One of my earliest life memories is of hastily leaving my childhood home after my siblings returned from school. Our mother was in a manic state.

“Where are we going?” I remember asking—or perhaps only thinking it—and wondering where Dad was. I started crying. My mother thrust my sippy cup at me and screamed, “Here! Drink!” Her voice was shrill. Petrified by her tone, I obeyed.

I don’t remember the car ride, only awakening to a vibrant motel sign. My vision was hazy as if I were still dreaming, but I had never seen anything like it—the brightness of the neon penetrating the darkness. Realizing it was night and I was somewhere foreign, I began to cry again. I wanted Dad. Where was he?

The room we entered blazed with fluorescent yellow light. Floral patterns covered ancient decorations. A large window with a cushioned seat immediately drew my attention. I sat and looked down at the parking lot, searching for Dad.

My mother then placed me in a bathtub and began bathing me.

I cried and asked for my father, who usually bathed me. My mother could no longer hide her growing annoyance. She began hitting me, telling me to shut up and be still, that Dad wasn’t there. I cried harder and tried to escape the tub, but her thunderous slaps were sharp and unrelenting on my bare body.

Suddenly, hands far stronger than my frail body could resist gripped me hard and violently, pulling me into the water. My eyes remained open, watching the yellow fluorescence grow dimmer through my obscured vision. Paralyzed, unable to move or draw breath, my lungs began to ache from the pressure.

Then her hands released me. My ears caught muffled yelling before my head surfaced. New hands patted my back as water spewed from my throat, accompanied by rigid coughing. Through watery, blurry eyes, I saw my sister’s fearful expression before she turned away. More yelling followed as she shoved my mother from the bathroom and locked the door.

The screaming continued outside—my mother and brother’s voices mixing with loud stomping. A door opened, then slammed shut, shaking the walls.

My sister knelt in front of me. “It’s okay,” she said, gently embracing me as she cleansed my reddened skin with a washcloth. I wept softly, my throat sore and raw. She was crying too.

“It’s going to be okay,” she repeated. “I won’t let anything ever happen to you, my little Rosebud.”

After finishing my bath, she scooped me up, carefully patting my sore body dry and sliding my nightgown over me. She carried me to a bed and lay beside me, holding me close while tenderly running her fingers through my hair.

That day, I developed a new fear.

I hated baths.

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One day, I decided to ask my father about the memories that had been haunting me.

“Did Mom ever try to take us away from you and stay in a motel or something?”

“Oh…that was when she had taken y’all to Cherokee, I think, or somewhere around there. I had to leave for a work trip to New York,” he said. “She claimed she was taking y’all on a ‘vacation.’” He paused to scoff.

“Yeah, it sounded more like a vacation for her than for anyone else, if it even qualifies as one. The only thing I know is I suddenly had $3,000 charged to my credit card, and your brother and sister always referred to it as the time your mom ‘kidnapped’ y’all.”

“I would say that’s a pretty accurate way to describe it,” I replied.

I paused for a second before thinking about how to bring up the topic I wanted to.

“Did Dana or Shane ever say anything else about it? Something…happening there?”

“What exactly are you asking me?” he asked, staring more intensely.

I paused. How could I bring up what I wanted to discuss? The memory felt fragmented, but I pushed forward with the details I could recall.

“I do not remember it, but I do, like, I only have one specific memory of it. There’s this brightly lit motel neon sign outside, and I am in a fluorescently lit room. There was a window with a built-in sofa, which I found quite appealing, and then I recall Mom bathing me—”

The silence lingered between us before I finally continued, “—I believe I may have been causing her some frustration as I kept crying and expressing my desire to return home, asking for you.”

“So she started hitting me because I did not stop. I probably tried to climb out of the bath to escape from her, but she grabbed me and held me underwater for an unknown amount of time. I have no idea how long she held me underwater. Dana came in and pulled Mom off of me, then pushed Mom out of the bathroom and locked the door. She calmed me down and finished bathing me,” I told him.

“I mean, honestly, I think Mom might have tried to kill me by drowning me in that tub. If Dana had not been there to stop her, I am not too convinced that Mom would have quit holding me under, and I am pretty sure I started hating taking baths specifically after that.”

He sat somberly in his chair. “Yeah, you did hate baths. I remember that it was like a total switch happened one day, and the only person you would let bathe you was Dana.”

“Before that, I had always given you baths. You suddenly wouldn’t let me try, and you yelled for Dana. She had to give you one or be there when you got one—”

“I thought, what the hell? Was it something I did? But Dana and Shane had mentioned something about your mom holding you underwater in the bathtub; Dana told me more so concerning the details. That was when your mom began to lose control.”

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