I Remember...

I remember catching fireflies,  putting them in a jar, as a girl of five. I picked pears off a tree that overhung an alleyway on my route home from school, then enjoyed the forbidden fruit. .I had a golden cat who chased a gray mouse through our living room sending my mother, 3-year old sister, and me screaming atop the sofa and chairs.

We lived in a farmhouse and I watched Romper Room. A daddy longlegs skittered across my dirty kid legs as I teeter-tottered on a broken kitchen chair back. I played grocery store and laid out a bedroll for group nap time in preschool.

We lived in an apartment attached to a bakery. My maternal grandparents visited and a photo was snapped. Grandma held Dawn and Grandpa held me. I held Grandpa's chin. Walking through the back of the flour-caked kitchen, I saw scrumptious pastries and colorful toys stuck in the cupcakes with my hungry kids eyes.

We lived in a two-story apartment building next door to a large farmer's field.  That field was my playground. I watched lightning scrawl across the skies. Potato bugs, beetles, grasshoppers, and worms were favored outdoor playthings in that plot of land. We found an underground hideaway that captured our imagination but it was chained and padlocked. Years later, mother recounted watching a tornado twist in that field.

My stepfather was a plumber but I recall a man who got down on the ground to play with us.  The Viet Nam war was on the news. It was only images on the television set. I knew nothing of a father fighting in a real live blood and guts war, losing buddies, and trying to survive. When thunder cracked and lightning flashed striking fear in little girl's hearts, our dad told us it was only Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble bowling in the sky. I believed.

Momma and "daddy" both worked and we had a sitter. We loved our sitter, he was so fun, always playing such imaginative games. It seemed as if he were one of the family since he was always around. He lived with his mother in a big, old farmhouse and I do not recall ever laying eyes on her. He was an abominable young man, a seducer of the innocent, a thief of self-confidence. He shut me in a dark, earthen, cobwebby basement until I complied. He was a skilled liar, a master manipulator, a menace to society and I know his name not.

I remember so much...But not that name. The place was Illinois and we would leave shortly thereafter, not because I told, but because Momma left Daddy...Another one.