by Lisa Treece

Created on: September 27, 2009

Torment of the Naive

My childhood was a series of moments spent yearning for love. I had never known a functional family, and had never remembered living with my mother. I remember jumping at every chance I had to see her, hoping that maybe she would want to take me from my father. I didn't realize that my mother had problems staying in one place, I couldn't have understood how many men she went through in my short life. All I knew was how badly I wanted to live with her.

Just after my seventh birthday I was able to stay with my mother for nearly 3 consecutive weeks. Needless to say, I was thrilled. I remember being excited every night when she would ask if I wanted to help cook dinner, and each morning when she made pancakes especially for me. During the entire visit, I had tried to find friends in and around the apartment complex where she lived. Sometime in the second week, I stumbled across a small group of kids, playing a game of "house" on their porch stoop. I awkwardly ambled up to them, a girl slightly older than me, one boy just my age, and one other boy who was nearly a teenager. Smiling, I introduced myself and asked if I could play. Immediately the girl said 'No', crossing her arms and looking down to her feet. The younger boy bit his lip and looked away from me as if he was afraid to say anything; the elder boy smiled warmly and held his hand out to me saying, "Of course you can, we're playing "House"- would you like to play the Mommy?"

A blur of time occurs here, and I remember only bits and pieces. They introduced themselves, his name was Shawn. I ran home, told my mother I had found friends. When I returned we all went inside, finding ourselves in a room with bunk beds. Shawn told the other two that they were playing the children, and needed to take a nap on the top bunk. Once they had climbed up, he asked me to lie down in the bottom. He lay behind me, hands rubbing all over my shoulders and back. He asked if I knew what mommies did with daddies in bed. He asked if I liked playing the mommy while he moved his hand under my shirt, rubbing my stomach. I got upset, jumped out of the bed, said goodbye and ran home.

I had been afraid to tell my mother about our playtime, instinctively I knew something about it had been wrong. I stayed indoors, mostly focusing on our Nintendo and trying to forget what had happened. I didn't even venture outside until the day I was going home. My mother had a friend that lived above her, and his daughter had

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