Unhealed Wounds
Pamela Hertzog
Word Count 920
When I was an adorable preschooler, with long blond hair flowing down my back, my father called me ‘princess.’ A few years later, I grew taller and rounder. While eating a bowl of ice cream one day, he walked by and said, “Did you get enough there, Piggy?” It’s still there, like a tattoo on my heart.
I took music and dance lessons. We went on vacations. The summer I was 13, it was a Caribbean cruise. I met up with a couple of other girls my age. Given free rein to roam the ship with them, I promised to leave a note in the cabin about where I was going.
The Norwegian crew members could be found painting and doing maintenance around the ship. Striking up a conversation on one of our jaunts, they told us they were 18. Marilyn liked Erik, and I liked Bjorn. Erik had a moustache, and Bjorn a bit of auburn in his hair, with freckles across his nose. I met up with Bjorn one evening on a deck with less foot traffic. My first kiss was in a hanging wicker egg-shaped chair on a secluded deck.
The guys asked us to meet them on the Lido lower deck, where crew members relaxed. Snuggling in a full-length lounge chair, Erik held me with his left arm and Marilyn with his right. First French kissing Marilyn, then me, back and forth. The other guys sat around watching. Tracking me down, Dad discovered the scene looking down from the deck above and yelled, “You better get up here right now!”
He hauled me inside the deck hallway and plopped me down on a red velvet bench. As I sobbed, he stood over me, shouting, “Don’t you know those guys are scum? They lied to you about their age! Now, how are we going to look at all the other passengers?”
Some women walked by and stared but didn’t intervene. Over the decades, I internalized the embarrassment, rejection, anger, and name-calling because if they were scum, I was too. We never spoke of it again, and I’m not sure if he even told my mother. Forty-seven years later, during the #MeToo movement, I read online about a woman on a cruise who was molested by a crew member. I was startled to realize that’s what happened to me.
Coming from a family dynamic with a high-functioning alcoholic, I was compliant and a pleaser. Always careful what I said because I could never predict the level of response. My sister-in-law told me about a time my mom tried to express her opinion, and he sneered, “Who gave you your college degree?”
The first time I tried to stand up for myself was during Freshman year of college. Attending a small private music school, I realized I wasn’t as driven as the other students. I wanted to transfer, but Dad said no. He was paying, so I stayed. They were miserable years socially and emotionally. I’ve always regretted not striking out on my own. The summer of my Junior year, my parents divorced after 36 years of marriage. It was so acrimonious Dad used to write “blood money” in the memo portion of the alimony checks.
After graduation, I had a whirlwind romance, engagement, and marriage to a guy I had known for only nine months. I don’t recommend it. Without the ability to recognize a loving and respectful life partner, I thought meeting him at church was enough. Standing at the back of the sanctuary, ready to give me away, Dad said, “You know you don’t have to go through with this.” I wonder what my life would have been like if I had run out the back door instead of proceeding down the aisle to the altar.
They say that women marry their fathers, and that was true for me. My ex had expert-level crazymaking or gaslighting skills. Just like my dad, he could say, “At least I don’t hit you.” But this diminishes the emotional toll of the belittling and undermining, which left me battling depression for decades.
Mom told me stories about their early years. I knew she paid the price as a dutiful wife while he climbed the corporate ladder, traveled for business, and controlled her allowance for household expenses. She held down the home front, sewing clothes, and draperies, darning his socks, scrimping, making things from scratch. My stepmother reaped all the benefits of her years of sacrifice: jewelry, retirement in Florida, and travel. His support and investment of time tipped toward her four girls and away from me. I’ve never understood how he could be such a completely different husband and stepfather to her children. Building relationships with them His lack of availability to me and my three sons felt like rejection all over again.
My dad died in 2005. An alcoholic and Type 2 diabetic with a mitral valve prolapse, he elected to have it repaired by a cardiologist in Punta Gorda, Florida, where he retired. In December 2004, mid-surgery, the doctor elected to do a repair instead of replacement with a cow valve. I guess the surgeon might have left his chest open too long. Dad got an antibiotic-resistant infection in January, spent a month in the ICU, and then passed away.
When he was failing, I saw him one more time. I flew down from Colorado, and everyone was amazed that when I walked in, he spoke his last words, “Hi Princess. What a night!”
Pamela is a creative writer and storyteller from Franklin, TN. She is the Assistant Editor at Proem Journal. Her writing is found at Heartland Society of Women Writers, Pure Slush, Little Old Lady Comedy, The MockingOwl Roost, Halfway Down the Stairs, Livina Press, Funny Pearls, Persimmon Tree and Crow’s Feet.