Those old black and whites held me irresistibly captive, glued to the screen as I was, bewildered that the movie star after whom I was named could be so good and kind on screen (well, if the script called for it) but so different in real life. I'm enough of a realist now, as an adult, no longer to be swept away by the Sturm und Drang of a fanciful photoplay. Or Hollywood lives. Though the physical pain of the irrational beatings I received as a child is gone - I do have some scars, however - the inner pain has been little eased despite love from caring friends and supportive family members. A good shrink helps too.
My sister Joleen, older and, I'll reluctantly admit, wiser, has an outlook I'm simply not able to adopt. Not at this point anyway. She's always been sweet and kindly disposed by nature. After our mother would have one of her characteristic tantrums - volcanic explosions, more aptly - and she and the house were four sheets to the wind, it was Joleen who brought her the wet washcloth and tried to calm us kids down. Dad was at work. That's just it - he was at work. He didn't see the half of what SHE did to Joleen, Toby and me.
My adult's intellect acknowledges that the father has to be gone long hours to pay the rent, put food on the table ... of course! Of course! But the beaten and bruised little girl is screaming for help to the big, protecting daddy who seems never to be there at those cursed moments when an uncontrolled rage is visited upon helpless children.
Why didn't my daddy protect me?
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