When the darkness came I began shaking. Only God and Daddy knew my secret, only Daddy who made me play the secret game. Sometimes I thought if I was a better daughter he would not make me play the Secret game, but I was not a bad girl. Everyone says I was a good girl, at church they all told Mom and Dad how they wished they had a daughter as well behaved as I was, I had to behave or the secret game would get worse, would get nastier, and I could not bare with that. If I were really bad, Daddy might kill Mamma and Arianna and make me watch. He had told me that before, and he laughed as he said it.
Daddy was a monster, and I did not like monsters, they scared me. I did not know what scared me worst was the monsters or the secret game. The secret game made me feel dirty inside, I took lots of baths, but Mamma just thought I liked being clean. Instead I was trying to wash away the feeling of Daddy on me, I hated that feeling.
Aerial was turning five soon and Daddy said when she turned five she could play the secret game with us. I didn’t want Daddy to make Aerial play the secret game, I did not want him to make her feel dirty the way he made me feel dirty. I was five when the secret game started and now I was almost nine, and still Daddy made me play the secret game. I wondered if I would always have to play the secret game.
I felt different than the kids at school, the one’s who weren’t afraid to get hugs from their Daddies, because a hug just meant a hug. When Daddy hugged me I shook, it made me feel scared, because I knew what would happen after words.
I wondered if Mom knew about the secret game. Daddy went into my room almost every night after she went to sleep, but Daddy was her husband, didn’t she know he was hurting me. I wondered if Daddy threatened her the way he threatened me and that is why Mommy didn’t do anything.
I didn’t tell anyone my secret, but someone found out. When I went to the nurses office, because I was bleeding from secret spots, the spots Daddy hurt me in, and I could not stop bleeding. The school nurse called my Mom and then she took me to the emergency room. The school made her. She did not say anything, even as the nurses told her that I had been hurt in my private places.
I shook as the doctor checked me down there, because it reminded me of the secret game. The game I had to play with Daddy, the dirty game. I did not like this game, maybe the doctors and the nurses could make it stop, maybe they could make Daddy not hurt me anymore.
A Social worker came to the hospital, and then Arianna was picked up from the preschool,. The doctor had to look in her secret places too. The doctors didn’t say anything about Arianna, but words like Molestation were used about me. Rape, they were scary words, and a different name for the secret game.
The cops picked Daddy up at work, and then took Arianna and I away I did not want to be away from Mom but they said Arianna and I were not safe.
We went to court, and Daddy gave me dirty looks, looks that said he was going to kill me. But Daddy could not kill me, they put him in jail. I did not visit him, because he scared me, and he wanted to hurt me. I clung to Arianna, and worried that they would separate us. Arianna was all I had left, I did not want to be separated from my little sister. Maybe one day, a nice family, with a Daddy who didn’t play the Secret game would adopt Arianna and I. We would be the best daughters we could be.
Copyright Michelle R Kidwell
Feb.26.2009
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