The thing I had feared most as a kid was robbers. I mean, I knew we were pretty rich at a young age, and I knew that robbers wanted a lot of stuff so I figured they might break in. It wasn't the stuff that worried me because I knew it could be replaced, except for my stuffed bear that was, like, irreplaceable. The thing that worried me about that was that they might hurt me and my family. And I could picture the guy, you know, all dressed in black with maybe a black knit hat on and a knife or a gun in his hand, that look on his face, that look that said nothing was going to get in his way.
My room faced the street, and late at night, trying to sleep around all my fears, that was when I could picture that robber so clearly, climbing up and breaking into the house through my window. I knew what I'd do, I'd stay so still so maybe he wouldn't notice me.
God, I was little then. Maybe four. Maybe even younger. That's what I worried about then. It's funny when you're so little you think your parents are perfect, that they can do no wrong, that they'll just be together for ever. Maybe I tried not to notice when they started fighting, and it wasn't just fighting. They'd do this silence thing. They wouldn't talk to each other but both of them were so obviously upset. Like at breakfast, say. I'd be sitting there eating my cereal or whatever and they'd be glaring at each other, my dad kind of hiding behind his newspaper but he'd rustle it in this way that you could tell he was pissed. And my mom would set the sugar and cream or whatever she was putting on the table, she'd set it down really hard and you could see in the way she jerked her wrist that she was pissed, too.
And these bruises I'd see on my mom's arms and wrists and legs, these light purple bruises, I never guessed that it was from my dad. That didn't even occur to me. Maybe I was stupid, I don't know. What the hell else was it from? I just didn't even wonder. I had bruises, too, but at that age it was from falling and riding bikes and playing soccer and stuff like that. My dad never touched me back then, I swear he didn't.
I thought things were fine for a long time after they weren't fine. Maybe I missed a lot of it, my mom crying in her room late at night. The fights, my dad's face contorted in anger, a look I would come to know very well. Back then I wasn't the focus. Nope. My mom was. And maybe I missed the noises and the bangs and the yelling, and maybe I wasn't hiding under my bed and in my closet.
So much of it was hidden from me, though. They were both educated enough to know that they shouldn't fight in front of me, and he certainly shouldn't beat her in front of me. That wouldn't be good parenting. And when she was off sneaking around with Joey I was home sleeping, blissfully unaware.
So I guess what I'm saying is that it's kind of funny that the thing I feared most as a kid was the destruction of my family. I feared some robber guy would come in and kill us all. I got the destruction part of it right, but the threat wasn't from outside. It was from within.
