A Night to Remember

The rain poured in torrents outside, the angry sound of thunder drowned the crash as they followed one after the other. My father is drunk again. Ellen is hiding upstairs, while I crouch in the kitchen cabinet.

He must be looking for me. It’s been like this ever since mom left. He drinks, comes home and takes it out on me. I’m two months over eighteen but I can’t leave because Ellen isn’t yet. I can’t bear to think what he would do to her. She is only twelve.

Another crash and his slurs reach my ears. We live deep in the woods, in a cabin built by my father’s hands. Mom told me that she helped too but not very much as she was pregnant with me and my father wouldn’t let do any hard work. I find it hard to picture my father as a loving man. I have never experienced it.

“Come out you little shit! Where the fuck are you? It’s all your fault. You just had to be born. Your stupid mother didn’t listen to me to get rid of you.”

Crash!

“No. She wanted a family. A fucking family huh?” He laughed. It was empty and evil.

“I gave her a family and what does she do? She fucks the next guy that looks at her. What a waste.”

I hear a thump and a groan before silence. The rain continues. I wait, straining my ears over the pounding of my heart. I wait a heartbeat, two, three and then I slowly push open the small wooden frame. Our worn down kitchen is empty of the man in question.

I crawled out, as quietly as I could, and peeked into the living room. The couch blocks my vision but I don’t hear him anymore. The stairs are just up ahead, and if my luck hasn’t run out, my dad is passed out.

A quick check confirms my suspicions and relief fills my lungs. I don’t think I can take another beating tonight. My body still aches from the last one.

I walked towards the stairs, ignoring my father who is face down on the rug, and everything else around me most especially the pain. It is blinding, but I ignore it. I ignore it until my hair is yanked so hard and I am thrown against the wall.

“You fucking shit! Where did you think you were going, hmm?”

“Dad please,”

I know it doesn’t matter. I have pleaded countless times in the past but I still beg. I beg because I’m pathetic. I’m weak. I’m tired. I want nothing more than to breathe. But I don’t deserve to, do I? Maybe that’s why I don’t make a sound when his boot comes in contact with my side. When he grabs me by the hair and drags me across the room, saying vile things I’d rather not repeat, not a sound comes out of me. Like a big girl, I take it.

I know what comes next, my face. I try to protect it but he is stronger, and bigger. The contact shatters whatever resolve I had and a scream rips from my throat, guttural and grainy.

He lifts his hand one more time and halts abruptly just as lightning strikes. Through my rapidly swelling eye under the dim lighting, I saw it. The garden rake is in my father’s side and he’s still. Time is still as he turns to look at my sister who holds the handle, looking straight at him.

Once again, lightning strikes and I see her.

“You mother-“ he begins but groans immediately after followed by the unmistakable sound of weapon against flesh. She pushes harder and twists it, spurting blood with her actions until my father falls off me, the garden rake still stuck to his side.

It goes silent again. The rain has slowed to a trickle, thunder rumbles in the distance.

I sit up with my back against the couch just as the lights come back on for me to get a good look at my sister. She’s fixed on him, her face is devoid of any emotion. I can’t read what is happening. Shock?

“Ellen” I called and she responds, her head slowly turned to look at me. She crosses the room and crouches in front of me and says,

“I don’t want to go to a foster home.”

“You won’t. I’m eighteen.”

Silence passes between us.

“What do we do now?” She asks

Maybe she is still in shock. She is acting so normal. I catch a glimpse of my father who has no doubt bled to death or will soon,

“I can’t move right now. When I can, I’ll take care of it.”

“Bury him behind the house. No need to go too far. It’s just us in this nowhere anyway.” She says dismissively and I nod.

A bout of silence passes between us and the next thing I know, my sister gets up and climbs back up the stairs, leaving me in the living room with the body of our father. Did I… create a monster?

Image imagined with Meta.ai