finished slicing me open. “Have a nice life, Halloween.”
Chapter 5
There’s family and then there are relatives.
Fiona – (10 Years Later)~
There are moments in your life you remember forever. They are embedded into your memory and no amount of alcohol in the world can make you forget. There are always drugs but even they can only make you forget for a little while.
My entire childhood is made up of moments I’d like to forget, so I know that of which I speak. But this one, right here…I couldn’t contain my rage if I tried.
Sitting across from my parents, I asked the questions that made no difference because the answers wouldn’t change the situation. “How could you do this? How could you not seek help before it got to this point? What the fuck, Dad?!”
“You better watch how you speak to me, Fiona. I am still your father and-”
His face was red and I couldn’t believe he had the audacity to puff up. “You’ve got a hell of a lot of nerve, Dad! You let me live close to poverty growing up because placing bets took priority over putting food on the table and you’re going to utter the words ‘I’m still your father’ at me?” I looked over at my mother. She was quietly crying, playing the perfect accomplice to my father’s addiction. “Then you guys call me over, telling me you’re on the verge of losing everything you guys own, dumping your problem in my lap and you have to balls to try to get demanding with me?” I let out a humorless scoff. “You have got to be kidding me!”
“Fiona, please…” my mother pleaded.
“Please what, Mother? What exactly is it you expect me to do here?”
My words didn’t register with my father because he kept on like he was entitled to saving. “We are still your parents and deserve some respect, Fiona! You may not have had designer clothes and handbags growing up, but you did have clothes, not to mention food and a home.”
This man was unbelievable. “Jesus Christ, Dad. I’m your daughter. All those things are basic things you were supposed to provide for me by law if not by conscience. If supporting me was such a burden, maybe you and Mom shouldn’t have had kids. There’s an idea.”
“Fiona! Of course, that is not what your dad is implying. We love you and, of course, we wanted you.” She darted a side glance towards my dad. “Your dad is just trying to remind you that family helps family, that’s all.”
“Family helps family?” I picked up all the documents that scattered the coffee table in their living room and waved them in the air. “These...this…this is not family asking family for help. Asking family for help is asking them to co-sign for a car loan or asking to crash on their couch until they get back on their feet. Family asking family for help is not asking them to come up with hundreds of thousands of dollars to cover their gambling debts because they’re about to lose everything!”
“Yes, it is,” she argued. “When we both know that all you have to do is take a second mortgage out on your house or take out a loan against Fiona’s.”
I wish I could say I was surprised, but what life has taught me in my 28 years is that, while people may love you, they don’t necessarily love you in the way you would like for them to. My father has always been a reserved parent when I was growing up. He spent most of his time working and fighting with my mom about all the things we couldn’t afford. I sometimes wondered if his mistreatment of my mother led me to crave the same kind of mistreatment from a certain boy at school growing up.
My mom did her best, but she was weak. She let herself believe that as long as we had a home, food, and clothes that my dad’s little problem wasn’t really a problem. She did her best to shelter me from their arguments, but the older I got, the harder it was to shield me.
Although I spent all my high school years studying my ass off, I didn’t graduate with straight A’s. I did graduate with good enough grades to apply for and get partial scholarships though. I was only forced to take out one loan that I paid off as soon as I could. While it took most people four years to finish college,