What I Won't Say

Looking for pictures of Aunt Katherine from 1996, I went down to the basement (shelves by Rod, 1997) and spotted my diary from 1966, which included something about one of the cousins I'll be seeing this week in Atlanta.  I won't be talking about this, but I'll always remember Aunt Katherine in connection with Timmy. This is what I wrote in 1967, looking back. 


               I remember when Tim and I would lie in bed in (the landlady) Miss Tiebaud's bedroom when she was  away visiting relatives.  It would be dark outside and in the room we would lie there and "make love"--kissing, feeling, generally exploring.  Even out of bed we'd play games.  He'd grab my hand of cards and drop them down his pajama bottoms, and I just had to have my cards.  Then afterwards there was the guilt.  Now I look back interested and amused because Tim was my cousin.  He was seven and I was eight. 

That was in 1954, the summer Aunt Katherine took us to the mountains, where Tim and I shared a bed, and she came to hear our prayers when under the covers I was holding his penis.  I didn't want to move my hand away for fear she'd see the movement and realize where my hand had been.  I just kept hold until the praying was over (hers and mine), and she closed the door for the night.  But I felt guilty.  Even as a teenager, I feared my thoughts about sex would offend God, so after fantasizing, I'd count to ten before saying my prayers.

When I was a sophomore in college and trying to rise above my sordid past, Tim had just joined the Navy, which brought him to California and he visited me in the Carlos Bee Residence Hall, where the girls' (not yet women's) curfew was two hours earlier than the guys' and the girls' dorms had an alarm that would go off if any female ever tried to sneak out.  I was startled when he said, "Tina, do you remember what we used to do in Miss Tiebaud's room?"

"No!"  I said.