The truth in our songs

Chapter 7

Maia-Jane Miller

My father came back that Monday night.

After I had coffee with Nicolas, we had seperated our ways. Our little chitchat had been about nothing and everything, school, teacher, graduating, studying. He was the one who had talked most of the time while I sat beside him nodding along, agreeing here and there and smiling politely at each word.

That night I had hoped for a calm one, with my alarm set at half past six and my homework surprisingly done, I had went to bed but before I got to drift out to sleep, he had stormed into my room with is dirty shoes and smelly clothes that hadn't been washed in way too long. As I expected, he looked mangled, busted lip, bleeding nose, swollen eye and from what my eyes could examine, his right arm could be broken. I knew that night that whatever he'd done, was much worse than the last times. He had yelled at me the second his feet stepped over the threshold of my room. I hadn't been that frightened during the week where he was gone but I felt it all rushing back to me, with so much force that even my tiredness couldn't numb it anymore.

The fear of being punished fought with the anger in me, how could he dare show up after a week with so much ruthlessness and casualness, was the anger that boiled in my veins, please let him just yell at me and humiliate me before slamming the door shut, cursing and looking for a bottloe again, pleaded the fear in my head. But like I said, my father could be full of unexpected situations and he just made me narrow my eyes in concern and incomprehension.

,, I made a mistake. ,, he gasped, seeming to be out of air from what looked like, running? ,, I made a mistake. ,, he repeated himself, staring blankly out of the window, not facing me.

,, What mistake? ,, I slowly asked, still careful, to not madden him. I shouldn't have asked, I didn't want to know what he had done, what bad bad wretched thing he could have carried out now.

,, They will come for me. And then they will take you too. I made a mistake- ,, he said over and over again, out of his mind. His hair looked greasier than it had ever been and he kept going through it.

,, Dad, go to sleep. ,, I answered quietly.

He stared at me for a long moment and all I could do was stare back at him. This familiar face that yet seemed so strange. His eyes had seen too much, too many things he couldn't comprehend, couldn't order or process. I didn't know what or who had done him so. I didn't want to see, hear or understand anything. For the first time in my life, I wished to be a child again, a carefree, dumb child. But I wasn't, not anymore.

,, But- don't you understand, they will come for us! ,, shouted louder than intended and I jumped a bit.

,, I understand dad, I understand. I understand so much more than you think. ,, was all I replied before he stumbled out of my door which fell into the lock quietly.

And then it was quiet again, as if nothing had happened, not even the wind could be heared. Just my unsteady breath that slowly returned back to normal again. Nonetheless, I fell into an indefinite sleep.

I understood.

The feeling of being fully grown up appeared and I wanted to cry, to scream and bang my fists at my father's chest as hard as I could, to make him open his eyes, to make him wake up from his trance, to show him that I was still alive somewhere between his eyes and his unsteady mind. All I wanted was to just be his child. I didn't want to be forgotten by my own parent but that was exactly what had happened.

I wanted to be taken care of, I wanted to run up to my dad and whine into his neck, telling him, I had accidentally threw down his favourite vase of flowers and that its broken pieces lay on the floor with the scattered petals and spilled water everywhere. I wanted him to laugh quietly and stroke my head in reassurance, assuring me that it was just a vase, nothing we couldn't fix.