He’d never gone out of his way to hide the Playboy magazines and pornography videos he collected. As surprising as this might sound, I wasn’t entirely shocked by the rape. I was a girly girl who loved Barbies, Hello Kitty and Smurfette. I could never be the boy my father wanted. My father wanted a son but was told if they tried again that baby would inherit his disease. I hoped she had at least loved him in the beginning when she was a 26-year-old divorcee and he was a 29-year-old aspiring photographer who was working as a driving instructor. I thought my mother took care of my dad because she felt sorry for him. But no amount of distractions could stop the tubes in my father’s nose and arms from frightening me. The nurses gave me ice and crackers to pass the time. I’d spent my elementary school years in hospital waiting rooms. He wasn’t able to hold a steady job due to his sickle cell anemia. My mother had long hours at the phone company, often working overtime in the evenings and on Saturdays. Our two-bedroom house in northwest Pasadena had become too small, with only a pink and burgundy bathroom separating us. When my father asked me to forgive him, I said, “I will try, Daddy.” He eventually told me he was sorry, b ut his apology was too late. Then, an hour later, he confessed the truth. I thought now that she had learned the truth, she'd make my father leave.Īt home he denied that he’d raped me, asking my mother how she could believe such a thing. My mother didn’t say anything else on the 20-minute trip to our house. Ava reminded me that I had only graduated eighth grade, and although I felt I was grown up, I wasn’t. I only mentioned the incident to my mom because my best friend’s sister, Ava, said I should. She hugged me and wanted to know why I’d waited seven days to say anything. “Daddy said we needed to take more pictures for my photo shoot in your bedroom last week and then he got on top of me,” I told my mother on the bus ride home from the mall, breaking into tears.

7yo tara and father unmasked