My Broken Pieces : Mending the Wounds from Sexual Abuse Through Faith, Family and Love (9781101990087)

by Rivera, Rosie

  Seriously? Who did he think he was?

  “You are not my boyfriend anymore, and you don’t have a right to do this!” I yelled while I snatched the phone back from him.

  Without a second of hesitation, he slapped me across the face.

  I couldn’t believe what he had done. God knows I had been in some pretty bad situations in my life, but no one had ever hit me before. As Daddy said, “No one touches Rosie.” I was furious but for the sake of not creating a scene, I was able to take a step back.

  “You are a very lucky man,” I said to him. “I don’t like drama around my family and I’m not about to call the cops and ruin this party, but you need to leave right now.”

  I knew that if my brothers found out that he had slapped me they would have beat him right then and there. So practically pushing him off the front porch, I said to him, “I never want to see you again. Just get out of my face and out of my life—and don’t ever come back.”

  After he left, I went back inside and joined the rest of the party in downing shots, acting as if nothing was wrong. I was shaken and upset, but no one noticed anything strange, of course, since by then, I knew perfectly well how to hide my feelings.

  What I didn’t know was that Chief hadn’t actually left the party. He just waited outside for a while before coming back in. Then, from across the big room upstairs, I heard him call: “Hey, baby, come here. Let’s talk. I want to—”

  Whatever it was he was going to say, I didn’t want to hear it.

  “Get out of here,” I hissed. “Get out of this house.”

  He refused. He just hung around, glaring at me from a distance, probably just waiting for me to get really drunk. And sure enough, I did. With every shot, I grew weaker and more vulnerable. I couldn’t handle having him standing around looking at me, so after a while I walked over to him to find out what it was he wanted.

  “I just want to talk to you,” he said sweetly.

  He took me by the hand, led me into a bathroom downstairs and locked the door behind us. I must have blacked out because the next thing I remember is waking up on the floor of that bathroom, half naked and confused. It was obvious that we’d just had sex. I looked over at Chief as he was pulling up his pants and said, “Wait, I need to clean up. Where did you finish?”

  “Inside of you,” he answered.

  I was confused and furious. This had never happened with us before.

  “What? That’s wrong!” I blurted. “It’s my body and you have no right to treat me this way!”

  The last thing I needed was to get pregnant again. My sights were set on completing college, going to law school, and continuing my quest to put Trino behind bars. If I got pregnant, none of that would be possible, especially since I had promised myself that I’d never have an abortion again.

  A weird grin crept over his face and he said: “Well, now you know you’re mine. If you’re pregnant, you won’t be able to leave me ever again because the baby will be ours together.”

  That’s how I knew he’d planned it all along.

  • • •

  Sure enough, a few weeks later, I started to feel sick and exhausted all the time. At first I tried to dismiss it but when my mom made a passing comment about how late I was sleeping and how little I was eating, I pretty much knew what was going on. I was terrified. So I called Chief and said, “Hey, it’s Rosie. We need to go to Planned Parenthood.”

  “What for?” he asked.

  “I think I’m pregnant and need to find out for sure.”

  “Oh, well, that’s your problem,” he snapped back.

  “What do you mean? Are you saying you changed your mind?” I asked in disbelief. Was this the same man I’d last spoken to?

  When I reminded him of what he had said in the bathroom at Lupe’s house, about how he planned this so we would always be together, he just flippantly responded, “Yeah, well . . . I changed my mind.”

  “No!” I protested. “I don’t care whether you changed your mind. I need you to go to the clinic with me to find out for sure if you are going to be a father.”

  After some back and forth, he finally agreed. “Okay, I’ll go, but you are just being dramatic; you’re not really pregnant.”

  I certainly hoped he was right.

  We drove to the clinic but because we weren’t married, they wouldn’t let him come into the examination room with me. I went through the test alone.

  When I walked out to the lobby, he looked at me expectantly.

  “I was right,” I told him. “I’m pregnant.”

  There was no smile, no hug, no tears of joy.

  “Well, I’m sure you’re going to call a press conference and make a big deal out of it,” he said. “That’s what you and your family always do.”

  “Well, you’re wrong. That’s not how I’m going to handle it,” I said, when in fact I had no idea how I was going to handle anything. I was lost and scared, and all I wanted was to go and tell my big brother Lupe. He would know how to take care of me.

  “I’m going to go see Lupe,” I said after a brief pause. “Will you come with me?” I asked.

  “No way,” he answered, giving me the sense that that was where he drew the line. “But I have a message for Lupe and your family. Tell them I’m not going to marry you.”

  “That fine,” I replied, trying my best to stay calm.

  “And tell them I don’t want to be with you anymore—and I’m not going to move in with you.”

  “That’s fine, too,” I answered. I was too confused to argue.

  When he left, I sat there for a moment, trying to make sense of what had just happened. I didn’t even know where to start. In tears, I drove straight to Lupe’s house. I didn’t want my mom or my sister to see me that way; all I knew was that a man had just rejected me and I needed a man to make me feel loved. I needed to hold on to Lupe’s finger.

  As I was driving, my cell phone rang. It was Chief. My heart jumped, thinking that maybe he had changed his mind. Maybe there was still hope. Stupid Rosie.

  “I have one more thing for you to tell Lupe,” he said.

  “Okay, does this mean that you want to come with me?” I asked, excited.

  “No. Just tell him that I don’t love you.”

  My heart sank. He had just confirmed everything I had been thinking for practically my whole life—that I was unlovable and no one would ever want to marry someone like me.

  • • •

  Lupe opened the door and as soon as he saw the look on my face, he hugged me tight.

  “Rosa, what’s wrong?” he asked.

  With tears rolling down my cheeks, I told him, “I’m pregnant.”

  His voice didn’t change and he showed absolutely no signs of shock or surprise. He just hugged me tighter and said, “That’s really cool! My baby is having a baby!”

  How could I not love this man?

  Lupe obviously knew the situation was not the best, but he was going to give me all the support I needed. His warm hug made me feel loved and protected.

  Then he asked, “What’s up with Chief?”

  Crying, I answered, “He doesn’t want to be with me. He says he doesn’t love me.”

  “That’s fine,” said Lupe. “Don’t worry. I can be your baby’s daddy and will treat him or her as my own.”

  “But what am I going to do?” I asked. “How am I going to tell Mom and Dad? After all that I’ve put them through . . . and now this?” I felt so ashamed.

  “I’ll tell you what, Rosa,” said Lupe. “I’m actually going to call a family meeting for tonight, so the timing is perfect.”

  He told me that he and his wife decided to get a divorce. The entire family knew they had issues in their marriage—along with all of the U.S. and Mexico—but Lupe wanted to make sure everyone was on the same page with how we were going to
handle the media. “We will tell them everything at once,” said Lupe. “Everything is going to be fine.” His confidence reassured me.

  That evening we all got together at Lupe’s house. Juan and Chay were there, and so were Pete and Gus. Once Lupe was done confirming his news, he turned to me and said, “Rosa also has something to tell you.”

  With all the courage I could muster and my eyes filled with tears, I looked at my father and said, “Dad, I’m pregnant.”

  I closed my eyes and braced myself for the worst, but all I could hear was the sound of my mother crying.

  “I could tell,” she said almost immediately. “You have been sleeping too much these days and you barely eat. I knew you were pregnant.”

  Mothers always know.

  Dad piped up, “And what’s the problem, mi baby? A baby is a wonderful blessing, Hija. Just tell me how your daddy can help you.”

  When I explained that the baby’s father didn’t want to be with me and I had no idea how I was going to get through this by myself, Chay spoke up.

  “Look at me, Sister. All these years I’ve raised my babies on my own and I can tell you, yes, you can do it,” she said and smiled. “In fact, we’ll do it together. You may be a single mom, but you are not alone, Sister. We’re going to get through it together.” She gave me the biggest hug ever, and right then and there, I knew my baby and I would be all right. My big sister and family had my back.

  Within seconds, everyone gathered around me and joined the hug, saying, “Don’t cry, Rosie. Everything is going to be all right.”

  As I stood there surrounded by all those beautiful faces who were embracing me and caring for me, I felt overwhelmed by all that love concentrated in one place. My family had stuck by me in the hardest of times and throughout my most troubled years—the years where I would systematically push them away—but they never once stopped loving me. And that big beautiful hug reminded me of that.

  • • •

  As devastated as I was by Chief’s rejection, I was more devastated by the fact that it confirmed everything I’d always felt with Trino—I wasn’t a virgin anymore so no one was ever going to love me. No one was ever going to marry me, not even the father of my child. The damage inside me was so deep that I thought I wouldn’t be a good mother to my baby and that she would probably be better off if I died and she became an orphan. At least that way, my mother or someone else would raise her and she would have a much better chance of becoming a good person.

  The only thing that kept me going was school. It’s strange; while I felt completely lost at the prospect of becoming a mother, when it came to school, I was able to stay focused. As broken as I was on the inside, I became determined not to be another college dropout statistic. So I pushed myself extra hard.

  During my last two semesters at UCI, I took an internship at a law firm and worked part-time at a department store, all that while taking twenty units at school, one of which was a big thesis class. It was so hard. I gained sixty pounds during my pregnancy—my ankles were swollen, my hands were swollen, and I felt like an alien in my own skin. I was so depressed that I stopped trying to make sense of what was happening to me. I just went through the motions, working my way through the pain, as usual, hoping it would all be over soon.

  I will never forget that around me, there was only silence. My family was there, they were right by my side, but they had stopped trying to talk to me. I wouldn’t let them in. I was going through a lot and they all had compassion. I could see it in their eyes, but we wouldn’t really talk about it. I remember one day Lupe and my mother were talking in the living room while I was sitting in front of the computer working on something for school. Suddenly, I began to cry. I was tired and lonely. I was thinking of how my child hadn’t even been born yet and already I failed her because I hadn’t been able to give her a good family. Dad always said family was all we had and to me that meant it didn’t matter what I could give her—so as long as she didn’t have her father with her at home, she wouldn’t be completely happy. The tears just started to pour down my face. I cried and cried, gazing at the computer screen, not even trying to hold back. Suddenly, Lupe walked into my room. He got on his knees right beside me and hugged me.

  “I know it’s hard,” he said. “I know it’s really, really hard.” His hug gave me strength to keep pressing forward.

  • • •

  During my pregnancy, another situation unfolded that made things even worse. My parents, the cornerstone of our family, our pillars, were going through a divorce. Our mother had found out our father was having an affair. We later learned that he had cheated on her their entire marriage and my mother knew it, but this time was different because he had gotten his lover pregnant. My mother—who up until then had been the hardworking, faithful, submissive wife of Don Pedro Rivera—decided that enough was enough. She asked him to move out of the house but he refused; he wasn’t going to leave his family. She wasn’t going to kick him to the curb so she resigned herself to kicking him out of their bedroom, and for the next several months they lived under the same roof without speaking a word to each other.

  You could cut the tension with a knife. My siblings and I were devastated. At first we tried to get them to sit down and talk, but my father refused to say a word. He has never been one to express his feelings, and he kept absolutely silent. We would ask him, “Dad, is this true?” but he never gave an answer. He just stayed silent.

  “Dad, say something, please,” Juan begged him. “Papa, please don’t let this family fall apart. This is all we have, Dad. Please save it.”

  But Dad wouldn’t say a word. He must have been devastated inside, but he decided not to show it.

  We didn’t expect him not to take care of the child—we knew perfectly well that my father would have never done that; it would have been wrong. Yet all we wanted was for him to acknowledge what he had done and leave the woman. All he had to do was say he was sorry and Mom would have taken him back. But his pride got the best of him and he refused. Our entire universe was crumbling.

  I was the only one living at home at the time so when everyone went home, I was left living in the Civil War. I was struggling to keep afloat amid the challenges in my own life—being pregnant, breaking up with Chief, graduating from college—and this just added to my despair. It was as if the rug was being pulled from under my feet because for my entire life, my father had told us that no matter what happens, no matter what you are going through, you always have family. “Family always comes first” is a maxim he engraved in our hearts. Yet at this particular moment, he wasn’t putting our family first. He was letting it fall to pieces and I couldn’t understand why he was doing it. Because the truth of the matter was, Dad didn’t choose the other woman over my mom. He chose her over us. I will always admire and respect my father, but my heart was broken and it affected our relationship. He hurt my mother and to me, as women, we love, admire, and respect our fathers based on how they treat our mothers. The split was now between the women of the family and my dad.

  My brothers and sister and I tried hard not to take sides but eventually the problems between our parents started to split the family in two. Some of the boys were more on my dad’s side while Chay and I stood firmly by our mom. We knew she wasn’t just being dramatic; we knew that she was acting this way because she had endured a lifetime of sadness and humiliation. She had forgiven his affairs many times in the past but when he got another woman pregnant, that was where she drew the line.

  In those months as my tummy got bigger and I started to feel new life kicking inside me, I couldn’t help but ask myself: if family is everything and my family is falling apart at home, then what is left?

  • • •

  The problems with my parents had shaken up my world and my concept of family, yet I continued to feel like such a failure for not being able to provide my daughter with a father. I knew Chief was far from being m
y knight in shining armor, but I couldn’t help wanting to give my baby a real dad. I’d text him every day, hoping I could make him change his mind, begging him to come back to me.

  But his response was always the same: “Leave me alone.”

  My family gave me such unbelievable love and support that I knew I could very well do without him, but I still hoped that we could have that happy family we had dreamed about when we first met.

  During the nine months of my pregnancy, no matter how many times I begged him, Chief never came with me to a single doctor’s appointment; he never even made the effort to call me and see how I was doing. What infuriated me the most was that he had started dating someone else. How could the father of my child be with another woman? How could he not care about his daughter? I simply couldn’t wrap my head around it.

  And then, my beautiful Kassey came into the world.

  It was a Friday evening after my last day of classes at UCI and I started to have a high fever and back pain. I didn’t know what was going on but as soon as I called the doctor, he told me to get myself to the hospital right away—he was worried it might be something serious so I drove myself there with my mom praying in the passenger seat.

  When we got to the hospital, I found out the pain was due to a kidney infection. We didn’t know the cause, but the doctors admitted me right away for an emergency induction because the infection was dangerous for the baby. I was so worried, and I didn’t want to be all alone with my poor worried mother facing this ordeal so I immediately texted my best friend Gladyz, asking her to come join me, but also so she would let Chief and the rest of the family know what was going on.

  Soon enough, they all started to trickle in. I was in labor for thirty-five hours, over the course of which I was accompanied first by Chiquis (who passed out) and my mom (who had to stay in the corner of the room because she couldn’t stand the sight of blood). So in the end it was just me and my baby pushing through—a sign of what was to come over the following eight years.

  On March 17, 2003, at five twenty p.m., the doctor handed me the most beautiful little girl I had ever seen in my life: Kassandra or Kassey, which is what we call her. Someone told me that in Greek mythology Kassandra was the name of a prophet and I replied, “Well, she certainly is the prophet of my life. Everything is going to be based around her now—she will guide me from here on out.”