I lost my innocence in October 1980.  No, not rape in its traditional sense, I mean, strangers entering my home uninvited to take and trash. They left me bearing an unholy trinity of violation, betrayal and insecurity.

The year is important because two years later the law changed and the accused would have been treated differently because of their age. Maybe, the old law could have worked better for me, but my case spawned such bizarre tentacles, that I wonder if the old or new law could make any difference. 

None of these legalities dance through my head that October night.  Instead, love scenes pirouette and fly through my mind, body and spirit as I turn the key in my front door.  Behind me, my new love carries a poster.  I pay more attention to him, than to the job at hand. 

Until the front door swings open to reveal light.  I don’t leave lights on in the house.  Saving electricity translates into saving dollars for this single mother. The upstairs hallway light glares down into the living and dining room.  Did my ex-husband visit for some reason? Then I see the fridge door hanging open, its light blaring onto the kitchen floor. My ex would never do that. My dancing mind halts, perched for a fall.

“Stay here,” Eric* says, as he speeds down the back stairs.

He returns in ten seconds.

“Call the police,” he says.

My fingers drag through the seven-digit number on my rotary phone and my mind begins its fall, stopping at bewilderment. I’m dreaming and I will wake up.  Reality intervenes as Eric leads me to his car.  He is not brave enough to check out the whole house and I am still stumbling around, lost between never-never land and a bad TV drama.
One lone constable rides in and dismounts from his white police car.  After he scrawls a few particulars in his notebook, he leads us on a house tour. I follow, like the proverbial lamb going to slaughter.  But it is not me who gets slaughtered, at least not yet. The house will never pass real estate inspection.  The back door stands open; a candle lies on the mat just inside.  The two-piece powder room, a selling point for the house, now sports a broken window lock.  The toilet seat stands in the up position.  I never leave the toilet seat up. A whiff of insecurity slides through me.

The two other rooms on that level appear untouched, but I hang onto my insecurity, like a shield from the next exhibits.

The constable leads our search party down into the bowels of the house.  He flicks on the main light.  Shadows flicker on the walls of my office but my books and typewriter still rest untouched, unscathed.  We check out the laundry room and it appears as its normal musty self.  The constable shines his flashlight into the crawl space and I see empty boxes ready to attack.  The only sounds are the furnace and my irregular breathing.

We climb three sets of stairs to the pinnacle.  Lights shine from my room.  My armour shatters. I clutch the remnants of my insecurity and feel them swirl around inside my stomach. The constable and Eric sandwich my entry to my bedroom. When I lean out and peak, the remnants try to mix with my heart.

My room resembles the rummage sale at the church.  Clothes are scattered everywhere.  Drawers gape open, their contents askew.  Like a madwoman, I dig in.  I need to know my birth control pills are safe.  Twelve years before, when I took birth control pills to regulate my cycle, my mother threw them into the garbage.

My pills are safe.  Then, I find the empty case for my late dad’s antique pocket watch.  I begin shrieking and jumping until I remember.  I had moved the watch to a velvet bag in another drawer. It is safe. The missing treasure is my late mother’s centennial coin collection. It is as if someone has desecrated her grave and cut me off from her spirit. Just like her death, sudden and quick. My stomach’s remnants have chewed up my heart and I am hollow.

The watch, coins and the stamp collection (the latter stashed among the boxes in the crawl space) only reside in my home because none of the banks in town had any spare safety deposit boxes.

Town is the key word here.  Not big bad city with drugs, murders, and break and enters.  Small town, 30 miles north of the big city, a town in transition from close community to bedroom suburbia.  The evil city spirit breezed in and entered the bodies and minds of some of its inhabitants.  The result leaves me a mute victim.

The C.I.B detectives arrive, bland faced and black-haired, flicking their cameras and dusting for prints, adding one more item of disorder to my bedroom.   This is nothing compared to the disorder that will come later. But that night, I sleep in shock, shuddering awake from monster dreams to the comfort of Eric’s arms. 

The taste of shock follows me like a ghost through the next few days.  Eric installs dead-bolt locks in both doors and fixes the window. My home, my fortress has straw walls and thin-skinned windows. I tell my ex-husband, but not my son.  How do you tell a two and a half-year-old that his home is not safe? I thank God my son was at his dad’s when our home was invaded. But then, I wonder where was God?

My mute victim begins changing to vigilante victim.  I buy timers.  The house will no longer stand bare and open to the evils outside. Lights appear at different times in different locations. The sounds of music mingle with bad de-jay jokes and the news of the day. My anxiety levels drop until the next minute appears, leaving me tottering in yo-yo land.

The detectives return with more information and questions.