Читать книгу My Cries of Yesterday - Angelica Galbraith - Страница 8

Chapter One

Not a Home

Waking up in the middle of the night with loud screams had become routine at the age of five. My little brother was always having nightmares. At first, I thought it was a joke because his eyes were always open. I was afraid of my brother, but I also had this tremendous feeling of sadness in my heart that would bring tears to my eyes as I would watch him kick and scream while pinning himself to a corner. I’d ask myself, Why is my brother this way?

It was very hard to see him that way every night. My mother would run to our room and try to wake him, but she wasn’t always successful, so then she would hold him in her arms until he would fall back to sleep. I would lie back down next to him and look out the window just to stare at the moon. I would see two eyes and a smile and then shut my eyes, feeling as if it were telling me everything was going to be okay. Our mornings always started off with the smell of breakfast and music playing. I would get up from my bed slowly, trying not to wake up my little brother from being up all night, run down the stairs while my parents were talking in the kitchen, and jump into my father’s arms. As the Spanish music would play, he would start dancing with me in his arms. I felt like the princess in the books my mother would read to me. I was the happiest kid at that moment.

My father was a very aggressive person who drank too much and wasn’t always working. He would have his friends over at times, and all they ever did was get drunk, sing, and dance. My father came from a family of musicians, so the singing and dancing ran in our blood. My mother was great at maintaining our home and taking care of us. She dealt with a lot of abuse from my father. She was a woman who didn’t really have a mother to show her how to take care of herself. Her mother passed away when she was six, which led to my mother’s lack of a parent’s love. Things with our parents weren’t always ordinary. I never saw my parents being affectionate. In the seventies, if you were having a child, you basically just get married, so it was what I call a had-to relationship.

One day, my mother was getting us ready to go to a party. She was pregnant at the time. I was going to have another little brother. I didn’t know how far along she was, but I did know she was showing. We left for the party, and my father stayed behind, drinking. When the party was almost over, my mother decided it was time to leave because it was getting dark. We got into the car to head back home. My mother got us down and started walking down the walkway to get to the front door. I was holding my brother by the hand, walking toward her, and saw that she had this blank stare while looking at the front two windows that were open.

We had no curtains but this light-brown shade that you could pull down to cover the window, so you could definitely see a silhouette at night if the lights were on. Our stairway started at one of those windows, and we only had one bathroom, which was upstairs. We heard someone coming down, and it was very obvious that it was a woman who was wearing heels.

Next thing I know, my mother was banging on the door, yelling, but no one was answering. I started getting angry, and my mother started heading toward the back door. I told my brother, “Sit on the porch, and I’ll be right back.” I started walking behind her, and I saw this woman coming out the back door and my dad just standing there with a smile on his face as if it were all a joke. My mother tried to grab her, but my father stopped her, and the other woman walked away.

I was so angry and had so many questions: Why was my father acting this way? Who was this woman? Why was she in our home? in our bathroom? in our bedroom? Was she in my room? My mother was crying as she walked inside, and I ran back to my brother. She opened the front door and told us to get inside.

I felt this unsafe feeling walking in. I knew there was going to be a fight, and when that happened, it was my mother who always took the hits. “Go upstairs,” she said. And I heard her yell, “I want a divorce!” My brother and I walk into our room, and I looked around as if that woman had taken something from our rooms and bathroom. Now that I think of it, I must have looked hilarious walking into every room as if we had just gotten robbed.

My brother was so traumatized by all the fighting that went on that he just went straight to his corner of the bed. As we lay next to each other for comfort, I looked out the window to the moon as I always did. The nights we were in bed and our parents were fighting were scary. The moon that once smiled at me was now angry. It had me imagining the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz was coming for us.

My attention was stuck on the window because I had to protect my brother from her, and I couldn’t sleep much those nights. Time went by, and I suddenly heard a door slam and heard my grandfather’s voice. I ran downstairs to greet him, and he gave me a kiss and a hug.

“Let’s sit down and talk,” said my grandfather. “What are you going to do about all this?”

And my mother said, “Divorce.”

I saw my dad take his wallet out and throw it at my grandfather’s chest. He then said, “She can have all my money!” My father started walking up the stairs and came back down with all his clothes. I cried and begged him to not leave. He kissed me and left. I didn’t see much of my dad after that. He went on to live with the woman whom we saw in our home, and they had two children.

My mother went on with her life alone for a while and had my new baby brother. I remember being outside the hospital window with my father and Jerry to take a look at my new baby brother. My mother named him Jeffrey. I was pretty excited for him to come home. I helped my mother a lot with whatever she needed for him.

Things were okay for a bit, except for that empty feeling I had of my father not being home. She then met a new man who had no children and was never married. Everything took a turn for the worst when we finally met him.