Yellow Sweater with Blue Flowers

I used to wear a yellow sweater with blue flowers. It had a hood and long sleeves but it was not very good protection from the cold. I used to pull it over my wrists and stretch out the seams there permanently. For some reason if my wrists were not covered, I didn’t have a chance at becoming warm again. I remember this sweater distinctly from my childhood though. I don’t remember where it came from or where it is now but it remains a significant image from my memory when I dive into the memories from ten years back.

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The sweater was no help against the cold November breeze which filled the Overlake Hospital lobby every time the sliding doors opened. I was waiting in the lobby while my parents attended to my grandmother. I tried to lie down and curl into myself in the fetal position on the sofa to get warmer but was not having any success.

My grandmother had lung cancer. It was a few months until she passed away. My mother had just brought her from India and was taking care of her almost all of the time. Vinay had come to the hospital to give her spiritual healing. It is one of the initiations by HDH Nithyananda Paramashivam to be able to heal ourselves and others from negative energies and frequencies. I knew this when the chilling doors opened again and Vinay’s figure walked through. He didn’t notice me curled up on the sofa but the minute my brain registered him my heart began thudding in my chest. I started having this reaction to him from two weeks before this when Vinay forced himself inside my house when my parents were not there.

I observed him with apprehension as he approached my parents, speaking to them softly with concerned questions.

“How is she?” I guess he asked. They told him her health status though I am not sure if he cared as much.

I watched them disappear behind a door and then stared at the door for a few minutes before I forced my eyes shut and focused on my heart calming down.

I noticed one thing about how memories work over the years.  In movies there are audio and visual tracks that make it up. Since memory is so personal for us, there is a third underlying track: emotion. While my audio and visual memory fails me now a decade later, my emotional track is still alive and ripe. For the next events which happened that day, the emotions are as alive as if I were living those moments today.

What I remember next is Vinay offering to drop me off at the temple to my father. My father looked at me. I was more interested in going someplace warmer than this hospital lobby. I nodded my head at him. I followed Vinay to his car and sat in the front seat.

I remember as Vinay drove the car,  I was talking but I don’t remember what I was saying. I was filling the uncomfortable silence.  Or I was trying to fulfill my discomfort.

Then I remember he missed the turn to go to the temple.

“You missed the turn,” I said when we were in the middle of the crosssection. I looked over at the road which we were supposed to be on and for some reason, this image is stamped into my memory even until today- perhaps because it was the exact moment my stomach felt like it dropped. And again my heart started thudding.

“No I didn’t,” He said.

“Yes, you did” That’s the turn to go to the temple. You can take the next turn though- ” I started but then stopped again when he sped passed that turn as well.

“No I didn’t” he insisted.

I looked in front of me again. Then I understood. And with that understanding, the words – whatever I was trying to muster up to fill the silence- seemed to fall into an abyss and  all I could do was stand at the edge of this abysmal silence and mourn.

We weren’t on the way to the temple.  We were never going to go to the temple. 

From the time Vinay suggested to my father to take me to the temple, he had no intention of doing so. He didn’t miss the turn- he was right. When he took me from my father, he had planned to go to his apartment instead. The devil who drove the car next to me had the guts to show his face to my father, lie to him and take his daughter away to molest her. And he likely planned what he would do to me there. This monster was remorseless.

For the rest of the car ride, I couldn’t say anything. Not when we arrived at his apartment complex and he insisted that I come inside for a few minutes. Not when he closed the door behind me, slammed me into the wall and kissed me. Nothing. No words. Not even as he climbed on top of me on his bed and slowly unzipped the yellow sweater with blue flowers.