Free Do Tampons Take Your Virginity?: A Catholic Girl's Memoir by Marie Simas Page B

outside and the wind will “wash” it. Dry cleaning doesn’t work, plus it costs money. Just put the clothes outside on a hanger and they’ll smell better.
    6. Speaking of laundry, American washing machines suck. They’re only good for washing cumbersome things, like sheets or cloth diapers. You should really wash all of your clothes by hand, and then hang them up. The dryer destroys everything and eats socks. Plus, it costs too much to run. The sun is free. But make sure you turn the jeans inside out, because the sun will bleach the blue from the blue jeans.
    7. Hang underwear in the garage so nobody will see it on the clothesline. The same for bras and slips, too.
    8. Respectable women wear slips under their dresses; it’s okay if a few inches peeks out at the bottom of your dress, as long as you’re wearing one. Knee-high nylons are okay to wear with knee-length skirts. No one will notice if you pull the knee-highs up high enough. The best nylons are the ones that come in the plastic egg at the supermarket. Then save the plastic egg for Easter.
    9. Miniskirts are for whores. The only girls who should wear short skirts are still wearing Pampers.
    10. The best cure for stomach problems is 7-Up.

Grandmother Moves In
    1990, WINTER. AGE 17
    Mother never really got any better. In the end, she got her wish. When we returned to the United States, she deteriorated slowly. After two years, she could no longer walk and her memory failed. The last year she was alive, she couldn’t speak or eat on her own.
    The insurance paid for a hospital bed and a nurse. The nurse only lasted a week. She was appalled by the way my mother was being treated. I think the big point of contention was that my father wasn’t giving my mother any painkillers. The nurse said she would go to the police. Father threatened her, and a nurse never came to the house again.
    One horrible night, my father raped her in the hospital bed. She screamed for help. My brother and I, awakened from our sleep, pounded on the door, which was locked. My father came out and yelled at us. The screaming stopped.
    After that night, my mother begged her mother Amalia to stay with her at night and protect her from my father. Grandmother announced that she would now be sleeping over to help take care of us. My father didn’t protest. Considering my grandmother’s upbringing, I’m sure she felt it the best protection she could offer my mother.
    Grandmother took over my parent’s bedroom and my father slept in the spare bedroom on a pullout sofa. The sexual assault was never discussed.
    The rapes stopped, but there still weren’t any painkillers. My father had health insurance, which would have paid the full cost for the prescriptions. I never understood why he decided to withhold them.
    Mother wore diapers and I helped my grandmother change her a few times. It was awful. She weighed less than ninety pounds—a withered skeleton.
    Mother finally died at home when I was seventeen. My brother ran to get me from the living room. Grandmother was standing over my mother, and she put a candle in my mother’s hand.
    “Marie, Marie... hold your mother’s hand. Say your goodbyes. It’s happening, it’s happening.” My grandmother said.
    I didn’t speak. I was numb.
    The funeral director was our former neighbor, Mr. Grant. He came over in the middle of the night and wrapped my mother in a white sheet, rolling her up like a mummy. My little brother Johnny stood in the doorway. His face was white. He was thirteen. I don’t think I saw my brother smile again for ten years.
    That night, we didn’t speak. My brother and I sat mutely at the dinner table, staring into space. The house was completely silent.
    My father came into the kitchen and sat down facing us. A single bulb hung over the table, casting shadows on my father’s contorted face. Father sat very still for a minute, then pounded his fist on the table. BAM! Then again, BAM!
    “If you ever... EVER disrespect your