The Cherry Red Ribbon

Trigger Warning: Sexual Assault

When I was 8 months old, my father tied a red ribbon around my throat. It was just a bit too tight, and so growing up I always felt as if I were on the brink of asphyxiation; though it did keep my neck nice and slender. One evening, after spending the last week fighting a cold, I tugged on my ribbon to scratch my spiky esophagus. The bow let out a sharp sigh and twisted, unraveling onto my shoulders. As I scrambled to tie it back onto my neck, I became increasingly aware of the amount of air entering my lungs. Bringing the second bunny around the loop, I noticed how clear the world looked, as if God had set a magnifying glass to my eyes. My nose ached with cold and my throat felt four times wider than before. I reasoned I could speak for hours on end without having to sit and rest...maybe even eat while standing? I decided this feeling was magical, and so I’d leave the bow loose around my neck like a scarf and keep on like this.

My mother noticed me bobbing down the stairs that evening and demanded to know why my ribbon was undone.
“It just came loose, Mama. But I like it better this way.”
Her eyes were dark and her pearly teeth felt like bullets as they whispered “My daughter, the whore.” Her iridescent ribbon seemed to emphasize the words as it glimmered with her movement. She thrust her finger at the door and tapped her heel. So I walked out.

Mama was like this, quick to anger for no clear reason and sending us out for a couple hours. I’d watched her do the same to my eldest sister, who came home with her emerald green loops lopsided one night mumbling about the man she was decidedly in love with and how he didn’t give a damn about how her ribbon sat. Mama slapped her across the face, tightened her bow, and sent her to her room. She was never to see this boy again, because his daddy was a rat and his mama didn’t wear the same ribbon as us.

I guess Olivia really didn’t like the news, because a week later I found her with her bow tied tighter than ever around her neck, with one end of it hooked around the railing in her closet. Mama held a quiet ceremony and no one spoke of it again.

I thought about Olivia as I tumbled down the cobblestone boulevard, wondering what ever happened to the boy she was mad for. I walked past some boys from downtown as I crossed the street to the park - they went to the university over the bridge and wore real nice shoes, and all their daddies worked with mine. Mama had their mothers over for luncheon every Saturday, and the glimmer of so many ribbons in one room always made my eyes hurt. My sister never let me talk to the boys themselves. Olivia would always pull me and little Elsie tight against her and whisper “heads down” when they passed us by. I never understood it because she grew up walking to school with them and playing in their backyards during summers. Jealous Olivia, always keeping the fun to herself. 

I looked at one of the boys - Joseph Chesterfield, wasn’t it? - in the eye by accident as I made it to their side of the road. Embarrassed, I turned my head down and hurried before he could smile back. 

“Hey, c’mere pretty. You’re Liv’s little sister, huh?”

“What’re you doin’ out this late, you lookin’ for something?

And then quieter, 

“You think her ribbon’s just as loose?”

“What a shame ‘bout Livvy. So young”

“Please, Joey, you don’t miss her. You miss havin’ somebody to meet behind the dumpster”

A cold shiver went down my spine. I saw these boys at Church every Sunday. I had my First Communion with some of their little brothers. But for some reason my belly was twisting the way it did when I walked past the butcher shop. 

I quickly tightened my ribbon into its choking bow, realizing how stupid I had been - of course they were hollering at me, look at my tie! It’s practically dangling off my neck. They’re probably just worried ‘bout me, that’s what all their big kid words meant. 

My blood still felt cold as I fiddled with my bow. How could I have let it fall in the first place, what was I thinking? I shuffled my feet as fast as I could down the icy road, tying and retying my ribbon to make it as nice as my mother did when we went to mass. I kept hearing Olivia’s orders in my head, head down, pace up as I walked. Did she get this creepy feeling too?

When I was sure I’d smoothed the ridges and centered the knot, I turned around to check if they were still watching. I hadn’t noticed they’d been coming towards me, and we now stood face to face. Their eyes were about as red as candy canes and their teeth sharper than any knives I’d ever held. They made me think of Grandma’s cake knife, the one I’d used to cut the Easter pie last year - I’d slipped and snagged my finger on the second slice. It seemed to bleed forever - I never forgot the feeling of the metal grazing my pinky, how it burned and how no matter how many times as I asked Jesus to forgive me, it wouldn’t close. 

But it’s alright, they’ll notice the ribbon any second now and go on home. 

But the boys only seemed to snicker more and inch closer to me at the sight of my ruby satin. It was at this moment, as my back pressed into the park gate and the sun was lowered so that my shadow was its most detailed, and Joseph Chesterfield started to reach a pale hand out toward my neck, that I had the sacrilegious idea to run. In a skirt and my Sunday shoes. But God would understand, I wasn’t just being unladylike for the fun of it. This was never in my imagination.

I whipped around and threw myself over the low park gate and scrambled to my feet. A hand snatched the back of my skirt, but I ripped myself away and shot through the air like a hurricane. I had tied my ribbon so well, I could run as fast as my feet would let me and it wouldn’t come loose. No, it only became tighter. As my eyes began closing for longer moments and my arms started to feel like warm soup, I wondered if I should loosen my bow just a bit. Unfortunately I hit the ground before my fingers could pull an end.

I woke up in the same place I had dropped, but my body ached so much worse than before. My legs shook and something warm trickled between them. One foot was awfully cold, because my left shoe was by my right hand. But I could breathe so clearly! I reached for my ribbon but found only my cold neck. I leapt up and scoured the black ground for it, but I was too deep into the park for the streetlights to help me. I decided Mama would surely lend me one of her maiden bows until I could find mine in the daytime.

It took awfully long to get home - it was easy enough to retrace my steps in the park and the streetlights could guide me to my neighborhood. But my legs felt like someone had pulled them way too long and not given them enough time to wind back up before setting me on my feet. My stomach was burning and my mouth tasted of soil. I tried not to think about the terrible pain between my legs. I wasn’t ever to mention any pain between my legs anyways. Every so often I felt a bug run through my hair and nearly jumped out of my skin.

When I finally reached the house, the front door was locked. I hated sleeping outside, but I dropped down on the porch and rested my head against our mailbox. I had the strangest feeling deep in my belly that I’d done something real wrong. I felt tears well up in my eyes as a terrible question bloomed in my head: Would God forgive me?

When Elsie opened the door to snatch the mail the next morning, she found me and cried for Mama. Mama demanded to know what happened. When I told her, she stared at me with wide eyes and tight lips for a long moment before yanking me up by my arm and setting me inside. She looked at the ground as she instructed me to draw myself a bath and stay in my room until she came up.

I hadn’t noticed until I’d gotten undressed for the bath that the warm trickles and pain between my legs were blood. So much blood. I’d nearly screamed when I saw it, but remembered Mama was already so sour. I climbed into the tub and cried as quietly as I could while I washed the blood away.

Another hour later, Mama came into my room. I was holding my poor little skirt, covered in dirt and the cherry red blood. The sight of it after my bath had sent another round of tears through my eyes - my favorite skirt, sunny yellow with little white flowers dotting it. If Elsie's baby blue nightgown hadn’t survived spilt spaghetti sauce, was there any way my skirt could survive blood and dirt?

Mama sat down next to me. She kept her eyes on her hands, folded neatly in her lap as she spoke. 

“Those boys you saw are very good young men. Your father knows their fathers very well and I am a close friend of each of their mothers. Those boys are going to do great things. Their futures are very bright. And sometimes smart young boys make poor decisions, but that’s what God intended. It’s not their fault they cannot…control. Themselves. But you are a young lady, and God did not leave you any room for mistakes of this nature. You behaved very badly. You should not have gone to the park at night, with your ribbon loose and your skirt so short. You should not have approached them all by yourself. You can’t be surprised, Charlotte. Young men are predictable and this was not shocking. If only you’d listened to me, Charlotte. If only you’d kept your ribbon tight. Now look what you’ve done to yourself. Lord help us. 

Then she turned and looked at me. Her pupils seemed skinny, like a cat’s. I had the same feeling in my belly as the one I had in front of the boys, in front of the butcher shop. 

You are not to mention this to anyone. Forget it all. Last night did not happen. When their mothers come to luncheon next weekend, when we see their families at Church, you keep your head down and say nothing. You keep a smile on your face if their mothers address you. Do you understand me?