Glen

Chapter 1

My mother was a statuesque woman, taller than my father. She was physically strong, capable of doing the work of any man. However, in my father's wake, she was a frail, quiet woman, conditioned to cower to a violent, little drunk, both through upbringing and out of a desire to hold on to the ghost of a romance lost to time and alcohol. He would beat her senseless over the mildest transgression, but she was always too afraid to leave. My safety, however, was not her reason for staying. I never had anything to fear from my father; I was his pride and joy. Most children of abusive marriages are not so fortunate.

My father often encouraged me, in his drunken rages, to help him "discipline" my mother. He would tell me that women must remember their place and God help them should they forget. When I was young, I would refuse, she was, after all, my mother. He, usually, wouldn't take "no" for an answer. These were the few times I feared my father, not for the pain he might cause me, but for how disappointed he would be if I refused. I feared him, too, because my mother would quietly encourage me to do as he said when we were alone. When it came time for me to help beat her, she never said a word, just smiled. I loved them both, though my treatment of my mother might suggest otherwise. As I grew older, things changed. I would not only help my father but would often abuse her, myself, if she crossed me; she never said a word, just smiled. To this day, she is my only regret. I blame my father for my mother's untimely death, but I never had a doubt about the others, and I never will.

My father had a shed that was off-limits until I was eight years old. He always called it his "hunting shed". He would go "hunting", sometimes he would be gone for days, and when he returned, he would disappear into the shed in the middle of the night. We usually wouldn't see him until the afternoon after he got back. He would always be wearing a rubber apron, covered from top to bottom in blood. He reeked of pennies and booze, and the smell prowled through the house like an angry predator.

My mother would always try to fade into the background, praying quietly that she would go unnoticed. More often than not, he would go into the bathroom to shower, leaving a carnival of gore for my mother to clean, and then he would sleep off the booze in his recliner. Other times, she was unlucky enough to catch his eye. After he was finished with her, it was still her job to clean, regardless of injury. Once, I watched her scrub the house with a broken arm, untreated and hanging like processed meat.

My father was a one-man version of Beauty and the Beast. He was a short, slender city boy with a handsome, gentle face and the kind of ice-blue eyes people only dream of having. He was always well-groomed, paying special attention to his fingernails. His fingernails were always clean. My mother, on the other hand, was a farm-raised girl with mousy hair and eyes like a doe. She was an earthy beauty with a big heart who fell for my father, at first glance.

To the people in our little community, my parents were the romantic dream that most people pursue all their lives. Everyone envied the "true love" shared by my parents, never truly grasping the nature of the beast until it was too late. My mother was an expert at telling tales, always having a story for how she was kicked by our horse or how she fell from the ladder while cleaning the upstairs windows. Due to the size and general peacefulness of our town, either no one was smart enough to do the math, or no one was willing to disrupt the atmosphere.

When I was born, my father was elated, bombarding everyone he came across with a novel of information about how I was growing and what I was learning. As soon as I was able to speak, he started introducing me to a new word every day, teaching me its meaning and application. He devoted himself, for a long time, solely to my educational growth. Once I got a little older and more independent, however, he transformed back into the monster that my mother feared. The once doting, beaming father transformed into an absent, distant man who only showed affection when I participated in his favorite hobby. Now, the problem with young children is how impressionable they are, absorbing and mimicking everything they see and hear. That fact never occurred to my father...or maybe that's what he was counting on.