Work Text:
June, 1968
I can hear his harsh panting as he makes his way to the front door, his feet shuffling across the gravel pathway sluggishly – drunkenly. Judging by the way he’s moving and the late (or early, depending on perspective) hour, I’d wager that he’d decided to reward himself after a hard day’s work with a night of hard drinking. Despite the fact that he’s my father, I find it hard to mask my distaste at the thought of seeing him too drunk to function again. Sighing, I flip on the lights by the front door to help him out with seeing the lock, and then move to sequester myself in the spare bedroom, where I know he won’t think to look for me. There’s no way I’m putting myself at risk again tonight. Not when I’ve already got a black eye and bruised knuckles to show for my efforts from last night. I shut the door behind me hastily – silently – and lock it as quietly as possible. Sliding down against it, I bring my knees up to my chin comfortingly.
I sit, and wait for the sun to rise.
September, 1969
“Will, get back here!” my mother’s voice trills anxiously behind my retreating form. If I were any other child, her voice would be reprimanding, not fearful. I try not to think about that.
My father’s on his way home – he told us as much when he called to tell (threaten) my mother. The fact that he’s coming late, and that he could barely speak on the phone, tells me that he’s been drinking again. I turn to look at my mother and see how she cowers in the doorway, terrified that my father will lash out at me again. She’ll take his fury if it means that I won’t have to, but I don’t want her to. She doesn’t deserve the blows any more than I do – doesn’t deserve the slamming of her body against any available hard surface. Tracing the purplish bruise around her left jaw with my eyes, I swear that he won’t lay another finger on her. Especially not now that she’s carrying my younger sibling. So, I’m making myself a target. After all, what’s one more bruise?
It’s dark now, but the sun will eventually rise and the night’s hardships will have ended.
January, 1971
The bottle shatters in my hand, fragments scattering across my father’s shoulders and ricocheting onto the floor, where they remain and glisten menacingly. I swallow my fear like a man, as he has taught me to do. My eyes meet his furiously, and he smirks. Hands shaking, my bloodied knuckles drip onto the floor as they begin to whiten with the strength of the grip I’ve got on the bottle’s shattered neck.
“Go,” I say, much more calmly than I feel, “leave us, and don’t come back.”
I’m attempting to be brave – for my mum and my sister and my unborn sibling. I need to be brave for me, who has lost too many fights and spent too many nights waiting for dawn.
I’m still waiting, but it looks like the sun is beginning to rise.