{"id":1424,"date":"2025-08-22T01:26:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T01:26:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/maryannmcguigan\/?p=1424"},"modified":"2025-09-08T01:26:38","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T01:26:38","slug":"saying-what-they-dont-want-to-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/maryannmcguigan\/saying-what-they-dont-want-to-know\/","title":{"rendered":"Saying what they don\u2019t want to know"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some things are hard to talk about\u2014especially with a parent. For some teenagers, talking is beyond hard. It\u2019s dangerous. Because the subject is forbidden. There\u2019s too much at stake. In \u201cEverything Nice,\u201d from\u00a0<\/span>That Very Place<\/a>, the stakes for Jo and for her mother are enormous.<\/p>\n

Jo is afraid that her father is abusing her little sister Irene, the same way he once abused her. If she tells her mother, she fears the family will be torn apart.<\/p>\n

Jo can\u2019t be sure what the stakes are for her mother, because the secrets have been piling up for a very long time. The pain for the whole family is now so deep\u2014and the denial so strong\u2014it\u2019s about to bury them.<\/p>\n

Of all the stories in\u00a0<\/span>That Very Place<\/a>, Jo\u2019s was the most difficult to tell without letting emotions get the better of the writing. After all, what could be more harrowing for a girl than to be in Jo\u2019s situation? What could be sadder? The solution, for me, comes only when I enter fully into the character\u2019s point of view, allowing myself to feel what she feels, true or false, real or imagined.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s glimpse of Jo\u2019s first attempt to tell her mother\u2014who\u2019s busy cleaning the kitchen\u2014what she suspects is happening to Irene:<\/p>\n

I want to say something about Irene. Maybe not all of it, but something<\/em>.\u00a0<\/span>\u201cMom?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d The word comes out sharply, like a slap, like this interruption better be \u00a0worth her time. That\u2019s when I see that whatever I tell my mother, however I describe what he might be doing, it will be inadequate, beyond anything she\u2019d recognize as possible.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cAbout what? What is it?\u201d She stops wiping, smacks down the sponge.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI was just thinking about something.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0<\/span>Where do I start? With the bruise on her arm? With her nightgown inside out? Or with\u00a0<\/span><\/em>my\u00a0<\/span>first time, when we got home from Grandma\u2019s, tired from the long drive, and he put me to bed? With the places he touched me that night?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cNothing,\u201d I mumble.<\/em><\/p>\n

I hope you\u2019ll read on and find out what becomes of Jo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some things are hard to talk about\u2014especially with a parent. For some teenagers, talking is beyond hard. It\u2019s dangerous. Because the subject is forbidden. There\u2019s too much at stake. In \u201cEverything Nice,\u201d from\u00a0That Very Place, the stakes for Jo and for her mother are enormous. Jo is afraid that her father is abusing her little…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1420,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/maryannmcguigan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/maryannmcguigan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/maryannmcguigan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/maryannmcguigan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/maryannmcguigan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1424"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/maryannmcguigan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1425,"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/maryannmcguigan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1424\/revisions\/1425"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/maryannmcguigan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/maryannmcguigan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/maryannmcguigan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/maryannmcguigan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}