Disclaimer: Just own the words, not the folks.
Skipped The Light Fandango
Tuesdays are the worst.
He'll come home late from work, eat dinner with mom, always making me eat by myself in the kitchen, and then go into his study for hours. When he thinks I'm asleep, he'll come into my room and begin. Sometimes he'll be drunk, but usually he'll just be in a rage of unknown origin. Mom used to try and protect me, but after that last broken arm, not anymore.
He never bruises my face or my forearms, never someplace usually visible. And never hard enough to break anything, except that once.
I felt the rib crack when his fist connected with it. I'd just turned nine, and dad had been wailing on me for about two years. He would beat me until I cried out, but this one time I was too angry to give him the satisfaction. I wanted to show him that I was just as powerful as he was and without having to beat up someone to prove it. So he hit me harder than usual. Over and over the blows kept coming. I only grunted with each connection, denying him his prize of tears and screaming.
Until the rib cracked and then broke.
I thought I'd felt pain in my young life until that moment. I remember screaming and crying in pain as I cradled my side until I blacked out from the pain. My father had gotten what he wanted, but more than he could cover up.
Usually, he'd have one of the doctors on his payroll come and look at me to make sure I was all right and then send me off to school the next day to act as though every breath wasn't agony. That time, his doctor didn't give him the news he wanted to hear. I wouldn't be going back to school the next day or for many days after that. The rib had not only broken, but had punctured a lung. Had he waited 20 more minutes…
So I spent several weeks in the hospital and several months in a foster home while my father under went therapy and anger management for his "problem". It wasn't the broken rib that gave away his abuse it was the many bruises, cuts and burn marks found on my upper arms and torso by the emergency room staff.
Those were the happiest months of my life.
How sad to think that being in the hospital and living with strangers could have made me happy, but it did. I knew it wouldn't last, though, so when he and my mother picked me up from protective services one day, I knew it would all start again. Because my mother didn't press charges and, in fact, backed my father's 'I'm much better now' claims, I was sent back to this hellhole.
My father continued 'therapy' with one of his paid doctors for another six months while protective services continued random visits. Satisfied that all was 'well' in our household, the courts, with a little help I'm sure, declared that my father didn't need any more therapy and no more home visits were necessary.
After a year of freedom, it all came back. Actually, it came back worse. My father had a year of rage to vent and I became his prime target. But he'd learned his lesson about hitting me until I cried out. Now he just hit me until he tired of it and usually not with excessive force, just enough to sting or leave a welt for a few hours. And that's when he started cutting me more. That's when Tuesdays became my real enemy.
Before 'the year of the rib', as I remember it to my self, any day would suffice. Afterward, it was always Tuesdays.
Always Tuesdays.