True Stories Well Told

By Melodee K. Currier

If I read one more feel-good Mother’s Day story, I think I’m going to scream!  Am I the only one who doesn’t have kind words to say about their mother?

I have never called my mother “mom.”   The word “mom” to me conjures up images of someone who is caring, nurturing and emotionally available.  My mother was none of those things.

She confessed to me before she died that when she found out she was pregnant with me she cried, not from joy, but because she did not want a child.  She wanted to become a singer or actress and children did not fit into the picture.  But when she told my father she was pregnant, he was so overjoyed she accepted it – or so she said.

When I was born she did something unusual.  She named me Melodee after a former boyfriend, Mel.  They dated while she was also dating my father.  My father proposed first and Mel was so distraught he had to be hospitalized.  I never questioned why she would not allow anyone to call me “Mel” –  it took decades for me to figure it out.

My mother’s outer beauty was stunning.  She had an enviable figure and jet black hair slicked back into a sophisticated chignon.  Her sexy Joan Crawford shoes, furs and diamonds made her look like the celebrity she longed to be.   The only things important to her were beauty and money, but when she died, sadly she had neither.

When I was a baby, we lived in Miami Beach just one block from the ocean.  Even though she did not work, she hired nannies to take care of me.  We also had a maid – like in the movie The Help.  I loved these women who gave me the attention I was lacking from my mother.

Any security I felt as a young child was ripped from me when she left my father and we moved to Ohio.  To add insult to injury, within a year she married a teacher who became physically and emotionally abusive to me.  Besides beating me unmercifully with a belt, he would often send me to my room from the dinner table and then he, my mother and sister (his child) would go out.  I would peer out of my bedroom window to see the three of them drive away.

She never allowed me to cook, sell Girl Scout cookies, babysit, or even hold my sister when she was a baby.  She owned a knitting shop, but didn’t teach me how to knit.  She didn’t even attend my high school graduation.  College wasn’t an option for me as she thought I should be a secretary.  She said if I knew how to type I would never have to worry about getting a job.  So after I graduated from high school I was quickly whisked away from my fiancé to New York City to attend secretarial school.

Over the years, she became even more conniving and cruel.  While my father lay dying in the hospital she brought her attorney/lover of sixteen years to his bedside to make her the beneficiary of his will.  My parents had not been married for over twenty years and I was his only child, his rightful heir.  After he died, she used her sizeable inheritance to go on 49 cruises around the world and to buy my sister (my stepfather’s daughter) a condo, cars and more while I struggled to raise my son as a single mother without child support.

Despite her cold-hearted treatment of me, I loved her unconditionally.  When she had a foot operation I sent her flowers, but was startled to get a call from the florist saying she would not accept them saying “Send them back, I don’t know anyone by that name!”  If I ever felt like a motherless child, it was then.

By the time she died in a hospice in Florida, she had lost a leg to diabetes and was on Medicaid.  It was an unhappy ending for a woman whose values were based solely on beauty and money.   While going through her personal things I came across her memoir which was entitled “Tears of Blood.”  Not surprising, it’s the story of a woman, despite all her abundance, who saw the glass half empty.

The last straw came when my sister had the audacity to send me my mother’s cremation bill.  After I returned it to her unpaid, she asked the congregation at her church to come up with the money.  As soon as they donated the exact amount and the cremation bill was paid, she left that church.  Mother would be impressed.

I’ve learned that sometimes it’s necessary to become your own parent, to give yourself the love and encouragement you never had.  My journey has not been smooth, but it’s been rewarding.

Once I stopped believing my mother’s tapes that I was incompetent, I went to college and got my paralegal degree.  That degree enabled me to solely manage the intellectual property of a large corporation.  It was that stepping stone of confidence that I began writing personal essays for magazines and have gotten numerous articles published.

The emotional roadblocks created by my mother have been torn down, like the fall of the Berlin wall.  The best is yet to come!

By Doug Elwell

Summer thunder rolled across the prairie in the distance—in the middle of the night. It roused me from a dreamless sleep. I lay on my back—hands behind my head—propped up on my pillow to listen.

I listened, then watched, the storm unfold through the slice of the night sky my window allowed. The summer thunder rolled across the sky like empty rail cars trundling over the trestle above the river south and west of town. Almost in view, strobing flashes of lightning were followed by sharp claps, then the rumbling thunder seconds later. Mother taught me to count the seconds between the flash and the clap to judge how many miles away the storm was. With each flash and clap, the storm rolled closer—unfolded in front of me.

I sensed a small presence in the dark at the left of my bed near the door to my room. A small, tremulous voice, “Can I get in with you?” I would lift the cover and Sissy’s little body slid in next to mine. It trembled with each flash and clap.

Then wind whistled around corners, whooshed through branches outside my window. The storm—the lightning and thunder and wind was above us. Each flash blinded momentarily, each crack reverberated—shook the bed. There was no lag time now. The lightning and thunder were one outside my window. Pelting rain sheeted against rattling window panes and scraped across the roof like crumpling gift wrap on Christmas morning.

When it passed, Sissy arose—slipped away. She came and went with the storm.

It was a long time ago.

Doug Elwell is a native Illinoisan who writes short creative non-fiction and fiction. He can be contacted via email at: djelwell@mchsi.com.

By Mel Currier

In 1965, when I was seventeen, I moved to New York City to attend secretarial school and lived at The Barbizon Hotel for Women.  Men weren’t allowed past the lobby, so that provided some security and sanity for my parents.  But what happened outside the walls of The Barbizon was another story.

Malachy’s, the first singles bar, was around the corner from The Barbizon, in an exclusive upper East side neighborhood.  It was a dingy, hole-in-the-wall bar, but it was the place to be.

My friends and I went there frequently, but I rarely saw anyone that appealed to me – until I saw John.  His tall, blonde, preppy look instantly attracted me.  He said he was in prep school and was a year younger than me.  We saw each other at Malachy’s a few times before he asked me out for a Saturday afternoon date to meet his brother who lived in Greenwich Village.

When the day arrived, I was thrilled to be on a date with John and I remember how wholesome I looked in my cranberry cotton slacks, madras blouse and Bass Weejuns.   We took a cab to his brother’s brownstone and after walking up the steep front steps, John unlocked the door.  As we walked into the apartment, it was chillingly quiet.  John nonchalantly commented that it looked like his brother wasn’t home and ushered me straight into a bedroom.  Before I knew it, he was violently ripping off my clothes and forcing himself on me.  I screamed “NO!!!! NO!!!!,”  but John was focused on one thing as he repeatedly slapped my face and raped me.  It was over in five minutes, but it seemed like forever.

As I put my clothes back on, I was overcome with a surreal feeling of anger and strength.  He took a passive role and seemed pleased with my new-found power.  I had entered the brownstone a naïve, trusting virgin and in less than half an hour I left physically, mentally and spiritually violated.  John insisted on getting a cab for me.  I never spoke to him again.

In those days, going to the emergency room, or to the police, after being raped didn’t occur to me.  Little sympathy was given to rape victims by health care workers, the police, the court system and society.  The victim was often blamed for the rape — it was assumed she “asked for it.”

The first thing I did when I got back to The Barbizon was take a shower, the second was look at my calendar to see if I was ovulating.  I was.  Next I prayed like I never prayed before.  Abortion wasn’t legal then, so back alley abortions – or having a baby – were the two options available.  Two weeks later I got my period.  Thank you God!!!

I had no emotional support system at the time, so I didn’t mention it to anyone.  I put it out of my mind as if it never happened.  My denial was my protection.

Melodee Currier at work in 1965

When I eventually remembered that October day decades later, I realized John pre-meditated the rape and I was lucky to be alive.

Even though I was an expert at finding people on the Internet, his name was so common, I was unable to find him.  I almost lost faith of ever finding him when I got the idea to check Facebook’s “people finding” feature.  I typed in the name of his prep school along with his name and…..Bingo!

His Facebook “info” page revealed he ministers to people at his church, is on the Board of a Christian school, his favorite book was The Bible and he had been a police officer for ten years!!  I was shocked and outraged.

I thought about contacting him, but what good would that do?  Ultimately I decided to let the issue go and give it to the Universe to handle.

Now that I have had time to reflect, there were three red flags I wish I would have observed.  First, I should have wondered why John wanted me to meet his brother since it was just our first date.  Second, when I saw that his brother wasn’t home, I should have immediately left the brownstone.  And third, I never should have allowed John to usher me straight into the bedroom.

There are many other ways you can protect yourself if you’re in a dangerous situation, including:

1. Always let someone know who you are going out with and where you are going;
2. Avoid going to secluded locations until you know each other well;
3. Emphatically tell the perpetrator you will call the police if they don’t stop NOW;
4. Don’t be afraid to cause a scene if you feel threatened;
5. Bring cash on your date in case you need a cab;
6. Put speed dial numbers on your cell phone for quick help;
7. Immediately go to the nearest emergency room if you are raped (do not get rid of the physical evidence).

Women need to take control.  The next time you go out on a date, make sure you have a plan of action in case the date takes an unexpected turn.  It may just save your life!

 -Melodee Currier