True Life

On the topic of a bad single mother

She first hit me when I was ten. I had been scared before, but never to that magnitude. To tell the true story it was from her anger over a video game. How pathetic. But still, it happened. She hit me with a Wii remote and told me to lie if anyone asked about it. I did.

My fifth grade teacher knew better than to believe me. He took one look at the bruise taking up the entire left side of my face and called someone from Children's Aid. I was more scared of her than I was of my mother. She took me into one of the offices at school and sat me down on one side of the table while she sat on the other, almost in the shadows. She asked me questions, like if I liked my home, and my mother, and school. I lied and told her everything was great. It was an accident, I was just fooling around. Sometimes I wish I had told her the truth. Perhaps I would love myself today.

She's been more careful since then. She has used threats and insults to make me feel pain instead of physically hurting me. I'm worthless and 'a horrible daughter.' 'Selfish and ignorant'. She 'can't stand to be near' me. I wish she wouldn't be.

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For most of my life that I can remember, my mother has been jobless. She did few part timers, but they called her less and less frequently as I grew older. Now she is employed by Tim Hortons, which I hardly consider a job, but she enjoys it well enough.
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She met someone when I was really young. I know you're thinking that I'm about to get an evil stepfather or something, but that's not the way it all played out.) She was probably about twenty seven, and he was about fourty six. Let's call him Simon. I think my mother came across him because he lived in our apartment building. She was pretty back then, so I don't blame him for taking a liking. Simon seemed to make her happy so I put up with him. He would buy me things and help us around the house.

Simon moved into a house, and I saw him less, but I bet my mother went there every day. I was young then so I could not have possibly caught on. She was probably in love with him. She bought him things and treated him even better than she treated me. But still, I thought he was nice, and a good replacement for a dad.

A few years later, my mom and I moved. I think I was nine. He had sold his house so he came to live with us for a bit, until he found a new one. Simon was here so long that I forgot that he didn't belong here. People told her that she was making a mistake with him. That he'd take all her money and leave us. He was just using her and he didn't love her. And wow man- I still had no idea what was going on. People tried to talk to me about it but I truly knew nothing, denied that they were dating. How was I so näive?

He finally moved out when I was eleven, but he still slept over on my couch. That was around the time I caught them having sex. He tried to discreetly pull up his underwear as I stared in confusion, with my teddy bear and my quilt under my arm. I knew exactly what they were doing. I wasn't innocent or stupid. But still I HAD to deny that anything was going on. They weren't dating! NOPE! And I told no one. But when I caught them again, I told all of my friends. I had to tell someone. I just felt so disgusting. So messed up.

And they told me to distance myself. So I could feel better. They would have all made me leave if they had known how truly awful he was.