I didn’t realise until years later why my father had been trying to kill me so desperately when I was only eight years old.
In fact, I mostly forgot what had happened. Or at least, I tried to.
Once in a while, for no reason at all, a memory of his sudden hard push on the swing would come back to me, so vivid that I could feel his hands on my back, as strong and sharp as that day we were in the playground together. I remember how my tiny body was flung up high high high into the blue sky, higher than it had ever been, leaving the swing as gravity tugged my arms, swooping in an arc and then falling, tumbling by the green leaves and grass and sunlight. I remember thinking I had turned into a bird.
Then the terrible thud as I hit the spongey playground gravel.
Then I heard my dad calling me “Are you ok? Jennie?”
I staggered to my feet. “I’m ok dad!” I called, not wanting him to feel upset. He had seemed upset recently.
I saw the look in his eyes. I didn’t have the words for it then, but they were sparking angry. I knew he was hoping I couldn’t get up, but I was only eight, and I didn’t know what to do about that.
Or, I remember that time when I was pedalling around on my first bike in our driveway. It was such a pretty shiny red colour, covered with Cinderella stickers- I loved it so much. It must have been very soon after I fell from the swing. I looked up from, and saw our car backing in on me.
I realised I’m going to be squished, just like the roadkill we saw when driving out of the city, like a squashed bloody pancake with fur sticking out. I flung myself off my bike. The car ran over my pretty red bike with a horrible crunching sound of metal, I could feel the whoosh of the tires as I lay on the driveway, barely five inches away.
“Jennie! Jennie! Are you ok?” My dad rushed out of the car towards me, and paused when he saw the mangled bike while I got up. I saw that same look as when I fell from the swing- those burning angry eyes and then, I felt fear flicker deep in the pit of my stomach. I remember first feeling sad about my bike, but then more afraid than sad.
After he tried to drown me in a crowded city swimming pool, I knew I had to do something.
I didn’t understand why – he was generally a nice normal daddy, and he had promised me he would get a new red bike, just like the one he had accidentally crushed with our car. But then the swimming pool happened.
My and my dad had this little game in the shallow end - he would stand with his legs far apart, I would swim under the water and swim through his legs, and come up on the other side. I loved doing that- I could swim back and forth through his legs a hundred times!
Anyway, I swam through once, came up to the surface laughing with happiness at accomplishing this, dove back down, peered through the blue stingy chlorinated water at his legs standing wide apart, went through, and he brought his legs sharply together, gripping my sides tightly, squeezing and squeezing.
Sometimes I wake up at night, sweating, remembering the feel of his legs pinning my sides, holding me down in the water.
I scrabbled and pushed at his legs with my hands trying to make him let go of me, but when he didn’t I opened my mouth and bit him in the calf, sinking my sharp new teeth into his hairy flesh as deep as I could. He twitched and loosened his grip, and in that same instant I slipped out and up, gasping and spluttering.
We looked at each other through the bright blue pool waves. We didn’t say anything. I looked down, and I could see the dark trickle of blood by his legs.
We left the pool.
I knew he wasn’t going to leave it chance and accidents anymore. And I knew he was running out of time.
I never found out the exact nature of the business my dad was in- but I knew he had to kill me because of his business. He was talking a lot, loudly into his laptop, “the project has to start” “we need the money” “luck is on our side” and then promising he would “get it done”, and after the swimming pool I knew “it” meant killing me.
“I understand” I heard him say. “I will. By the end of the week.” And I knew he meant I would be dead by the end of the week.
“And you’ll hold up your end?” he asked into his laptop. “the investment…our project? Yes, yes, I know, I’m not doubting you.”
Years later, I was studying Greek Myths at high school and learned about Agamemnon and what he did to his daughter and realised that was why my dad was trying to kill me. To win something. He had to kill me, to make his business work.
After the swimming pool, I told my mom. She didn’t believe me at first. She looked at me with horrified eyes- “Jennie- what are you saying? About your own dad?”
-“Go look at my bitemark on his calf” I replied. She fell silent.
That night, I heard her moving about in the landing outside our bedrooms, just at the top of the stairs. I opened my door a bit, and saw her carefully placing my Lego pieces in a row right on the top stair. Then she went back in their bedroom.
I waited. Soon after, Daddy came out of their bedroom. He stepped on the lego, gave a small shriek and tumbled down the staircase.
Mom came out of the bedroom.
She was carrying the iron.
She went downstairs.
I crept out and looked down through the banisters, and watched my mom give a short swift bash with iron to my Dad’s head, as he was lying on the floor trying to get up. Immediately he fell back and his legs were still. Mom bashed his head again. Then she began coming up the stairs.
We looked at each other. And then we went each to our own bedrooms.
I honestly don’t remember much about what happened afterwards, just feeling good that no one was trying to kill me to make their business succeed.