now i am wondering. how important is it, are they, those little nuances we call feelings? what are they? who do they belong to? how did they get there?
The crashing cymbals of her voice woke me from my silvery night. “Please, honey, please bring me something to drink. I have to have something. I promise baby, this will be the last time. I need it. You don’t understand. I have to have it!”
At first I wouldn’t answer, hoping that maybe one of my brothers would respond. Then my heart would start beating wildly in my chest, terrified that one of them would go in and there would be another fight. And she would get ugly. It was as if Jekyll and Hyde existed in my own mother, the mother who tried to take my father’s life over a bottle of booze.
She had come in quietly that night. I was barely seven. We were sleeping in my brother’s room and I woke up immediately when she entered. Even at that tender age my senses were as raw and honed as a knife. Everything went into slow motion. I remember lying there, frozen, watching her clumsily lumber over to where my father was sleeping in the other twin bed. Her massive, pendulous breasts were swinging awkwardly through her dirty, half open nightdress. She had a machete knife in one hand. and time. just. stopped. From far away I heard someone screaming as I saw her lift the knife high above her head and knew her intention was for it to come crashing down into my father’s heart. “Where is it?” she screeched, “What have you done to it?” The slow motion time frame sped up and I saw my father’s arms flailing wildly, reaching up to stop the knife as it came plummeting down, narrowly missing its target.
No one ever spoke about it again and my father left us soon after.
I had nightmares until I was eighteen, sure that the knife in her hand would finally find its rightful target-me. Those were the days I remember. Not much else, just the terror and the screaming and the fear, the crying and pleading and begging. The thousand promises that she would stop drinking, only she never did. The sanitariums and humiliation and embarrassment that I wore encased around my young body like a straitjacket. Those were the days of wine and roses. We lived in a beautiful home that held not beauty. I used to sit in the dark on the stairs outside at night, waiting for her to come home. Too afraid to be alone in the house, afraid that someone would come and get me. If it were too cold I would scrunch my knees to my skinny chest and sit in the narrow hallway so no eyes could find me through the mountains of glass that surrounded our home. When I finally saw her headlights coming up the hill my bleary eyes had a brief moment of imagined relief. Until we went in the house and then my fear once again escalated, because I was no longer afraid of some stranger breaking into our home and hurting me. I was afraid of her.
The crashing cymbals of her voice woke me from my silvery night. “Please, honey, please bring me something to drink. I have to have something. I promise baby, this will be the last time. I need it. You don’t understand. I have to have it!”
At first I wouldn’t answer, hoping that maybe one of my brothers would respond. Then my heart would start beating wildly in my chest, terrified that one of them would go in and there would be another fight. And she would get ugly. It was as if Jekyll and Hyde existed in my own mother, the mother who tried to take my father’s life over a bottle of booze.
She had come in quietly that night. I was barely seven. We were sleeping in my brother’s room and I woke up immediately when she entered. Even at that tender age my senses were as raw and honed as a knife. Everything went into slow motion. I remember lying there, frozen, watching her clumsily lumber over to where my father was sleeping in the other twin bed. Her massive, pendulous breasts were swinging awkwardly through her dirty, half open nightdress. She had a machete knife in one hand. and time. just. stopped. From far away I heard someone screaming as I saw her lift the knife high above her head and knew her intention was for it to come crashing down into my father’s heart. “Where is it?” she screeched, “What have you done to it?” The slow motion time frame sped up and I saw my father’s arms flailing wildly, reaching up to stop the knife as it came plummeting down, narrowly missing its target.
No one ever spoke about it again and my father left us soon after.
I had nightmares until I was eighteen, sure that the knife in her hand would finally find its rightful target-me. Those were the days I remember. Not much else, just the terror and the screaming and the fear, the crying and pleading and begging. The thousand promises that she would stop drinking, only she never did. The sanitariums and humiliation and embarrassment that I wore encased around my young body like a straitjacket. Those were the days of wine and roses. We lived in a beautiful home that held not beauty. I used to sit in the dark on the stairs outside at night, waiting for her to come home. Too afraid to be alone in the house, afraid that someone would come and get me. If it were too cold I would scrunch my knees to my skinny chest and sit in the narrow hallway so no eyes could find me through the mountains of glass that surrounded our home. When I finally saw her headlights coming up the hill my bleary eyes had a brief moment of imagined relief. Until we went in the house and then my fear once again escalated, because I was no longer afraid of some stranger breaking into our home and hurting me. I was afraid of her.
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