My father's accomplice

A witness. A chaperone. A mother, even.

To my father’s wife, my dear former stepmother—

It’s been a while. Fourteen years, if we’re counting. How are you? I hope you’ve been well. I hope motherhood has been rewarding, and I hope your marriage is going smoothly. How does it feel to be married to a child rapist?

I’m sorry. Too soon?

I know, I know. It’s a hard truth to swallow. Trust me, I know. It was hard for me as well. So hard it tore my body and spirit apart. But here I am—alive to tell the tale. If I could survive it, I’m sure the truth won’t kill you. Hell, maybe it’ll even save you. Don’t you want the truth? It’s never too late to face it, but boy, do I understand your reluctance.

It’s hard.

It was hard for me to face the truth of Daddy raping children, too. Even harder to experience it. It was hard for me, at just six years old, to walk in on him raping my older sister. It was hard for me to watch him—hard—thrusting atop her tiny, lifeless, naked body. It was hard to stare directly into her deadened eyes, glazed over, and to immediately know that something was very wrong, but to not know what that something was. It was hard to watch Daddy turn his head to face me as I walked in the room, locking eyes with his six year old for a brief moment, then immediately turning away, unaffected by my presence—like he hadn’t seen me at all, like I was never there to begin with. Invisible. There were more important matters to attend to, like the task at hand: raping his eight year old. His. Why should he care if his six year old sees? No threat there. I was merely a ghost. A ghost lurking in the corner of the room. A ghost watching a ghostly scene, one that would inevitably disperse into the fog of forgotten history, the realm of ghosts and ghouls, urban legends, scary stories—ever haunting, never proven, forever up for debate.

He hoped it would, at least.

It didn’t. The memory still lives. It still screams—embodied, incarnate, alive as ever. Never dead, never gone, certainly not forgotten. Still laughing in the face of those who tried to bury it alive. It still breathes—needing no witnesses to justify its existence. Still visible in striking detail, clear as day. Clear as the day it happened. Those days were hard—just us kids every Sunday, nobody to protect us, no witnesses. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. You could imagine my relief once you entered the picture. Finally—an adult who seemed reasonably safe. A witness. A chaperone. A mother, even.

I should be thanking you, dear stepmother. Your presence was one of the only factors that made those weekends with him more bearable. When you were around, I could be certain he wouldn’t rape us—I could take a second to breathe—and that was a godsend. You were a godsend, dear stepmother. Thank you for your service. Thank you for marrying a child rapist. I mean it! You should be proud of yourself. You kept him busy, kept him distracted, kept him satiated. You might have even spared us from a few rapes. At the least, there were fewer opportunities to strike—in your presence, we were safer. Never safe, but safer. Thank you.

We had been hoping for a saviour for quite some time—a replacement, someone better qualified for the job, someone who might finally relieve us from our overtime shifts in Daddy’s bedroom. Finally. You were the perfect candidate. Docile, desperate for love, and just his type—a brunette with brown eyes. You resembled our mother, and make no mistake, we all knew that’s exactly what he was looking for. He made it very clear. On the dreadful, aforementioned day I witnessed him in bed with my sister, lacking any language to conceptualize the horror, I later asked her to explain the scene. In a fearful whisper, she spelled it out for me: “This is what Daddy does when he misses Mommy. He does it to me because I look like Mommy.”

Twisted, right? That’s the reasoning he fed her—he did this to her because she was a brunette replica of our mother, whom he missed terribly and needed a replacement for. Our mother had left him just three years prior, and Daddy was oh so heartbroken. He just missed her so much—so much that he needed my sister to give him what our mother refused to. Our mother could have prevented this if she wasn’t so evil, if she had never left him in cold blood to begin with. This was simply the natural result. It’s believable logic for a child—the perfect strategy to somehow fault our mother for his violence. From that day on, I desperately prayed Mommy and Daddy would reunite. And when that wasn’t possible, I prayed for the next best option—Daddy finds someone even better. That’s when you arrived. Thank you.

Perhaps he truly was as painfully lonely as he made us believe—that alone is probably true. Missing our mother, though? Dear stepmother, you know exactly how he spoke about our mother. “Missed” isn’t quite the right word—he hated her. You know better than anyone that he hated her. He absolutely despised her. Some days, he despised her kids. He wanted revenge. He wanted to destroy the miniature version of our mother standing right in front of him, to act out all of his darkest fantasies on a voodoo doll—my sister, who looked like her identical clone in child form. Or perhaps he really just missed her that much, underneath all his layers of hatred, and my eight year old sister was the only replacement he deemed viable. Until you came along, that is. Thank you.

You were our long-anticipated saviour. Our hero, really. If his crimes were merely the result of sexual frustration and a desperate need for companionship, then you were the perfect solution: Daddy’s new girlfriend. Thank you for feeding him enough to keep us from getting eaten. Thank you for filling the hole in Daddy’s heart by letting him fill you, so that he might finally stop filling us. We might finally be free. Thank you.

I wished it were that simple. Oh, naive children we were. We thought I’d be safe. My sister had me thoroughly convinced—she was his sacrificial lamb, not me. She was Mommy’s replacement, not me. We thought my blonde hair would protect me, and I would be spared. He would keep doing this to her until he found a replacement: you. That was the deal, right? He would keep doing this to her until he found a replacement: you me. The next eight year old in line. Naive children we were. Little did we know—eight was his magic number.

Eight. It was the year we became simply irresistible to him. The year my virginity got stolen. Like stealing candy from a baby, it was easy for him. For me, it was hard. Just eight, it was hard. It was probably even harder for the three year old in the room. You heard me right—the three year old in the room. He raped me right in front of her. Stealing candy from a baby, right in front of another baby. I don’t need to name her, dear stepmother. You know precisely who I’m talking about. She was like a little sister to me. She watched it happen. Why should he care if a three year old sees? She was merely a ghost. A ghost lurking in the corner of the room. A ghost watching a ghostly scene, one that would inevitably disperse into the fog of forgotten history. Yet another witness that posed no threat to Daddy. Three years old, already invisible.

It was nothing new. I’d seen it happen before. Should I have seen the signs? Should I have known better? I did see the signs, and I did know better. I knew better than to ever wander into a room alone with Daddy. The dilemma here was that I wasn’t alone. She was with me—just three years old, already invisible. I wanted to protect her. With no escape route available, I sacrificed myself in the hope of protecting her. Just as my sister had sacrificed herself in the hope of protecting me. Oh, naive children we were.

I’m sorry.

Is this too much detail for you?

Is it hard to read, dear stepmother?

I know, I know.

It’s hard.

It was hard for me, too. I begged God for a second chance. A re-do. I prayed to turn back time. I pleaded to erase the past, to make it somehow disappear. Trust me, I wanted to. I wanted to make it disappear—for me, for you, and for everyone else. I still wish I wasn’t burdened with this truth. It’s a hard truth. I’m sure you can understand, dear stepmother. After all these years of carrying it alone, won’t you help me hold it?

What’s stopping you?

Is rape too vile a word?

Should I put it in terms you understand?

How’s this?

Translation: he cheated on you. He cheated on you with his own daughters.

You weren’t married yet, though. At the time, you were just his girlfriend. Does that still count in your eyes? Or could this loophole wash away all the shame I've carried? Let me know, dear stepmother. Please believe me—I never wanted to ruin your marriage. I never wanted any of this, I swear. Could you ever forgive me? Perhaps once you were officially married, the affair would finally come to an end. It had to, right? I had to hold out hope. Even in the worst of times, I still believed in my happy ending. I knew I was never meant to be Daddy’s bride. In a world of fairytales and happily ever afters, I knew Daddy needed a princess his own age. And once he found her, that slimy frog might finally turn into a prince.

You could imagine my relief when I heard the news: you got engaged!

It was the best news I’d ever heard.

Even so, it was hard.

It was hard because I knew what was happening behind closed doors. It was hard because I knew you didn’t know. How could you have known? We were sworn into secrecy. Threatened into secrecy, to be precise. Muzzled. It was hard. We knew everything you didn’t know. We knew a side of him you would never see. We knew he was hiding a horrific secret from you—and even as I dreamed that you might rescue us, I wondered: “Would you marry him if you knew the truth?”

Before I knew the words to articulate it, I felt bad for you. I felt bad for all that was hidden from you. Should I have tried telling you the truth? I knew you didn’t want the truth—you just wanted your prince, your happy ending. And in a strange way, for that I felt grateful, relieved. I felt relieved that you were here with us, that you wanted to stay, that for whatever reason, you loved Daddy enough to happily step into this lifelong role—till death do us part—and that with a new wife, Daddy might finally change. If Daddy found his one true love, Daddy won’t miss Mommy anymore, and Daddy might finally stop taking his pain out on us. It was the only logic I knew as a child. How else could Daddy change?

I loved Daddy. I believed in his capacity to change. I believed that maybe, just maybe, with the right love in his life, he would change. Before I ever knew what to call it, I believed in the transformative power of love. I believed in him. And I believed in you. I believed our frog might turn into a prince one day, all thanks to you. What did all the secrets matter if there was a new day, a new leaf, and a new love awaiting? I thought love might save him. I thought you might save him, dear stepmother. And in saving him, I thought you might save us, too.

You could have saved us.

Don’t you remember?

I remember it clearly—watching my older sister argue with our father. “You raped me!” she yelled at him in the middle of our living room. It was my first time hearing the word “rape”. I remember the moment so vividly because I was overcome by the distinct sensation of hearing a word I’d never heard before—the process of trying to place meaning onto the new sound, collecting all the context clues, factoring in the intensity of my sister’s emotions, and feeling utterly overwhelmed. I wondered if this word had anything to do with the scene I had walked in on. Deep down, intuitively, I knew it to be true. It didn’t take a detective. My sister was sobbing, snot running out her nose, screaming out the truth, body movements feral and uncontrollable. Arms flailing, feet kicking him away as he tried to restrain her. Yelling and crying, desperate to finally get the words out. I sat in the corner of the room, frozen and silent—a ghost once more. Only this time, the ghost wasn’t the only witness. You were in the room.

Why do you think she was so desperate to get the words out? For her rapist to hear? For the ghost in the corner to hear? Why would she frantically yell what the three of us already knew? “You raped me!” she screamed, over and over again. She screamed it for you to hear. She screamed out the truth because we needed you to know. We needed you to care. We needed someone—anyone—to save us.

You could have saved us.

You didn’t.

You didn’t take her seriously. You stood there in disbelief, mouth agape with incredulity. You were appalled. Meanwhile, Daddy acted appalled and delivered his classic, infamous claim—“Your mother is brainwashing you.” It was his perfect, pre-packaged response to shut down any and all accusations. You piled on and scolded my sister—“How dare you accuse your father of something so horrific! Who taught you that word? You’re too young to be using it. It’s nothing to joke about.”

And you were right. It’s nothing to joke about. She wasn’t joking.

Do you realize how much courage it takes for an incest survivor to utter the words aloud? You immediately put a muzzle on her. Your reaction said all I needed to know—in that moment, the meaning of the word was confirmed to me. It was an unspeakable word for an unspeakable act. You didn’t want to hear it. We learned not to speak it. If only you took a moment to listen.

You could have saved us.

I get it, though. It was hard. I know he manipulated you just as well. And I know you’ve probably blocked out your memory of these years. At this point, it’s probably dissolved into the fog of forgotten history, buried underneath memories of countless other screaming matches, arguments, and pure chaos my father subjected you to. It was just another day in the life for you—forgettable.

I wonder what it felt like on your end. He really had you convinced, didn’t he? That our mother was pure evil, that she was somehow drip-feeding us appalling lies to scream about in front of you. You must have thought we were brilliant actresses, huh? At just eight years old! How impressive. Even more impressive that now, a whole twenty years later, I’m still saying the exact same things you heard back then—“You raped me!” Been writing about it for years now. Our mother’s brainwashing must have had quite the impact, huh? Truly remarkable.

I’m sorry. Excuse all of my sarcasm, dear stepmother. You really did make those weekends more bearable. When you came around, we knew he wouldn’t rape us—at least not in front of you. Of course not. He’d never let you see that side of him. And for that reason, I got attached to you. You were my life raft of sorts—as long as I was by your side, I was safer. Never safe, but safer. So, I wanted you to stick around. I wanted your love to thrive. I became your number one cheerleader. Your perfect stepdaughter. We painted our nails together. You asked me about the boys at school I had crushes on. I slowly won over your old Siamese cat, brushed her matted fur every single weekend. And when you and Daddy had a baby boy together, I became the greatest older sister who ever lived. I loved the boy with all my heart—fed him in his high chair, buckled him into his car seat, sang him to sleep. Each day, I played with him for hours until we both collapsed from exhaustion. I was the perfect sister, the perfect daughter, trying everything I could to create the perfect family. I wanted you to have your happily ever after. In the long run, it didn’t make a difference.

It didn’t stop him from raping me in your bed.

I’m sorry. Did I forget to mention?

He raped me in your bed the year you got married—nine years old now.

Stepmother dearest, you seem to have selectively forgotten all of the times you left him alone in your townhouse. And I don’t blame you for wanting to forget. I wanted to forget, too. I was torn apart by guilt.

After Daddy finished raping me, he told me, “Don’t ever let another man do this to you until you’re married.”

Daddy and I weren’t married, though. He was supposed to be marrying you. I was just Daddy’s little princess. Daddy’s little mistress. Or was I? You weren’t married yet. At this point, you were his fiancé. Did it count as cheating? I circled back to the same absurd questions I asked myself after the first rape. Oh, the naive child I was. Somehow, I was far more concerned about you and your marriage than I ever was for myself. After all, what did I matter? I was merely a ghost. Consumed by guilt, I held out hope, believing that everything might change after your wedding day. In the meantime, I tried to stand up for myself—and tried to make things right for you.

“Daddy… I don’t want this to ever happen again,” I whispered to him in the aftermath, seated on the side of your bed.

Spoken gently under my breath, it was a desperate plea more than anything, but he heard the gravity inside my statement. Don’t touch me again, he heard. He heard the risk, the threat—she might speak up. She might tell the truth one day.

That was the end of our love affair. Perfect timing for your wedding bells. I stood up for myself, Daddy found a new wife, and all was well in the world again.

The next year, you even had a beautiful baby boy on the way! Thank goodness he was a boy. To be honest, I was terrified when I heard you were pregnant. I was horrified by the idea of Daddy having another baby girl—another girl I’d have to protect from him. You could imagine my relief at the gender reveal. Phew. Daddy only does this to girls, I reasoned. Your son would be safe. I figured the violence might stop. After all, Daddy finally had a happy family of his own—what more did he need? Couldn’t he be happy now? I really hoped it would stop. But then again, I always hoped it would stop, and I was always wrong. Maybe things would change once Daddy got a girlfriend. Wrong. Maybe things would change once you got engaged. Wrong. Maybe things would change once you had a child.

Wrong again.

It happened again. The year you gave birth, when you weren’t home, right in the middle of your kitchen—Daddy said it was time for kissing lessons.

“You need to learn how to kiss for your future husband,” Daddy told me.

He explained that all parents teach their kids how to kiss—just relax and stay still. He shoved his tongue in my mouth. Sloppily, aggressively, covering every surface. I froze once more, silent and petrified. Waited for it to end. He pulled away finally, grinned with satisfaction, and told me I was a good kisser. In all he had ever done before, he had never done anything quite like this. This was a violation of my very essence—my face, the last untouched piece of me remaining, one I had hoped to keep sacred. After all else was stolen, I was still holding onto my first kiss. And now, even that was gone.

My mother picked me up from your townhouse that evening. I said goodbye to Daddy, grit my teeth through our mandatory hug, faked a smile, and walked out your front door. As I greeted my mother, I tried to act like the sweet daughter everyone knew and loved. That night, I could no longer bring myself to. I wanted to crawl out of my skin. I felt disgusting, dead inside. After years of rape, it was his final nail in my coffin—his tongue in my mouth.

My mother asked me what was wrong. I almost told her everything that evening. Years of secrets had piled up—instead, I told myself it was far too late.

I wish I told her. It wasn’t too late, and it still isn’t too late.

I’m telling you now, dear stepmother. Won’t you listen?

I know it’s hard.

I know what it’s like to be Daddy’s favorite girl. You know this too.

I know how hard it is to break out of that role. You know this too.

I know of the time you almost did. Don’t you remember?

When Daddy broke your phone, you almost broke free. He broke your cellphone after throwing it in the midst of a fight. Afterwards, you called the police and began the process of filing a restraining order. You backed out before you made it official. Why? Because you were pregnant, and it was just two weeks before you were due to give birth. I can empathize with the double bind.

Don’t you see, dear stepmother? We’ve got a few things in common. I know how hard it is to leave. I know what it’s like to try, desperately, to create the perfect family. And I know exactly what it’s like to be Daddy’s favorite girl—his princess, his bride, his worst enemy, and his only redeemer, all wrapped into one. It’s hard. So hard, in fact, that I think they have a word for it: Stockholm Syndrome.

I know how hard it is to break free. I’ve been there.

Don’t you remember the day I broke free? You were there.

I was thirteen years old. It was the five of us now—you, me, Daddy, my sister, and your baby boy. As we drove down a rural Virginia highway in your silver Toyota RAV4, your baby wouldn’t stop crying in the backseat, while Daddy was preoccupied yelling at us over something insignificant. I told him to stop yelling because he was stressing out the baby—your baby, my precious little brother.

“You think you can tell me how to parent?!” he started screaming at me.

I held my ground because I cared about your son.

“Yes,” I said, “Stop yelling. You’re stressing out the baby.”

He then pulled over the car, parked haphazardously on the side of the highway, and yanked me out of the side door. He pulled down my pants and underwear in broad daylight. He began spanking my bare butt cheeks. In public. On the side of the road. For any passerby to witness. Over and over again, with full force, he slapped me. “It hurts me more than it hurts you,” he claimed aloud while hitting me, even as bruises immediately began to form. Who was he trying to convince? Himself? Me? Or you? You were watching. And so was my older sister. My only witnesses. My sister jumped out of the car, pulled out her phone, and tried to capture it all on video—future evidence. She was looking out for me.

The second you saw this happen, you began arm-wrestling a child, shamelessly twisting her limbs as you tried to pry the phone from her grip. You fought a child to protect your husband. It wasn’t a fair fight—with superior strength, you snatched the phone out of her hand and we watched as it flew onto the concrete. Her phone broke. You successfully destroyed the evidence.

I have to pause for a moment to ask:

How did it feel when Daddy broke your phone during a fight?

Do you remember how terrifying it was for you?

If you need a reminder—you almost filed a restraining order.

While pregnant with his child.

It must have been terrifying to consider such extreme safety measures.

Now, how scary do you think that would feel for a child?

I have to ask you—how does it feel to be on the other side?

I’m sure you felt powerful. Safer, at the very least. I’m sure you were just trying to be a good wife. You were such a good wife that your husband’s behaviour rubbed off on you. You were such a good wife that you became an accomplice. You had seen this exact scene only three years prior. You knew. You knew. You were once on the other side—he threw your phone and broke it. Now, here you were—throwing his child’s phone and breaking it. Cycle repetition is a tricky thing, isn’t it?

After he broke your phone, you almost broke free.

When you broke our phone, we did break free.

Daddy left me covered with bruises. He agreed to give up his parental rights immediately after that—he knew if he didn’t give them up, they’d get taken away from him in court, and he might even get charged with assault. Because finally, after all those years of assault, he left bruises. It was the kind of evidence that held up in the court of law—the evidence I always needed to free myself.

I freed myself. I freed myself by getting beaten up. And it was all because I cared about your baby boy, because I loved him more than anything, because I wanted the yelling to stop for just a moment to give your son some peace and quiet. I listened to my heart, advocated for your baby, and got beaten for it—and got free for it. I saved myself.

Ironically, after all those years of waiting and hoping for you to be my saviour, it was I who saved myself. All this time, I thought it would be you. All this time, I was holding out for you. Remember my relief when you entered the picture? Finally—an adult who seemed reasonably safe. A witness. A chaperone. A mother, even. No.

You never were. You were a bystander. An enabler. An accomplice.

All this time, you watched the violence. When my sister yelled about it, you muzzled her. When my sister tried to capture it, you destroyed it. All this time, you buried our evidence. All in the name of keeping your fairytale alive. And all this time, I tried everything I could to help your dream come true. Why? Because I wanted Daddy to change. Because I believed you might change him. Because I believed in the transformative power of love.

I hate that I have to burst your bubble.

Your frog never transformed into a prince.

Your husband is a serial child rapist.

And it’s never too late to face it, but boy, do I understand your reluctance.

It’s hard.