in “just” i call her melanie.  other times i call m, mel, magdalene.  she is my precious baby, even though she is not really my baby anymore.  she is the first child we had after we lost veronica and the day she was born i looked at her and knew that she was healing up a place in my heart, returning what the locusts had eaten.

the day we found out that sea was molesting saskia, m remembers coming home from rounds with her father and walking into the bedroom where sea was folding up the tent he made to molest his little sister.  she says he had a very angry look on his face.  i see the scene through her eyes, vividly.

she came into my bedroom where i was still talking to saskia and em and she heard what had happened.  she very, very calmly corroborated that he had abused her also, for years, until his abuse became more invasive and she understood from a sexual assault prevention lecture that she could ask him to stop.  he did and she never thought that he would abuse her little sister.  he abused her and yet she still had a basic level of trust in his humanity.  in her mind if he stopped abusing her then of course he would not abuse her little sister.

like em and me, melanie carries around an unshoulderable burden.  she knows now that if she had reported what he was doing to me or her father, the abuse would have stopped.

we tell  her it is not her fault.  and it isnt.

we tell her she could not have known, and that is true also

we tell her he fooled us too

and that it is all his fault, all the sin of it belongs to him

and yet this burden is something we all carry

there is no relief from the past, from things one cannot undo.