But this time, on this beautiful summer day, I did not pray or panic. Even though my heart was pounding, I felt strangely calm. I very quietly gripped the door handle and waited.
Eventually, he was forced to a stop behind several cars at a red light. He screeched to a halt, our bodies bowing. The second it was safe, I threw open the door, ripped off my seatbelt, and stumbled out. He took off.
I was nowhere. Just hills and grass on each side, among the sparse foothills of San Jose. I plodded slowly toward the new house he’d bought. The way back was all uphill. The sun beat down on my head, but I was shivering. I tried to count how many times I’d had to beg for my life, but I couldn’t. I wondered how long it would take before my luck ran out. Before he ran the wrong red light and we were T-boned by an SUV.
I walked back as slowly as possible, not knowing what would await me when I got home. The grass made me sneeze. On the side of the road, I saw a half-size shopping cart in a ditch. Hey, cool. I dragged it out and pushed it home with me.
When I got home, I opened the wooden gate at the side of the house and pushed the cart into the corridor there. And that’s when I saw the pile of tools. I had never noticed them before. They’d been left by the previous owner in a wheelbarrow next to the woodpile. They were old and rusty. A pitchfork. A shovel. An ax.
The perfect prop. The ax would certainly convey a message, I thought. A decisive back the fuck off if he was still angry. I weighed the heft of it in my hands and slid in through the back door. My father was asleep in front of the blaring TV. I quietly padded up into my room.
The day chugged forward into night. I was too afraid to go down into the kitchen to see if there was anything in the refrigerator. Probably not, anyway. So I didn’t eat. I didn’t cry. I sat on my bed fuming, my mind churning.
I had faced death so many times before that I knew the feeling well. At a certain point, your body gives up on wild, animal panic and instead settles into a foreboding calm. You accept the end. You lose hope. And then, with hope, goes sanity.
That’s how I found myself in his room in the middle of the night, standing above his bed. I watched him sleep, examined his gaping mouth, his peaceful face. Then I heaved the ax up above us in a graceful arc that would end on his balding skull. And I started to scream.
His whole body jumped up under the sheets, and he struggled to focus on me, on the ax, on his sorry situation, before he cried out in terror. It shames me to admit that threatening his life felt…satisfying. To hold so much power. To feel so much control. He squirmed, and for the first time in forever, I was not afraid.
“How do you like it?” I said quietly, in that same chilling, deadpan, serial-killer tone I knew so well, and it felt delicious in my own mouth. “How does it feel to be on the other side of things? To be inches from death? How does it feel when someone wants to kill you?”
He whimpered.
“ANSWER ME!” I screeched.
“N-n-not good! It’s not good!” His chin was wobbling. So dramatic, I thought. I handled this with more dignity when it had been my turn.
“I can bring this down on your head at any second. I will crack your fucking skull open. Slam it into you until your brains burst out of your head. Watch your eyeballs roll under the bed. Would you like that? Do you want me to do that?”
“N-n-n—”
“DO YOU?”
“No! No!”
“Okay, then let’s get one thing straight. You are never going to threaten my life again. NEVER. Do you understand me?”
“Yes.”
“I SAID. DO. YOU. UNDERSTAND. ME.”
“Yes!”
“You will never grab me. You will never touch me. You will never go over the fucking speed limit. You will drive right. You will never use your car to punish me. Do you have any idea what growing up with a constant fear of death has done to me? It has turned me into the fucking monster you see right now. This is happening because you did this to me.”
“Okay. I see. I see.”
“DID I SAY YOU COULD FUCKING TALK? Good. Now what do you say? Are you ever going to threaten me again? Will you ever?”
“No! No! I promise. I’m sorry. I’m so, so, so sorry. It was wrong.”
“No you’re not.”
“Please! I promise I won’t!”
“You fucking better not,” I said, and I swung the ax down to my side. I walked out of his room, slammed the door, and wrapped myself around the handle of that ax before falling asleep.
* * *
—
My father left a few months later.
The new house he’d bought us was in the middle of nowhere. It took me forty-five minutes to drive to school. So now I was alone in the boonies. The house was already large for two people, but once he moved out, it felt cavernous.
On the outside, it looked like a cookie-cutter Arrested Development home, made hurriedly for the pre-2008 housing boom. Inside, I painted the rooms wild colors: lime green and purple. One room was empty; I used it exclusively to throw dirty clothes into. The backyard had a broken fountain filled with brackish water, which was teeming with the carcasses of enormous Jerusalem crickets. One day, I was outside painting a large, red butcher-paper sign advertising the homecoming dance when the wind blew it into the cricket pool. The whole thing was super gross, so I just left it there. Over time, the paper disintegrated, and the water turned an ominous blood red.
My father would drop by a few times a week while I was at school and leave me a plate of roast chicken, maybe a sushi roll on the counter, but after I got food poisoning from the food sitting out too long, I threw it away. I had a debit card for essentials, but he checked my purchases every day and called to yell at me whenever I spent more than $40 on anything. I didn’t want to deal with any of that, so I rarely used the card except to buy gas to get to school. I subsisted on a large supply of shoplifted Healthy Choice microwavable dinners.
One time I heard noises downstairs and thought someone had broken in. I ran outside in a large T-shirt and no pants and begged the neighbors to call the cops. When they arrived, they searched my filthy home. They found clothing everywhere, frozen chicken burger wrappers on the floor, mugs and old plastic food containers piled on the coffee table. But they didn’t find an intruder. I still stayed awake all night.
After a couple of months alone, I began, as they say, “making plans.” I stole razor blades, sleeping pills. Most of my friends had graduated or moved away, so I barely talked to anyone at school. I filled up a journal’s worth of entries on how badly I wanted to die and wrote multiple suicide letters and last wills and testaments. On some bad nights, I’d call my father. He’d learned better than to pick up, so I’d leave him scathing voicemails calling him an impotent, fat loser; then I’d hang up and count out twenty pills in my hand, willing myself to swallow them all. Why not? When had I been taught that life was worth anything?
One of my suicide letters read: Father—I bet I’ve been gone for over 24 hours before you found me. You don’t deserve a goodbye.
CHAPTER 6