I'll Never Tell: Secrets between Cousins

by Bianca Bourgault

I was upstairs in my room at my parents' house on a January night in 2012 when the phone rang. Pork roast was in the oven. My father was just about to take it out to carve. My mother answered the call. I heard her wailing, and I ran down the stairs. She was collapsed on the vinyl kitchen floor, yelling, "Oh my god! Oh my god!"

Image credit: Can Ahtam on Unsplash

I had only seen my mother like this once before, when her sister, my aunt Robin, told my mother that she had been diagnosed with cancer. Instantly, I could tell that it was my aunt on the phone again, and thought, Oh my god, my grandfather died. My father stayed calm, and he kept sternly telling my mother that she had to tell us what was going on.

"Kevin's baby died," she finally spat out while still sobbing with my aunt on the phone. I took a step back and went upstairs to wait for my mother to calm down.

Kevin was my cousin, and his wife's due date had been the day before. When she had gone to her doctor's appointment that day, there was no heartbeat. The baby had died.

After my mother promised to calm down, my father granted her request to drive her to her sister’s. My parents asked if I wanted to go, and I said no. There was a snowstorm going on, and after they left the driveway, I started shoveling it.

*

It sucks to shovel when there's four inches of wet snow on the ground, but our house was at the dead end on a dead-end street. Thus, when the plow came around, it dumped all the street's snow into our driveway.

It took me an hour and a half to shovel with a huge metal scoop that was almost as old as my father's fifty years. I started at the beginning of the driveway and pushed it all the way to the end, collecting snow as I went. I then dumped it at the edge of our driveway. Each time I hefted the scoop, I thought, My cousin’s baby is dead…My cousin’s baby is dead…My cousin’s baby is dead. 

And for the first time in nine months, I breathed a sigh of relief.

*

Kevin was born in 1982, nine years before me. He was born deaf, but no one knew until his parents realized he wasn't responding to their voice or other noises at two years old. My aunt and uncle were devastated, which only made them more convinced to do anything and everything in their power to make sure Kevin would be "normal." They all learned Cued speech—a method of communication somewhat similar to ASL—and they taught him how to read lips. They forced Kevin to talk out loud to people, and they enrolled him in a public school. He played on the basketball team and went to prom. Super normal.

I adored my cousin. I was so proud of all that he accomplished, and I followed him and my older brother around like a puppy. Although it was hard being close to a deaf relative with strained communication, it was the age difference that prevented a relationship. I remember always wanting my cousin to talk to me for more than a few seconds.

*

I was sitting alone beside the pool at Kevin’s high school graduation party. My aunt and uncle’s backyard was splashed with blue and yellow—Kevin’s high school colors—and music played from the speakers by the water fountains. Everyone was drinking and wishing Kevin well as he prepared to attend Rochester Institute of Technology.

Kevin sat down next to me on the wooden retaining wall that separated the patio from the pool area. He stared straight ahead and didn’t speak for a few moments. Unlike my usual self, I stayed patient and silent.

Finally, Kevin told me that I better not slack off in high school. I instinctively told him I wouldn't, but he stopped me. 

"I mean it," he said. He always talked louder than others, but now he sounded extra loud and stern. "I just graduated high school, and if I could do it all over again, I would. Sure, I graduated with decent grades, and I got into a good school, but I half assed everything. Everything. I didn't even have a relationship, so I won't be going to college with some experience under my belt." He winked as he said that. "Sometimes I even took for granted that I was deaf. 'I'm deaf' can surprisingly let you get away with a lot. But here I am now, going to college, and I don't even know my full potential because I never pushed myself. I don't want you to have that regret in ten years." I nodded, knowing that this was a serious conversation, but at that time, I was nine years old. I thought high school was a lifetime away, and my favorite part of elementary school was recess. Regardless, I was just thrilled that my cousin was talking to me.

*

A few years later, I was on instant messenger when Kevin IM'd me. We hadn't talked much throughout his college years, and once again, I was excited that he was paying attention to me. His screen name was Nonchalantprk.

He first asked me if I was alone, and I said yes. Then he said he wanted pictures of me. Naked ones. At first, I thought it was a joke. Maybe one of Kevin’s friends on his computer being a creep. But it was Kevin, my cousin, and he really wanted naked pictures of me. The conversation ended abruptly. I refused to take or send any pictures and went to bed.

The next day, he messaged me again and apologized for what he did. He stated that he was drunk and never had sex during his teenage years, so he was curious as to what a girl that age looked like.

That wink when I was nine.

I forgave him, and he asked me to promise him that I wouldn't tell anyone. There are a lot of things about what happened that I don't understand—that I will never understand—and for some reason at thirteen years old, I was almost thrilled with the responsibility of keeping a secret for my cousin. At thirteen, I didn't think, Oh my god, my perverted cousin just asked me for naked pictures and is now making me promise not to tell anyone. I thought, Wow, I'm proving my loyalty to a family member right now. So, I made my promise, and I never mentioned it again.

*

Five years later, at a Christmas party, Kevin arrived with his new wife, having been married for three months. My brother was one of his groomsmen, and I was one of the bridesmaids. I'll never forget when I walked down the aisle to assume my place in the line of girls, my cousin loudly interrupted his own wedding and said, "You're beautiful." At the time, I was honored, but now the memory makes my stomach churn.

We were all together at my grandfather's for Christmas Day, and Kevin was in a bad mood. He was sitting in a corner when he started texting me, so I tried distracting him and asked him to sneak me a cup of alcohol outside. I had started drinking a year after the online incident, but my alcohol intake had started steadily increasing as I got older. I was never sober during weekends or family events.

A few minutes later, Kevin came out and gave me the cup. He didn't say anything and went back inside.

After he had a few more drinks, Kevin texted me: "I did a favor for you, and now you can do one for me." My stomach dropped. I played dumb and asked what he meant. He started to say safe things like, "Oh, you know...” With each new text badgering me, I started drinking more and more out of the red Solo cup. I started panicking about his wife potentially reading his texts later. Around the time my family started packing up and leaving, I told him an outright “no.”

“Ok,” he replied.

*

This time around, I wasn't a naive thirteen-year-old girl who adored and wanted to protect her cousin. I was an adult who could see how disgusting and manipulative Kevin was. But I also felt disgusted with myself. I had the mindset that since I didn’t tell anyone at thirteen, then I was asking for it at eighteen. No matter how many times I tried to tell myself that I wasn’t at fault, I knew the guilt would never go away. The only thing that seemed to help was more drinking.

*

Late one night, a few months into the spring semester, my cousin texted me again.

All he said: "Hey."

My body started shaking. I was drunk and terrified. I started crying and texted him to never talk to me again. I then called my mother.

It was 2 a.m. and I was sobbing. I told her that I needed to tell her something.  

"Ever since I was thirteen, Kevin has been asking me for naked pictures."

My mother started screaming, "Oh my god," over and over again like she did when she found out my aunt Robin had cancer. I then got in my car and drove the two hours back home, slept in my old room, and woke up the next morning. 

My father had gone to work, and my mother was waiting for me at the dining room table.

"We have to tell the family," she simply said. I started crying again and begged her not to tell anyone. My grandfather was too old for a family scandal; Kevin's mother had already been through cancer; and I was almost certain his father would claim that I was lying. Then, what if the police had to get involved, and everyone in town knew that our family was fucked up?

It didn’t take much convincing. Eventually, my mother agreed to keep this between my father, herself, and me.

I admit that there's still a part of me that hates my parents for agreeing to keep my secret.

I had called my mother that night because I thought I could experience an abolishment of guilt if someone else knew. Someone who could tell me that I wasn't asking for this sexual harassment, and that Kevin had violated every aspect of trust and boundaries. I pictured the revelation like how it's depicted in the movies: there's a climax of tension, finally the secret gets let out, then the victim is vindicated. But for some reason, when I told my mother, I felt dirty. It seemed almost worse that someone else knew because that someone didn’t help. There was no vindication. 

This disappointment of the secret's reveal to my mother quickly transitioned to anger. As a parent, I wanted her to take control of the situation and protect me. I wanted her to say, “I don’t care if you don’t want the family to know. You’re my daughter, and that son of a bitch needs to be punished.” When my mother kept my secret instead of telling the family, it made me question her love for me. And that was a hard doubt to bear, especially during the rare times that I was sober. 

Image credit: M. on Unsplash

*

Life surprisingly went on. After dropping out during my second semester of college, it only took me that summer to realize I needed to go back to school. I reenrolled and tried to focus on daily routines: Getting out of bed on time, brushing my hair, making sure I ate, taking notes in class, attending my shifts at work, and studying when I needed to. However, I was still drunk on the weekends and after what I called “rough days” at school and work. I deserved it, I told myself.  

It was easy to stay away from Kevin. He and his wife lived in New Hampshire, and when I found out they were going to certain holiday gatherings, I claimed sickness. Outside of my immediate family, no one seemed to notice that I was never present when Kevin was.

*

It was going well until the early summer of 2011. I was home on school vacation and had one of my friends over. We were downstairs in the kitchen when my mother came up to us and said she had big news.

"There's going to be an addition to our family! Kevin and his wife are pregnant." My mouth dropped, but I shouldn't have been surprised. Ever since their wedding, I had been dreading the day. I knew what Kevin wanted more than anything was to have a child, and I was petrified of the idea that a new life would be mentored by a pedophile.

I couldn't breathe and started having a panic attack. Eventually, my mother apologized, saying she didn’t think I was going to react that way.

*

I dreaded each month that brought us closer to the baby's birth. Kevin and his wife didn't want to find out the sex, which almost made it worse for me. I wasn't sure what I was so scared of. Whether Kevin would do anything to his child, or if his child would grow up just as fucked up as his father. Maybe I feared an evil that could be bred within our family.

The worst thoughts of all, though, were knowing that my cousin never respected personal boundaries, and that my family was great at keeping secrets.

My aunt was ecstatic. She couldn't wait to be a grammie, and I think this "next step" of adulthood—of procreating—reassured her and my uncle that Kevin really was "normal" after all.

I must have looked like a huge bitch when I didn't show up to Kevin's baby shower.

*

Then, that January night happened. The baby turned out to be a boy. He wasn't deaf. He didn’t have any disabilities. He was perfectly healthy. Just dead.

*

There will also be a piece of me that still hates Kevin, my parents, and myself. And maybe the saddest thing is that of all the secrets that are kept in our fucked-up family, I like mine best of all: I'm happy my cousin's baby died. And I'll never tell.

***

Bianca Bourgault

Bianca Bourgault received her MFA from the University of New Hampshire, is currently attending their PhD program in Composition and Rhetoric studies and loves teaching First-Year Writing. Her working memoir, After Another, details her decade-plus long struggle with alcoholism. Her work has been featured in Rustica, Chicago Story Press, The Sun, and other journals. Bianca hopes to always teach her students that writing can be a tool for survival.