Trauma Is a Series of Small Deaths
Recovery is a chance at resurrection
Trigger warning: child sexual abuse, child abuse
Act I
The sunlight is beginning to filter in through the curtains. I twist and turn on the cot, curling my knees toward my chest. I pull on either side of the itchy blanket so I can feel its pressure around me, holding me tight. “What the hell is wrong with you?” Eunice, my 70-year-old babysitter, who exists in my memory only as a perpetual sneer, looms in the dark doorway.
I was trying to be quiet, but now that I’ve been found out, my weeping intensifies. “I just keep thinking…about forever…and I’m scared,” I gulp out between sobs. “Well, shut up about it. I’m trying to sleep.” Eunice stomps back toward her bedroom.
Grandpa White is dead. He’s somewhere — or nowhere. I don’t know. My parents’ explanations confused me. Fear makes a well in my belly and panic sets my skin on fire. My head feels like it will break in two from the hugeness of the unanswered questions swirling inside it. But I don’t dare make another sound. I lie, unmoving. I stare at the ceiling, letting the tears pool in my ears, until it’s time for me to get on the bus to kindergarten. When I get up, there is less of me than before.
