Chapter 10

    As dark as her father's thoughts were and as emotionally withdrawn as her mother was, she had never experienced
abuse from either one of them up till that point. She was already two at that point and old enough to know that
something was seriously wrong with her father.  
 She started secretly hating him after that incident. From that moment on it didn't get better. It got much
worst. It was almost like something in him snapped. It was like he was becoming a completely different person
before their eyes. Before they really knew what was happening Richard was becoming more angry and abusive as
time passed.  
   

    At first it started off with snide and cutting remarks directed at Lizzy and Rebecca until it got to the point
where he actually started to beat on Rebecca and her mother for the smallest things. Rebecca started seeing her
father as a monster. The thing that made her mad the most was how everyone seemed to just accept it.  
 No one wanted to cross him and her mother was too scared to question or go against him. Rebecca
secretly hated seeing her mom that weak and seeing her being reduced to a scared little child or mouse every time
her father would attack her. She used to wish that her mother would fight. She used to imagine one day that her
mother would get tired of her father and she would have their bags packed one day and they would be on a train
to her grandma's house and leave everything behind. 
  

   Looking back Rebecca’s mother didn’t really say much. She was so diminutive in every way. Thinking back
on those days, Rebecca used to hate her mom for that. Whenever her father used to say anything harsh, she would
just shrink away and just allow her husband to do whatever he wanted. 
 Whenever he would get frustrated and break dishes or hurt her or even Rebecca, her mom used to say,”
Your father is a good man. He is just really tired and frustrated you see. He really does love us. He just doesn’t
know how to show it. Things will get better Rebecca. Just you wait and see. When thing start to pick up and when
he is not as stressed. Thing will get better.”  

    Rebecca always thought that her mom was trying to convince herself more of this than Rebecca at that
time before her father died. Even though her mother cried, there was a part of her that actually smiled. She
figured it served him right. It wasn’t until much later that she would start to realize just how much her father had
affected her and just how much she carried around the hate and bitterness that could keep her up in the middle of
the night.  
 She would stay up some nights just thinking back to those days and wondering why it had to happen to
her. She used to wonder if life was just some cruel joke and she had managed to pull the short end of the stick.
She would sit and think back to all of the things her father had done to her and her mother and wonder if she
might have done something in a previous life to deserve what she had gone through.  
 

    Sometimes she would wake up screaming in a sweat. There would be some days when she would feel a
vice like grip come over heart at the sheer memory of her father. It was like she was remembering every last
detail over and over in her head. During those days she just wished for relief and there were some nights in
particular when she felt like she was better off dead. 
 Rebecca could feel herself losing control in more ways than one. She was beginning to withdraw from
school and especially her mother. She still blamed her mother for allowing things to get so bad with her father and
especially for allowing herself to be made so weak and not fighting back when Rebecca felt like she needed to be
protected the most. She felt that in some ways her mother had indirectly betrayed her by allowing the abuse to
continue for as long as it did. She remembers one night in particular when things really began to fall apart. 
 

    Rebecca had just gotten home and she was actually happy for a change. Even though she never really felt
like she connected or really understood most of the kids at her school, she usually spent most of her time studying
and reading. She felt that doing good in school was one of the only things she was good at. What she loved the
most though was to go into her room after her father and mother had just gotten done arguing and read silently to
herself.  
 

   She soon fell in love with books and found herself escaping into the different worlds and better
possibilities that the books offered and she found that with some of her favorite books she would revisit them like
old friends that she always got something new and amazing from each time she read them. 
 On that particular night she had just gotten her report card back from school and like usual she was
pretty good at maintaining straight A's but this time in particular she had gotten an achievement award for being
on the honor roll for her entire time at her elementary school in Tyler. She was moving from the 5th to the 6th
grade and her school was honoring the special children who had managed to do well scholastically throughout their
entire academic career. 
 

    Growing up she had always felt somehow different from her mom, but she especially felt estranged from
the other children at school as well. She had always been very sensitive when it came to seeing people sad and
suffer while it seemed like her mom actually took joy in talking about people and spreading gossip and talking
down to people she felt were beneath her even though she was never really rich to begin with.  
 She never understood how kids could be so cruel to each other and even she was often the butt of jokes
and picked on at school for being smart and getting straight A's but she was especially picked on for being simply
being bigger than most of the kids at her school.  
 

    Just as much as her mom was short and petite and diminutive in stature and in personality, she was the
exact opposite. She wasn't exactly over weight, but she had always been a little taller and bigger than most of the
kids her age. By the time she was 11 she had already surpassed her mom in height and size and most of the kids in
her grade as well. The girls her age were especially merciless when it came to picking on her when it came to her
weight and would purposely make snide comments and remarks. 
 

   The only thing that made any of it worth it was the fact that she actually got a certain satisfaction from doing well
in school and knowing she was smarter than most of the people in her grade and just about all of the people that
picked on her as well. It became a part of her identity that she was actually very proud of.  
 Even with all of the turmoil at home, and with the constant teasing at school she always could find joy
and excitement in getting her reports back and seeing that she had gotten extra marks or that she could turn in a
math assignment and ace it just about every time.