The most beautiful site I have ever seen was suppose to be my last. The view of the ocean that I have swam in so many times before was so more magnificent from a higher view. The waves cascaded into one another while the sun slowly fell. I remember that night so perfectly. Every night I think of when I was there, at the tip of that mountain, just a step away from nothing. I can't help but to think, "What if I jumped? What if he never found me? What if I was dead?"
It all started the week I found out about my fathers vile little secret.
"Mommy! Mommy! Where is Daddy?" I ran squeaking into my mothers arms as soon as she limped into the house. Our house was very small, for eight kids that is. I was young but very smart so when I looked at my mom I saw a look of consternation on her small sick face. At age 7 I had found out that my mother was sick with cancer and still had to cope with it all these years.
"KIDS COME HERE! Listen sweetie I have bad news but you have to be the strong little princess I raised okay?" My mother sat me down on her lap while my brothers and sisters came trotting in. "Frankie isn't coming to this family meetings guys. I am sure you have heard your brother and father screaming a lot yesterday. Well, yeaterday, Francesco sat your father and I down and told us some news that your father was not happy with. The news, well, Francesco is gay, he likes boys." A tear fell from her crystal blue eyes, not because her son was gay, but because of her cruel husband. My six siblings and I just sat in silence, the only sound in the room was our mothers weeps.
"Did he leave again?" Jabar, the oldest of eight, was the first to speak. At the time Jabar was 23 but he and his girlfriend, Linsee, were staying with us for spring vacation. After another moment of silence Jay, as most people called him, spoke this time in an assertive voice. "Mom. Did Bill leave you again?" My mother slowly nodded her head as Nadiya, my oldest sister, took me off of her lap.
Jabar ran out of the house slamming the door behind him. Nadiya brought my younger siblings and me out of the room leaving me in my bed room. I heard crying from my mother as she explained to the twins, who were only 12 at the time, how horrible of a man their father was.
No one knew that I heard everything that day, everything my mother told the twins. Everything my ten year old brain took in was way too much. It forced me to grow up, which is what my mother was afraid of. She didn't think I was old enough to hear it even though they were only two years older than me. I listened to everything, pretending to be asleep. I heard about how my father use to abuse my mother when he was drunk. How he left her with no money as soon as she was diagnosed. How every time he leaves her the only person that she talks to is a friend named Brad. My mother would call her ex-husband Clint, the father of Jabar and Nadiya, and ask for money. He would always give it to her.
That was the day when everything changed for me. I stopped talking to my friends, didn't talk unless the teacher made me, clung onto Natasha and Igann, the twins, at school, and when my father came back a good two months later I didn't talk at home.
My father left when things got rough and would run away with some girl, Giavanna. As I grew older I realized he was always cheating on my mother with Giavanna. A month after he came home, my father started getting drunk and hitting me, so my mom finally kicked him out. He married Giavanna and had a daughter, Olivia, when I was twelve. I started talking to my father again when I at that time because of my new baby sister. Two years later he gave birth to my brother Karson and another year later Delilah and Daisy.
