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“That’s where you’re wrong, Daisy; my Dad would never call the cops on me. He owes me, and he knows it. This will just be one more thing for Helen to bitch about and not get her way, which is going to drive her crazy because I am, and will always be, the most important female in my Dad’s life.”
I knew that shit when I went there, not that I cared. I have savings put away for a rainy day, so even if I lose my job behind this, I can float for at least six months. That’s something Mom taught me when that bitch her husband left her for tried to stop him from paying her alimony or child support in the divorce.
She didn’t want him to pay for college either for any of us, but she didn’t have that problem when it came to her own daughter. Thankfully Dad hadn’t lost his damn mind because he was terrified of being cut off by all of us when we came of age, which we all threatened to do at one point or another over time.
My brothers are even more protective of Mom than they are of me, and they were ready to go to town on his stupid ass. These days, none of us go over to his house, and for years, she’d tried to stop him from seeing us anywhere else or made sure she tagged along whenever we were meeting, which none of us liked, so our meetings were far and in between.
I essentially lost my father at the age of eight, and when he left me to raise Mitzie, who was just a few months older than me. That little bitch tormented me every chance she got until my brothers caught on and started going over there even when they didn’t want to. I hated knowing that they were suffering through that for me, but I don’t think I would’ve made it all those years if they hadn’t been there.
When they all went away to college, leaving me behind to spend every weekend at that house, it was almost hell. But Bri had warned Dad of the consequences if he didn’t protect me, and things calmed down a lot.
I was too young in the beginning to know or understand what was going on. But I know when some little snake is slithering into my garden. Mitzie’s Dad had left her and disappeared after the divorce, and the two of them decided that she was going to steal mine.
Now I’m thinking I let that shit go on for too long. The doorbell rang, and Penny got up to let the guys in. “What’s all this?” I asked as they came in with bags of stuff.
“Security cameras for inside and out.” They go to work setting up that shit like I want recordings of the shit I’m fixin' to do.
ALYSSA
No peace! Those six parked their butts in my house overnight while I shut myself off in the guest room with my computer and a shit ton of ideas. Now, let me explain last night and the way I reacted to everything.
When I was seven, going on eight, something very traumatic occurred in my perfect world that rocked my life off its axis, and things were never the same again. I was awakened in the early morning hours to screaming and crying from Mom and doors slamming and car tires screeching from Dad.
By the time I wiped the sleep from my eyes on my way down the stairs to see what was going on, Mom was in full panic attack mode, and my brothers, Cam and Trey, who were fifteen and thirteen at the time, were doing their best to calm her down while she wailed like someone had died.
I remember the sickening feeling in my stomach and biting into my lip hard enough to make it bleed from the fright. I’d never seen anything but sunshine and happiness between these walls, but even at that young age, I instinctively knew that something was very wrong.
“Where’s Daddy?” The three of them stopped as soon as they heard my voice. Mom covered her mouth and looked up the stairs at me before rushing from the room. My brothers came up the stairs where I had stopped and took me back to my room.
“Everything is okay, Little Bit; go back to bed.”
“Is it Brian? Did something happen to Brian?” We had just taken my brother off to university the week before, and I had been crying myself to sleep, missing him. I wanted him to come back home, but everyone said he needed to stay here for his future, whatever that meant.
I wish I’d known that whole summer that the reason he was spending so much extra time with me and doing all of my favorite things was because he would be leaving soon. Maybe I would’ve paid closer attention.
Now, something was very wrong, but as usual, no one was saying anything to me because I was the baby. Trey had stayed with me until I fell back asleep while Cam went back to Mom. In the morning, everyone was acting like nothing happened until I started to believe that it had all been a dream, except where was Dad?
Bri had returned home that first weekend and I remember how upset he was but trying hard to hide it. I always know when my brothers are upset, they all get these little tics in their jaws, and it always looks as if they’re biting down on something I can’t see.
He was the one who told me that Dad wasn’t coming back. I can still remember the pain of my heart breaking. I didn’t cry then, didn’t say a word. I just walked into the backyard to the swing set Dad had installed for me a few months before to replace the kiddie one I’d had for years.
I sat on that swing for hours that day, and each time I looked up at the windows, at least one of them was looking out at me. I don’t remember when or how, but I sure as shit know why, but I went into the tool shed and got the ax.
Little eight-year-old me took that ax to that swing set and started hacking away at it. I don’t know about other people, but I always seem to find extra strength from somewhere when I’m good and mad. I didn’t do as much damage as I would have liked by the time the boys ran out to the backyard to take the ax away from me.
I remember screaming until I passed out on the grass and being lifted by Brian, who took me into the house and laid me on the couch. I never saw Mom cry again after that, though I heard her cry at night while I was in my room biting into my pillow, trying to keep my own tears hidden.
And every day, I attacked that swing set piece by piece until one night, I finally lost my shit and added the gas that was kept to refill the lawnmower and ATVs to it and lit that shit on fire. That’s when the first therapist came into the picture. I never said one word to that bitch because I might have been young, but I wasn’t stupid.
Sherry had explained to me what was going on in my home. Everybody knew that my Daddy had left our family to go have one with someone else. I had never been so hurt before or after until last night.
There were court cases and hearings in judges’ chambers because none of us wanted to see Dad on his so-called time, and he cried and begged and pleaded. I didn’t speak to him for at least three months until Mom convinced me and the boys to go. I thought it was all bullshit then, and I still do today.
How was it that I, at eight, knew that the cheater shouldn’t be rewarded when the old-ass judge didn’t? If Daddy wanted his family with him, he should’ve stayed his ass home. As if his leaving Mom wasn’t bad enough, the thing he left her for was a bitch with a little demon that she’d pushed out of her crotch that liked to rub it in my face that my Daddy liked her and her mother better than me and mine and that’s why he’d left.
She showed her ass for months until Brian came home on break and rushed into Dad’s new house and laid down the law. I don’t remember all of what my six-foot-three football-playing brother had said that day, but I do remember the cold way he'd spoken before taking me and leaving.
She still used to make her little comments, but she never took my stuff again and steered clear of me. After that weekend, Cam and Trey, who had been disobeying the court order, started coming again. The three of us would hole up in one room and stay as far away from the rest of the people in that house as we could.
