The Yellow Note
She handed me a bright yellow Post-It note. I was not prepared for the dark words written on it. I
couldn’t reconcile the two – they didn’t go together. How could light and darkness share the same
space? The words said, “I was raped.”
She couldn’t bring herself to say them out loud. I couldn’t get them to register in my brain. I heard my idiot mouth say, “Are you sure?” I regretted the words immediately. She wanted me to say something to take away her pain. I wanted to say something to take away her pain. But instead I volleyed it back to her. I still don’t know what I should’ve said at that moment. But I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have been what I actually said.
It was the day before Spring Break. I was at the school to pick her up. She hadn’t come to the car line. A teacher came to my car and asked me to come with him. He wasn’t talking. I was assuming she had gotten in trouble or something. He took me to the room she was in. That’s when she handed me the yellow Post-It note.
I’m pretty sure the earth stopped spinning for a moment or two. I’m certain I blinked to clear my eyes and read it again. And again. And again. The words just sat there on that happily colored yellow paper and mocked me. I pulled her into a hug and we sobbed. I was trying very hard to choke down the anger and the rage I felt bubbling up inside of me. Who would do this to my girl? How could this happen?
I felt like I had somehow failed her. I hadn’t kept her safe from this evil. And here I sat holding her as she cried and I couldn’t make it stop. Nor could I take it away. I had absolutely no idea what to do. Not a single clue.
Then I realized the teacher was still in the room. I turned to him and said, “Have you called the police?” He looked back at me like I had two heads. Or maybe that’s my own interpretation of it. I didn’t get the feeling that he was moving. So I said, “Call the police!”
It dawned on me that I needed to call my husband. Her dad. How in the world could I tell him his baby girl had been violated? How? I couldn’t tell him over the phone. I couldn’t do this without him. His girl needed her daddy. I needed her daddy. I called him and told him to get to the school. Now. She’s okay. Just get here. Please. Get here.
He came right away. The rest of the afternoon is a bit of a blur. The officers came. They talked to her. The supervisor came. Suggested we take her to the Advocacy Center. Suggested non-uniformed officers to interview her. She got in the car with the officers and showed her the house that it had happened in. They would need the address for the search warrant.
We took her to the Advocacy Center. I drove the car. She sat in the back seat with her daddy. She held onto him like he was a life preserver. He was her rock. He was my rock. He was stoic, but sweet. I can’t imagine what his heart and soul battles were.
We sat in the small room at the Advocacy Center while she was interviewed. The forensic nurse had been called. We waited. The walls felt like they were closing in. My little girl was sitting in a room in that same building telling officers what had happened to her. I stared at the wall. I stared at my shoes. I stared at the door. I wanted it to open and have the officer come through the door to tell me she was mistaken. But she wasn’t. The door did open. The officer told me it was most certainly a rape. A rape. She had said it out loud. That word ripped a hole in my heart and took part of my soul with it. My little girl was 13. Thirteen. Would she ever have a normal life? Would she ever get past this? What about me – would I ever get past it?
The nurse came. They took her into the exam room. They put her clothes in a bag. They gave her clothes that didn’t fit. Hours had passed since the little yellow note. It was dark outside now. The nurse came in to see us and said a lot of words. Honestly, I have no idea what she said. She handed us a stack of papers – prescriptions, instructions, phone numbers. I thanked her. For what, I’m not sure.
They brought our daughter back to us. We were free to go. Free? Will we ever feel free? We all got in the car and tried to act normal. We needed to eat. Food. That was easy, right? We’ll find food. A restaurant. We also needed a pharmacy. There were medications that had to be administered. Things that nobody should ever contemplate giving to their thirteen year old daughter.
I dropped them off at a restaurant so I could go to the pharmacy alone. I called a friend who talked me off the ledge and made some of it make sense. She took the emotion out and just talked nuts and bolts. She knew I needed to understand the logistics of what was happening. We would deal with the emotional stuff later. One step at a time, she said. First pharmacy, then food. Sleep? Sure. Sleep. Sometime.
Her older sister needed to be told what was happening. Honestly, I’m really not sure how that conversation went. I don’t remember a single word of it. Not a single word. I do remember that she was angry. Very, very angry.
I crawled into bed that night, mostly because I didn’t know what else to do or where else to go. I knew that somewhere in the darkness they were serving a search warrant and questioning this young man. The day started coming at me in bits and pieces. The movie reel of the day had been chopped up in little pieces and thrown at me out of order. And the parts I wasn’t present for were conjured up in my imagination. I’ll never know if they were what really happened. Or just what I imagined had happened. Either way – they were unfathomable.
The hours turned into days. Days turned into months. We tried to make everything seem normal. I took her to counseling. I sat in the car while she was there. I was trying not to make it worse. I wanted her to talk to the counselor without fear of me hearing what she was saying. I forgot how to be a parent. I didn’t know what to say to her. She was angry. I felt like she was angry with me.
I felt like she loved her dad, but she didn’t love me. We lost our ability to communicate. I tried and tried to find a suitable counselor once the “free” sessions were up. She wanted a female, but not an older woman. Not a mom age. Not a grandma age. Not too young, but not too old.
She went back to school when spring break was over. Word had traveled fast. The boy had gotten his story out first. The girls called her a liar. The school refused to make any accommodations because it “wasn’t a school matter”. It felt like the entire school had turned on her. The kids wore white shirts to stand in solidarity with the rapist – who swore that she had made the whole thing up. There were YouTube videos, chanting in the cafeteria, stares and more ugliness that could be described with words. Her dad wanted to pull her from school and have her home schooled through the end of the school year. I wanted her to have a voice and make her own decision. She wanted to stay. She wanted to face those demons. She wasn’t going to let HIM take any more from her. She wanted to promote from the 8 th grade with the kids she had been with since the very beginning. So she did.
The legal case fell apart. Mostly because the boy refused to talk. The officers felt like their case wasn’t strong enough. He said. She said. He would walk free. She would carry it with her forever.
I told her it was her story to tell. She could tell it to whoever she wanted to tell it to. And I always asked permission to share it with anyone. She gave me a short list of people I could tell. I was very careful not to break her trust with that. It wasn’t my story. It wasn’t my place to tell it. It was my daughter. And it was devastating. But it wasn’t mine.
Somehow we got through that year. And the year after that. And the three years after that. It’s been five years now. She proved to me that strength comes from dark places. And it isn’t issued at birth or given as gifts. It comes from places we can’t see. And it should never be doubted.
She couldn’t bring herself to say them out loud. I couldn’t get them to register in my brain. I heard my idiot mouth say, “Are you sure?” I regretted the words immediately. She wanted me to say something to take away her pain. I wanted to say something to take away her pain. But instead I volleyed it back to her. I still don’t know what I should’ve said at that moment. But I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have been what I actually said.
It was the day before Spring Break. I was at the school to pick her up. She hadn’t come to the car line. A teacher came to my car and asked me to come with him. He wasn’t talking. I was assuming she had gotten in trouble or something. He took me to the room she was in. That’s when she handed me the yellow Post-It note.
I’m pretty sure the earth stopped spinning for a moment or two. I’m certain I blinked to clear my eyes and read it again. And again. And again. The words just sat there on that happily colored yellow paper and mocked me. I pulled her into a hug and we sobbed. I was trying very hard to choke down the anger and the rage I felt bubbling up inside of me. Who would do this to my girl? How could this happen?
I felt like I had somehow failed her. I hadn’t kept her safe from this evil. And here I sat holding her as she cried and I couldn’t make it stop. Nor could I take it away. I had absolutely no idea what to do. Not a single clue.
Then I realized the teacher was still in the room. I turned to him and said, “Have you called the police?” He looked back at me like I had two heads. Or maybe that’s my own interpretation of it. I didn’t get the feeling that he was moving. So I said, “Call the police!”
It dawned on me that I needed to call my husband. Her dad. How in the world could I tell him his baby girl had been violated? How? I couldn’t tell him over the phone. I couldn’t do this without him. His girl needed her daddy. I needed her daddy. I called him and told him to get to the school. Now. She’s okay. Just get here. Please. Get here.
He came right away. The rest of the afternoon is a bit of a blur. The officers came. They talked to her. The supervisor came. Suggested we take her to the Advocacy Center. Suggested non-uniformed officers to interview her. She got in the car with the officers and showed her the house that it had happened in. They would need the address for the search warrant.
We took her to the Advocacy Center. I drove the car. She sat in the back seat with her daddy. She held onto him like he was a life preserver. He was her rock. He was my rock. He was stoic, but sweet. I can’t imagine what his heart and soul battles were.
We sat in the small room at the Advocacy Center while she was interviewed. The forensic nurse had been called. We waited. The walls felt like they were closing in. My little girl was sitting in a room in that same building telling officers what had happened to her. I stared at the wall. I stared at my shoes. I stared at the door. I wanted it to open and have the officer come through the door to tell me she was mistaken. But she wasn’t. The door did open. The officer told me it was most certainly a rape. A rape. She had said it out loud. That word ripped a hole in my heart and took part of my soul with it. My little girl was 13. Thirteen. Would she ever have a normal life? Would she ever get past this? What about me – would I ever get past it?
The nurse came. They took her into the exam room. They put her clothes in a bag. They gave her clothes that didn’t fit. Hours had passed since the little yellow note. It was dark outside now. The nurse came in to see us and said a lot of words. Honestly, I have no idea what she said. She handed us a stack of papers – prescriptions, instructions, phone numbers. I thanked her. For what, I’m not sure.
They brought our daughter back to us. We were free to go. Free? Will we ever feel free? We all got in the car and tried to act normal. We needed to eat. Food. That was easy, right? We’ll find food. A restaurant. We also needed a pharmacy. There were medications that had to be administered. Things that nobody should ever contemplate giving to their thirteen year old daughter.
I dropped them off at a restaurant so I could go to the pharmacy alone. I called a friend who talked me off the ledge and made some of it make sense. She took the emotion out and just talked nuts and bolts. She knew I needed to understand the logistics of what was happening. We would deal with the emotional stuff later. One step at a time, she said. First pharmacy, then food. Sleep? Sure. Sleep. Sometime.
Her older sister needed to be told what was happening. Honestly, I’m really not sure how that conversation went. I don’t remember a single word of it. Not a single word. I do remember that she was angry. Very, very angry.
I crawled into bed that night, mostly because I didn’t know what else to do or where else to go. I knew that somewhere in the darkness they were serving a search warrant and questioning this young man. The day started coming at me in bits and pieces. The movie reel of the day had been chopped up in little pieces and thrown at me out of order. And the parts I wasn’t present for were conjured up in my imagination. I’ll never know if they were what really happened. Or just what I imagined had happened. Either way – they were unfathomable.
The hours turned into days. Days turned into months. We tried to make everything seem normal. I took her to counseling. I sat in the car while she was there. I was trying not to make it worse. I wanted her to talk to the counselor without fear of me hearing what she was saying. I forgot how to be a parent. I didn’t know what to say to her. She was angry. I felt like she was angry with me.
I felt like she loved her dad, but she didn’t love me. We lost our ability to communicate. I tried and tried to find a suitable counselor once the “free” sessions were up. She wanted a female, but not an older woman. Not a mom age. Not a grandma age. Not too young, but not too old.
She went back to school when spring break was over. Word had traveled fast. The boy had gotten his story out first. The girls called her a liar. The school refused to make any accommodations because it “wasn’t a school matter”. It felt like the entire school had turned on her. The kids wore white shirts to stand in solidarity with the rapist – who swore that she had made the whole thing up. There were YouTube videos, chanting in the cafeteria, stares and more ugliness that could be described with words. Her dad wanted to pull her from school and have her home schooled through the end of the school year. I wanted her to have a voice and make her own decision. She wanted to stay. She wanted to face those demons. She wasn’t going to let HIM take any more from her. She wanted to promote from the 8 th grade with the kids she had been with since the very beginning. So she did.
The legal case fell apart. Mostly because the boy refused to talk. The officers felt like their case wasn’t strong enough. He said. She said. He would walk free. She would carry it with her forever.
I told her it was her story to tell. She could tell it to whoever she wanted to tell it to. And I always asked permission to share it with anyone. She gave me a short list of people I could tell. I was very careful not to break her trust with that. It wasn’t my story. It wasn’t my place to tell it. It was my daughter. And it was devastating. But it wasn’t mine.
Somehow we got through that year. And the year after that. And the three years after that. It’s been five years now. She proved to me that strength comes from dark places. And it isn’t issued at birth or given as gifts. It comes from places we can’t see. And it should never be doubted.
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