It is happening today.

Once I was home,they both jumped up ran towards me. They both hit and slapped, but not to the extent I needed.

They sent me to live with Brother S, who of course tried to rape me, even though he was married and had kids. I would fight him off as his wife laid silently in the next room.

Brother J spent his time following me around Mom's house, calling me a wh*re, sl*t and c**t and telling me how nasty smelling I was. (I showered constantly) He came home on leave once and brought a friend. The friend threw me on the floor and started to try to rape me, but I got him off. He apologized and begged me to not tell. He said my brother keeps my picture on his locker and promises a piece to any one who would drive him home, so my brother could see his girlfriend.

Little did he know, nobody would care if I did tell. Another time he was home on leave, and D and Mom went out the door, telling him to guard me. Brother J knocked me to the floor.

Sister M was home visiting and yelled to Brother J that I didn't do anything. Mom and D returned. D glared at me and growled "I cant stand the sight of her anymore!" He rushed towards me with his arms coming at me. I stood up, and backed up, and realized I was now standing in front of a picture window, 2 stories up from concrete. I envisioned myself busting backward through that glass, and flying backward in the air and landing on the concrete, with glass coming down on my face.

The next thing I recall is waking up or "coming to". I was knelt down under the window holding onto the carpet fibers with my fingers for dear life. I must have ducked. I don't know how long I was out because they were all sitting in the living room watching TV, like they had all been there quite awhile.

I was afraid to move, afraid if they saw me alive or awake, they would jump up and finish me off. M saw me move and stood up and yelled "I thought D was going to kill you!"

In my Junior year Mom drove me to the probation office in that county and told them to send me up. They asked why, had I done something wrong. She said no, but there is something wrong with me. They asked if she tried putting me in counseling. Mom said No, I wouldn't go. They asked if I would go. I said she never asked me to go. They said will you go right now. I said yes. I was walked down the street to a counselors office. Mom never took me back.

One day I came home from my usual activity, pushing my baby brother in the swings at a school. We lived beside it, and Mom could see where I was the whole time. Mom said D saw a man in town and thinks I am running off. D came home and told her and went after him to run him off the road. She said if D got killed because of me, I don't have to worry about D killing me anymore, she will kill me herself with her bare hands. I sat on my bed all night, wondering how my Mom would kill me, a bat, a rope, a knife, maybe she owned a gun. I waited.

I never told anyone about my life, I was embarrassed by it. Once Mom went with D somewhere and took M. It was the summer before my senior year. They left, and took all the food with them. There was not one single thing in the cabinets, the only thing in the fridge was a bottle of beer placed in center of the top rack. I felt it was a trick, hoping it would be gone when they got back, so they could call the probation officer and say I drank, so I would get sent up finally.

I was used to living on only school lunches. If I ate at home D would yell at me at the table the whole time. If M was there, she would get so nervous from it, she would vomit at the table. M did this when we were kids living with Mom and Dad too. Dad would yell at me at the table because I wouldn't eat, and D would yell at me at the table for...anything...nothing...and whatever. I had no control of his moods or what he accused me of. I just tried to live till age 18 in February.

A friend stopped in and saw there was no food and told her mom, they made me go stay with them that night. Her sister was in my class at school and made fun of me for eating their food and staying there. I suddenly knew that dying of starvation cannot be worse than dying of embarrassment.

I had often worked and bought my own school clothes. Now I worked to save for a car. They kicked me out when I turned 18.

I bought a car and lived in it, and was never happier. My mom and D moved, and I rented that same house after they left. I got married, and when I was pregnant for my second child, 2 years after I left, Mom came to visit.

After I left D started in on her. She looked like hell, she said her "nerves were shot" from his abuse. He recently got a gun and forced her and my baby brother to go with him. He said he was going to kill my brother, then her, then himself. She said she talked him into stopping for coffee on the way, and she told 2 men there, who made him sit down while they called the police.

He died shortly afterwards of a heart attack. At the funeral, a counselor approached me and said she had been seeing D as part of his probation, and she wanted me to know that he told her how mean he was to me. She said he was sorry, and if I ever wanted to talk to come see her. Talk? I thought. To what...forgive him? No, never.

A couple days after his funeral, I woke up suddenly and it felt like D was at the foot of my bed wanting forgiveness. I sat up and said "I didn't want to see you when you were alive, I certainly don't want to see you after you're dead!" I laid back down, beside my husband, and went back to sleep. My nightmare was finally over. My mom and siblings continue to hate me, I choose to stay away from them all.

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