Joel, Elena House-Hay [good books to read for women .txt] 📗

I sat on the torn, frayed couch that was my favorite. I watched the T.V. as my father had told me to do, but the volume was not up very loud. My legs did not yet reach the ground then, and all of my memories were fond ones. The only thing troubling me was that my parents fought a lot, but my friend Mark said that it was just normal; his folks did it too. I trusted him and I always would.
I pulled at the fraying couch, a habit my tired mother would always reprimand, but I never saw the harm in it. I look back on the moment that followed with grief, anger, and sadness. I did not prevent what proceeded; I did not see the gravity and blackness of it. I was blindsided by its occurrence, and could not seem to break out of my trance of the moment.
My folks were fighting that day, whenever my dad sent me to watch television, I knew that they were fighting. I never heard the words, I never saw the anger, and after wards, my dad would usually tell me that he and my mother loved me, “so much”, fixing all of my worry, and then he would head over to the liquor cabinet to drink. Looking back now, I should have sensed that when he drank and got “funny” and talked about my mother, he was only showing his true colors. I should not have laughed and accepted his words. I should have spit them back like poison and made him wallow in his hatred.
On this day, I heard my folks' voices rise above the television, for the first time in my life. I heard the wild insults, the cursing, and then a sound I will never forget. It was a high-pitched slap and then something crashed to the floor, breaking into pieces. My living room had a clear view of the door and I watched as my father stormed out of the first-floor bedroom.
In slow motion, he turned to me; he smiled a huge smile, free and exuberant. He winked at me. He turned back around, the whole world sped up again. He then slammed the door behind him, rattling the windowpanes.
From the room he walked out of, a bottle came crashing against the hard door, shattering instantly as a golden liquid misted the entrance to the door. Today, I can still smell the poison left behind by the small, expensive cologne bottle. Every time I walk through the door, I smell it, and I think of him. I think of when he left me and my mother; jobless and in a broken home. I remember his wink and his smile; I will never forget his smell.
Sometimes I sit on the frayed couch, which was never replaced, and at the door that was never repainted, in the house that fell to shambles. My mother constantly dressed in shabby, ill-fitting clothes, always saying that something ached, popping a pill for every complaint. The windows dusted over, the lights flickered and the rug was worn. Everything else stayed the same since the day he left.
As for Mark and his wayward advice, I still treated him as a brother. Not soon after my moment, he had his. Mark's mother left with a bang, and his father, he told me, was always in a drunken stupor. His house was on a hill amongst green land, he spent as much time outside as he could, looking over the fields. His house smelled like decay and alcohol and was in no better repair than mine.
He saw his mother from time to time, but my father remained in darkness, never resurfacing, leaving me with his smell, his smile, and his wink.

Publication Date: 12-31-2009

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