Lorraine Says: Never Pick Up the Phone

I often write posts in my head. I’ll come up with a title or maybe a few full sentences or perhaps I just think those words that will probably end up on my headstone: I should blog about this.

My blogging-to-do is a little overwhelming at this point. I have all these cool things I want to do on LttP, but I feel compelled to first handle the number one “I should blog about this” item on my list, which has been there for way too long.

In an effort to finally get it off my chest, to cross it off, say what I have to, exhale and move on, I present to you all: 

Shit Ain’t Funny, Part the Fifth:

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“Vye, what is this?” I asked showing her a strangely marked envelope. She grabbed it from me quickly.

“Nothing.”

I glared at her and she groaned at me through clenched teeth.

“Fiiine,” she whined. “It’s this guy. I knew him a while ago but then he got arrested and went to jail. He keeps writing to me and I don’t know why. He keeps saying he’s sorry for treating me like he did, and that jail has changed him."

"Uh, what the fuck?"

"I know! I know. And... Mom found one of the letters and in it he said he wanted me to have his babies when he got out.”

“Oh my God,” I said.

“Yeah, I know. She was so pissed, but I can’t control him writing to me. I can’t control it.”

“How do you know these people, Vye? Dammit.”

“It’s not like we’ve grown up in the best neighborhood,” she said annoyed.

But I have my own theories on the friends she chosen all her life. And I’m sure she has her theories on mine.

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It’s the year 2012: no one picks up the phone anymore.

I know that's a sweeping and grand generalization, but I feel passionate about it. I don’t use the phone. Please don’t call me, because I won’t pick up. Everyone I know knows this about me.

My sister called me on a Monday night, some time after 8pm. I didn’t hear it, but I saw the flashing light indicative of a voicemail, and as soon as Pink’s voice played for me, my stomach clenched. I didn’t need to really hear her words- Vyelit’s here and she needs to talk to you. It’s important. The fact that she had called at all was enough to warn me.

Most of our lives our bodies carry on without us really realizing it. You breathe to an unacknowledged rhythm. Your heart pumps nearly 2000 gallons of blood a day, all in the background. This day, this night as I drove to Pink’s house her voice still in my ears and my hands shaking on the steering wheel, I felt every pump and labored through every breath.

I knocked on Pink’s door and was greeted by a very unsure Gailey-bird. She gave me a hug but her eyes asked me a question. I wasn’t sure what it was. I placed her back down in front of the cartoons meant to distract her and faced Pink.

She didn’t say anything, but I guessed before she needed to.

“She’s pregnant?”

Pink nodded. “You knew? How did you know?”

“I didn’t know anything,” I said honestly. “I didn’t know there was a guy. I don’t know why I guessed that. I just knew. I just..." I faded.

“There wasn’t a boy,” Pink breathed, face flushing. I bet she was feeling every squeeze of her heart at that moment too. “I mean... she says... she says she was raped.”

My hand flew up to my mouth when it dropped open, a perfectly scripted reaction.

“Does mom know?”

“Not yet.”

“Where is she?”

Pink point down the hallway to her room. I walked, fighting against my suddenly weighted limbs. Sometimes you hear news and it feels like your brain takes its time processing it. This was not like that. I felt like I too quickly understood everything that this moment meant.

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“Who’s the guy? Do you know?” I asked carefully. Vye was on a rocking chair in Pink’s room, eyes swollen and freckles more pronounced on her red washed face. She was wringing her hands and shaking.

“Remember the letters,” she tested. “Remember the letters from jail?”

“Vyelit.” I swallowed and controlled myself. This wasn’t the time to scold. This wasn’t the time. “Yeah, I remember.”

“He sent me a last one that said he was getting out of jail. He had a dinner at his house and a lot of people I know went, so I stopped by for a little while and it was fine. He was fine and polite and that was the end of it.”

Except that wasn’t the end of it.

My naive little sister. My social butterfly, super forgiving, never learns her lesson, smiles at everyone who passes by sister.

My little sister, who picks up the phone, even though it’s 2012, and nobody does that. My little sister who picks up the phone and listens when he says he’s in trouble and that he needs her help. My little sister who loves to drive and will go to you wherever you are and take you wherever you need to be.

My little sister who went.

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No one wanted to use the word rape.

Because rape happens in dark alleys- men you don’t know, women who are asking for it.

Carefully judge that small mindedness, though. Everyone understands definitions, sure, but when words become actions, meanings dull.

It was the worst on the days when we woke up selfish. On the days when my mother realized that soon, with her oldest 30 and youngest 23, there would be a baby in her house again. On the days when I was throwing away personal possessions and packing up my things and postponing plans to move out because I promised I would help. On the days when best friends had to hear rumors but couldn’t speak up because they’d promised to keep it all a secret.

On those days, everyone was looking for someone to blame and it was easy to remember that Vyelit went. She trusted. She talked. She kissed. This man who wrote her from jail.

But the problem is "rape" doesn’t let you blame. So, we didn't use the word. We danced around it, leaving room to point a finger, in case we needed to. So we could throw, “well you got pregnant” out and regret it later. So we could press our opinions on her, and remind her, never gently, that she wasn’t the smartest or the best judge of character, obviously.

It helped us feel better, for a while. But rape was still there, holding our hands, and we couldn’t even say its name.

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Faith is never easy to talk about. Not for me at least. I admire people who have Jesus as their co-pilot stickers or who constantly wear the reminder WWJD. Seriously, I do, because it’s bold.

I struggle to talk about my faith like I struggle to talk about emotions. They are mine and they are private and they make me feel small and out of control and vulnerable.

And, I mean, I would never ask someone to explain why they love their mother to me. I would never ask someone to defend their love or trust or faith in their mother. And I never feel like providing those explanations for my love, trust and faith in God.

But.

Faith is always easier to talk about once you’ve lost it. It’s a topic I haven’t broached since the dreaded Magpie days, when I was living out a teenaged rebellion at age 23, wondering why I’d lived all my life according to impossible moral standards.

It took a lot of heartbreak and abuse to find my way back to a truth I knew all along- to a belief I never let go of and one that I just had to rediscover. I inherited my faith from my parents, who prayed with us every night and taught us Bible stories instead of fairy tales.

But then as an adult, I fought for my faith. I dug it out of a dirty situation with my bare hands. I found a place where I could say that it wasn’t about rules or regulations or pleasing my parents anymore.

It’s about love, trust and a faith that I can’t defend. I can’t. I can’t anymore than you can.

That night, I saw Vyelit in the mud, in her dirty situation, wondering what she had done to deserve this. I saw her, crying, saying that she’d begged God for only one thing -she begged not to be pregnant- but she is, and He didn’t listen and it wasn’t fair.

My family, the believers, all sat around in a circle and we asked Vyelit what she would do. Because this is the one out, right? This is the one jab that pro-choice people wield triumphantly against pro-life people. BUT WHAT ABOUT RAPE, they yell?

More than an argument for or against one way of thinking or another, it’s meant to test. Would you still be so sure, people ask, if the baby were a product of rape? What then, what then, what then, we want people to consider.

And I truly wonder why anyone would want anyone else to even dream of being in this situation.

As much as I believe that a life is a life is a life, from the very first moment, even as a once-scientist, my nifty biology degree collecting dust on a wall, who am I to make that decision for Vyelit?

“You know what we believe,” I said to her, when it was just us two in a room, "but it’s your body.”

And she cried because she didn’t know what she believed and it wasn’t just her body any more.

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I want you to understand something.

I lock my door every day when I leave the house. I set the alarm, too.

I’ve been robbed enough times, though, to know that sometimes things happen even if you are careful. They happen especially if you are not. In both cases, the victim is not to blame. A thief doesn’t stop being a thief because you forget to lock your door.

I've learned to hate victim based society. We tell women to be careful what they drink when they are out. We tell them to be careful how they dress and where they park. Be careful who you talk to and never travel alone. It would be fine if we also understood that if I did park in a dark area or if I did mix up my drink or if my skirt is really short because I have amazing legs, it doesn’t matter.

I could be in a dark alley.

I could be on a date.

I could be kissing you.

I could be married to you.

None of that entitles you to my body.


None of it.

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“He called me today.”

“And you answered?”

Vyelit shrugged. Nine months pregnant and waddling around the room that now had a crib, a new dresser and about a thousand pink and frilly things.

“He wanted to know her name,” she explained. “I told him he wouldn’t like it.”

“Even more reason to name her that then,” I smiled.

Vyelit returned my smile, but weakly. “He said I could name her whatever I wanted and that he wasn’t going to sign the birth certificate.”

“Better for us,” I reminded her.

“I know,” she managed.

My sister. Who still picks up the phone, and really, really shouldn’t.

I cupped my hands around my mouth and spoke into Vye’s belly. “Hello Mae-fly. Please come out now. We are ready for you and your mother’s feet are really gross and swollen. I want her to go back to normal now.”

Vye swatted me away. “Uh, you woke her up.”

“Sorry, I just really want her to come out. I can’t wait to see her. “

“Me either. I mean, I do want to not be pregnant anymore, but I also want to see her. And... I know it’s weird, but I really want to smell her.”

“Weirdo.”

My sister. The weirdo.