by Leila Kulpas
False Memories
My ten-year-old sister was nearby
that day, though I don't know what
she saw or heard; I was six.
Saying he wanted to show me
something, the thirteen-year-old
boy arranged me upside-down on a
kitchen chair.
The next thing, he was trying to
push a part of himself into me.
Pain! I cried out.
He'd withdrawn and disappeared,
before my mother peered from the hallway, where she was sewing:
What's going on?
Much later,
when I came to understand what he'd
done, I was overwhelmed with
shame.
The first person I told, in my thirties, was my psychiatrist,
whose comments were kind and soothing.
Decades later,
I confronted the molester,
whose response astonished me.
Well, at least it wasn't rape or anything, he said..
It wasn't? I declared. That's exactly what it was!
After a silence, he muttered
something, and then apologized to me.
My sister had been my best friend
in adolescence, but I didn't talk to her
about what happened
until many decades later.
Immediately and loudly, she declared,
That never happened—it's a false memory.
Surely couldn't imagine
she knew every moment
of my early life.
I repeated what I'd said more loudly
and succinctly,
emphasizing that it was the truth,
and also mentioned that the molester
had admitted what he'd done.
To no avail.
In the years since that day, she has repeatedly insisted
on the falsity of my memory,
and even wrote and published something about it. The memory no longer hurts like
it used to; now my main feeling is sadness
about my sister's response.