The book A Prisoner by No Crime of My Own has been professionally edited and will be published this year. To pique interest, I will share tidbits from the manuscript with you each Tuesday.
Chapter 12 | Inciting Murder
You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.”
– Toni Morrison from Song of Solomon
Several months after that initial recall, I had my first flashback. Thinking of the flashback as a clue to the next piece of work — no matter how painful — I had to try to view it as a positive indication that I was ready now and willing to remember. These flashbacks would happen off and on through the years, unwelcomed, unexpected, and very unwanted. Once I opened the door, they kept returning – sometimes with a vengeance.
This evening, I had my boyfriend stay over. He got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and when he opened the door to my bedroom to come back to bed, it startled me out of sleep. When I opened my eyes, I flew up in bed, moving against the wall, and cried out, “Are you Dad or Craig? Are you Dad or Craig?” I tried to focus, but all I was seeing was a man in the shadows coming toward me, a car door was opened behind him, and the headlights were shining on the spot they had been working.
I was transported to that Saturday night in June: Dad and Craig had been working all day and I had fallen asleep in the back of the car. In the latter half of the day we were in a different car. This car was gold, had two doors, and black interior. They opened the door, and someone was climbing in the back. It scared me. Then, I could see that it was my dad. He crawled in and collapsed in the back seat with his head landing on my top of my legs. I was so small it was suffocating.
This flashback had not only showed me that we had used two cars, but that it was very late at night by the time we arrived back home. It also confirmed that they had buried the body on my parents’ property in, what would later become, the family dumpsite.
The flashback freaked my boyfriend out so bad, he got dressed and walked out of my house at 3:00 a.m., leaving me scared and alone. No man would want to love me while I explored these dark waters. Maybe my mother was right when she told me, “Good thing God made you beautiful because after all you’ve been through no man is going to want to love you.” I was frightening for them and just too much. I did have my God and my children and that was enough.
Sometime after the flashback, I knew I had to lodge a formal complaint with law enforcement. This was in 2005. I believed in myself enough to write the following letter:
. . . to be continued . . .