Reasonable Doubt

Reasonable Doubt

There’s a great story my ex-husband’s family tells (nothing in the divorce papers overtly says I’ve lost any rights to the stories, but just in case, I’ll change the names to protect the innocent.) Anyway, his parents discovered they had been punishing him for things his younger sister had actually done, because when she got found out – she blamed him. The truth was revealed when she threw up in a restaurant and, as she’s being carried to the restroom with vomit and spittle on her dress and chin, she moans, “Timmy did it.”

I was an only child. There was no place to pass the buck. My only hope was to run or hide the evidence where it would never be found. I still wonder what the sandwiches I wouldn’t eat looked like when our old landlord finally replaced the washer/dryer.

Do you know it’s still hard to admit that? Just a year or two ago, I told my mom about tasting laundry soap when I was three. I’m 42-years-old and by the look on her face, well, I really thought she was going to ground me. So it’s still hard to give up your secrets; the misdeeds that you actually got away with doing.

Remember how your parents sometimes just knew you were guilty? “You’re looking to your left while standing on your right foot and trembling. . . . what did you do?”

Of course, that only worked for your parents. I remember an old hag school teacher - and I say that without apology, I still hold a grudge over this incident. She threatened all of the joy I had for going to school right out of my spirit. Two other seven-year-old girls and I were skipping down the breezeway. Mrs. Butler took offense and stuck her head out of her classroom (it was during recess) and yelled at us.

“Sorry Mrs. Butler.”

We walked on. Within seconds I was happily giggling about something else – within Mrs. Butler’s earshot. She thought I was laughing at her (and I’ve got to question how paranoid an adult who is worried about a seven-year-old laughing at them must be.) Which I wasn’t, by the way; I wasn’t laughing at Mrs. Butler. I had completely forgotten about her until she grabbed me and dragged me by my collar into her classroom. She told me I lacked respect and that she would really teach me something if I got her class next year. I spent the entire summer praying that I didn’t get her third grade class and planning to run away if I did.

But your parents, sometimes despite your best planning, they just knew. Once when I was a teenager, I was supposed to walk from the school to my Grandmother’s house and I would get picked up from there. I was NOT supposed to stop downtown and visit with my boyfriend on the way. Now, I grew up calling my grandmother “Nonnie”, but I thought it sounded retarded when I called her that to other kids – so I would refer to her as “my Grandmother” to them. Normally I rode the bus back and forth to school and all that day, when I would tell someone about my change of plans, I called “Nonnie” “my Grandmother.” Later, when I was talking to my Mom about going to Nonnie’s, I slipped and said, “My Gr . . . . “ and corrected myself and said Nonnie. She knew immediately that I had stopped downtown and seen my boyfriend. I was instantly in trouble. She knew because my boyfriend’s name was “Greg,” but I will swear that what had been going to come out of my mouth was “My Grandmother.”

Still, she was right. I had stopped and seen Greg on the way.

Remember O.J. Simpson’s great car chase? Remember how you thought he just had to be guilty of something? You did, didn’t you? I mean it went on too long for him to say, “10,000 cop cars in my rear view mirror? Sorry, just didn’t notice. I guess I just have to pay more attention.” I still believe that even if he was found innocent of killing his wife; he had to have done something wrong. Hey, it was just classic guilty behavior. It was no more than what I would have done as a kid if I had broken something I wasn’t supposed to touch.

How about Scott Peterson? I just know that if they found my ex-husband dead instead of divorced and a week later my mother found me with a new hair cut and new hair color, she’d say, “You cut your hair and dyed it . . . . what did you do?”