#53 Forgetting

For some reason, that I have never really understood, my sister and my mother used to reminisce about the time my mother nearly killed me. They did this in front of me but, as if, it was something only they shared.

In my twenties and thirties, I got to hear about one incident in particular several times. My father was in the hospital. My mother heard my sister screaming upstairs and ran up to the bathroom. I had undressed for my bath and my sister had discovered that I was covered in bruises.
They always said it the same way..."Rylee was black and blue from her hairline to her knees."
Then my mother admits that she had lost it and nearly killed me.

(Today I have an untreated wrist fracture and a broken L5 vertebrae.)

Although I was about six years old at the time, I have no actual memory of this beating or any of the others. How can this be?
One possibility was that I knew I could not tell my father because he was sick and there was no one else to help me. Much as I might have fantasized about it, I could not kill my mother.
As time passed, I must have thought it would be easier if I just forgot .