Anything For You

Part 20

Ricky thought about Jenna every day since his incarceration. He had written her numerous letters that have since been returned to him and it was infuriating him more than ever.

"Where could she be? Why hasn't she come to visit me?" he asks his bunk mate.

"You fucked up man if you think she gonna come here again to see you. That is a fine piece of ass though" his bunk mate says smiling on the lower bed.

"You shut that pie hole of yours. I'm going to marry that girl one day." Ricky replies holding a picture of Jenna. A clipping from the gala evening that made its way to him in prison in an envelope. He had been receiving these mystery envelopes once a month without a return address.

Holding the picture, he rubbed his thumb over the clipping, more so, over her face. "I'm coming for you baby, we will be together soon". As his heavy sleepy eyes close, he holds the clipping to his chest, drifting off to sleep.

Ricky

"Stanley stop!" my mother yelled at my dad. He was drunk again and beating her for god knows what reason.

"I know you want to leave me Evelyn, you can't leave me!!" my dad shouts back at her. He can't even stand up straight. He is gripping the side of the table and her in the other hand.

My mother is shouting like a crazy women and I'm not sure what to do. Her body is being jerked from one end of the kitchen to the other and she is desperately trying to grab hold of something to steady herself.

"Stanley let me go!!" she screams again gripping his arms this time, digging her nails into his skin. It doesn't seem like he feels it though. I can't take it anymore and when I see the knife on the table that my mother was using to chop the vegetables for supper, I slowly pick it up.

I see my mother's eyes dart to me holding my gaze. Her once beautiful blue eyes are a sickening clouded grey and they are wide with fear. As soon as my father sees this he stops pushing her around and slowly turns to where she is looking. He looks at the knife in my hand and then straight into my eyes. I immediately go numb and my body starts to shake. I watch the knife in my hand shake as I point it at him.

"What you going to do little shit. You going to kill me?" he goads me, smiling like a demon. His eyes are bloodshot which makes the term even more real.

I'm twelve years old, skinny, small for my age and my father is far taller and stronger than me. I have never been in a fight and I certainly have never stood up to my father. Would I kill him to save my mother? Would I have the courage?

"Let mommy go" I say to him. I can't get my voice to sound harsh so it comes out as a whimper. I feel as if there is ball in my throat restricting my breathing and feel the tears running down my cheeks.

Again I look at the shaking knife in my hand and then back to him. I can't do it so I put the knife down and step away from the table.

"That's what I thought little shit. You nothing but a burden from the moment you slid outta her. I should have thrown you in the dumpster behind the hospital the day you were born." He smiles as he says this to me.

He has been telling me this since I can remember but in this moment, it was his smile this time. His demonic smile is all it took and it is as if something clicked inside my head.  All the unknown rage I have buried deep down seeps out of every pore.

I step toward the table and pick up the knife again lunging toward him screaming as I do so. I see the knife lodge into his chest but I feel nothing. My mind is blank, totally blank and the hatred I feel for this man is beyond anything that I have ever experienced in my short life.