I remember my sleep was restless that night. I just could not get comfortable. So I sat up, convinced that I wasn't going to be getting any sleep that night. I looked over to the foot of the bed. In a pale shimmer of light I saw my cat, Christy, asleep. I looked in the living room that was only a few feet away from my room in our small trailer and I saw my mother on the couch. Huddled in a ball , she sat crying, staring desperately out the window. She must have felt my stare because her water filled bloodshot eyes turned to look at me. When she turned the light from the window hit her face and I could see it clearly. I could see the trails from where the tears had flowed down her plump cheeks. Without her even having to say a word I threw off the quilt that my grandmother gave me when I was born and slipped my small 10 year old body out of bed. I felt the cold penetrate every inch of my body through my worn nightgown. I'd had that nightgown for years. I didn't have it in me to get rid of it no matter how hard my mother tried to make me, she always failed. I remember it had the Tiny Toons charactors on it and it said "Schools Out" on the back. And as I walked toward my mother I felt chills running through the length of my body not from the cold but from fear. I was scared of what might be wrong. The only thing I knew was that dad hadn't come home by the time I had gone to my 9:30 bedtime which was very unusual. Mom had stayed up to wait on him and she was still up. When I fell asleep she was watching t.v.

"Mom..what's wrong?" I whispered, my voice sounding small and scared.

"dad...." was the only thing she uttered before her body was yet again racked w/ sobs.

I remember it was my neighbor Amy's 16th birthday and we were at K-mart shopping for a gift. While there I discovered something I absolutely had to have-it was a Barbie Doll that I didn't have and had never seen before her name was Stacey-mom ended up buying her for me. She told me she had something to do-somewhere to go. I don't recall much but I do remember driving down the road in the dark, me sitting in the passenger seat taking my new doll out of her box, mom driving down a neighborhood that seemed very familiar. It was the same one my dad had taken me down one night. He just told me to get in the car and we drove to Combs and ran by a strange woman's house and right back home. It seemed strange but I thought nothing of it. I didn't even think to tell mom. Mom drove by and I saw dads car there then me and mom went home. Now things were beginning to come in focus.

About a week later was the first time my father hit my mother.

"I know", my mom declared standing in the middle of our kitchen.

"Know what?", my dad grumbled from the chair in the living room he always sat in.

"I know about her.", she said this with pure confidence and power. Her hand on her hip and her eyes staring emotionless at my father.

"Her who?" He sounded very unsure of himself. He knew who she was and he knew she had found him out but he wasn't gonna falter. He wasn't going to admit everything so quickly.

"You know. Mary. Don't tell me you don't know that bitch. I know you’re seeing her."

It was a blur from there. I was sitting on the sofa on the other side of the room. My dad jumped up and rushed into the kitchen where my mother stood. He towered over her as they spoke. I covered my ears with my hands as their voices got louder and they began to scream. I closed my eyes tight as my dad raised his hand. I couldn’t keep them closed for more than a second. As I opened them as I saw my dad’s right hand slide across my mothers’ cheek. I gasped, it was then that they remembered that I was still in the room watching everything. All I could see was the mix of shock, pain and anger flood in my mothers’ crystal blue eyes. I saw one tear then two then the tears were streaming down my mothers face like a dam broken inside her. My father rushed to me, his arms trying to embrace me but I ran from beneath them to my room, my sanctuary, where I stayed for the rest of the night. The only thing I heard after I closed my door were my mothers words.

"I thought you told mommy when we got married that you would never hit me?"

After that night the fights became more frequent and more violent. One even broke two of my mothers ribs and sent her to E.R. Sometimes he would hit me if I got "in the way". Things were getting worse until one day my mother fought back.

I don’t remember what caused it but I do remember how it ended. They were arguing. It was their most appalling argument to date and my mother pulled out this cast iron skillet. It was huge and it must have weighed at least 5 pounds. It was my grandmothers’ and it went way back in our family. They were yelling-it was a blur of angry words and movements.

The muscles in my mothers’ face were set in stone as she tightened her grip on the skillet. Her eyes moved down my fathers’ body and set their target. Her arm straightened and she swung with all the force she could muster in her tiny 4’11 body and missed her target by inches. Instead of his groin she hit his leg cursing with the breath he had left in his body. My mother dropped the skillet with a heavy thud. To this day he hasn’t ever raised a hand to my mother.

But he did raise his hand to me. He was afraid of mom. He knew she would fight back. So he had to find another way to take out his anger-or another victim. I don’t recall what I did wrong. But if it was anything like it is now, it was probably nothing.

He started screaming at me first. My mother just sat in the background, staring helpless as I cowered in front of him. If I cried he got louder and more profane. If I spoke I was "talking back" and he would hit me wherever it was most convenient. I remember the first time his hand swept across my plump young cheek. He was yelling and I screamed at him to stop and he raised his hand behind his cheek. As I stood under him in our small kitchen, everything began to slow to a horrifying crawl as his hand neared my cheek. My vision was blurry, my glasses were drenched in tears. The initial contact of his hand knocked my glasses off my face. The inner rims of my glasses scraped the flesh from my nose to my chin as they slid down my face.

The aftermath was frigid. I realized the drumming in my ears was from my heart pounding in fear. Again my dad reached his arms to restrain me. His movements were quick not enabling me to disappear from them. I stood frozen in my fathers’ embrace, dew collecting on my face like the morning dawn.

At that moment standing there I felt naked. A part of my life died. I no longer had a "father" in my life. He had abandoned our family the day he fell into the web of another woman. When he hit me, he slapped my love for him out of my heart. And I know it’s gone for good. Never to return.