You Cannot Break The Chain

It was just before my 10th birthday that things started to change. Everything I knew my mother taught me and as I stood there watching her get lowered into the ground I realised that i wouldn’t learn anything from my mother ever again. No one knows the cause of death, they suspect that her lungs collapsed well that’s what my dad told me. All I knew was that my life would change that day and change it did.

On my tenth birthday I woke up to a note on my desk it said four words

“I will be back”

These words did not scare me, sometimes dad would go away for days and I would find a note like this I would sit with my mum and she would teach me how to read and write while we waited for my dad to come home. This was the first time he left since mum died and I didn’t know what to do so I got up got dressed and sat in the lounge room waiting for dad to come home.

My dad arrived home not to long after I got up and I was shocked, not because this was his shortest trip ever although I was surprised to see him home so quickly but mainly I was shocked because there was someone in the car with him. It was a little girl with blonde hair probably around my age she looked like my mother, this girl was beautiful.

My dad brought her into the room and turned to me and said “Happy Birthday!” and pushed the girl into my arms, I turned to him and asked “who is she and why is she here?” my dad replied in a confident voice “her name is Lilly and she is your birthday present. I give her to you as my father gave me your mum when I turned ten.” I accepted this as it was the way things were and I untied the ropes from her hands and dragged her into the kitchen and asked if she was hungry she shook her head at me tears in her eyes. I didn’t understand what was wrong I asked her but she just stared blankly back at me.

Weeks past and Lilly was starting to play with me and teach me things, she would sleep in my bed with me and sometimes I would catch her trying to jump out the window. I told her that if she jumped out of the window that daddy wouldn’t be happy and that he would punish her. Lilly didn’t understand what I meant by punishing so I pulled up my shirt and turned my back to her to show her the marks of all the times mum would try and take me away or tell me to run.

Lilly was scarred after I showed her the scars she didn’t go near the window again she always stayed close to me but I could hear her at night crying next to me. On hot days I would take Lilly down to the waterfall and we would splash about in the water, those were the good days when Lilly didn’t run or hide.

When I was sixteen my father asked me if I like Lilly I told him that I loved her and he smiled at me and said that I had to look after her and keep her out of trouble. He taught me how to hit her and punish her when she was bad. He taught me that it was a girl’s job to cook food and clean and that she had to do what I said because men were always in charge.

One day my dad caught Lilly trying to sneak away, I loved Lilly she meant everything to me but my dad turned to me and told me that I’m in charge of her now and that it was my job to punish her. I started crying telling him that I didn’t want to hurt her and my dad hit me and told me to man up. Lilly couldn’t look at me after that day and every time she did she would flinch as if I was about to hurt her.

When I turned eighteen dad told me it was time to have a baby and that I should get Lilly pregnant, the first time she fell pregnant my dad was proud of me it was the first and last time I remember him ever being proud of me and I was really happy about it. Lilly had a miscarriage and I had to punish her dad told me that it was her fault and that she didn’t look after the baby properly.

The next time she fell pregnant she delivered the baby however the baby was a girl and dad told me that girls are not allowed. Lilly begged my dad to let her keep the baby but dad told her no. Dad took the baby from Lilly’s arms and took in down to the place that we chop the fire wood, we heard the baby’s cry cut off and then the axe hitting the stump.

The next baby Lilly had was a boy and we named him Jack, my dad told me that it was a manly name. Lilly taught the baby how to talk and walk and even to feed itself and dad told me that this was her job and that I teach the baby when it’s older. Two years after the baby was born my dad left and I never saw him again, I guessed I passed the test I guess I was ready the last words I remember my father saying were “you cannot break the chain.”

As Jack grew up Lilly taught him more and more, and I only caught them trying to escape six times and all of the six times they were punished just like my father taught me and just before Jacks tenth birthday I told Lilly that I need to find Jack a birthday present she suggested a bike, ball and several other things but she knew what I meant. I needed to find Jack a girl.

As I walked out the door a week before Jacks birthday Lilly tried to stop me, she knew I was searching for a girl today and as I stared into her eyes I remembered my mum and at that moment I realised how my mum died. As I pierced through Lilly’s heart my last words to her were “you cannot break the chain.”

Now I sit here peering in at a sleeping ten year old the night before Jacks birthday, I whisper quietly “you look like my wife.” I enter the room and grab her with a hand over her mouth and say quietly to her “sorry but you cannot break the chain” and I know that will be Jacks last words to her too.