Bird with the broken wing

G read me his notes from last week. A few of the things I had told him sounded brand new to me. Like, "Mommy went downstairs [after confronting Daddy] and took all hope with her. I was left in the dungeon."

As a result, I would not let anyone get close. I wouldn't confide in my mother, who wanted me to, much less my dad, who didn't care whether I did or not. In fact I grew up intensely distrusting the color turquoise and didn't understand why until I realized it was my mother's favorite color. I was an angry little girl.

But "here's the thing," as my friend L. always says. Dad had made it my job to protect her from knowing and I clearly had not done my job well enough. Because Daddy had warned me we must never let Mommy know (she was wonderful and fragile and we couldn't hurt her) and because although I hadn't told her she found out and was very narrowly prevented from believing the truth, I had to redouble my efforts to keep her off track.

Pucky was a bird pretending a wounded wing to keep the family distracted. Pucky was me, the victim, saying, "See, I'm fine. I'm fine! I'M FINE! La la la la la, no pain here. Safe, healthy, normal little girl here. Nothing amiss, nothing going on. Look at me, have you ever seen a happier little girl?"

In our only home movie, which covered Thanksgiving and Christmas when I was six and our trip out west when I was seven, I see myself as an appallingly self-important, cocky little person. Everyone else is doing normal things, chewing, passing the potatoes, chatting cheerfully with one another; looking up from their gifts to thank the giver; loading the car, standing by rivers, on mountaintops, overlooking panoramic views. By contrast I am marching back and forth in my new majorette's costume, flailing my baton. I am swaggering after my brothers, swinging my arms. I am bouncing, prancing, dancing, strutting. No other little girls are jumping around, prancing or swaggering with me; I am not a part of a playful group. Nor is anyone paying attention to me. Yet I am desperately showing off to a non-existent audience.

No, Pucky was not a bird pretending to have a broken wing. She was a bird whose wing, whose whole body, was not only really broken but utterly shattered--pretending it wasn't. The alternative would have been--what? Slumping to the ground catatonic, I presume.

Control was all-important. I'd majorly flubbed it once. Mommy had not only suspected, she had known. And it was up to me to be sure I never gave her a single minute to ever wonder about it again.