The sky was blue

I've been thinking a lot about seeing and not-seeing.  Looking and not-seeing.  Not being seen to look.  If I'd been condemned for looking, I found that as long as I hid my curiosity, hid my looking, I was more or less safe.  Safe from Grannie's sharp words?  Maybe.  Safe from night horrors?  Possibly -- if you count "still alive" as safe enough.  Still alive and yet, for a long time, unable to see.

Grannie saw everything.  I wonder now if I thought she'd even seen me in my bed in the city and the many things I had done there.  Not on my own, of course -- but it was probably my fault.  Maybe she knew it all.

One thing she saw at the cottage was the boy next door smoking.  She told his aunt, my friend's mother -- something my parents would never have done.  They couldn't even speak to each other or their own children.

My friend and I played together all day every day whenever we were at the cottage.  Her cousin, the smoker, circled around and sneered.  He was four or more years older than me which means that when I was say 9, he was 13 or 14.  A significant difference.

He was not happy about my grandmother telling on him.  One day he appeared suddenly from the bushes surrounding our fort.  His intent was to pay me back.  Before I knew it I was on the ground with my bathing suit off.  He raped me.  Sex and violence.  Even more horrible to remember that this was not my first time.

Because I have to remember that a lot of not-seeing went on at the house in the city as well.  It's not possible that my mother didn't know what my father was up to.  And maybe I thought Grannie knew as well.  No one did anything about it.  No one helped me.  I didn't even realize that was possible so of course I told no one about the incident in the fort.

No one -- including myself.  I had learned the art of not-seeing very well and for many years I simply forgot.  I always remembered seeing the sky.  It was clear blue.