Sunday afternoon, my shift over, tired of folding t-shirts. I made plans to head to the beach.

I felt lucky. I knew I would find a free parking spot that faced the water. The beach is the perfect place to think. Plus, I wanted to smoke the loosy I bought the other night. I didn’t smoke it then because I had a date and didn’t want to smell like an ashtray.

About that date. He wanted to pick me up. When I told him I lived with my parents he was     even more insistent saying that girls’ parents always liked him. That put the kibosh on it for me. What an idiot! Didn’t he have to impress me first? Not one friend of mine ever dated someone just because their parents liked them.

I was lucky. I found a spot by the controversial condominiums that sported a rooftop lounge, making the building higher than the approved three-story ordinance. There I was, facing the ocean, windows going down, all four, digging in my purse for some matches.

Throughout high school I had spent many Sundays in the car at the beach instead of going to church. My parents liked the earliest Mass and once I could drive, they let me sleep in. Back in those days I would swing by the church parking lot to see who was there before heading to the beach. I knew the regulars and what they drove. Later I would fake that I had seen our family friends. I would mention the new babies, sometimes even by name. My parents believed I was interested in going to church. But what did old white men know that I needed to know as told in those riveting sermons?

I lit the cigarette and read the match book I’d picked up at Food Truck Heaven. My date had taken me there for dinner. I started out the evening with an annoyed attitude. Meeting the parents. Sheesh. I’d show him what my priorities were. I ordered two lobster dishes at the lobster truck. I finished my meal off with an extra-large sundae, triple scoops of hand-churned ice cream. Never even suggested we share. No doubt he wished he had taken me to a fancy chop house instead. He would have come out ahead. The night ended with a bottle of wine I insisted he buy once I found out he was twenty-one. When we finished the bottle, I jumped out of his car and into mine without so much as a peck. Adios!

I took another drag on the cigarette feeling glad it was slim and feminine looking. I blew smoke rings; an ability I was surprised I had maintained even though I only smoked about once a year. With all the windows down, I felt the ocean breeze ebb and flow with the waves, occasionally hitting my left cheek, once in while coming in from the right, hitting that side of my face. I closed my eyes and listened to the white noise.

My thoughts went to the most defining incident of my life. My therapist told me to confront my memory every time it arose. I had spent the last couple of years doing just that, and my recollection finally had taken on a new form. Now a host of details move in real time minus the feelings of fear and confusion, lasting only the few moments that the incident took.

My therapist said I have made progress. That I have released the horror.

In the past, those recollections jolted inside me. I would lose my breath as I relived the old man smell of the priest as he pressed against me. When the warmth of his skin and his smell were gone, I remained stuck for a long time, inside a closet with black and white gowns enveloping me, holding me against my will. My friend who had dared me to go into the Sacristy was long gone. When Mother Catherine found me and scolded me, I never knew why. The Sacristy. It sounded so holy. I never knew why.

When I peeked one eye open, the cigarette had burned down and held about two inches of ash. I took one last drag and threw the butt out the window, the ashes floating onto the car door and my pant leg. Brushing them off, my thoughts drifted to a time before the incident.

In second grade I liked to write poetry. I wanted to author poems with real stanzas. I won a prize once. In a sense, I had cheated. I checked out a copy of Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses and copied the rhyme pattern of Bed in Summer, a three-stanza poem. I called my poem Chair in Winter. I knew I was cheating. Did I ever tell a priest about the poem at confession?

Twilight was creeping in. The dampness made my shoulders chilly. I left my windows down. I would tough it out.

I told a few lies back then, too, like the one I permanently recorded on manila construction paper right before the incident.

The food pyramid had been a big part of the curriculum that week, culminating in an art project. We had to draw what we had eaten for dinner the night before. I really could not remember, but I thought I had already failed because I had not told my parents about the food pyramid. The assignment made it clear to me that I was supposed to have gone home and influenced our nightly meals. I had not done that. Instead, I spent my time stealing ideas from R. L. Stevenson.

On that piece of manila paper, I drew a plate with a brown oval representing meat. Then I added green and orange. I had been listening. The food pyramid was colorful. The green peas and orange carrots sat next to a pile of mashed potatoes topped with brown gravy, the same shade as the meat oval. My mom served decent meals every night, but I had drawn one of our Sunday dinners. Here was the big lie. Right next to the plate on the mashed potato side, I drew a parfait glass filled with colorful layers. A lush dessert I had never had in my life. My meal impressed the teacher. Another ‘A.’ School seemed easy. Was the parfait ever part of a confession? Had I tipped off the priest that I was dishonest and an easy mark?

The dampness settled in around me. I closed the back windows first and the passenger window halfway. I was not ready to go home. Mom still made traditional Sunday post-church dinner food just like in my picture, sans the parfait. I could warm a plate later.

By the time I had figured out what had happened to me, the church was in the throes of the abuse scandal. Only I kept hearing the victims were boys. I was confused even more. I thought I must have looked like a skinny boy that day. We had ridden our bikes to the church wearing t-shirts and jeans. My parents talked about the scandal in hushed voices, saddened by the news. They were not stupid, just wanted it all to go away.

The scandal messed up my timing. I was about to tell my mom. A teacher had encouraged me to do so. Ms. Ellis. She could tell. She was that kind of teacher. Between her and the school counselor I survived junior high and high school. And they were right. My parents needed to know.

The evening I chose was a wash. My mother had been on the phone all day with a cousin. The cousin shared her husband had been a victim as an altar boy. My mother was in a state of shock. Because I was midway through my teens my parents talked openly about the cousin’s husband at dinner that night. Their conversation was not really talking, but arguing with themselves, rationalizing the scandal away, minimizing the extent of it. I listened and said nothing while handing my mom a tissue occasionally. When my mom shared that her cousin had mentioned her strained marital relationship and how her cousin now understood why, I tucked away the connection.

The beach parking lot was almost empty. The lights on the pier had come on and there were fishermen scattered from the mid-point to the end, the silhouettes leaning on their elbows, some smoking, some moving their poles up and down. My stomach growled. I had not eaten since my break at the store. I closed my eyes and breathed in and out and in and out and in and out, as deeply as I could. I forced another thought. I let the connection between my mother’s cousin’s strained relationship and the abuse hang in my head

Then I thought about the date from the other night. Then another date and another. I often treated my dates the way I treated Mr. Wanna Meet the Parents. I found myself cringing as I pictured the look on his face when I bolted from his car. Yeah, there is a connection.

Shivering, I rolled up the passenger window all the way and then my window halfway. I took more deep breaths and with each one I exhaled a statement aloud. Long sentences, phrases, single words, punctuated with the truth. I finished my rehearsal. I had not cried. I was ready.

I started the car, backed up and headed home, able to picture my mother’s reaction but not my father’s.

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