I remember, I had once asked my mother why he treated me the way he did. Why was I treated so differently than my sisters? What had I done to cause him to hate me so much. I even once asked my mother if he was really even my father, and she had gotten upset when I asked.
Like I didn't have the right to ask.
Or a reason to question his paternity.
"Mom, do you know why dad hates me so much?"
I asked her as she was trying to clean up my newest busted lip and what seemed like it was soon to be my newest black eye.
Dad had just slapped me across the face. Because dad is such a large man and his hands are so large compared to my face, he was able to leave an impact on both my eye and my lip.
My mother was quiet for a few minutes, it appeared like she really had to think hard for an answer to my question. As if the answer was not as simple as it should have been.
Then she replied to me with, "He does love you sweetheart. He just doesn't know how to show his love very well. He is a very complicated man, sweetie. He loves and cares for you in the only way that he knows how to."
I thought about her answer, but it didn't make sense. Even if he didn't know how to show his love, why is he able to show it to my sisters? He was able to love my sisters but never able to love me.
So, I asked the question that had been plaguing me for a while, something that I have been wanting to know more than anything.
"Mom, is he really my dad? Do I have a different father than my sisters? Because that would explain why he treats me the way he does. He doesn't treat me the same way he treats my sisters. It seems like he hates me, which makes me think that I'm not his daughter. How could someone treat their daughter the way that he treats me?"
I stood there with tears welling up in my eyes, I was trying my hardest not to let them fall. I wanted to scream and sob as I waited on baited breaths for mom's response.
She did not say anything.
In fact she didn't say anything for a while, so long that I thought she was not going to answer my question.
She just stared at me for the longest time.
She took a deep breath and even walked the short distance towards the door of the bathroom. I thought she was going to walk out and leave me there, but then she turned around and walked back to me. She did not say or do anything for a moment. I wasn't sure that she was thinking or if she was going to answer me.
My head jerked to the side with a slap that came from my mom.
I was in so much shock when she reached back to slap me, that I did not even think about trying to dodge it. Her slap had reopened my busted lip and added to the blood that was still left behind from my father.
I stood there gaping at her as she finally answered me.
"How dare you question me like that. What gives you the right to think that you can question mine and your fathers relationship. I love your father and would never have cheated on him. He is your father, and you have no right to question me. I don't ever want to hear you talk like that or ever ask anything like that again. You are lucky he didn't hear you. If he had heard you, I would be cleaning up more than just a busted lip and swollen eye."
Still in shock, I stilled my emotions.
I held my tears back. I refused to cry in front of her.
How could a mother justify what was happening to me right in front of her face. She could clearly see how I was being abused, hell she was the one that helped bandage me up afterwards.
That was the last time that I expressed my feelings to my mom. And the last time that I asked my mother to help me clean and doctor myself after being beaten on by my father. That was a little over two years ago when we had that conversation.
I never asked about my father's behavior after that. I knew that she would not stand up for me or help me. Her love for him was blind. He could do no wrong by her and when he did, she would always have an excuse or a justification for it.
'He had a really hard day.'
'Your father has really been stressed here lately; he didn't mean all that.'
'I know he really didn't mean to hit you.'
Then her excuses and justifications turned into reasons why I provoked him. It was never him; it was always me.
"Why do you always have to do something to invoke your father? Why must you always upset him and bring out the angry side of him? He wouldn't be this way if you could only behave better and watch your attitude around him" my mother asked me one evening after my father had just finished using me as his punching bag.
Well, I don't remember provoking him.
In fact, there was nothing that I did to provoke him, but I couldn't say that to her.
She wouldn't believe me, she never does.
I once made the mistake of trying to tell her about how dad would just abuse me for no reason. Let's be honest, he never needed a reason to be abusive. For a minute there I was actually naive enough to think that she believed me. And possibly protect me from him.
Now I see that she never really did. Believe me that is.
This specific time, I had just walked too close to him while he was in the kitchen. I did not say anything, hell I didn't even so much as look in his direction. I was just too close to him, so he took that opportunity to back hand me and because I had the audacity to cry out, he punched me in the stomach. When I fell over from the pain, he took that opportunity to kick me twice before walking away.
That was the norm for me in our house.
My dad would get upset or let's be honest, sometimes he wasn't even upset. But I was a means to alleviate his anger or violent side. Then mom would explain all the things that I did wrong to cause him to act that way. It is sad when the abuse is so constant that it has become a normality in my life.