“Mom, I’m back!” I walk into the house, my skinned knees stinging.

“Okay! Go wash up!” My mom yells from somewhere in the house.

I walk to my room and reach up on my tippy toes so I can open the big, wooden door and I fall on my face, Stupid door! I groan as I get up, looking at my knees, they’re bleeding a little. I shrug it off and walk across the room to the huge dresser that belongs to my sisters and I, and I open up my drawer. I, carefully, change out of my Barney shirt and purple shorts and into a pair of blue shorts and a darker blue t-shirt.

Bang! Crash! , I hear from outside my bedroom, so I moved so that I was face to face with my Barney clock. I read the time and ran out of the room.

My dad…he’s an alcoholic. So yeah, he’s a heavy, HEAVY, drinker. So I’m used to him breaking stuff when he gets drunk. Nothing could compare to what I was about to witness.

I ran out of my bedroom to see what was going on. I could do that because you can see the whole living room and part of the kitchen from my doorway. I can’t see what was going on from inside my room now can I? Although, from the inside I could hear the screaming, the screeching, the swearing, and the yelling. I still couldn’t see from the doorway because the couch is in the way and it’s too tall for my short body to see over. Moving so I was in the doorway, the noise was overpowering and I ultimately felt like I was going deaf.

I move to the front of the couch, and stand in front of my siblings; I can feel the blood rush away from my face leaving me a sheet of white. My dad was on the couch. On top of my mom. Hitting her.

“Daddy?! What are you doing?!” I yell.

He ignored me and continued hitting her, his short dark brown hair flying everywhere.

My mom is hitting him, kicking him, and trying to push his slender, scruffy body off of her. While she’s pushing him her blond hair is lying on the couch, her soft blue eyes full of fear.

I look behind me and see my little sisters are crying. My brother looks pale; his eyes look like he’s lost in thought, though he is trying to get our sister, Kensie, to stop crying. And he’s failing, miserably.

Morgan’s short blond hair is sticking to her face as she is watching the scene in front of us. She is too little to know what is going on. But I know, I know my dad is drunk again. I know this time is different. I could feel it in my heart, my soul, and in my head. I could tell he was going to do something drastic while I was riding my cousin’s horse earlier today.

Kensie, nine months old, was crying from the loud noises. We are standing in the mix of the chaos. Watching, waiting apparently. My terror had turned to anger, “Paul, get them to Aunt Deb and Uncle Doug’s! Now!”

“I can’t take both of them on my own!” Paul yells back, his face is still pale, and he is still trying to get Kensie to stop crying.

“Just go” my voice sounded tired. I diverted my eyes to the front door. The big inside door was open, but the little outside door was closed. I run over to the door beckoning my brother to follow me. I open the door a little so he could get Kensie out of the chaotic house.

Morgan still didn’t move, it was as if her feet were nailed to the floor, “Morgan! Go!”

She shook her head crying, “No! I wanna stay with Mama!”

“Go with Paully!” My nerves are fried. I have absolutely no patience left to deal with her. I have more important things to worry about than my three year old sister who doesn’t want to listen to me. So, before she had a chance to answer me, I push her out of the door, basically, pushing her out of the house. I turn back so I have a frontal view of the couch and run over to try and help her. I try again and again but each time he just pushes me backward. I hear the door open and I lightly get pulled backwards.

“Sweetie, are you okay?” I turn and see that it’s just my aunt. I don’t answer her question; I just turn back to my parents.

When I turn back, I see my uncle grab my dad by the collar of his shirt, screaming in his face, “Trent! What the hell are you doing?!” he pulled my dad out the front door.

I run over to my mom, who’s silently crying to herself, “Mommy are you okay?” I ask in my softest voice which is filling the quiet atmosphere inside the house.

“Yeah, mommy’s alright” her voice was shaky, she still looked scared.

It was as if she thought he was coming back into the house. But he never did. I know she is lying to me, but I hug her anyways because she really looks like she needs a hug.

As she put us to bed that night she seemed really jumpy.
“Goodnight girls” My mom says.

I look over at her, she’s just finished tucking in Kensie. Kensie’s bed is adjacent to the bunk bed that Morgan and I share, so it was easy to see.

I reached over and turned on my boom box and put the fluorescent orange headphones on my head so I could get to sleep. But, sleep felt was so far in the distance because my mind kept replaying the incident. If my mom noticed something was wrong she either ignored it or didn’t notice because she walked out of the room without another word.

The next morning, I skipped my breakfast to go see my mom. I froze in place when I saw that my mom was lying down in bed with my dad, who had two black eyes, both have blood oozing out of them.

She forgave him?! After what he did to her?! I walk over and hug my mom, totally ignoring my dad.

“Mommy! Daddy!” Morgan comes running in.

I hear a familiar yell and footsteps that stop as soon as the words were spoken. I pull back from the hug and glare at her but she doesn’t notice it because she’s too busy sucking up to “daddy”. Mom put me off to the side.

“Daddy, are you okay?” Morgan says in a tone that I can tell as her ‘suck up’ tone.

He glanced up at me before he answered. “Yeah, Daddy’s okay Princess”

I rolled my eyes.

All of a sudden the words he just said started echoing in my head. Out of the corner of my eye I see Morgan sticking her tongue out at me. The words are getting louder and louder inside my head that they were practically screaming at me ‘Yeah, Daddy’s okay PRINCESS!’

I squeeze my eyes shut to keep from crying. I feel like I’m going insane. I could no longer hear the constant chatter that was going on in the bedroom, which looks like it’s just getting smaller and smaller. As I start walking out of the room I see that my brother has joined in. I stop at the doorway and turn around.

My mom and dad are lying in the bed. My sister Kensie is sleeping in the middle. Morgan is jumping up and down on the bed. And my brother is laughing at something my dad just said.

They looked like a big happy family and I’m just an outcast. They didn’t notice I was still partially in the room, crying.

I didn’t know I was crying either, until I tasted the salty tears in my mouth. I run as fast as I can back to my room. I slam the door behind me and climb up onto my top bunk and cry. I cry out all the hurt, anger, and frustration. I’m crying very loud but nobody hears me. Except for my puppy Rascal, who is whimpering at the ladder of my bed.

“You still love me don’t you buddy?” I ask him as I get onto the floor next to him. He lays his small puppy dog head in my lap.

I sit there petting his head silently wishing for my mom to come into the room and ask me ‘what’s wrong?’ but nobody does.

My sisters Kensie and Morgan are nine months and three years old when this incident occurred. They can’t remember this fight what so ever. They can’t remember because scientifically speaking, the part of the brain that stores the memories wasn’t developed yet. But mine was, and so was my mom’s and my brother’s. They don’t have any recollection that this happened. Only me. I’m the only one that remembers.

Do you know the saying, “forgive and forget”? Well, to me it looks like my mom and brother forgave my dad for what he did, because they forgot.