I heard the strangled sounds of “Memories of You” when I was still two stoops away from ours and suddenly wished I’d stayed lost in time out on my boat. I didn’t start running until I smelled smoke. I was up the stairs in two giant strides and left my keys in the door so that they clinked together like chimes after the door slammed open. No smoke in the house, but I dropped my bag and followed the scent down the hall and past the stairs, where it suddenly overwhelmed me. By that time, a steady trail of papers and photos led me straight to the French door that opened to our tiny patio garden.
There, squished into the only corner that couldn’t be viewed by our neighbors on all sides, stood my dad, huddled over our largest stockpot, which was smoking and flaming for some reason. He shoved his hands into the box that held Mum’s mementos and pulled out pages by the fistful to scatter over the flames, then went back for more before I could scream, “Stop it!”
His eyes were red and his cheeks were wet, but his expression was almost animalistic. “Go to your room.”
“What are you doing? Why are you burning her things?”
“They’re my things,” he growled back. “My private things. And I won’t have your filthy fingers touching my things. I’d rather they were gone forever.”
“Those aren’t yours. They belong to all of us.”
“THEY ARE MINE!” He threw the box to the ground, and I watched as it tipped over, spilling the contents across the concrete of the patio. A picture of Mom as a child slid into a small puddle near one of the planters Michael had meticulously cultivated into something beautiful. I wondered briefly if he’d been out watering when Dad had started this mission.
“Everything of hers is mine.” He squared his shoulders at me, like he did whenever he was ready to start on one of his tirades about my worthlessness. Only this time, I didn’t smile. No hand on my hip. I couldn’t take my eyes off the photo that was already curling as it waterlogged. I did see him wave his arm wildly toward the mess as he resumed his shouting.
“This is all I have left. I lost a wife, and all I have left is this box of garbage!” He clenched his teeth and ground out his next words. “And you couldn’t leave that be. You couldn’t even leave me that.”
It had been me. I had done this. I’d gone into the box and somehow he’d known it. I’d created tonight’s version of the hateful, bitter troll that once was my dad. It occurred to me that I couldn’t remember what he was supposed to look like when he was being normal. It had been so long since I’d seen his normal self. Maybe that self no longer existed.
“That’s not all we lost,” I whispered. Or maybe I said, because he went from stock-still to charging toward me in an instant.
It all happened so fast in that cramped space, and yet slow enough that I saw the change in his eyes. I knew without a doubt that he would hit me for what I’d said, but I still wanted to believe that he wouldn’t. I had to believe it. He’d already destroyed so much with how he treated the boys, perhaps a part of me thought his refusal to touch me meant he recognized it was wrong, meant he could still somehow come back. Be different. I was the final line in the sand. The minute he crossed that line, there was no getting him back. So I stood resolute, watching him come at me, and forcing myself not to run.
Maybe we’d never had a chance of his coming back anyway.
I lifted my arms to guard my face, but he pushed me so the back of my head smacked against the brick of the house. I instantly felt wet on my scalp, but I couldn’t lift a hand to feel for blood. I couldn’t move.
“What did you say?”
I stared into his eyes, barely breathed, wondering if I’d survived the worst of it, if I could stop it, if it were inevitable or avoidable, if I could just work out the right thing to do. The music started to skip while we stood like that, too close for too long, until I felt like I would faint if I didn’t take a full breath. And then he turned his back on me and returned to his fire—his destruction of all we had left of her.
I couldn’t stand helpless and just let it happen. I couldn’t stay quiet.
“I said I lost more than a mother when she died.”
He spun on me, and I didn’t realize he was going to hit me again until I was leaning back against the bricks of the house and wondering which hurt most from the blow, my cheek or my neck.
“Tell me,” he barked. “Tell me what you’ve lost.”
I couldn’t speak, so he came at me again. I scrambled back, so only the tips of his fingers connected, leaving stinging scratch marks across my already swollen cheek.
“Tell me how much you love her, now that she’s gone. Say it. I dare you to pretend you didn’t hate her when she were here.” His next blow was a backhand to my other cheek. I tasted blood in my mouth, and realizing he’d hit me whether I spoke or not freed my words.
I ran my thumb along the side of my mouth to wipe away whatever it was that dripped from my lip, and blinked away the tears that fell. “I did love her. And you can hit me all you want, but it won’t make me think I didn’t.”
He raised his hand and I flinched away, so his open hand cuffed my ear. I felt sick and dizzy, suddenly wondering if spewing on him would make him hit me harder or leave me alone.