How Would My Rape Shape My Kids' Lives?

Because rape changes that good time. It took me years to be comfortable with men, sex, new experiences, foreign places. And it took years for me to love my body again. For a long time, my having been raped was part of my identity--it was the tale I told friends or lovers so they would know me better. Recently I found myself telling a dear friend, and realized that he had known me for eight years without having heard that story. It's no longer who I am. But my teenage daughters are just starting to figure out who they are.

Last year I wrote a novel about a character living a life very different from my own, but I gave her my terrible history--she had been raped, years before. Now she had to tell her 16-year-old daughter what had happened.

I wrote that scene many times. First, I tried having the daughter rage at the news, then I had her take it calmly. Finally I decided to have her speak words that seemed to ring true: "I'm sorry that happened to you," she says simply, putting her head on her mother's shoulder.

Maybe I was trying to write my own script. The characters in my novel are borne from my imagination--I shape them, then set them free. But, hey, if they say something I don't like, I can change that. I certainly couldn't exercise the same control over my kids' reactions. Their responses would run to depths I couldn't see and carry repercussions I couldn't predict. I could only hope that I had given them the strength to deal with the pain. I no longer wanted to carry the secret. It felt too much like shame, and that's never been my response to my rape.

I chose to tell my girls separately, so I could give each one my full attention. My older daughter and I sat together on the floor in her room. My younger daughter and I hiked in the hills near our house. I told them how I got through the experience, how I joined a rape crisis center and worked with other victims, how I started a rape crisis center at my university. I showed them my novel about a woman who was attacked, then went on to lead a gutsy, passionate life.

Both of my daughters were quiet, scared, sad. They didn't say much. I found myself wanting to talk, while they wanted time to think, absorb, reflect. The telling of this story will take a long time.