By Valerie K
He wanted so badly to cry, but he couldn’t. The tears wanted his eyes to blink and release themselves down his face, but his pride refused to let it happen.
He walked over to the fireplace and picked up the picture of his three daughters and his wife. They all looked so happy. You could feel their personalities just by looking at the picture. His wife sat in front of the girls; she looked tired, old and weak – but happy nonetheless.
This was the only time he saw the girls this happy. Maybe this picture was taken during the time he had moved out.
Rage filled his body. “Ahhhhh!” He screeched and flung the picture at the kitchen door, shattering the glass picture frame.
He sat alone, in the empty house, wishing so badly that the silence would dissipate. He wanted to hear his youngest daughter, Tina, run down the stairs laughing and singing again. He wanted to hear Valerie, the middle child, yelling “shutup!” This would then be followed by his oldest daughter, Jeanie, telling her sister not to talk to Tina like that -- which then would lead them to another quarrel.
He never felt so alone.
“Daddy, today in school we learned algebra,” he heard his youngest daughter say. He turned toward the sound. There was no one there. Emptiness surrounded him.
He walked back to the mantle and picked up a picture of Valerie. It was her prom picture. She had on a purple dress and five- inch heals, she was getting into the car about to drive off for her prom.
Once more he wanted to cry, but couldn’t. Instead rage filled his heart. He didn't remember her being this old. He had missed all of the moments a father should have cherished.
He stared at Valerie. She was so pretty. Just like her mother.
He smashed the picture frame open and ripped the photo up. But that didn’t matter, no one ever came in the house anymore. No one was there to notice what he had done.
He was completely and utterly alone.
He left the room and walked into the kids’ room. There were more pictures, everywhere. So many moments that he had missed and could never get back.
He stared at his daughter Valerie's graduation picture. She was handing a rose to her mom, and you could see a single tear go down her mom’s face. She was proud of her daughter.
“I didn’t mean to,” he mumbled, staring at the picture. “It wasn’t my fault.”
In the photograph, he thought he saw Valerie move. He was surprised by this but intrigued to see what would happen next. His daughter stared at his face and now he realized she was examining every bit of ugliness on him, including his huge nose in the middle of his face. He realized that she hated that nose, his nose, because she had the very same one on her face.
“I hate you,” was all that she said to him, and the picture went back to normal as if nothing had happened.
“It wasn’t my fault," he mumbled. He went into the kitchen and flung open the refrigerator door looking for something that could calm him down. He grabbed a 40-ounce and immediately opened it and drank half of it.
“It was your fucking mother.” He yelled that. But no one was there to hear him.
“Am I not the man of this house? That bitch…” he brought the bottle back to his face and drank more, drowning his sorrows with the beer.
“…wouldn’t let me do shit. Every fucking time I would be gone for more than one night she would say I was a piece of shit father. Well fuck her! And every time I look at your damn face, all I see is your mother. It wasn’t my fault.”
He took another huge gulp of beer and continued ranting. “At first, I used to like yo ass. I would take you places. I even named you after my only older brother. But then the older you got, the more you acted like her. Your mother. You used to get mad at me, just like she did. You would ignore me and shit. But I’m the fucking man of this mother-fucking house. And sometimes I would have to remind you of that.”
He laughed to himself. “I would do small shit, hoping you get the fucking point. Like make you stand up all night. Discipline yo ass, that’s what you needed – discipline. But you had too much of ya daddy in you…you would cry but I couldn’t break you.” He drank some more. “And you knew that shit pissed me the fuck off. So I would pop you, not hard, just on ya hand. And you wouldn’t cry. Damn, yo ass knows so well how to upset your father. So I would hit you harder. When you fell down I just couldn’t control it, I let all my anger out any way I could … with my hands, my feet, and my teeth.”
He finished the rest of his beer, and grabbed the bottle of vodka, and smoothly he laughed.
“Then you yelled ‘Ma, Mommy help me!’ Why didn’t you just call out for me. I am the man of this fucking house. I protect you all.” He brought the bottle to his mouth and took a sip. “You must have forgot that. See, I told you it wasn’t my fucking fault.”
“But you hated me, and every chance I could, I would beat some fucking respect into you…for your own good. But you never learned. It wasn’t my fault, I just was doin' my duty as a father.” He went back to the graduation picture sitting on the TV. “Did you hear me, it wasn’t my fault?”
There was no answer. The house was silent. A single tear ran down his face.
He was so alone.
And he would be so alone.
Forever.
This is part two of a "Flip Your Script" set of stories. In Part One, called ********BOOM********, writer Valerie K -- a pseudonym for a writer in upstate New York -- wrote about the abuse she suffered at the hands of her father growing up. In this, the second part of the story, Valerie steps into the hands of her abusive father. Valerie says that writing these two stories has given her immense comfort, and she is now determined to keep writing as a way of healing from the abuse.
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