The day started with my usual cup of coffee… or three. The moodiness of is leaving me with a soft sense of serenity. I sip my black coffee staring out the open window and feeling the cool, misty breeze. Something about rain and wind reminds me of home. I am home, but my real home, France.
I grew up in the Latin Quarter in Paris with my parents and my little brother. We were a happy little family, or so everyone thought. No one knew about the demons hiding behind the front door of our huge 5 bedroom house.
Dad had a drinking problem. He would come home every night with a furrowed brow and screaming at my mom, spit flying everywhere. As time went by, it changed from screaming to pushing, then slapping, then hitting. I would lock me and my little brother in my room and hold his ears shut sometimes if it got really bad.
My mom used to be so strong, but dad began to tear her down. Depression kicked in when I was 15 and it only went downhill. By the time I was 18, she was dead. Overdose. Dad moved on from abusing her to abusing me. I went to school everyday with a different bruise on my face, my arms, or my legs.
The day I graduated I was gone. My brother moved in with my aunt in Tibivierres on the outskirts of Paris and I made my way all the way to America, not knowing what I would do here or where exactly I would end up.
two years later I found a small, quiet town and moved into The Merian, which is where I am now sitting on my couch and watching the rain quietly fall, reminding me of the day my mom left me to fend for myself.
I’m thinking of her as I’m slumping around the house, cleaning away the toxic memories.
Damn, the power went out. Time to go back the sleep.
