During the entirety of my life, it was always just me and my mum, 14 whole years, I’ve been living a survival game with my mum, Katie as my teammate.
My dad was what you’d call an “imposter” in linguistic and gaming terms. When we’re with other people outside the family, he pretends. He pretends we’re the perfect family, full of love, merriment, jollity and any other positive emotion existing in the English dictionary.
But behind the closed doors of our home, it’s the pure contrary. I thoroughly recall, from the first years of my life, the formidable screams coming out of my mums mouth, as my dad punched and hit her for not having the dinner ready in time.
Whenever she didn’t manage to cook in-time, she’d worry, she’d cry, and sometimes even have full-on panic attacks, as she knew what was bound-to-come. My dad would get home and ask for dinner. “I’m sorry honey, It’s not ready yet, just a few more minutes”.
His face expression would turn from a drily smile to sullen. Angrily silent, yet so terrifying simultaneously. “Anne, go to your room and close the door, NOW.” he’d order. I wouldn’t hesitate nor show any reluctance. The locked, wooden, stiff door of my room wasn’t able to silence the background noise.
It was like a form of evil, an unseen force would posses my dad, and it was so random. He’d get mad when you never expect it. “Good morning sweet-pie!” he said one morning, he was cheery, and a wide smile filled his face. I couldn’t never expect anything going wrong.
As I sat, my mum was cooking pancakes, when she went to pour some water in his cup, she accidentally poured some on the ground. I will never forget his face, the smile faded faster than a blink of an eye, he stood up and threw the table and the glass of water, on the wall and my mum respectively.
My mum fell on the ground, her head was bleeding and she seemed to suffer from a concussion, he then turned to face me - I don’t remember much after that, I saw him charging up to me. “Come ever here you little brat”.
I felt the world spin around me as his cold fist reached my head, I woke up the next morning in my room, mum was cooking breakfast, acting as if nothing had happened the day before, dad was not home.
“How long are we gonna accept that treatment mum!? Why don’t you live him??” She’d always respond with the same fallacy she wanted to believe “your dad has been going through a lot at his work sweetie, just give him another chance, we should always give people more chances, he loves us both”.
I couldn’t believe that woman was so brainwashed to believe that he loved us. It was clear to me that my dad was two-faced. The first face was the face that brainwashed mum and tricked the rest of the world to believe that he was the greatest father ever.
The second face was the face mum and I were terrified of and would appear randomly, but always behind our closed doors. One random Thursday afternoon, dad entered the house with a bright smile on his face, full of gaiety.
“I got the promotion!” he cheered loudly. Mum was ecstatic. “I’ve decided that we’re going to move out, to a house near the woods, so peace and serenity can unite us more, and we’ll be the perfect family!” he announced. Mum and I were sceptical, but we daren’t ever object to him.
I knew that, since it was such a far away, secluded and isolated area, we’d lose contact with all our friends, including my bff at the time, Jill. I visited Jill for the last time on Friday, when I got there, we both burst in tears and hugged each-other for what felt like hours. Then she handed me an album.
The album was filled with pictures of us both together, when we had fun. “Anne come down now we have to go” yelled dad from downstairs. “Can’t you just tell him to stay for the night, since we’ll hardly see each other” only if she knew… you’d have to be quite quick-witted to talk back to my dad.
“No, sorry I’m sure he won’t let me” while I was leaving, Jill’s dad, Bob, told me “Goodluck” which I found quite odd, he then slipped a paper in the album. I was going to read it when we settled in our new home.
Two days in our new home next to the woods, everything was perfect, serene, calm and no outbreak from dad yet. ‘Till Monday, when mum accidentally broke a vase.
Dad had promised to “change” after the promotion. I believed it, at least I wanted to believe it, but deep inside, I knew that people like him could never change. And I was proven right. His face expression went dark.
His face had a dark hue, as if he got possessed by the devil himself. My heart raised a thousand beats. Then it all happened again. Last thing I remember was dad banging mums head on the wall and mum passing out. That night mum went to the hospital with dad.
He claimed that she fell down the stairs, and mum agreed, fully conscious of what happened. As I was laying alone in my bed, I was looking through the album Jill gave me a few days ago, that’s when I came across the little paper her dad had slipped in the album. So I read it.
“Domestic violence prevention hotline. inserted number “ . Right at that moment I had figured out what dad was doing to us. He was abusive, abusive to us, his own family. (To be continued)