It’s painless for a child to think of her home as the safest place in the world. I considered it to be my paradise. I felt as it was my miniature utopia. My mother, father, grandparents and I were living together in this three-bedroom apartment. My days were repetitive; I would go to school every morning and come back every afternoon. I looked forward to spending the rest of my late afternoons with my grandparents. I never wanted to bother my mother while she slept after dinner had been prepared. She needed to rest for her two jobs that would help her way through nursing school.
My father had returned from Japan after a five-year absence. It was October, the weather was innocuous, and the colors of all appeared all over the city of Boston. I was only six years old when my father left. He moved to live in Japan for only three years. Without prior notice, my father extended his stay devoid of telling my family. I never gave him. Children routinely made fun of me since I had no father and before long, I became accustomed to being bullied and derided. I remember crying mutely every Sunday night because I knew the next day I would have to go to school and suffer.
It was bizarre to live with my father after five years. He was a short man, but taller than my mother. He constantly smelled of cigars and cologne. My father had a soft expression on his face whenever he looked at me. I never wanted to become close too attached to him because I feared that he would disappear again, but this time I’d be ready. I dreaded the idea of going through an everlasting cycle of trepidation; therefore, I distanced myself knowing that I would be better off.
I was very much like my father; I looked like him and acted like him too. How could I detest someone similar to me? Did I subconsciously hate myself? No, I just pitied him greatly. I never tried to have the average “father-daughter relationships.” I by no means tired to have anything which my father period.
My mother would stay up loner after my father returned home for good. She was not getting enough sleep every night, and this enraged me tremendously. Am I the only person that had not been thrilled to see my father after all these years? Why did he come here? Why didn’t anyone tell me? All these thoughts were running through my mind. Resentment towards my father increased, and the patience I once had with my family lessened. My mother blindly loved my father beyond comprehension, and I could not help but pity her. People show fondness towards each other differently, but my father looked and seemed apathetic when it came to loving my mother unreservedly.
Before my father’s leave, the last few months were hell for me. Something took place on the night before my father left, something I could never recur or repeat to my mother or grandparents. My mother had always wondered over the years why I feared to sleep alone in the dark. A flashback of my father sleeping next to me every night would appear in my, and I would lose my reason at once. I had always assumed he wanted to keep me company while I was falling asleep. “Shhh, let daddy sleep with you,” he said.
He touched me, -- touched me in places I wasn’t able to classify. That was absolutely the most frightening moment in my life. It was unfair and undeserved. I was only six years of age and believed in my father more than anything or anyone in the world. Once a child’s faith in someone is broken, it will never be restored. This man that vanished for five years had the audacity too look at me in with a guiltless expression on his face. His weird posture and height, the scent of his clothes… that outrageous odor of cigars and cologne, I hated everything about my father, everything.
Short
Created on 10-9-07
Views(47)
Story Rating G
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