Pamela Novotny

Chapter One

It’s a typical Sunday morning. We’re living in Houston; a few blocks away from my dad’s parents. Daddy is tall, strong, and as handsome as they come. Blue-green eyes and Elvis black hair.  We’re laying in bed cuddling like we would most weekends. He was color blind so I liked to quiz him. “What color is the curtain?” He would tell me the wrong color on purpose just to make me laugh. My earliest happy memories all seem to revolve around the time I spent with Daddy. He was my whole world.

“Tilly, want to learn how to whistle?” Daddy would ask me with his Alabama accent. He would make all the same faces I made as I tried so hard to whistle; scrunching up his face, blinking his eyes. Tilly was his nickname for me back then and still to this day.

Even at three years old, I still had very short hair and not much of it. On my third birthday, Daddy bought me a long red wig so I wouldn’t have to wear dishcloths on my head. I used to run around the house pretending I had long, beautiful hair, dishcloths bouncing in the wind.  I wore that wig all the time. It made me feel beautiful. I remember being that young and always looking at a woman’s hair first to determine her beauty. I brought that wig with us when we moved to New Hampshire a couple years later. I borrowed my grandmother’s long black skirt, put my wig on, and flew back and forth on the rope swing. My parents looked out the window and laughed at the scene.

Daddy’s sister was only ten years older than me, so we have always had a close relationship. We were more like sisters than an aunt and niece. One day, we were sitting on my parents’ bed. She was telling me that she had the best looking legs, and I was telling her that mine were better looking. I was only four years old. 

Not all my Houston memories were sweet. Some of them were scary near misses. I was about three years old when a neighbor took me and her child to the store with her. It was an old pick up truck; the kind with a bench seat. She went in and left us in the truck, still running. Somehow, I got it in gear and the truck rolled right into the store, almost hitting a little girl. 

Another scary story was when my brother and I used to play with the neighborhood boys. I was probably four. They were having a new septic system dug. There were boards floating on top of the water, and I thought I could just walk across them. Nope. I started to sink. I went under three times before my brother and his friends saved me from dying in a septic tank. My brother walked me home. Mom saw me walking up, covered in shit. I don’t know if trouble found me, or if I found trouble, but we seemed to be good friends. 

Chapter 2

When I was five, we moved to Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. Mom missed her family and Houston was scary. Mom came from a large family with lots of brothers, sisters, and cousins. When we moved back, she reconnected with one of her cousins and we spent a lot of time with that family; a family that looked a lot like ours; a Mom, a dad, and two kids. Daddy became very close with the husband, and I became close with their oldest daughter. She was a few years younger than me. We would have cookouts together at each other’s houses. Every weekend, the parents would all go out together and the kids would stay back with a babysitter. One night, the plan was that I would just spend the night at their house because the parents would be getting home late. I felt safe doing this even though it would be my first sleepover. It was family. I was wrong.

It was very late, after they got home. HE came in the room and it was very dark. I was in one twin bed and my cousin was in the other twin bed. The next thing I knew, HE had his hand in my underwear. I quickly flipped over onto my stomach, hoping HE would stop. But HE didn’t. HE kept his hand in my pants, rubbing my genitals. I remember crying. “Doesn’t that feel good?” HE asked? I can still smell the liquor on his breath.  HE kept going until I had an orgasm. I was six years old. I had no idea what was happening to me. “Don’t tell your father!”

After HE left, I went downstairs…into their room, looking for my aunt. That’s what I called her, even though she was my mom’s cousin.  I stood by her bed, crying. She thought I was just homesick, so she made me get in bed with them. I laid there on the edge of the bed for about a half hour, awake, scared. I finally went to the living room and called my mother. All I told her was that I didn’t feel good and needed to come home. HE told me not to tell anyone. 

Mom came and got me. Daddy’s best friend from Texas was up visiting. If I had only told him or my dad…but I didn’t. Because HE told me not to.

Chapter Three

Summer ended and school began. Our families still spent lots of time together, but there wouldn’t be another sleepover for several months. Even though I was technically safe at that time, I felt nothing of the sort. I was going into first grade. Kindergarten had been exactly how you would expect it to be. Happy, fun school days without a care in the world. First grade was not happy and not fun. Sitting in class, all I could think of was what happened. Would it happen again? (Yes, yes it would). Who would get me next? I trusted no man, not even my precious Daddy. If that other man could hurt me like that, any man could. I lived in fear at all times; learning nothing in school. 

My teacher was nice enough, but she struggled to understand my southern accent and our southern ways. In the south, everyone was taught to answer with yes ma’am, no ma’am, yes sir, no sir. This was for any adult, teachers and parents alike. So when I would say, “Yes, ma’am,” to my teacher’s request, she thought I was being fresh. Beyond the social struggles of being a southerner in the north, I also had the trauma to deal with. While my teacher was teaching about reading, writing, and arithmetic, I was unable to comprehend anything. I was so distracted by what had happened to me and what continued to happen. They ended up keeping me back for a second year of first grade. 

My mom had two brothers that lived close by. One brother would pick me up and take me to his house in the next town over for a sleepover with my cousins. I remember one time he pulled off the road into a rest area half way home. He had to pee. But my little traumatized brain was sure this was it. He was going to do the same thing to me. What a relief when he got back in the car and started driving again, and I realized he really did just need to pee. I felt that same relief again when the sleepover was over and I was safely back with my parents and no one had hurt me. Even though I still felt the same fear the next few times I would go to my uncle’s house, I gradually realized that he was not going to hurt me and I was safe. The fear subsided with him.

Mom’s other brother liked to take me to pick rhubarb at one of his best friend’s houses. Again, he had to prove to me that I was safe with him. Eventually, after several times of being with him and not being hurt, I realized that I could also trust him. The same thing happened with my own father. Even though I originally was scared of him, I saw that as time passed and he never touched me the way HE did, I was safe with my dad. 

With no choice or voice in the matter, I was once again put in harm’s way. All the adults went out. Us kids stayed back with a babysitter. Again…it was very late when they got home. Again…HE came in the room, and it was very dark. This time, my cousin and I shared a bed, but that didn’t stop him. HE did everything the same as the last time. “Don’t tell your father!” When he was done he left. I laid there crying. My cousin asked me what HE did to me to make me cry. I lied and said that he pinched me. I cried myself to sleep that night, but I didn’t go home. I still remember the look of the room, the pattern of the wallpaper. 

Besides trust issues, the trauma from this abuse came out in other ways as well. I started wetting the bed. I wouldn’t leave my mom’s side. I cried about anything and everything. Mom called me a bawlbag, and she was visibly irritated by me.  

Chapter Four

Fast forward to third grade, but don’t forget I spent two years in first. My teacher had a reputation in the school as being the meanest teacher. For some reason, I was her teacher’s pet. I was so far behind in my schooling, but I got all As that year. All the kids hated it because she favored me. I always wondered if she suspected that I was going through something. I just loved that someone was that nice to me and would tell me how smart I was. I was used to everyone telling me how stupid I was. 

That was a good year. I think by third grade, I was just old enough to keep myself safe if I needed to, so I thought. I think I could have said no if another sleepover had been suggested. I also had a good friend in my class. I would spend the night at her house often. At first, I was leery of her father. I kept my eye on him. But he never hurt me.  

Fourth grade must have been fairly inconsequential as I don’t remember much from it. But fifth grade…fifth grade brought with it my first male teacher. By now, you all know how I feel about men. I don’t know why this man hated me so much that he felt the need to put me in the coat room every day. Supposedly it was because I was behind in my work. I wasn’t disrupting class. I wasn’t chatty with friends. But every time he sent me to the coat room, all the other kids would laugh. On report card day, he would give everyone their report cards, but hold mine for last. He would taunt me with it, saying, “Let’s see if she passed.” Again, all the other kids laughed along.

The summer between sixth and seventh grade is when I found alcohol and pot with friends that I had grown up with. We all experimented at the same time, and unfortunately, we all loved it. One of the families we hung with owned a convenience store and lived above it. It was a gathering place for us. The first time I tried wine, I puked my guts out, because I guzzled it. I had finally found my people. I had a place to escape to. When HE was hanging out at my house with my family, I could just leave and go be with my chosen family. 

We all started drinking and smoking pot regularly. We had the best time. We would set tents up in the small lot behind the store. The local grocery store was nearby and would leave their watermelons out and we would take them. One time my friend dove head first into a watermelon, her long dark waves dripping with watermelon juice, acting like a cave woman. Our town was inundated with wealthy people every summer. We lived on a large lake with lots of islands. The rich kids from the islands would come in on their boats and party with us. It was a new world to me. I was finally in control. I took the power back by being promiscuous with whoever I chose. I naively thought I was out of harm’s way.

Drinking and smoking helped me forget all the awful things that had been done to me. You never really forget, but it isn’t taking up so much space. As a little girl after the abuse started, I was meek, teary-eyed, and fearful. As a teenager under the influence, I was confident and invincible; free and safe. Everybody loved me. Nobody put me down. But the high would always end, and I would eventually have to go home. I would still see him out and about and even at my house. This was torment for me. 

I went to one of my good friend’s house as I did frequently after school. In HE walks with her mom. I had heard they were dating, even though he was still with my aunt. I was getting ready to walk home to meet curfew. It was storming out, lots of snow on the roads. My friend’s mom said HE will give you a ride home. I tried to say no and that I wanted to walk home alone, but she insisted I take a ride from him. On the way home, we get to a fork in the road. My house is up and to the right of the fork. HE turned left. “My dad wants me home!” I yelled at him.

“I just left your dad at the legion,” HE replied.

“Well my mom wants me home!” I yelled back, angry and fearful about what was to come. He turned around in a parking lot and took me home, shocked by my response. He probably knew I was too old by then, but he was still going to try. But he didn’t realize that I had grown up real fucking fast and THAT was never going to happen to me again. I walked in the house, shaking, keeping my secret even still.  

In seventh grade and the beginning of eighth grade, I just wanted to skate through school. I wasn’t trying anymore. My only goal was to get drunk and high. A couple months into eighth grade, Daddy took work in Vidor, Texas. He was a crane operator and there was plenty of work down south for the winter. I was devastated leaving my friends. When I got out to Vidor, I fell in with the party scene immediately. We would skip school to get drunk and high. The principal talked to my parents about my truancy. I told Daddy I didn’t want to go to school anymore. He said I could quit, but I better have a job by tomorrow. Mom got me a job at the nursing home. She was a nurse and I was her nurse’s aid. Back then, you didn’t have to have any special certifications or qualifications. It was on the job training. 

Mom worked the midnight shift. My first day on the job and my first interaction with a patient served quite a lesson for me. A man put his light on. Mom sent me to go see what he needed. He wanted a drink of water. I poured him a glass of water and handed it to him. He took a big gulp, spit it out, threw the cup, and yelled at me, “You fucking bitch! That’s piss!” I ran out of the room, down the hall to my mother. I didn’t know what a urinal was. I thought it was a water jug. Mom had to go down and smooth things out with this man. I never went in his room again. I worked there with mom the few months we lived there until we moved back to Wolfeboro in the spring.

While in Vidor, I made friends with some locals. A friend’s uncle was giving me a ride home. He pulled off the road. I knew what he wanted and I just didn’t have the power to resist. He was a stranger and I was in a strange place. I didn’t know where we were or what he would do to me if I resisted. So I just let him have his way. 

While this incident marked the last time I was sexually abused, I would spend the rest of my life dealing with the consequences of it  and protecting myself and my daughters from male predators. My only regret is that I didn’t speak up sooner. I could have saved so many children from a similar fate. HE abused his daughter, granddaughters, and any other child that came into his house. HE did eventually spend seven years in prison, but it wasn’t too long after HEgot out that HE abused yet another child. HE is currently in prison but could be released soon. Something needs to change in our justice system to protect our children from known, repeat sexual offenders.