I awoke to the sound of shattered glass and an angry scream. Quickly, I jumped out of bed and blindly ran towards the light pouring out from the cracks of the door. “Stop!” I screamed. I was now standing witness to a scene, a nightmare I had dreamt of too often. There stood my father, holding his hand in a threatening grip around my mother’s arm as her face cringed in pain.
“Let her go! You’re hurting her!” I screamed.
“I’m just showing your mother something. Go back to bed,” he said sternly. Did he think I was an idiot? Did he think I was some ignorant child? I could see shards of broken glass in the other room, and I quickly inspected my mother from head to toe.
I ran towards him and began to pry his fastened fingers from her arm. I was not a child anymore; I was almost eighteen, and I would not let him lay another finger on my mother. My father batted me away with ease and flung her to the side. I ran over to meet her, feeling somewhat helpless. Once I made sure my mother was okay, I ran over to the washroom to fetch the broom. You can only imagine my surprise when I found myself gazing at a scared and helpless little girl who stared accusingly back at me in me in the mirror. I closed my eyes and woke up in my own bed, then quickly ran over to the mirror. Staring back was a matured girl with a tear-stained face and red puffy eyes—this was me.
As a child, I grew up in a household where fear and betrayal ran deep. My father, the man whose lap I lay on as a babe, promised me the world but instead taught me the true meaning of temptation and hate. For years I watched as he abused my mother both physically and mentally and, though I love him, I soon discovered that my trust in him was gradually slipping away. He frequently made my mother a promise of change and repentance, insisting that all he needed was a second chance. The first time, my mother stayed, even though they had never been married—not because she loved him or because she had no family, but because she thought she was doing what was best for me. A day would barely pass before the sound of forceful strikes and gut-wrenching cries echoed throughout the house once more.
The days began to drift together; it was a constant cycle. In the morning, my mother would drop me off at the bus stop while my father continued to sleep in his room. I dreaded returning home at the end of the day because I knew all too well what the evening would hold. When I returned home the door would be unlocked, so I would climb up the stairs and head towards the kitchen. “Hello, sweetie how was your day?” he’d call from the living room chair. “Come here and give me a hug and a kiss. Tell me about your day.” Oh I’ll tell you, I wished I could say. Today during my math lesson I thought about how you beat the crap out of my mother last night. I will never understand why he would expect me to come running into his arms after everything I’d seen him do. I was young, not blind or deaf. I dreaded the days he called me to his side; even now I continue to despise his ignorance.
Some days. when it was just my father and me in the house, I would become so overwhelmed with fear, anxiety, and loneliness that I would suddenly burst into tears. Most times, he would get upset because he just couldn’t get it through his head why I could possibly be crying. As I tried to explain to him the pain that he had put my mother through, he would not heed my words. To him, I was just a crying seven-year-old girl; the only thing I could convey to him was that I wanted my mother. Exasperated, he’d throw the phone towards me, “Fine, call your mother. You only love her anyway, she’s the only one you need, and you never say you love me.” After that, he, a grown man, would start a crying fit of his own in front of me. They were fake, of course, amateur sobs only meant to try to break the heart of a little girl. So I’d sit at the top of the stairs just waiting for the moment my mother would walk through the door.
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Gradually, the distance began to increase between my father and me; it was something I embraced. During Friday nights, my mother would pack a small suitcase of clothes, and together we would spend the weekend at her sister’s house located in the neighbouring city. The first time we did this, my father protested in the only way he knew how. He would grab every piece of clothing my mother had already packed and toss it down the stairs. He would scream and tell her how insensitive she was to take me away from him. When my aunt finally intervened, and he knew the battle was lost, he’d wrap me in his arms and tell me how sorry he was that my mother was taking me away from him. He did this ignoring my not so subtle protest for him to let me go and leave me be. A feeling of utter joy would course through my body as we left his house, but dread would always make its way back when it was time to return. I would cry in my aunt’s arms on those Sunday evenings, and in turn, she would whisper words of encouragement in my ear. I sometimes wondered what my father did during the weekends when my mother and I were away, and one day I found out.
One weekend, my mother had forgotten something at my father’s house, so we returned the Saturday morning. She unlocked the door with her keys, but the chain was drawn across on the other side, limiting our access. My father came to the door five minutes later dressed in his boxers and a t-shirt that looked like he had just thrown them on. It took another few minutes for him to let us in and when we entered the two of them argued in a rushed manner. I tried to capture the essence of the conversation, and it didn’t take me long to catch up. My father had the door to his room locked shut and as I approached, he blocked my path. I asked him who was in there, and he responded that it was nobody. If the door was locked someone must be on the other side, I responded, and he replied that it was his friend Bob, a man that I knew, and he said they were playing cards. I will always remember this day because it was during this moment that I was able to gather my strength and finally say it to his face. “I don’t trust you.” My voice quivered. He looked at me in disbelief and asked me in a threatening voice what I had just said, so I repeated it again in a stronger voice. It’s days like these that you never forget: this was the day I finally stood up to my father, and probably the day my half brother was conceived.
This day could have very well been what finally triggered my mother to walk out the door, or as I would have recommended, run. Their separation was easier in the sense that there were no documents to sign. Because the two of them had never been married, and the only thing keeping them in contact was me, my father liked using this to his advantage by telling all of his friends that by her leaving she was only hurting me. Before I entered fourth grade, my mother and I left my father to begin a new life in my aunt’s home. It seemed as though that tiny distance would not stop my father from harassing the two of us. He had an annoying habit of stopping by my new school, house, and day care, just to show us that he could. I hated the way he treated me, as if I was his little baby forcefully taken away from him by my mother. If you have ever experienced a situation such as mine then I am sure you have heard it before. “Look at what you’ve done to my daughter.” He’d yell to her. “You’ve brainwashed her!” This lasted throughout the last four years of my elementary school career.
When I was in middle school, on the last day of class, my mother dropped a bombshell: she had agreed to move back in with my father. I did not speak to her for the entire summer before freshman year. I was utterly convinced that she had gone completely crazy. I warned her on many occasions that she was returning to a psychopath, the man whom had harmed her on so many occasions right in front of my eyes. It seemed that what I said did not matter because she refused to listen. She would instead say that he was a lonely man with no family and that I should learn to trust because some people do change. The decision had already been made—we were rejoining my father. On the night before my first day of high school, I cried all night. In four years time, between leaving my father and finishing middle school I had somehow ended up back in a home owned by the man who stole my youth.
The peace in that tiny suburban house did not last a week. My father stayed out late on many occasions, treated my mother as if she were his maid, and treated me as if I were his trophy daughter. He acted as if he had always been there to celebrate my achievements, saying how much he had done and sacrificed to get me there.
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A year had not passed before my mother and I left my father once again, and I did not shed a single tear. I did not even look back as he stood looking lost and confused on the front porch. I expected him to try to remain a constant figure in my life, but I knew that in my heart, he never would. To me, he would always be the father that could not love right. From then on, I assumed that I would be attending the school back in my area since we were moving into our old house. But my mother had other plans.
She did not want the dispute between her and my father to ruin the progress I had made at the school I had begun to attend. In the five months that I had been there, I had received a position in the Senior Jazz Band, choir and French Club. I was an A+ student with a bright future at the school, and my mother knew it. So for the next four years I would spend my early mornings and late afternoons commuting to and from the two cities. Some afternoons after school my father would recommend I come by his house to pick up something to eat, and I would often use these times to recover items my mother and I may have forgotten when we occupied the house with him.
Four years passed sooner than I thought. I succeeded in my academics, though did not really leave much time for evening pizza nights with the buds, or steamy make-out sessions with the guy next door. My social life was put at a standstill for most of my high school career, but the friends that I spoke to, the ones that really understood my situation always stood with me. Was it worth it? Definitely. I do admit that there were a few rough patches that I had to climb through, but I never did it alone because my mother was always by my side. I am currently a first-year university student in the Honours English program at my college, and I couldn’t be happier with my choice. What ever happened to my father? He’s still there, calling everyday; there are many messages on my phone that go unanswered. My wish for myself is to carry on with my life. What I learned from my relationship with my father is that trust is something I will never be able to do with my full heart. I will never be able to have a true relationship with him because he is the same man I knew from my childhood. It’s sad how things in life don’t always change, but this is something that I have learnt to expect and accept.
Photo Sources
Parents fighting and upset daughter
http://balletuni.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Worried+mother+teenage+daughter+in+background-300×199.jpg
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