All My Yesterdays
WHEN I WAS SIX, I spilled a box of instant rice. My father made me pick it up, grain by grain.
The next morning, my father walked barefoot across the kitchen floor. He called me into the kitchen, showed me the grain of rice stuck to the bottom of his big toe, then backhanded me. When I cried, he hit me again.
When I was eight, my father drove my mother to the hospital. While x-raying my mother's broken arm, a nurse asked what had happened. My mother looked at my father, then said that she'd fallen down our basement steps.
Our house doesn't have a basement.
When I was 10, my father drove over my bicycle.
I'd left it in the driveway in my hurry to use the bathroom. When I finally returned, I saw him carefully and deliberately drive over my year-old stingray.
He made me clean up the twisted metal pieces before dinner.
When I was 12, I awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of my father shouting and my mother crying as he hit her.
I stuffed my head under my pillows and tried to sleep.
When I was 14, I called my father a name. He slugged me, knocking me into the living room wall. Then he grabbed my shirt collar and dragged me to his bedroom. He pushed me down on the bed. With one hand he opened the drawer of his nightstand, removing a revolver I had seen only once before. He shoved the barrel into my mouth. Between clenched teeth, he whispered, "Don't you ever call me that again."
Then he pulled the trigger. The hammer snapped down on an empty chamber, but I had already wet my pants.
Last night, I heard my mother screaming again. I tried to stuff pillows around my head like I had done before, but this time I couldn't muffle the sounds. Then I heard a loud thump against the wall and my mother stopped screaming.
This morning, I woke to find my father cooking breakfast. I asked him where mother had gone.
"Out," he said. "Get ready for school."
My father left before I did, earlier then he'd ever left before. I saw him put a shovel in the car.
While gathering my schoolbooks, I glanced into my parents' bedroom. The bedspread had disappeared and the bed remained unmade. My mother never left the bed unmade. My father wouldn't allow it. I stayed home from school and thought about it.
Early this afternoon, I searched through my father's nightstand and found his revolver. I loaded it.
At five o'clock, I moved the lounge chair into the foyer, facing the front door. I sat in the chair and cradled the heavy gun in my lap.
A few minutes ago, I heard the garage door open and my father's car pull in. Within moments, my father will open the front door.
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