Nightmare

Having arrived home after our usual Sunday family outing, all three of us children gathered in out parents' room. The window was open, bringing in a light breeze into the otherwise stuffy and hot Nicaraguan night. But something about the ambiance felt different. I could feel it, almost touch the thickness of the tension that marked its presence in the room, almost smell that stench of fear and cowardice that slowly seeped in to perfume the air of until then, a happy home. I gazed outside, where our mother's purse flew through the air. In the living room our father screamed. I rushed to his side. That's when I saw him. The Devil. Only he didn't look like I had always pictured him to be. He wasn't red, nor did he have horns and a tail. He was a kid with red hair and freckles and wore a baseball cap. He held our father in his arms, his claws tearing at our father's bleeding flesh. I jumped into action, willing to do anything in order to save him. Grabbing a rosary, I repeatedly slapped it across the Devil's face. As the holy rosary burned his malignant visage, he let go of our father and glared. Then, running out of the house, his eyes met mine and he vowed, "Me voy, pero volvere."

I was six years old when this nightmare, the scariest one I've ever had, came to me. I was yet to experience any hardships and still believed in happily-ever-afters. My world was Utopia, a Candy Land composed of dreams, games and love. I belonged to a loving family, had tons of playmates, too many toys and my innocence. I was happy. But this nightmare came, foreshadowing the end of my, until then, fairy-tale life and the end of my parents' once blissful marriage.

The divorce did not happen right away. No, it took two years before our mom was able to escape her hellish marriage and bring us kids to the United States. But during those two years she encountered enough beatings, humiliations and attempts against her life to last a few lifetimes.

Almost overnight, for reasons I am not aware of, our father became an alcoholic. He picked up the vice, which was followed by the affair and an innocent bastard child. In a small town where everyone makes it their business to know your business, our mom tried hard to ignore all the fingers pointed at her. Even us kids didn't escape it. After school, parents looked at us with pity as they picked up their children. Our mom moved us of our now broken-home and into her parents', who even though they resided in San Francisco, still owned a house in Nicaragua.

Living away from our father didn't keep him from tormenting us. Showing up drunk on an almost nightly basis, he would beat her. He would grab her 5'1 frame against his 6'4 one, and hit and offend her. "You're not woman enough to keep me or any other man around," he would say, piercing her heart with every insult. We were young, but neither deaf nor blind. We could hear the screams, see and touch the bruises that had become permanent on our mother's cinnamon skin.

Night after night he would come. Nothing could keep him away. The beatings and insults were now a ritual. I still remember things he would say, things I wish I could forget. His words still haunt me, instill fear in me, fill me with anger. Every night was a nightmare we never woke up from. But one night was worse than any other. That night, Mimi, our paternal grandmother, took my sisters and me home only to arrive to an empty house with our mom no where to be found. After some investigation, one of our neighbors said our mom was hiding from him, our daddy, who came by threatening to shoot her. That night was hell, driving around in search of her, hoping and praying that he hadn't found her. I remember feeling numb and useless, knowing I could do nothing to help her, but willing to take her place to save her. Our granny, sweet old woman that she was, made the horror even more potent when she said the cruelest thing you could say to three little girls in fear of their mother's life - "Your dad probably already killed her, you are now orphans. But don't worry, I'll drop you off at the orphanage where the kids nobody wants are." I don't recall where or when we found our mom, only remember the relief that he had not gotten to her. That night, I knew that red-headed devil kept his promise - he had our father.

Not too long after, we escaped the country along with our mother and moved to San Francisco on December 13th, 1991. The experience we lived through, made me stronger but also made me distrustful of people. With my mom as example of a strong female, I never felt the need for a "father-figure". But I sometimes wonder what my life would have been like if my father hadn't abandoned us. Sometimes I wish I had a dad. When I see other girls with their dads, it makes me sad. My father is a stranger. He is not a part of my life and never will be. I don't want him anymore. He wasn't there when I needed him, he didn't see me grow up. I often find myself thinking about things other girls may take for granted, such as who will walk me down the aisle the day I get married? His example makes me fear commitment. I don't want to get hurt. I don't want to be left behind. As a result, I push people away. They don't know it, but I try to not be close to anyone. I purposely sabotage my chances at happiness before someone else does it for me. I alienate myself, because,in doing so, I'm saving someone else the trouble of doing it for me. If my own father didn't want me, why would anyone else?

Daddy's little girl. That is exactly what I was before my family disintegrated. I was his favorite daughter and he was my favorite parent. I was his fearless little tomboy ready to take on the world. When I wasn't in school, I was with him. Together we would go to my grandfather's farms and play and bond.At night, he would tell me my favorite type of bedtime stories, scary ones. As a child, my dad had been my world. So when he walked out on us, I took it personally. When he hit and abused my mom, I felt all the blows. He left me. The person whom I had loved above all for the first eight years of my life, was the one who caused me the most pain. His betrayal made my heart close.