A few days after mother attacked me in the shower my aunt was knocking on the door. When i opened it she recoiled when she saw the fading bruises on my face then stepped in. She took my chin in her hand and turned it left and right, then asked me if I would lift my shirt and show her the bruises on my torso. Her face was unreadable. She walked past me down the hall to mother’s bedroom door and called out her name and announced that she was there. Then she came back to me and told me that my mother was going to stay with her for a few days and that I needed to look at the kitchen for food supplies while mother was gone. I was scared because I was going to be alone for a few days because I had never been away from my mother’s side except for school. I said I could go to the grocery store with her but she said she did not want me to have to be seen like I looked with the bruises. Since this was the 70s, dirty family secrets were hidden unless they became public by accident. So she went to the grocery after telling me to stay in my room no matter what, to not be in the same room as my mother. When she came back the groceries were put away and my aunt knocked on mother’s bedroom door and tols her to get ready to leave. Then my aunt sat me down and talked to me to make sure I was going to be ok for a few days and that she would call the school and tell them I would be out. She said that she would prefer we both go to her home but that whatever happened made it clear that morher and I needed some distance between us. She said she would call every few hours and make sure I was ok but also asked if there was an emergency who else she could reach. I gave her my friend Carla’s mother’s phone number because Carla had been the one to come check on me after the pollice came and word had spread. My aunt asked how much Carla and her mother knew and I said I did not know but that Carla had said she knew what was going on and had come by to check on me. Apparently my aunt did not know the police had come she said that when my mother had called her that she had not been told that. So she asked what the police had said and done and told her. She seemed almost angry but told me that she would call Carla’s mother and ask if they could check in on me. By then my mother came out if her room carrying a packed bag and she neither spoke nor looked at me. She whispered something to my aunt then went out to her car. My aunt walked back to mother’s room and came back with a folded paper in her hand. She told me that my mother had written a letter to me and gave it it to me to read when they had left. Then my aunt hugged me and told me to call her if i needed anything and that she was not sure what all had happened but she was going to get to the bottomf of it and that whatever had happened I had not deserved what happened to me. I was so confused because I was not sure it was not my fault. She hugged me again and left.

I read the letter my mother wrote after they pulled away. In it my mother said that she loved me dearly and was sorry for what she had done but that I needed to understand that I had broken very strict rules about what I was allowed to do with her and that I had violated her and that that meant that I had basically committed r*** by what I had done no matter what my motive was. I was very upset.