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short story...
The girl awoke to shouting. She recognized one of the voices; it was her father and he sounded drunk. She thought she could hear her mother begging him to stop, stop what she didn't know. There was the sound of a scuffle and by the time she got downstairs no one was there and the front door was wide open. She felt disoriented and tried to remember the events of the evening. Her mother had been entertaining a male friend and she remembered hearing her mother say that her father was outside, peering in the windows and spying on them. She was spying on them herself, sitting on the stairs past her bedtime in the spot where she could see the two of them reflected in the large gold mirror. She had watched her mother flirt, blinking her eyes and acting like she wasn't as intelligent as her male guest. She hated when her mother behaved like that; wore push-up bras with her Oscar de la Renta blouse unbuttoned so that her cleavage showed and laughed as she sipped her wine and shook her hair. It was in such contrast to the way her mother usually was, prudish and disapproving and it sent the girl a mixed message about how to carry herself. Since she didn't know what had taken place, she shut the door and went back upstairs and locked herself in her room. After what seemed like a very long time, she heard two cars pull into the driveway, one right after the other going fast. She unlocked her door and tip-toed down the stairs. She heard crying coming from the garage so she went to the kitchen where the door was. When she opened it she saw her mother sitting in her car with the driver's side door open and her drunken father preventing her from getting out of it. As soon as her mother saw her, she began begging for help. The girl didn't know what to do; her father slurred that everything was okay, that she should go back inside, but her mother kept pleading. She decided to risk leaving the scene momentarily to go to the phone and call the police. There wasn't 911 yet so she had to look up the number for a police officer who lived nearby. Her town was so small that the police station shut down at night. She woke the officer up and explained that she thought her father was trying to kill her mother. He said that he was very sorry, but he couldn't come because it was a domestic dispute and it wasn't his jurisdiction. This was 1978 and the police rarely got involved in situations like that. When she hung up, she took a second to tell herself that someday she would tell that police officer what an asshole he was. Her next idea was to get a flashlight and run down the road until she got to the neighbors's house and see if anyone would help. She lived on a gravel road with no streetlights and the nearest people were at least a half mile away. She started running, barefoot and in her pajamas, but quickly turned around because her mother might be dead by the time she got back with someone to help. When she returned her mother had managed to get out of the car and had made her way upstairs to the bathroom where the she was being choked by the girl's father. She jumped on his back and screamed that she hated him and wished that he was dead, but he only stopped long enough to remove her and slur that he was sorry that she felt that way. She had one last idea; she would call her best friend's mother and see if she would come. All hope was gone as she dialed the familiar number, but to her amazement her friend's mother said she would be right over. This woman was only 4'11" and not known for her emotional strength, but she arrived and marched upstairs and ordered the girl's father to leave and he did. No one ever discovered why he chose to obey her. Maybe he felt embarrassed having someone outside of the family witness his behavior or maybe the alcohol was wearing off, but the girl had never felt so grateful in her eleven years. Her mother refused to go to the hospital and after she had calmed down the small woman returned to her normal household and the girl was told to go back to bed as though nothing had happened. This was her family's way. If bad things that happened weren't spoken of, it made them less real. Somehow she fell asleep and the next thing she knew her mother was in her room opening the windows and shouting for her to get out of the house. Apparently, her father had returned, shut himself in the garage with the car running and tried to commit suicide. Her mother said an ambulance was on the way, but her father did not die. Unfortunately he lived about twenty more years, periodically causing more emotional and physical damage to his family. The girl's mother made her go to school that day. She wanted to tell her friends what had happened, but how could she? How could she expect them to understand? In the end, she said nothing. That was one thing she was good at; keeping secrets.
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