What My Father Knew

Honored and scared and to have a new essay out today in the latest issue of Dorothy Parker's Ashes. It's their "Fathers" issue, and it's more tender than you can imagine.

It’s been a complicated week. Here’s why:

1. My essay, "What My Father Knew," was accepted by Dorothy Parker's Ashes for their Fathers issue, and is live as of today. (This is the essay that was published in May of '22 by a prominent online journal then pulled a few months later when my half-sister's wealthy boyfriend wrote them a letter of complaint.) DPA editors Rebecca Johnson and Bex O’Brian are rockstars.

2. Ilanot Review just nominated my essay, "The Cost," for Best of the Net. “The Cost” is about how "What My Father Knew" was pulled (as well as other costs for writing about my history with childhood abuse) ever since my disclosure in 8th grade. The Ilanot Review editors are also rockstars—especially Marcela Sulak and Karen Marron.

Later, like, much later, I hope I might be able to write more about this in a way that could be helpful to other memoirists. At present, I’m just too tired out from it all.

What I will say is that I was 100% transparent with the Ilanot Review editors and the DPA editors about everything, including the pulling of the original essay—right down to providing DPA with the exact 312-word email written by my half-sister's wealthy boyfriend. DPA also wanted a record of my former stepfather's felony conviction, but it turns out I will need to drive to Duluth and go to the courthouse in person to get that, because the conviction occurred in 1980s. And even though felony records for sex crimes against children are permanent and inexpungible, they are not all kept online. In St. Louis County, where my stepfather was convicted and served time, online records go back only to 2010. So, DPA ran the details of the situation by a lawyer and ultimately they said, "We’re good."

Again, rockstars.

As for Marcela at Ilanot Review, she said, when accepting "The Cost”:

The threat of a lawsuit is so empty I could fill it with water and make music on it by rubbing my finger over its lip.…The only thing I'm afraid of is that I'd get all mama-bear on your behalf, so if we do get a letter, we'll simply turn it over to one of our lawyer alumni who'll answer him for us in a nice, professional way. Or else ignore it--she'll counsel us.

If you have read this far and are still interested in this saga, I am pasting in the email I sent to Todd, my half-sister's wealthy boyfriend, while I was digging through old files.

Thank you for your ongoing support, encouragement, and love. I am incredibly grateful. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Also, the top image is me with my father in 1968, the year I was born. It’s one of only a few photos I have with him. I did love him, and always will. I wish he had been able to love me. Below is the image I wanted to use for the DPA essay: me sitting alone on the hood of my father’s car (at least, I think it is my father’s car). But it was not acceptable to DPA editors, who were uncomfortable juxtaposing a topless child with the essay's content. Maybe it is strange that that never even occurred to me, but of course once the editors said it, I felt sad all over again for this sweet little girl (even though I for sure think the DPA editors made the right call).

Anyway, if you’ve read this far and want to know what I said to my half sister’s wealthy boyfriend, I’ve pasted that in below.

Meanwhile, thank you for your support and encouragement. I am grateful, more than you know.

Love,

Jeannine

Letter to My Half-Sister’s Wealthy Boyfriend

Dear [Redacted],

You might remember me from last fall, when you wrote to [redacted] about my essay detailing my experience of child sexual abuse and parental negligence. You mentioned knowing "the family" (although you've never met me) and you asserted, erroneously and with no evidence, that my claims were false. I've had a lot of time to think about the audacity of your letter.

I have also been compiling records, including court documents and reams of county child protective services files along with the record of my stepfather's felony conviction for which he served time in Duluth. In so doing, I have also located, in my younger half-sister's official foster care case file, a detailed and dated submission to the county caseworker, in which my mother recounts 1) my initial disclosure of the childhood sexual abuse in 1982, and 2) her own immediate communication to my father at that time. This county record reflects my own vivid memory of these events as I wrote about them in The Part That Burns and my [redacted] essay. Later, in 1992 or so (as I also wrote in my [redacted] essay) my father told me casually over the phone that he was aware I was being abused even earlier, before I disclosed my stepfather’s abuse. I believed my father then, and I still do, based on his long and copiously documented history of neglect (made official thanks to the foster care system).

It is typical for families, even members who have themselves been abused, to protect abusers and other associated adults, while punishing those who disclose abuse. A robust body of literature firmly establishes this toxic pattern, and this has certainly been my experience since the moment I disclosed my stepfather's criminal molestation. Your letter to [redacted] is part of that long-standing pattern.

Not surprisingly, after your letter to [redacted], my father, instead of reaching out to me, told someone else that if he had known about the abuse, he'd have called the sheriff and hired someone to break both of Mafia's legs. Those are fighting words, for sure. No doubt this is what my father now wishes his former self would have done, especially from his perspective as an old man at the stage of life where one reflects on past choices. But his words are empty. My father was told directly about the abuse in no uncertain terms, as my sister's official foster care record documents (my own foster care case file has similar accounts of my history of child sexual abuse). But, despite being directly informed of the criminal maltreatment of his own child (not just "a child," as your letter to [redacted] grotesquely misstates), my father neither called the sheriff nor hired anyone to break anyone's legs.

He did nothing.

Fortunately, as I have written publicly (and as I also shared privately with you last fall), my former stepfather was convicted of and served time for felony sexual misconduct despite my parents' inaction and failure to report. That is because, in 1985, just three short years after I disclosed my experience of sexual abuse to my parents, my former stepfather's next stepdaughter told her mother that Mafia was abusing her, and her mother did report the crime to the police. As any parent should have done.

Had my father or my mother reported Mafia's sexual abuse to the police in 1982 (Minnesota has no statute of limitations on sex crimes against children), an investigation would have been launched, because that is mandatory, and the next stepdaughter--another innocent girl—could have been spared.

She should have been spared.

My parents were both fully aware at the time of my disclosure that Mafia had remarried a woman with a young daughter. I even directly expressed to them my concern for that young girl’s safety! Again, see documentation below. How tragic that my parents' negligence harmed not only my sister and me, but another girl.

As for the next stepdaughter's mother, who acted responsibly and reported the abuse to the authorities: I am eternally grateful to that woman for immediately imploding her own life to do the only right thing when a child reveals sexual molestation. Thanks to that brave girl and her mother, my former stepfather has a permanent felony record for his sexual crimes against children (thankfully, felony records of sex crimes against children are inexpungible).

In the future, if you find you have questions about my life or my writing, please contact me directly rather than making false and destructive claims with no evidence to my publishers.

Sincerely,

Jeannine Ouellette