[18 years ago, Matt"s past]Despite saying he wasn"t a nice person, this wasn"t always the case. We only really remember a person"s bad moments and sometimes someone who seems really nice can just change. Something could happen to them that causes the change but the doesn"t matter. All we care about is that they suddenly don"t treat us nicely.
I was in year 8, a little bit before Sean was born, I lived with my mum and dad. Although we weren"t the happiest family, we got by. I was doing some mock exams and was struggling in school. My mum always supported me and helped me study whilst she carried Sean around inside her. She was in a lot of pain because of it but she kept it up and kept trying to make me happy. Her husband didn"t do anything to make her life easier.
"Why don"t you know this?" My dad would say as he saw the results of my homework. "I know this and so should you."
"S-sorry…" was all I could say. He never hit me nor did he hit my mum. He always had a condescending tone and expected great things from me. He would leave for work each day at 5 in the morning and come back 12 hours later expecting dinner to be ready. We can"t blame him for that, 12 hours is a long time to work and he did it every day without complaint.
"How are you still failing?" My dad would say when my grades didn"t improve. "If you don"t improve we"ll have to lock you in your room with nothing but books."
It was an empty threat but it worked. It got me to study, but it didn"t give him the results he was happy with. Even if I pa.s.sed all my subjects I wasn"t top of the cla.s.s like he claimed he was.
"Get it right this time!" He"d say as he slowly started to get more and more aggressive.
"S-sorry…"
"Calm down, dear." My mum would say now that she was looking after the newly born Sean.
He wouldn"t say anything back, he would just look at her and the smile of an innocent child.
To help around the house a bit, I took up the role of cook. I cooked us all dinner whilst my dad was at work and my mum was looking after Sean.
"This is disgusting." He said as he spat it out all over the table.
"S-sorry…"
Before Sean"s first birthday, the arguments were getting worse. My mum thought I couldn"t hear them and tried to keep me out of it but I could always hear them argue whilst I made sure that Sean wasn"t crying. The arguments were always about Sean. I could hear how my mum would defend us whilst our dad hated us. Perhaps Sean knew this was what they were talking about and always cried because of it.
"There, there…" I said to console the crying Sean laying down in his crib. "Just ignore them, ok? It"ll be fine… I"ll look after you…"
Whenever my mum would come downstairs after an argument there would always be a new bruise. I never asked about them as I could see how scared she was. When she would hold me in her arms and shake uncontrollably I could see how painful it must have been for her.
"What do you want for dinner?" I asked my mum who was resting on her bed.
"I-i don"t know…" she said. "Your dad will be home soon… better get something quick…"
Ding Dong
"Oh s.h.i.t, he"s back early." she would say whenever the doorbell rang which also caused Sean to start crying. "Can you go look after Sean?"
Whilst she handled whoever was at the door, I"d always take care of Sean. It had become common for me to work around the house instead of study. This resulted in my grades slowly falling again which caused my now abusive dad to hit me.
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"Come on Sean…" I"d say cradling him in my arms whilst my parents argued downstairs, trying to drown out the sound so he didn"t have to hear it.
"You know, Sean. One day we might not be like this. We might not be living with one of them… we might even get split up. It"ll get better, Sean. When you grow older, it"ll be much better… I"ll make sure you grow up properly, you"re my little brother after all. You"ll grow up to be much better than me… I know it."
The arguments carried on even when I was doing my GCSEs in year 11. They were no longer living together and we had to move out. He kept the house whilst Sean, our mum and I had to find a small little house we could hardly afford. Once I finished my exams I went into work and Sean grew up without a father. We did everything we could to keep him away but they were still married. It took almost 20 years to get the divorce finalised, it came down to fear. My mum was too scared to see him and so was I. Even if divorce would have solved a lot of our problems, as long as we never saw him, it didn"t matter.
Right now, we are happy without him, we won"t grow up to be like him. He wasn"t always the man he became. We don"t know what flipped in him to do it, but he never tried to go back. He thought he was doing the right thing. He wanted a perfect family and once he saw we couldn"t give that, perhaps that was the cause.