Not Without My Sister by Kristina Jones, Celeste Jones, Juliana Buhring

incident, especially after one evening when I walked in on him lying on the bed half-dressed with Armi. Upset and dreadfully embarrassed, I left the room quickly. The thought of my dad having a date with my best friend deeply disturbed me. He did it too, just like all of them. Of course he wouldn't rescue me. We never talked about any of my sexual experiences, nor did he ask me. In fact, I rarely saw him. He was completely stripped of all his parental responsibilities--he was my father in name only. I spent most of my time with Michael and Patience, who acted as my foster parents.

But to Michael, I was more than a daughter. Like all the girls, I walked around in little panties during the day. After a game of badminton with him, he came up to me and flicked my panties playfully.

"You've been a good girl recently. As a reward we should have a date," he said.

I gave a weak smile, but inside I was screaming,
Why? What sort of a reward is that? Your penis down my throat is no reward for me.
That was the last thing I wanted. I finally reached my boiling point. I was tired of anything do to with sex. I was fed up of what seemed to be a never-ending hell. I decided to risk it--I figured I had nothing to lose--and I went to Paul Peloquin. "I don't want to have dates anymore. It's not fun, I'm sick of it," I said.

His face turned bright red. "That is the spirit of rebellion speaking in you," he shouted. "Go to my room and wait there."

My stomach churned. I was in trouble. When he entered the room an hour later, Paul told me he had a letter to read me, called "The Girl Who Wouldn't." It was a stern Letter of Correction from Mo to a woman who had refused to have lesbian sex with Keda, one of his leaders.

Afterwards, Paul applied what the letter said to me. "You know that's your problem. So full of pride and self-righteousness, thinking you know better than everyone else. Do you think you know better than God?" He fumed. "It's the woman's place to yield to the man and given them what they need. It's not about
you
. You'd better be willing to sacrifice and show a little more love, damn it. You're yielding to the Devil, you know? Rebellion is witchcraft."

I had to write a Letter of Confession and repentance, but inside I hated Paul. I hated being forced to have sex, with no way to escape from it. I started to have violent thoughts about him and wished he would die. I felt I was going crazy with so many bottled up feelings that I couldn't express. Sometimes I would go outside in the early evening just to be alone for a few moments and daydream. One evening after a game of badminton, as the sun was setting I heard haunting music from over the high wall. I lingered and as moths fluttered, attracted by the lamplight that illuminated the court, I listened to the words.

"Flashback warm nights . . . suitcases of memories . . . time after time. . ."

I was mesmerized. All our songs had to be inspirational, about witnessing, Jesus, the Bible—the words of this song captivated me. They were poignant and filled my head with dreams of love and romance and pain.

"You're calling to me... can't hear what you've said. . ."

I wanted to cry with the pain that the song drew out of me.

"If you're lost you can look and you will find me. . . time after time. . ."

I felt as if all my dreams and hopes and aspirations for the future were in the words of the song—and a sense of loss, of being lost in a world I longed to find my way out of.
    " If you fall I will catch you... I'll be waiting. . .time after time. . ."

Night after night, I would wait outside in the dusk for that record to be played again. Whoever was playing it could have had no idea that, just the other side of the wall, I was listening and dreaming. Restricted behind four walls, with few changes of scene, us kids came up with ways to entertain ourselves and have fun. Armi and I taught ourselves to do the splits, cartwheels, and backflips. We even put together a half-hour circus show