She was seven when they finally took her grandfather away. The whole neighbourhood watched from behind curtains in a way that was meant to be respectful, her mother insisted it was a misunderstanding and her father’s eyes looked broken…even though he took a deep breath and claimed at least it was over now.
At seven none of these words made sense.
At seven she just wanted to play hop scotch on the sidewalk and that is what she did.
Even amid the hushed whispers that people spoke in when they crossed her.
Later her mother would come into her room and tell her in soft, hushed tones, how to keep a secret. She would explain using words like ‘family’, ‘reputation’ and how keeping secrets was sometimes for one’s own protection.
She would listen quietly, not looking up, brushing the hair of her doll. Her mother would say to her, “I just don’t want anyone to say you’re one of those damaged children. Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you, sweetheart?”
She wouldn’t. But she would nod anyway.
The next day in school she would write the word ‘damaged’ in bright red crayon across a class picture and get sent home for it. And she would stop playing hopscotch from that very day.
Her mother would take her to seventeen therapists. Her father would eventually stop talking to her because her behaviour would become ‘impossible/difficult/dangerous’ as a teenager. She would cut herself, experiment with drugs, smoke cigarettes, skip school, but nothing would make her forget her fear of her grandfather’s voice when he used to say It’s okay baby. It’s our little secret.
A day will come when she will meet a boy who doesn’t keep secrets. He will listen to her story and tell her she has nothing to be ashamed about. And he will help her more than any therapist she has been to.
One night she will sneak out to meet him and he will draw a petal pink hopscotch game outside his house. She will laugh and say she doesn’t play little kid games like that anymore.
And he will touch her hair and whisper, It’s okay baby. It’ll be our little secret.
And they would play hopscotch till the sunrise took the street.
Nikita Gill is a 25 year old madness who once wrote a book called Your Body is an Ocean, and has been previously published in Monkey Bicycle, Danse Macabre, the Literary Yard. She is presently editor of a literary magazine Modern Day Fairytales.
–Art by Diana Cretu