Carol

Fiction

I met Carol when I was twenty-six. She was a quirky old woman who always wore a gold bracelet passed down from her great-grandmother. She was unmarried with no children. It was only her in a spacious home with floral wallpaper. The kitchen was yellow, and all bedrooms were pink. She didn’t believe in watching TV. It was merely a distraction.

I’d come over on Tuesday mornings to help her clean since she had arthritis. There was a specific order we had to follow. First was dusting. Next was wiping tables and chairs. Then, it was vacuuming and cleaning the floors. The bathroom had to be the last room cleaned. I once left the shower curtain open, and she snapped at me. I later learned why.

Carol was a child when her mother began touching her both sexually and abusively. Carol would bring her dolls to play with in the bath. Her mother would sit beside the tub and stroke her hair. Suddenly, her hands would be in places they shouldn’t be and for too long. If Carol tried to resist, she’d be bea…