Father, Who Art Thou?

By Veronica Andrews

I often feel as if I'm a small tree in this universe, vulnerable to even the slightest breeze. My leaves fall like tears. And like those leaves, my tears come back every season. Some branches break as my heart does, from a harsh wind caused by one's hurtful words or hurtful doing. I remain standing bare, feeling and looking undesirable, sad, lonely, cold, and lifeless.

Until love shines over me like the sun's warmth coming through the clouds. Allowing my branches to breathe again, filling my hea

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9781681392233

Book preview

The Recapture

No one would want to experience what I have in my life, nor do they deserve to. Don’t assume it was all bad; sometimes bad was good too. For most of my life I couldn’t wait to escape. Escape from a place I called home. I often pondered my past, and wished I could go back in time. I never thought I would say that, but I just did. Just for one reason: answers. Maybe I would get answers the second time around. I know I will never get them now. What is in the answer I seek? Something to reassure what I already know to be true in my heart—nothing.

Remember your childhood? I do. Some instances more clearly than others. The really happy memories, and then there’s those really painful, damaging ones. They seem to stick out more than the happy ones. I thought good always conquered evil? Well, in the end anyway. Now try to pick a person presently or in the past who you idealize the most. Usually girls pick their mom or grandma. For me it was my dad or Daddy. There are five of us in my immediate family: father, mother, brother, sister, and me the baby. My dad’s favorite, I believed. It seemed that way to everyone else, I think. Every parent in my opinion has a favorite child, as does a grandparent a favorite grandchild. I don’t care what your mom or dad says. Even when you ask them later on, they will lie, and you know who the favorite is. It’s kind of obvious. Then you also have the type of parent who changes their mind. You suddenly become the favorite because the favorite is mad at the parent or is away on business. There is nothing wrong with this, as long as there is nothing wrong with the person who is claiming you as the favorite.

But how do you know when you are a child what’s right and what’s wrong?

Children by nature and the way God intended are naive creatures. This is so a child could learn from their older and wiser elders. God! What a wonderful gift to give human beings. No matter what you tell a child, they will believe it. I mean they may wonder how when you tell them Santa Claus knows if you’re naughty or nice, but they will believe it. They believe it because they trust their guardians—a bond that should never be broken. But as time goes on, a child learns logic and understands that it is impossible for a man to bring presents to every child around the world in one night. Do we later feel foolish for believing it? No, because it brought many wonderful memories close to our heart. There is no feeling of mistrust from a child toward his/her parent, but more of a feeling of gratefulness for the experience of such a wonderful lie.

Now to the point and the beginning of as far back as I can remember. I can recall many memories and images of my life as far back as three years old. I remember my dad being home all the time. I knew then that he did not work. My mom was the provider in my eyes. He was an electrician and got hurt while he was working. The accident left him with severe neck and back damage due to a large pipe falling out of a ceiling. Later after the accident, he had back surgery. The doctor that operated on him made several mistakes. So my father sued for malpractice and patiently awaited trial, which took several years to complete. In the meantime, he was unable to sufficiently care for himself without having to ask us for help. I feel by nature we are more dependent on a mom for emotional support and comforting. The dad was the decision maker, the provider. My dad for me was the comfort zone. He made me feel safe because he was always there, although he was depending on us.

Don’t misunderstand my mom’s character. She was and is the typical mom. She was always involved with our school activities, friends, and so on. Uncontrolling though. She left that unknowingly up to my dad. My dad was the controller, the king. Things must be done his way. There is no other way. Typical man? No. This is unhuman. There is a very fine line between trying to persuade people to feel and think the way you do and manipulating them. My dad was and is a great manipulator. Among other things, unfortunately. I always said and still catch myself saying (but not often), You would have liked my dad or There was no one who didn’t like my dad. I even tell my boyfriend, If you didn’t know my story, you would have, and he always cuts me off with saying, It doesn’t matter now or I know, I know, I don’t care. Does this bother me? Of course not. I did love part of him, a small part.

As a child I was always a little uneasy in his presence. Something just didn’t feel right. How could this be? When he was the one I felt I could always count on when I was scared or upset. He always made me feel for a moment that things were okay, not better. It was like a game. My father would say stuff that scared us (me and my siblings), and then relieve us with a Just kidding, but always leaving a shadow of a doubt remaining. It was kind of like we did something wrong. This wasn’t your typical comical scaring or kid stuff. It was unhealthy.

Some people, even myself, would say something purposely to scare a child in a joking manner. For instance, on a cold October evening, you and your loved ones are seated at the dinner table, and it’s quiet. Suddenly a howling wind is heard and felt, leaving a chill in the air. You might have suggested that there is a wolf outside the window. A child will be scared even though they know they live in the city, not the woods. My dad always took things to the next level.

Question: when was the first time you viewed The Exorcist? I was three years old. So while you watched Scooby-Doo, I was being traumatized by Regan, the foul-mouthed vomit queen. I laugh about it now because it’s the least of my problems.

There was also a different side to my dad, a sort of good side. I had a wide selection of toys and videos. All a cover-up basically. Oh, what a wonderful father you have. Even today I still hear some of my relatives saying, Well, at least he bought you everything. Ignorance and no knowledge of what really went on, that was the problem. I would have been happy with a hug for Christmas or even an I love you. Those three words weren’t in my dad’s vocabulary. Well, not toward his children anyway. Wow, my dad never said I love you? Come to think of it, I don’t recall saying it to him either. I’m not justifying it. I’m surprised by it. I idolized this man, and I never recall saying, Daddy, I love you? Perhaps deep down I really didn’t love him. My love, I believe, was more of a fear. I was definitely afraid of him. In the beginning of my childhood, the fear was different than when I was growing up. My fear as a child left me lost in my own home. My dad never rescued me. He always left my mind unprotected. He was the ball and chain wrapped around my ankle. His words always tagged along with me in my mind. He could change my actions and thoughts with the slightest touch or word.

Sometimes I wish I had been bad as child. Then his poisoning my soul would have been more conceivable to me, but not acceptable. At about the age of seven, I remember lying in my bed late at night, thinking about his behavior that day. Contemplating over and over to figure out what it meant when he said something unusual. Was it real? Was my mom really going to die? That’s when I believe the end of my childhood began.

Well, let us backtrack to the viewing of The Exorcist. My brother was ten, my sister was six, and I was three. We were forced to watch it. We only had one television, and even if we stayed in our rooms, we could hear it. Why did he do this? Control. After the film was over or in the middle of it, Dad would send one of us in the back of the house for no reason. I guess this seemed amusing to him at the time, but he was aware of the effect this had on us. The one who wasn’t scared and was willing to complete the test was the fun one. I guess I wasn’t fun at three years old, but I was aware of what was going on. I watched the fear in my brother’s eyes when my dad told him to go to his room and come back. Stop being a chicken shit. One of my dad’s phrases. Who would want to be alone after seeing a horrible image on television? My sister oddly wasn’t scared and went down the long dark hallway that led to our bedrooms. He never seemed to get to her as completely as he did to me.

Back to the death of my mom.

Do you know that my mom died more times than humanly possible? It’s amazing. My mom worked 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. It was sometimes almost unbearable without her. She was the normality that stabilized our young lives. The thought of her dying was the most frightening thing to me at that time. She is the reason that there was some norm to this everyday lifestyle we were living. So we fought our nervous emotions to survive and basically kept our mouths shut. My mom would arrive home at almost exactly 5:30 p.m. each week night. When 5:36 p.m. came around, my dad would say condescendingly, Oh, um, it’s 5:36, where’s Mommy? We would reply with a nervous shrug or a hopeful answer: She’s probably stopped at a store. He then said sadly to one of us, She must be dead. Yeah, she’s dead because you lie. We would now be filled with panic. Then he said to one of us, Should I bring her back to life? A soft nod from one of us did the trick. The miracle man would bring her back to life. Suddenly, the sound of keys jingled outside our front door. It was so believable. It was as if he really did bring her back to life. Mom’s okay! Mom’s alive!

Mom entered the living room also known as Dad’s bedroom. According to him, he couldn’t sleep on a bed because of his back and neck condition. So our sofa was his bed. He kept his personal items in the bedroom where my mom slept. I looked over at his face and examining it as mom walked in toward us, on the rug next to the television. He looked at me as if not to say a word about what had happened only a few minutes earlier. The lines in his face became relaxed almost as if he was relieved that she was alive too. I remember these occurrences happened mostly during the dark winter nights. My mom would be ready to take on the evening responsibilities after a long day at work. Her face was fresh with soft pink cheeks. Her hair tossed from the cool winter air. A big black leather pocketbook hung off her shoulder. A sense of warmth as I think back.

Hi, guys, what’s up? she asked.

We shrugged. She stood there and glared at the four us as if she was aware something unusual had just happened. My siblings and I excitedly stood up to hug her and followed her into the kitchen. My parents weren’t the type to kiss hello. A nod from my father was his way of saying hi. He would just sit there with his usual half smile as if he was wonderful. Well, wasn’t he? He gave us another chance to be good, and Mom was all right. I really believed he had magical powers, just has he had planned for me to. As for my brother and sister believing it, well, let’s just say that if the three of us were up for an auction, my father would have paid double for me. I was very vulnerable and naive for a very long time. Easy to be trained and manipulated. My father placed guilt on my back the day I was born; my chance of survival was already two to one. Father and his alter ego.

Some time passed. The happier times seemed to come less frequently, and the reality of my life has settled. The words he spoke would linger over me. I couldn’t get his thoughts out of my head. Don’t step on any cracks on the way to school, or your mom will die.

I know how the poem really goes: "Don’t step on any