It was three days before Christmas.
The trailer was clean, and some areas were sparkling.
Sparkling in such a way that the lights from our Christmas tree seemed to glow on the laminated surface in the kitchen.
Lights reflected off the windows. It truly felt magical.
Mama had just turned off the simmer pot, which was what she told me it was called. Inside the medium glass pot were cranberries, orange slices, apple slices, a sprig of rosemary, some cloves, and two sticks of cinnamon. It truly made the house smell like Christmas.
And the moment she turned that burner off, the front door slammed open.
I jumped.
Mama gasped.
And then I looked and saw my father standing in the open doorway.
A breeze blew by, and instantly I was hit with smells that, at the age of eight, I shouldn’t be familiar with.
Alcohol.
Booze.
Tangy.
Smoke.
And.... a sweet floral scent... my mama didn’t wear that.
Before I could let that thought go any further, I saw my mama open her mouth and then snap it shut.
I knew she wanted to ask him where he was, but she didn’t dare.
She had learned not to.
Evidence was shown in the holes in the walls, the width of a fist slamming into it.
My dad stumbled into the house, wearing a white t-shirt my mama had tried to scrub clean every week for him, and one he didn’t hesitate to dirty up as much as he could just to make her suffer.
I sat there holding in my breath, wondering what he would do next.
Normally, he would stumble to the couch, light a cigarette, get one or two puffs into it, and then fall asleep, not snubbing it out.
No, my mama had to do it for him.
And I’d had to do it on the rare occasions as well.
Or he would go to the little hole that was left from our old dishwasher, grab a bottle of booze, go to the couch, and start drinking.
Or... he would look to see what mama made for dinner... and if he didn’t like it... Then none of us got to eat it.
We didn’t get to eat it because he would do one of two things.
The first was that he would spit in it, causing her to dump it out in the trash can.
Second, he would grab the pan, go to the back door, and throw it out for the trailer park’s dogs to eat.
Every time he did that, it ripped a little piece of my heart away.
