Daddy loved taking the family to a nice restaurant for dinner every once in a while, and when he stepped up to the hostess podium, he always gave the name Rockefeller. Jan and I would giggle and roll our eyes and remind him, “Daddy, we’re the Garcias!”
“Yes,” he’d say, “but if they see the name Rockefeller on the list, they’ll know it’s somebody important.” And he had a very Rockefeller stride as he followed the hostess to our table: head up, shoulders back, friendly smile for everyone whether they smiled at him or not. I liked his Mr. Rockefeller persona. It didn’t even occur to me until I was an adult that this was his positive spin on the fact that seeing the name Garcia on the list might have prompted a different level of service.
Daddy was an avid videographer, who loved the newfangled cameras that were suddenly available to amateurs and everyday folks around 1980. He’d hoist the bulky unit onto a tripod, stick a VHS tape in it, and record every performance. He also learned to play the tambourine and Egyptian tabla (sometimes called a doumbek because of its hourglass shape), so he was part of the act as well. From my perspective, we were having a wonderful time together, but I know now that my father and mother had been cheating on each other for some time.
Dad went to Korea for a while, and when he came back, Mom had some serious questions about a woman with him in some of the photos he brought home. He was an unapologetic flirt, and it made me uncomfortable. I used to go with him to the local pawnshops and Radio Shack to check out the latest gadgets and geek out over the amazing advances being made in video cameras and recording equipment. I remember standing there while he chatted up some nice-looking lady. Sometimes those conversations went on longer than they needed to. I’d grab his wrist and pointedly say, “Daddy. C’mon. Mama’s waiting for us.”
At some point, she began seeing someone else, too. My parents’ relationship grew more and more strained, their bickering escalated to an uglier form of arguing and name-calling, and their marriage started to fall apart.
About that same time, a guy who was supposedly a family friend started hanging around our house, acting like the nicest guy in the world. My parents trusted him, but he violated their trust and mine. I was seven years old, so at first, I didn’t understand what was happening when he pulled me onto his lap. I didn’t know what he was doing or why he was doing it; I only knew it felt horrifying and bad. It made me sick inside, though I didn’t know how to explain it. I felt deep confusion. I tried to tell someone what had happened, but as is all too often the case, I didn’t have the vocabulary to call it what it was, and people didn’t want to believe it. I did everything I could to avoid him, but he found ways to corner me. Many times he suggested that I ride in his car to get something from his office.
“You should take Jan instead,” I always said, thinking that she was bigger than me, a big girl of eleven and a tough tomboy, so he wouldn’t be able to hurt her.
Years would go by before we could speak of it, but he did hurt her, too. When we were both in our twenties, sitting in my apartment in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, Jan finally confided in me that he had molested her. The grief and guilt I felt about that were quickly overtaken by a surge of raw rage on her behalf—and on behalf of seven-year-old me—realizing how this man had taken my power and made me feel shame for the first time. I decided to look him up and confront him. I rehearsed it in my head. Is this the man who violated a little seven-year-old girl? Whom I believed was a friend of the family? Whom my family trusted in their home? Who did things to a seven-year-old child that only adults do to each other? Are you that disgusting human being?
I dialed the phone, my hands shaking, but before he could answer, I threw the phone down. The thought of hearing his voice nauseated me. All I could do then was pack these memories away in a dark corner of my mind, and I was okay with that for a long time. But one day, not long ago, while Gia was sleeping, it suddenly struck me how precious she is—so vulnerable, so innocent, so deserving of a safe, unruined childhood—and the thought of someone robbing her of her innocence and power and peace of mind triggered another unexpected surge of rage.