The box

One day my sister and I came home from school and went up to the room we shared. In the middle of the floor was a large cardboard box. I was intensely curious about this box, and went downstairs to ask Gran about it. She glared at us both, and told us not to touch the box, and not to look inside of the box. We said ok, and did not bring it up again. After supper that night and after the rosary, we were put to bed at our customary 7pm. As always, Maureen and I could not sleep that early, and looked out the window and talked. It was still light outside, and we could see the Verrazano Bridge from our window. We wondered where it led to, and talked about being grown up and traveling to exotic places. Our "cousins" had just gone to Aruba, and we saw pictures of their trip. They were rich, and went to lots of wonderful places that we wished we could go to. They got to go on an airplane and everything.

We heard Gran coming down the hallway, and scrambled back up to the top of the bed and pretended to be asleep. She came in and yelled at us to go to sleep, and looked sharply at me and asked if I had looked into the box. I said no. She looked at the box, and back at me, and said, "you'd better not!!" It scared me to think that she might not beleive me, and punish me anyway.

I was too afraid to look in the box. That night, Maureen and I pondered what might be in that box. We imagined all sorts of treasures. We decided that it held some of the most precious things we could imagine, things from our parents, that Gran never let us have. Every Christmas, our parents would send gifts, but Gran would never let us have them. Maureen and I decided that the box in the middle of our room contained all the things that our parents had ever given us.

The next night, the box was still there. Maureen asked if I were going to look into the box, and I got brave and got out of bed. I went to the box, and cautiously opened the cardboard flaps. It was full of the most beautiful clothing we had ever seen!!! They were all our size, and there were some beautiful dresses in there too!!! We got excited, my hands diving deeper and deeper into the box to try and see all the things at the bottom. Maureen was above me, on the bed, but I was in the middle of the floor, with my arms in the box. We heard Gran coming, and I quickly replaced everything and folded the flaps back up and jumped back into bed. Gran yelled at us to go to sleep, and went into her room, which was right next door. Grandpa was downstairs watching a fight, and Gran watched "Little house on the prairie" in her room. Maureen and I liked when Gran watched TV in her room, because it meant we could talk quietly and Gran wouldn't be able to hear us over the TV.

We excitedly discussed what was in the box, and why had Gran left it in our room? It would have made more sense to leave it in her own room, we thought. Then we would never know it existed. I was 7 years old then, and Maureen was 8. We could not make sense of much that happened to us back then, but we never questioned anything, because to do that meant a slap in the face, or a severe spanking.

Most of the time, I never knew when a slap was coming. It always seemed so sudden, so violent, and SO unfair. I never knew what I had done to deserve it. It seemed I must have just been a naturally very bad kid, like she said we all were, to get hit and not know why. I must have done things I shouldn't have done, without realizing it. Gran always said we deserved everything we got, and probably more.

The next night we were sent to our room, and Gran said, "you had better not look in that box!!"
I assured her I wouldn't, and as soon as I heard her go downstairs, I was in the box looking to see if there were anything I missed the night before. I took every single thing out of the box, and put it back in again. My arm was again deep in the box, when Gran came bursting through the door. My heart sank, then came up into my throat as I saw Gran go over to the window shade and pull out the long narrow stick of wood that was inserted in there to keep the shade flat.

I had scrambled up onto my bed for safety, but Gran grabbed me by the ankles and dragged me down the length of the bed to the bottom. God, that was a long trip. I knew what awaited me, though. She wielded that stick and raised it high, shouting with each connection with my butt and legs (each syllable was its own slap with the stick, almost like a punctuation), "I TOLD YOU NOT TO LOOK IN THAT BOX!!! YOU HAVE DELIBERATELY DISOBEYED ME!!! HOW DARE YOU DISOBEY ME? DID YOU THINK I WOULD NOT FIND OUT? DID YOU THINK I WOULD NOT CATCH YOU???" Gran was relentless with that stick.

I laid there, sobbing, and she slammed out of our room, saying I should think about what I had done.

She came back a short time later, and I said I was sorry, in between sobs and hiccups. She sneered at me and asked, "Are you really sorry? Or are you just sorry because you got caught?"

I cried that I was really sorry, but knew it would not do any good.

The box stayed there for 3 more days. I never touched it again. We never saw the clothing that was in that box again either.

The mixture of psychological torture along with the physical abuse was what ultimately took its toll on my overall self esteem. She set us up to fail, over and over again. Then punished us for that failure. I loved her so much anyway, for so long.