“You had to open the window and ruin my hard work,” my father tells me.
Standing in my doorway, screaming at me as if I had committed a great atrocity, my father glares down at me. My shoulders slump forward as I sit on the edge of my bed, partially because of the lecture but mainly because of my bad back. As I grew up my spine had curved giving me both scoliosis and kyphosis. It usually doesn’t hurt me unless I am very tired or very hot. That was why I had opened the window, to cool my room down, but my father would not listen.
When I was ten years old I remembered him yelling at me. I had spent most of the day riding my bike, but as I placed it in the garage I had scratched his car. The scratch was nothing big, located at the bottom of the side bumper I assured myself he would never see it. Later that night as I cowered in my room, gripping my pillow, a loud slam and my name yelled out stopped my heart. My father thundered into my room, grabbed me by the neck, and pulled me into the garage. Now, my father borders on obsessive to an unhealthy degree when it comes to his car. This is a man that can yell, red-faced at a three year old for putting a finger on the window and making a smudge.
Leaving me cowering against the garage wall, my father returned into the house and came back with a notebook of great importance to me. Filled with hundreds of Pokemon cards, some worth quite a lot, my father began shaking them out of their protective covers. Stepping on a few for good measure with his favorite red slippers, my father told me if I did not respect his things he would do the same for mine, and then left telling me to clean up the mess. Crying and shaking from fear, I picked up the cards thinking only two thoughts. One, that the breeze coming from the garage door felt good against my back, and two, that my father must love his car a lot more than he did me.
“You have nothing to say, nothing at all? It’s like you don’t care, like you’re some sort of sociopath,” my father tells me.
Months before, having come home for winter break, I lay in my bed asleep. Someone sitting on my bed and pulling at the covers woke me up. It was early morning, and being the weekend I did not want to be up, so I paid no attention to them. Nudged a few times and asked if I was asleep I grunted my reply. I turned over to see my father sitting there in shorts and his favorite red slippers. Not wanting to talk or even see the man, I turned back over and closed my eyes.
The day before he had yelled at me, scolded me and said terrible things, simply because he thought I had made a wrong choice. In all my life I have never gotten into that much trouble, my parents never grounded me once; but that was over. The day before he told me that he owned me and because he paid for my college, I would live under his rules until after graduation. He told me that my life for the next four years was to be focused on schooling and nothing else, no relationship; nothing.
As I lay there holding on to my pillow, hoping a cool breeze would help my aching back, I refused to answer him. He tried to get me to understand what he did was out of love and that he meant the best for my future. He told me he did not want me to be upset or depressed but I had brought this upon myself. Evidently when I was older I would understand, but until then I had to trust the man that ended my life. I was filled with anger and hate, and I would not give him the satisfaction of a reply.
“You can leave this house if you don’t want to be part of this family,” my father tells me.
As I lower my head, I notice my father is still wearing his favorite red slippers. I can almost see the green bow I had placed on them years ago on Christmas Eve. Sitting on my pillow on the floor beside the tree Christmas morning, I can feel the cold air wrap around me as I finished opening presents. Reviewing everything I had gotten that year, I looked under the tree to see the unopened presents. Each was my father’s, who was working that Christmas at the hospital. As a child it seemed unfair, Christmas was a time for the family but year after year my father requested it for his holiday coverage.
I had picked out the soft, red slippers on my own, and felt proud having been able to pay for them with my own money. But they would remain there until the next day, where he would open them without me, returning home early to see his presents under the tree. I brought my legs up to my chin and shivered as a cold breeze wrapped around my back. I would wish every year he would be there that Christmas, but every year he seemed not to be part of the family; exempt.
“He has become such a disappointment,” he tells my mother.
