Doubt Is Not Enough
By Viktoria Alexandra Winters
Trust must be earned among strangers,
but we give it freely,
through ties of blood and governing laws.
An uncle, a father, and a grandfather we
trust to protect, nurture, and teach,
but what if they’re not?
“Don’t sit on your uncle’s lap!”
my grandmother warned,
“You’re too old.”
I was fourteen and
my uncle asked,
so I trusted
he could still hold me and
I wasn’t too heavy or
a burden on his knees.
Believing—although growing up,
feeling grotesque,
thighs too long, and
now taller than my big sister—that
in his eyes,
I was still the niece he loved.
But I was wrong.
Grandma had mistrusted
not the physical strength of her son,
but his willingness and
his ability to suppress
a man’s urges toward the opposite sex.
Yet she didn’t warn me, nor my parents,
and a few years later, she watched as I left home to fly
eight thousand miles
to visit him.
From the day after I arrived—still a teen—he stalked me
in my bed
each morning
to wear me down.
Then he forced himself upon me
and broke me—
I conceived.
He took me to the slaughterhouse to coverup his sin and guilt.
Killing my baby left me an empty shell,
and I gave in.
I remember the green of his garden keeping his deprivation concealed
and the blue circle of his pool where he had me swim naked.
I’d look out from the kitchen window over the water,
standing there, washing the dishes,
before he’d summon me again to please him.
I remember how I had wished I was free to leave
to live my own life,
but I was his prisoner.
Now, I close my eyes and can see my grandmother’s gaze,
back then,
when I sat on his lap.
I recall her voice, the words she said, and
now I understand the hidden meaning.
I wish she had taught me about men
preying on children and young girls,
not only the passing strangers’ capacity of evil
but those men who were expected to stand guard.
By releasing her suspicions out of their prison,
I needed her wisdom to clear my vision,
and unveil the monsters who’d steal my innocence.
I wish she hadn’t only held the doubt locked within her heart—