Eponine's father stuck his head out of the door and saw Eponine still standing stuck against the wall. "Well what are you doing there?" he barked.
"What?" Eponine said, still confused by the rapid series of events that had just occurred.
"What are you standing there for, get in here."
Her father's second demand barked in a gruff voice seemed to snap Eponine back to reality. She hurried inside the apartment; the minute she crossed the threshold her father grabbed her arm and swung her around so she was facing him. "Have you got it?" Thenardier slurred. Eponine could smell the alcohol on his breath stronger than she could ever remember in the past.
"Got what?" Eponine asked.
"The money you daft girl," her father seemed to sway a bit as he said this, gripping her arm even tighter, using her as a sort of anchor. Eponine reached into her pocket to retrieve the five franc piece. She knew it was more than her father asked for, but perhaps it would buy her some time off. She held out the five francs to her father and he blinked for a moment, before grabbing it out of Eponine's hand and inspecting it, all without ever loosening his grip on Eponine's arm.
"This is five francs" he spit out.
"I know." Eponine said.
"Don't you be smart with me, I asked you for three francs."
"And I got you five, I thought you would like it better." At this her father slapped her. She would have fallen down but her father still had her in his grip. Eponine didn't understand, usually she was punished because she didn't do what she was told, or gave too much attitude, but now she was being punished for doing too good of a job?
"And how did you get these five francs?" Her father asked as he pulled her back up to look her in the face.
"I don't know." Eponine responded.
"YOU DON'T KNOW?" Her father screamed back, Eponine felt genuinely afraid.
"It was…simple charity" Eponine responded in a small voice.
"Simple charity?" Her father asked, his face turning red. "Simple charity?" he repeated again, louder this time.
"Yes" Eponine whispered. At this affirmation her father finally released his grip on Eponine as he threw her across the scantly furnished room. She landed with a hard thud and looked up to see her father pounding towards her screaming, "SIMPLE CHARITY, NO ART, NO CRAFT, NO WORK, JUST SIMPLE CHARITY?"
"I'm sorry, I didn't know you…" But before Eponine could finish her sentence her father's boot found her stomach and she felt all the air being forced out of her lungs. She lay there gasping as her father asked, "Do you know what I was doing tonight, while you were getting your simple charity?" Eponine was still out of breath and unable to respond so her father yelled again, "Well do you?"
"No" Eponine wheezed.
"I was out on a job" he father replied. His anger seemed to be sobering him up as he spoke more clearly now, "A job, a real job, one that requires, planning and skill and cunning, not simple charity." He spoke the words 'simple charity' as though they were dirty and as they left his mouth he kicked Eponine again in the leg this time. "Charity which comes from deception is fine" he replied, "it requires skill, but simple charity" he spit the words out again and with them his boot hit Eponine again, "simple charity comes from people who pity you, who think they are better than you." Her father reached down and picked her off the floor, holding her by the shoulders so that she was at eye level with him and her feet dangled off the ground. Once he was sure that his eyes had bore into her slightly broken soul he said, "and you Eponine, you are a Thenardier, is anyone better than you?" Eponine hung in the air silent. "ANSWER ME GIRL"
"No" Eponine replied feebly.
"Good girl" he father replied as he set her back on the ground.
"Why don't you just let me go?" Eponine asked after a significant amount of silence.
"What?" He father replied, not so much angry but shocked by the bluntness of his daughter's question.
"Why don't you just let me go? You let Gavroche go? Why won't you let me go?"
"You ungrateful little bitch" her father spit out, but he didn't advance towards her to hit her again.
"You wouldn't even care if I was gone." Eponine replied back with just as much spite as her father had just thrown her way.
"You have a duty to this family Eponine, I gave you life, and you owe me a debt and you will repay it."
"For how long do I have to repay it, how long do I have to stay here?"
"Forever Eponine, you are with us forever."
"Then why wasn't Gavroche?"
"Gavroche" her father spit into the ground. "He was dirty and cried and ate too much, all the time wanting more." It was the first time that her father had acknowledged Gavroche's existence since that day he returned from Paris alone.
"But Gavroche is a Thenardier."
At this her father charged towards her and punched Eponine with his left hand where he still proudly wore a large metal ring. Eponine fell backwards and could feel warm liquid running down her cheek. She looked up at her father as he said "We are Thenardiers, me you and your mother, that boy Gavroche, wherever he is, is not." Her father's eyes seemed empty except for when he said the word Thenardier and his eyes glinted with pride.
Through her pain Eponine remembered when her father's eyes always looked that way. Happy and proud of the life he had, a wife, a daughter, and a successful enough inn. Gavroche didn't come until after the inn had started to fail and the family begun sliding into poverty. By the time Gavroche could walk that look was gone from her father's eyes and all that was left was the dull and so very frequently angry eyes that looked down at Eponine now.
"You are never the speak of that boy again, you are never to think of him, do you understand?" Her father asked once he had somewhat composed himself.
"Yes" Eponine replied.
"Yes, what" her father asked.
Eponine paused a moment before clearly saying, "yes, I will never speak or think of Gavroche", her father glared at her, "or think of…that boy, again."