Ever since that night, boys refused to go out with me out of fear of my father. I knew that crying on the staircase would do me no good. If I stayed out all night, he would simply come looking for me. That was even more embarrassing than the gun cleaning incident. I could not believe that my father was doing this to me. He was ruining my life. Just because Mom left him for some hunk doesn’t mean that he could take it out on me.
But there comes a time in a child’s life when they start to view their parents differently.
While being grounded for yet another offense in defiance to my father’s house rules, I decided to clean up one of the walk-in closets. After all, it would be a place where I could put my clothes and my shoes. While I may not have had a lot of the latest toys, gadgets and electronic devices like all my friends, I did have all the clothing I could want. Wal-mart fashions may not have been quite as trendy as Aeropostale or Abercrombie and Fitch, but getting three tees for the price of one made sense to me. I worked hard for my money, and I wasn’t going to throw it all away on a blouse that would be out of style by the next year. Ok, so maybe my father’s teachings weren’t all bad.
This closet was in a desperate need of a cleaning. Time must have forgotten about this place because there were cobwebs everywhere. Ok, maybe not everywhere, but there was definitely one when you first walked into the closet. The one that you don’t see that gets into your hair and sticks to you no matter how many times you try to pull it off. Some of the clothes that were hanging up in this closet were definitely from a time warp. I couldn’t believe that people actually chose to wear some of these things on purpose!
While putting the old clothes into garbage bags, so that they could be given away to Good Will, I found my parents’ wedding album and some other keepsakes. Flipping through the album, despite the outdated fashions and the long forgotten hairstyles, my Mom looked absolutely gorgeous in her white wedding dress. You could see the love in her eyes that she had for my father. Plus, my father, who never wore a tie or a jacket for anything, looked very dashing in his rented tuxedo. Picture after picture brought back memories of when my parents were together, when they were in love.
But just like the faded photos and the dust covered album, that was so long ago. Still, it was different to see my father in a much happier state of mind. For the last several years, ever since Mom left, there was no sparkle in his eye, no spring in his step. The only time that I would get a glimpse of this reaction was when I won some kind of award from school, regardless of how stupid it may have been. Regardless of the function or the reason, my father was there to cheer me on. In my own mind, he was doing this to embarrass me to no end. But after looking at these photos, my mind began to wonder if I wasn’t seeing things as clearly as I should. Especially since not once did I ever see Mom at these events.