As Suzanne climbed the stairs, she kept scanning the space all around her. She had an eerie feeling that her father was watching and that he was either following her up the stairs or waiting for her at the top.
The door to her bedroom was closed, and Suzanne’s hand trembled as she reached for the doorknob. Then she quickly pulled her hand away as if the doorknob was hot and just by touching it she would be harmed. After a moment, she tapped on the door. “Hello?” Her voice was small and childlike. “Is anybody in there?”
Silence.
Cautiously, Suzanne turned the doorknob. As the door opened, her heart pounded. Her eyes scanned the small room. The walls were white, the small twin bed was covered with a quilt, and a wooden chair sat next to the lone window that was opposite the bed. It looked so much the same that she was mentally transported back to the age of eight. She heard the voices of that long-ago time—Mama, Helene, Daddy, and Alice. Daddy was yelling, and Mama was crying. Suzanne was hiding in her room. She was so afraid when Daddy yelled at Mama. Not because he yelled at her, but because he always came to Suzanne’s room later in the night. He touched her and made her do things she didn’t want to do.
The adult Suzanne fought the memory. “No, no, no,” she screamed into the room. Then she grabbed her purse and pulled out the bottle of Jack Daniel’s. Raising it to her mouth, she took a large gulp. Immediately, she felt calmer. She put the cap back on the bottle and looked out the window. She had vowed she wasn’t going to drink on this trip, and she hadn’t gotten drunk the way she often did back home, but she did have a drink or two each night, just to help her cope. And now . . . she turned back toward the bed and sunk down into it. She tightened her grasp on the bottle. That was all she needed—just a drink or two.
As Suzanne scanned the room, she took one long swallow after another. Moments passed. As the liquor made its way into her system, her vision started to blur. Her father’s face appeared on the wall. Anger gushed from Suzanne. “Bastard! Don’t you touch me anymore. Do you hear me?”
Between each sentence, she raised the whiskey bottle to her lips. “Don’t you ever touch me again. I’ll kill you!! So help me, I’ll kill you!” Her voice rose to an hysterical pitch.
“You cheated me, you son of a bitch! You took my childhood away from me. I can never be a little girl again. I wanted to be Daddy’s girl, but not that way, never that way.” The sound of her sobs echoed in the room. “How could you do that to your own daughter?” Her voice grew childlike. “You were supposed to protect me from harm. Daddies are supposed to take care of their little girls—not rape them.” She lifted the bottle to her lips , taking another large gulp.
“You had sex with me!” she screamed. “You dirty rotten bastard! I hate you. Do you hear me? I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!”
She stood up and hurled the bottle at the wall, breaking it into pieces as the liquor oozed down the wall and onto the floor. During the throw, she’d lost her balance and stumbled to the floor, cutting her hand on a piece of shattered glass. She started to cry as she sat among the shattered glass and the memories of her shattered childhood while she clutched her bleeding hand against her.
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