Olivia Williams

Fatherless

I don’t exactly know when I stopped considering my father to be my father. Maybe it was the first time my mom told me he had gone to jail. My four year old self looked up at her in anguish as I realized that he had never been on the “business trip” my mom had told me he had gone on in order to protect my heart. Or maybe it was the first time I had visited him when he got out. How he and his new wife spent everyday in bed smoking cigars and neglecting the seven year old girl they had under their roof. I had survived that week off of bologna sandwiches I made myself for a whole week because that’s the only thing I could find. I stopped eating bologna after that. Could it have been the last time I ever visited him in jail? My twelve year old self sitting across from him at the table with my sister beside me holding my hand as I tried so hard to keep the tears that threatened to fall down my cheeks at bay as he called me fat and ugly, and blamed me for him being in jail in the first place. Maybe if I had been a better daughter and not stressed him out so much he wouldn’t have turned to drugs and wouldn’t be in jail in the first place.