The Power of Vodka

I’ve been on antidepressants and back in therapy for a little over four months. It’s difficult to remember how tired and apathetic I was. How disinterested. But slowly over the past four months, I’ve begun to emerge from the pit I had dug for myself. Not entirely, though.

You see, the pit has a certain allure. It’s an easy place in which to live. I get to feel numb. Feeling numb is great when you’ve got more shit to deal with than you’d like. Seriously. Who wants to deal with a sister who stayed married to her pedophile husband after he molested their daughter? The whole world seems out of kilter when you’re faced with that shit. Deep dark holes are where it’s at.

But I’m not hunkered down in the hole any more. And the pedophile is still here. He was at my brother’s memorial last weekend. He consoled my mother. I fantasize about choking him. I think I’m making progress, emotionally.

Now that my mother has acknowledged that he’s still wasting space on this earth, he’s exhibiting a sense of entitlement. The man glared at me across the aisle when I turned around to look for my brother, Seth. I kid you not. He glared at me. He glared at me for having the audacity to say out loud what he is. A man who sexually molested his daughter. For years. How dare I tell my mother and brothers what he’d done? You’re supposed to keep that kind of behavior a secret, don’t you know. So he glared at me at my brother’s memorial and made no effort to keep his distance from me. Yes, he’s feeling emboldened. I wanted grab him by the hair and shove his face into the holy water, holding him under until he begged for mercy. And then dunk him again, just to be sure I’d made my point. Yep, the medication and therapy are working.

If he had molested someone elses daughter, he’d be in prison. Not hanging out in churches.

But if I’m shining a light, I may as well shine it on my sister, too. If it wasn’t for her, the man wouldn’t be around any more. What kind of woman stays married to a man who molests their daughter? What kind of mental gymnastics must she perform each day to keep her head from exploding? What does she tell herself? What could she possibly say to justify his behavior, and hers?

My sister is a horrible person. No way around that. And the co-dependent cycle continues with my nieces hiding their father’s secret, as if his shame were theirs. I really don’t get it. I don’t understand how she could stay with him. Does she have her own holy water fantasies? Does she imagine beheading him and putting his head on a spike in the forest for the crows to pluck out his eyeballs? Or does she block it all out with the contents of her plastic travel cup that she carries with her wherever she goes?

I’m guessing she finds her redemption at the bottom of a travel cup.

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