THIS IS HARD

I've known for some time that I'm very much in the wrong over an issue. Yes, the person who goes on about her disdain of hypocrites finds herself in the position of acknowledging that she is allowing evil to continue. In fact, I suspect that I have a legal duty to report. By not doing so I honestly see myself as no better than the low-life who drives the get-a-way car. The accomplice after the fact.

When I was ten I met the new girl on my street. She lived with her father in a large home at the top of the lane. There were so many trees in the yard that it encased their house in permanent shadow. The air itself seemed denser. The blinds were forever drawn. Their backyard had a patio shielded on one side by a huge outdoor fireplace and chimney with landscaping which prevented anybody from seeing into the yard.

Fabiola told me that her mother had left when she was two or three, not to be heard from again. Her mother had been Spanish, which may have accounted for Fabiola's stunning and exotic looks.

But her eyes were always sad and seemed focused at times on something just out of view. Unlike most pretty girls, she seemed to want to disappear. This was made virtually impossible by the fact that she was fully developed and the only girl in our class who truly needed a bra. She was pained by the reaction her body got her.

Fabiola invited me over and it was thus that I met her father. He always seemed to be around after that and his modus operandi was consistant. The man was a pervert. He was forever trying to put his hands up my top or elsewhere. I would have none of it and wriggled away when he tried to grab me. I'd not been raised to be compliant to this sort of thing but at times it was a struggle as he would literally hide and then grab.

My friend was mortified and stressed. She told me that at her previous residence, she'd had a playmate called Pam. Evidentally, what her father had done to Pam was ongoing and "very bad". I guess Pam did not know that a person could say "no" to adults when appropriate.

I remember odd things began to occur at about this time in my own behavior. Fabiola and I once tossed a hard, metal bucket back and forth in her backyard with all the force we could muster. My mother later noticed the severe bruising all down one side of my body. Where did this need to hurt myself come from? This wasn't playing on our parts; this was pent up rage. It was also at this time that a profound depression descended upon me like those fogs of old that would beset London for weeks. I recall with clarity wanting to die. I found respite in books such as "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden" and "Lisa, Bright and Dark."

Fabiola suddenly began to call herself Yvette and kept to herself. I stopped seeing her as did most people. My family moved from the area and I don't know what happened with her. I've tried to find her name in the usual search engines, but she isn't there. Given her opting to use a different name already at such a young age, I can imagine that she has no desire to be found. I had a call from somebody a few years ago and I asked about Fabiola. Sandra had not seen her, but her Dad came up in conversation. She too thought, given his moves upon her, that he was a pervert.

Thus my quandry. I've taken the courses, read the books and met the monsters. I know better. I know that people like him do not change. They enter crime cycles and become emboldened when they are not caught. I feel like I need to report him. But, if his daughter hasn't done so, will I do more harm? Or is it me I strive to protect? I know the system. I know that they will have to inform my employer and not one individual there can refrain from gossip. I have never told my parents. It would kill them. For what? The man is probably dead. Given his age, even if I provided any evidence that corroborated Pam's or Fabiolo's, he would be given the usual slap on the wrist.

I grieve for Fabiola. I know as an adult that he molested her. All the signs are there. And I see what my very brief exposure to him was like; how it seemed to have changed me. I cannot imagine the horror she faced being alone with that man every day. To this day I hate the show Kojak as he looked like Telly Savalas. To what extent can I blame the sudden change in my behavior on him? My issues with food? My reluctance to trust people? My forays into self injurying? There were no hints of any of these problems until I met that man.

I hunted out of yearbook from Grade 8; the last year I knew her. I hope she made it and didn't fall into the usual pitfalls that so many girls exposed to these monsters become encased in.

She was so smart and had so much promise. And I hate that all these years later I am still somehow weighing the options because of his behavior.