A child called it - While Father Is Away

6 – While Father Is Away
After the knife incident, Father spent less and less time at
home and more at work. He made excuses to the family, but I
didn’t believe him. I often shivered with fear as I sat in the
garage, hoping for some reason he might not leave. In spite of
all that had happened, I still felt Father was my protector. When
he was home, Mother only did about half the things to me that
she did when he was gone.
When Father was home, it became his habit to help me with
the evening dishes. Father washed and I dried. While we
worked, we talked softly so neither Mother nor the other boys
could hear us. Sometimes, several minutes would pass without
us talking. We wanted to make sure the coast was clear.
Father always broke the ice. “How ya doin’, Tiger?” he would
say.
Hearing the old name that Father used when I was a little boy,
always brought a smile to my face. “I’m OK,” I would answer.
“Did you have anything to eat today?” he often asked. I
usually shook my head in a negative gesture.
“Don’t worry,” he’d say. “Some day you and I will both get
out of this madhouse.”
I knew father hated living at home, and I felt that it was all my
fault. I told him that I would be good and that I wouldn’t steal
food anymore. I told Father I would try harder and do a better
job on my chores. When I said these things, he always smiled
and assured me that it wasn’t my fault.
Sometimes as I dried the dishes, I felt a new ray of hope. I
knew Father probably wouldn’t do anything against Mother, but
when I stood beside him I felt safe.
Like all good things that happened to me, Mother put an end
to Father helping me with the dishes. She insisted that The Boy
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needed no help. She said that Father paid too much attention to
me and not enough to others in the family. Without a fight,
Father gave up. Mother now had complete control over
everybody in the household.
After awhile, Father didn’t even stay home on his days off. He
would come in for only a few minutes. After seeing my brothers,
he would find me wherever I was doing my chores and say a
few sentences, then leave. It took Father no more than 10
minutes to get in and out of the house, and be on his way back to
his solitude, which he usually found in a bar. When Father
talked to me, he’d tell me that he was making plans for the two
of us to leave. This always made me smile, but deep inside I
knew it was a fantasy.
One day, he knelt down to tell me how sorry he was. I looked
into his face. The change in Father frightened me. He had dark
black circles around his eyes, and his face and neck were beet
red. Father’s once rigid shoulders were now slumped over. Gray
had begun to take over his jetblack hair. Before he left that day,
I threw my arms around his waist. I didn’t know when I would
see him again.
After finishing my chores that day, I rushed downstairs. I had
been ordered to wash my ragged clothes and another heap of
smelly rags. But that day, Father’s leaving had left me so sad
that I buried myself in the pile of rags and cried. I cried for him
to come back and take me away. After a few minutes of
selfcomfort, I settled down and began scrubbing my “Swiss
cheese” clothes. I scrubbed until my knuckles bled. I no longer
cared about my existence. Mother’s house had become
unbearable. I wished I could somehow manage to escape the
place I now called the “Madhouse”.
During one period of time when Father was away, Mother
starved me for about ten consecutive days. No matter how hard I
tried to meet her time limits, I couldn’t make it. And the
consequence was no food. Mother was completely thorough in
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making sure I was unable to steal any food. She cleared the
dinner table herself, putting the food down the garbage disposal.
She rummaged through the garbage can every day before I
emptied it downstairs. She locked the freezer in the garage with
her key and kept it. I was used to going without food for periods
up to three days, but this extended time was unbearable. Water
was my only means of survival. When I filled the metal ice cube
tray from the refrigerator, I would tip the corner of the tray to
my mouth. Downstairs I would creep to the wash basin and
crack the faucet tap open. Praying that the pipe would not
vibrate and alert Mother, I would carefully suck on the cold
metal until my stomach was so full I thought it would burst.
By the sixth day I was so weak when I woke up on my army
cot, I could hardly get up. I worked on my chores at a snail’s
pace. I felt so numb. My thought responses became unclear. It
seemed to take minutes for me to understand each sentence
Mother yelled to me. As I slowly strained my head up to look at
Mother, I could tell that to her it was a game – a game which she
thoroughly enjoyed.
“Oh, poor little baby,” Mother sarcastically cooed. Then she
asked me how I felt, and laughed when I begged for food. At the
end of the sixth day, and those that followed, I hoped with all
my heart that Mother would feed me something, anything. I was
at a point that I didn’t care what it was.
One evening, towards the end of her “game”, after I had
finished my chores, Mother slammed a plate of food in front of
me. The cold leftovers were a feast to my eyes. But I was wary;
it seemed too good to be true. “Two minutes!” Mother barked.
“You have two minutes to eat. That’s all.” Like lightening I
picked up the fork, but the moment before the food touched my
mouth, Mother snatched the plate away from me and emptied
the food down the garbage disposal. “Too late!” she sneered.
I stood before her dumbstruck. I didn’t know what to do or
say. All I could think of was “Why?” I couldn’t understand why
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she treated me the way she did. I was so close that I could smell
every morsel. I knew she wanted me to cave in, but I stood fast
and held back the tears.
Alone in the garage, I felt I was losing control of everything. I
craved food. I wanted my father. But more than anything, I
wanted just an ounce of respect; one little bit of dignity. Sitting
there on my hands, I could hear my brothers opening the
refrigerator to get their desserts, and I hated it. I looked at
myself. My skin had a yellowish tint, and my muscles were thin
and stringy. Whenever I heard one of my brothers laugh at a
television show, I cursed their names. “Lucky bastards! Why
doesn’t she take turns and beat up on one of them for a
change?” I cried to myself as I vented my feelings of hatred.
For nearly ten days I had gone without food. I had just
finished the dinner dishes whe n Mother repeated her “you have
two minutes to eat” game. There were only a few bits of food on
the plate. I felt she would snatch the plate away again, so I
moved with a purpose. I didn’t give Mother a chance to snatch it
away like she had the past three evenings. So I grabbed the plate
and quickly swallowed the food without chewing it. Within
seconds, I finished eating all that was on the plate and licked it
clean. “You eat like a pig!” Mother snarled. I bowed my head,
acting as though I cared. But inside I laughed at her, saying to
myself, “Fuck you! Say what you want! I got the food!”
Mother had another favorite game for me while Father was
away. She sent me to clean the bathroom with her usual time
limits. But this time, she put a bucket, filled with a mixture of
ammonia and Clorox, in the room with me and closed the door.
The first time she did this, Mother informed me she had read
about it in a newspaper and wanted to try it. Even though I acted
as if I were frightened, I really wasn’t. I was ignorant about
what was going to happen. Only when Mother closed the door
and ordered me not to open it, did I begin to worry. With the
room sealed, the air began to quickly change. In the corner of
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the bathroom I dropped to my hands and knees and stared at the
bucket. A fine gray mist swirled towards the ceiling. As I
breathed in the fumes, I collapsed and began spitting up. My
throat felt like it was on fire. Within minutes it was raw. The gas
from the reaction of the ammonia and Clorox mixture made my
eyes water. I was frantic about not being able to meet Mother’s
time limits for cleaning the bathroom.
After a few more minutes, I thought I would cough up my
insides. I knew that Mother wasn’t going to give in and open the
door. To survive her new game, I had to use my head. Laying on
the tiled floor I stretched my body, and using my foot, I slide the
bucket to the door. I did this for two reasons: I wanted the
bucket as far away from me as possible, and in case Mother
opened the door, I wanted her to get a snoot full of her own
medicine. I curled up in the opposite corner of the bathroom,
with my cleaning rag over my mouth, nose and eyes. Before
covering my face, I wet the rag in the toilet. I didn’t dare turn on
the water in the sink for fear of Mother hearing it. Breathing
through the cloth, I watched the mist inch its way closer and
closer to the floor. I felt as if I were locked in a gas chamber.
Then I thought about the small heating vent on the floor by my
feet. I knew it turned on and off every few minutes. I put my
face next to the vent and sucked in all the air my lungs would
hold. In about half an hour, Mother opened the door and told me
to empty the bucket into the drain in the garage before I smelled
up her house. Downstairs I coughed up blood for over an hour.
Of all Mother’s punishments, I hated the gas chamber game the
most.
Towards the end of the summer Mother must have become
bored with finding ways to torture me around the house. One
day after I had completed all my morning chores, she sent me
out to mow lawns. This wasn’t an altogether new routine.
During the Easter vacation from school the spring before,
Mother had sent me out to mow. She had set a quota on my
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earnings and ordered me return the money to her. The quota was
impossible for me to meet, so, in desperation, I once stole nine
dollars from the piggy bank of a small girl who lived in our
neighborhood. Within hours, the girl’s father was knocking on
the front door. Of course, Mother returned the money and
blamed me. After the man left, she beat me until I was black and
blue. I only stole the money to try to meet her quota.
The summer mowing plan turned out no better for me than the
one during Easter vacation. Going from door to door, I asked
people if they cared to have their lawns mowed. No one did. My
ragged clothes and my thin arms must have made me a pathetic
sight. Out of sympathy, one lady gave me a lunch in a brown
bag and set me on my way. Half a block down the street a
couple agreed to have me mow their lawn. When I finished, I
started running back to Mother’s house, carrying the brown bag
with me. I intended to hide it before I turned onto her block. I
didn’t make it. Mother was out cruising in her car, and she
pulled over and caught me with the bag. Before Mother
screeched the station wagon to a stop, I threw my hands into the
air, as if I were a criminal. I remember wishing that lady luck
would be with me just one time.
Mother leaped out of the car, snatched the brown bag in one
hand and punched me with the other. She then threw me into the
car, and drove to the house where the lady had made the lunch
for me. The woman wasn’t home. Mother was convinced that I
had sneaked into the lady’s house and prepared my own lunch. I
knew that to be in the possession of food was the ultimate crime.
Silently, I yelled at myself for not ditching the food earlier.
Once home, the usual “tenrounder” left me sprawled on the
floor. Mother then told me to sit outside in the backyard while
she took “her sons” to the zoo. The section where Mother
ordered me to sit was covered with rocks about an inch in
diameter. I lost circulation in much of my body, as I sat on my
hands in my “prisoner of war” position. I began to give up on
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God. I felt that He must have hated me. What other reason could
there be for a life like mine? All my efforts for mere survival
seemed futile. My attempts to stay one step ahead of Mother
were useless. A black shadow was always over me.
Even the sun seemed to avoid me, as it hid in a thick cloud
cover that drifted overhead. I slumped my shoulders, retreating
into the solitude of my dreams, I don’t know how much time
had passed, but later I could hear the distinctive sound of
Mother’s station wagon returning into the garage. My time
sitting on the rocks was over. I wondered what Mother had
planned for me next. I prayed it was not another gas chamber
session. She yelled from the garage for me to follow her
upstairs. She led me to the bathroom. My heart sank. I felt
doomed. I began taking huge breaths of fresh air, knowing that
soon I would need it.
To my surprise there wasn’t any bucket or bottles in the
bathroom. “Am I off the hook?” I asked myself. This looked too
easy. I timidly watched Mother as she turned the cold water tap
in the bathtub fully open. I thought it was odd that she forgot to
turn on the hot water as well. As the tub began to fill with cold
water, Mother tore off my clothes and ordered me to get into the
tub. I got into the tub and laid down. A cold fear raced
throughout my body. “Lower!” Mother yelled. “Put your face in
the water like this!” She then bent over, grabbed my neck with
both hands and shoved my head under the water. Instinctively, I
thrashed and kicked, trying desperately to force my head above
the water so I could breathe. Her grip was too strong. Under the
water I opened my eyes. I could see bubbles escape from my
mouth and float to the surface as I tried to shout. I tried to thrust
my head from side to side as I saw the bubbles becoming
smaller and smaller. I began to feel weak. In a frantic effort I
reached up and grabbed her shoulders. My fingers must have
dug into her because Mother let go. She looked down on me,
trying to get her breath. “Now keep your head below the water,
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or next time it will be longer!”
I submerged my head, keeping my nostrils barely above the
surface of the water. I felt like an alligator in a swamp. When
Mother left the bathroom, her plan became more clear to me. As
I laid stretched out in the tub, the water became unbearably cold.
It was as though I was in a refrigerator. I was too frightened of
Mother to move, so I kept my head under the surface as ordered.
Hours passed and my skin began to wrinkle. I didn’t dare
touch any part of my body to try to warm it. I did raise my head
out of the water, far enough to hear better. Whenever I heard
somebody walk down the hall outside the bathroom, I quietly
slid my head back into the coldness.
Usually the footsteps I heard were one of my brothers going
to their bedroom. Sometimes one of them came into the
bathroom to use the toilet. They just glared at me, shook their
heads and turned away. I tried to imagine I was in some other
place, but I could not relax enough to daydream.
Before the family sat down for dinner, Mother came into the
bathroom and yelled at me, telling me to get out of the bathtub
and put on my clothes. I responded immediately, grabbing a
towel to dry myself. “Oh, no!” she screamed. “Put your clothes
on the way you are!” Without hesitating, I obeyed her
command. My clothes were soaked as I ran downstairs to sit in
the backyard as instructed. The sun had begun to set, but half the
yard was still in direct sunlight. I tried to sit in a sunny area, but
Mother ordered me into the shade. In the corner of the backyard,
while sitting in my POW position, I shivered. I wanted only a
few seconds of heat, but with every passing minute my chances
of drying off were becoming less and less. From the upstairs
window I could heard the sound of “the family” passing dishes
full of food to each other. Once in a while, a burst of laughter
would escape through the window. Since Father was home, I
knew that whatever Mother had cooked was good. I wanted to
turn my head and look up to see them eating, but I didn’t dare. I
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lived in a different world. I didn’t even deserve a glance at the
good life.
The bathtub and the backyard treatment soon became routine.
At times when I laid in the tub, my brothers brought their friends
to the bathroom to look at their naked brother. Their friends
often scoffed at me. “What did he do this time?” they’d ask.
Most of the time my brothers just shook their heads, saying, “I
don’t know.”
With the start of school in the fall, came the hope of a
temporary escape from my dreary life. Our fourthgrade
homeroom class had a substitute teacher for the first two weeks.
They told us that our regular teacher was ill. The substitute
teacher was younger than most of the other staff, and she
seemed more lenient. At the end of the first week, she passed
out ice cream to those students whose behavior had been good. I
didn’t get any the first week, but I tried harder and received my
reward at the end of the second week. The new teacher played
“pop hits” on 45rpm records, and sang to the class. We really
liked her. When Friday afternoon came, I didn’t want to leave.
After all the other students had gone, she bent close to me and
told me I would have to go home. She knew I was a problem
child. I told her that I wanted to stay with her. She held me for a
moment, then got up and played the song I liked best. After that
I left. Since I was late, I ran to the house as fast as I could and
raced through my chores. When I was finished, Mother sent me
to the backyard to sit on the cold cement deck.
That Friday, I looked up at the thick blanket of fog covering
the sun, and cried inside. The substitute teacher had been so nice
to me. She treated me like a real person, not like some piece of
filth lying in the gutter. As I sat outside feeling sorry for myself,
I wondered where she was and what she was doing. I didn’t
understand it at the time, but I had a crush on her.
I knew that I wasn’t going to be fed that night, or the next.
Since Father wasn’t home, I would have a bad weekend. Sitting
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in the cool air in the backyard, on the steps, I could hear the
sounds of Mother feeding my brothers. I didn’t care. Closing my
eyes, I could see the smiling face of my new teacher. That night
as I sat outside shivering, her beauty and kindness kept me
warm.
By October, my morbid life was in full swing. Food was
scarce at school. I was easy prey for school bullies, who beat me
up at will. After school I had to run to the house and spill the
contents of my stomach for Mother’s inspection. Sometimes she
would have me start my chores right away. Sometimes she
would fill the bathtub with water. If she was really in a good
mood, she fixed up the gas mixture for me in the bathroom. If
she got tired of having me around her house, she sent me out to
find some mowing jobs, but not before beating me. A few times
she whipped me with the dog’s chain. It was very painful, but I
just gritted my teeth and took it. The worst pain was a blow to
the backs of my legs with the broom handle. Sometimes blows
from the broom handle would leave me on the floor, barely able
to move. More than once I hobbled down the street, pushing that
old wooden lawn mower, trying to earn her some money.
There finally came a time when it didn’t do me any good for
Father to be home because Mother had forbidden him to see me.
My hope deteriorated and I began to believe that my life would
never change. I thought I would be Mother’s slave for as long as
I lived. With every passing day, my willpower became weaker. I
no longer dreamed of Superman or some imaginary hero who
would come and rescue me. I knew that Father’s promise to take
me away was a hoax. I gave up praying and thought only of
living my life one day at a time.
One morning at school, I was told to report to the school
nurse. She questioned me about my clothes and the various
bruises that spanned the length of both my arms. At first I told
her what Mother had instructed me to tell her. But as my trust in
her began to grow, I told her more and more about Mother. She
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took notes and told me I should come to see her anytime I
wanted to talk to somebody. I learned later that the nurse
became interested in me because of some reports she had
received from the substitute teacher, earlier in the school year.
During the last week in October, it was tradition at Mother’s
house for the boys to carve designs on pumpkins. I had been
denied this privilege since I was seven or eight years old. When
the night came to carve the pumpkins, Mother filled the tub just
as soon as I had finished my chores. Again she warned me about
keeping my head under the water. As a reminder, she grabbed
my neck and pushed my head under the water. Then she stormed
out of the bathroom, turning the light out as she went. Looking
to my left, I could see through the small bathroom window that
night was beginning to fall. I passed the time by counting to
myself. I started at one and stopped at one thousand. Then I
started over. As the hours passed, I could feel the water slowly
draining away. As the water drained, my body became colder
and colder. I cupped my hands between my legs and laid the
length of my body against the right side of the bathtub. I could
hear the sounds of Stan’s Halloween record that Mother had
bought for him several years before. Ghosts and ghouls howled,
and doors creaked open. After the boys had carved their
pumpkins, I could hear Mother in her soothing voice telling
them a scary story. The more I heard, the more I hated each and
every one of them. It was bad enough waiting like a dog out in
the backyard on the rocks while they enjoyed dinner, but having
to lay in the cold bathtub, shivering to keep warm while they ate
popcorn and listened to Mother’s tales made me want to scream.
Mother’s tone of voice that night reminded me of the kind of
Mommy I had loved so many years ago. Now, even the boys
refused to acknowledge my presence in the house. I meant less
to them than the spirits that howled from Stan’s record. After the
boys went to bed, Mother came into the bathroom. She appeared
startled to see me still laying in the bathtub. “Are you cold?” she
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sneered. I shivered and shook my head indicating that I was very
cold. “Well, why doesn’t my precious little boy get his ass out
of the bathtub and warm his hide in his father’s bed?”
I stumbled out of the tub, put on my underwear and crawled
into Father’s bed, soaking the sheets with my wet body. For
reasons I didn’t understand Mother had decided to have me
sleep in the master bedroom, whether Father was home or not.
She slept in the upstairs bedroom with my brothers. I didn’t
really care as long as I didn’t have to sleep on the army cot in
the cold garage. That night Father came home, but before I
could say anything to him, I fell asleep.
By Christmas, my spirit was drained. I detested being home
during the twoweek vacation and impatiently awaited my return
to school. On Christmas Day I received a pair of roller skates. I
was surprised to get anything at all, but as it turned out, the
skates were not a gift given in the spirit of Christmas. The skates
proved to be just another tool for Mother to get me out of the
house and make me suffer. On weekends Mother made me skate
outside when the other children were inside because of the chilly
weather. I skated up and down the block, without even a jacket
to keep me warm. I was the only child outside in the
neighborhood. More than once, Tony, one of our neighbors,
stepped outside to get his afternoon newspaper and saw me
skating. He’d give me a cheerful smile before scurrying back
inside to get away from the cold. In an effort to keep warm, I
skated as fast as I could. I could see smoke rising from the
chimneys of houses that had fireplaces. I wished that I could be
inside, sitting by a fire. Mother had me skate for hours at a time.
She called me in, only when she wanted me to complete some
chores for her.
At the end of March that year, Mother went into labor while
we were home from school on Easter vacation. As Father drove
her to a hospital in San Francisco, I prayed that it was the real
thing and not false labor. I wanted Mother out of the house so
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badly. I knew that with her gone, Father would feed me. I was
also happy to be free from the beatings.
While Mother was in the hospital, Father let me play with my
brothers. I was immediately accepted back into the fold. We
played “Star Trek”, and Ron gave me the honor of playing the
role of Captain Kirk. The first day Father served sandwiches for
lunch and let me have seconds. When Father went to the
hospital to see Mother, the four of us played across the street at
the home of a neighbor named Shirley. Shirley was kind to us
and treated us as though we were her own children. She kept us
entertained with games like pingpong, or just let us run wild
outside. In some ways Shirley reminded me of Mom, in the
early days before she started beating me.
In a few days, Mother came home. She presented the family
with a new baby brother named Kevin. After a few weeks had
passed, things returned to normal. Father stayed away most of
the time, and I continued to be the scapegoat upon which
Mother vented her frustrations.
Mother rarely spent much time with neighbors, so it was not
natural for her when she and Shirley became close friends. They
visited each other daily. In Shirley’s presence Mother played the
role of the loving, caring parent – just as she had when she was a
Cub Scout den mother. After several months, Shirley asked
Mother why David was not allowed to play with the other
children. She was also curious why David was punished so
often. Mother had a variety of excuses. David either had a cold
or he was working on a school project. Eventually, she told
Shirley that David was a bad boy and deserved being grounded
for a long, long time.
In time, the relationship between Shirley and Mother became
strained. One day, for no apparent reason, Mother broke all ties
with Shirley. Shirley’s son was not allowed to play with the
boys, and Mother ran around the house calling her a bitch. Even
though I wasn’t allowed to play with the others, I felt a little
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safer when Shirley and Mother were friends.
One Sunday during the last month of summer, Mother came
into the master bedroom where I had been ordered to sit on my
hands in my POW position. She asked me to get up and sit on
the corner of the bed. She then told me that she was tired of the
life we were living. She told me she was sorry and that she
wanted to make up for all the lost time. I smiled from ear to ear,
as I jumped into her arms and held her tightly. As she ran her
hand through my hair, I began to cry. Mother cried too, and I
began to feel that my bad times were finished. I let go of our hug
and looked into Mother’s eyes. I had to know for sure. I had to
hear her say it again. “Is it really over?” I asked timidly.
“It’s over, sweetheart. After this moment, I want you to forget
any of it happened at all. You will try to be a good boy, won’t
you?”
I shook my head.
“Then, I’ll try to be a good mother.”
After making up, Mom let me take a warm bath and put on
the new clothes I had received last Christmas. I had not been
allowed to wear them before. Mom then took my brothers and I
bowling while Father stayed home with Kevin. On the way
home from the bowling alley, Mom stopped at a grocery store
and bought each of us a toy top. When we got home, Mom said I
could play outside with the other boys, but I took the top to the
corner of the master bedroom and played by myself. For the first
time in years, with the exception of holidays when we had
guests in the house, I ate with my family at the dinner table.
Things were happening too fast, and I felt that somehow it was
too good to be true. As happy as I was, I felt as though I were
walking on eggshells. I thought for sure Mother would wake up
and change back to her old self. But she didn’t. I ate all I wanted
for dinner, and she let me watch television with my brothers
before we went to bed. I thought it was strange that she wanted
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me to continue to sleep with Father, but she said she wanted to
be near the baby.
The next day, while Father was at work, a lady from social
services came to our house in the afternoon. Mom shooed me
outside to play with my brothers, while she talked to the lady.
They talked for more than an hour. Before the lady left, Mom
called me into our house. The lady wanted to talk to me for a
few minutes. She wanted to know if I was happy. I told her I
was. She wanted to know if I got along all right with my mom. I
told her I did. Finally, she asked me if Mom ever beat me.
Before answering, I looked up at Mother, who smiled politely. I
felt as though a bomb had exploded deep in the pit of my
stomach. I thought I would throw up. It had suddenly occurred
to me why Mother had changed the day before; why she had
been so nice to me. I felt like a fool because I had fallen for it. I
was so hungry for love that I had swallowed the whole charade.
Mother’s hand on my shoulder brought me back to reality.
“Well, tell her, sweetheart,” Mother said, smiling again. “Tell
her that I starve you and beat you like a dog,” Mother snickered,
trying to get the lady to laugh too.
I looked at the lady. My face felt flushed, and I could feel the
beads of sweat forming on my forehead. I didn’t have the guts to
tell the lady the truth. “No, it’s not like that at all,” I said. “Mom
treats me pretty good.”
“And she never beats you?” the lady asked.
“No … uh … I mean, only when I get punished … when I’m
a bad boy,” I said, trying to cover up the truth. I could tell by the
look Mother gave me that I had said the wrong thing. She had
brainwashed me for years, and I had said it badly. I could also
tell that the lady had picked up on the communication between
Mother and I.
“All right,” the lady said. “I just wanted to stop in and say
hello.” After saying goodbye, Mother walked her visitor to the
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door.
When the lady was clearly gone, Mother closed the door in a
rage. “You little shit!” she screamed. I instinctively covered my
face as she began swinging. She hit me several times, then
banished me to the garage. After she had fed her boys, she
called me up to do my evening chores. As I washed the dishes, I
didn’t feel all that bad. Deep in my heart I had known Mother
was being nice to me for some reason other than wanting to love
me. I should have known she didn’t mean it, because she acted
the same way when somebody like Grandma came over for the
holidays. At least I had enjoyed two good days. I hadn’t had two
good days for a long time, so in an odd way it was worth it. I
settled back into my routine and relied on my solitude to keep
me going. At least I didn’t have to walk on eggshells anymore,
wondering when the roof was going to cave in on me. Things
were back to normal, and I was the servant for the family again.
Even though I had begun to accept my fate, I never felt as
alone, as I did on the mornings that Father went to work.
He got out of bed about 5:00 A.M. on work days. He didn’t
know it, but I was always awake too. I’d listen to him shaving in
the bathroom, and I would hear him walking to the kitchen to
get something to eat. I knew that when he put on his shoes, he
was about ready to leave the house. Sometimes I turned over
just in time to see him pick up his dark blue, Pan Am overnight
bag. He’d kiss me on the forehead and say, “Try to make her
happy and stay out of her way.”
I tried not to cry, but I always did. I didn’t want him to leave.
I never told him, but I am sure he knew. After he closed the
front door, I counted the steps that it took him to get to the
driveway. I heard him walking on the pathway from the house.
In my mind, I could see him turning left down the block to catch
the bus to San Francisco. Sometimes, when I felt brave, I
hopped out of bed and ran to the window so I could catch a
glimpse of Father. I usually stayed in bed and rolled over to the
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warm place where he had slept. I imagined that I could hear him
long after he was gone. And when I accepted the fact that he
was truly gone, I had a cold, hollow feeling deep in my soul. I
loved my Father so much. I wanted to be with him forever, and I
cried inside because I never knew when I was going to see
Father again.