Shadows and Lies Read Free Page B

or swim on your own. But it’s alright to accept help.” She embraced me in a mother’s hug, warm and caring, and my throat tightened up even more, making it impossible for me to speak.
    “It’s alright to be a little vulnerable,” she said. “You don’t have anything to prove to me, Carrie. I’m proud of you just the way you are.”
    I fought back my tears and nodded. She was right. I did need a little help, and I was grateful for it. To show my thanks, I began to swiftly help Greg and Tiffany carry boxes full of treasure up to my new home.
    Dear Dad,
    How could you ever think that it was okay for Nancy to scream at us, to tell us that we were “worthless little shits”, ugly, lazy, fat, stupid bitches? Did you think that just because Nancy didn’t beat us that we weren’t being abused? I don’t remember Nancy ever hitting Lindsay and Vanessa; they were older, in high school, and I’m sure they would have spoken up about that, but there were times when Nancy did come very close to crossing the line with me, a little girl. Do you remember how, when you were dating her, that I called her mommy right away? I was only four and I wanted a mommy so badly. It had pleased Nancy that I called her that, but sometime after you married her, everything stopped pleasing Nancy. Nothing we did was right, and everything was wrong, and I feared her.
    I remember telling her that too, after one particular outburst of temper. She was yelling at me, and asked me why I was just standing there stupidly. I told her that I was afraid of her, that we, my sisters and I, were all afraid of her. That just made her angrier, and she exploded at me, but you just sat by and did nothing.
    When I was in high school, I stopped fearing Nancy and instead she became afraid of me. Do you remember all that wood I used to chop for camping trips? I didn’t chop wood just because I enjoyed the physical release it gave for my own temper against Nancy’s unreasonableness, but because it made me strong. I dug all those holes and lugged all that dirt to fill up that goddamn, ugly, eyesore of a pool in our backyard for the same reason, to become physically strong, stronger than Nancy, so that on the off chance she did one day blow a gasket and attack me, I would be able to take her out. Nancy knew it too. She could see it in my eyes, and she told me that if I ever did attack her she’d call the cops on me.
    I was pretty proud of the fact that she was afraid of me back then, that the tables had been partially flipped, but now, looking back, I just think that’s sad. A home is supposed to be a haven, not the place where your wife and daughter prepare themselves for possible violence from each other. I lay responsibility for this on your shoulders. You were the head of our household, and you are my father. What the hell was going on in your head when I told Nancy that I was afraid of her? What the hell went on in your head when she screamed obscenities at us, your daughters, when she belittled us, threw things, controlled us, and tried to take away anything that we, your flesh and blood, loved?
    Why did you never stop her?
    With much confusion,
    Your Daughter

Chapter 2
    I mentioned earlier that I’ve always been something of a loner. I like to observe and listen. I now know that it was something of a survival skill which allowed me to escape from Nancy’s wrath from time to time, but it is also a handy trait to have under normal circumstances too. I was shy about communicating with my neighbors on either side of me, but I did learn quite a bit about them from just observing them over my first few weeks living there. I learned that the neighbor on my left was a homosexual biker by the name of Charles. He had a boyfriend named Glen who looked like the guy who played Wedge Antilles in the Star Wars movies, which I thought was very cool because Wedge was my own personal hero.
    Charles did his laundry every Monday morning at 9 am sharp, which I thought was very