Dad's Redemption
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Fiction
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Moral rights
S.E. Saunders asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
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Authors Note:
While the assertion above states the stories found in this book are fictional, I will include notes where the stories aren't fiction. The following is based on events from my life.
It wouldn't be fair not to comment on the relationship my father and I were able to build because of their separation. Until then, our interaction was my rising at 5 a.m. to eat with him before he went to the army base. Mom wondered why I bothered because it was the same every morning. It was always punctuated with 'eat your cornflakes, eat your cornflakes, eat your {beeping} cornflakes.'
When he and Mom split, I admit I didn't miss him much. He was always working, and I feared him because I didn't know him. I was asleep when he came home. The morning was the only time there was an opportunity to see him.
I'm raising trauma-impacted children now, and I have it from social workers that children who experience poor childhoods remember more than those who had decent ones. In terms of psychological abuse, I escaped primarily unscathed, thanks to my mom's actions.
Yet, the body keeps the score.
I'm still triggered when a man uses a voice or a tone that reminds me of him. This has sometimes made reacting to conflicts between my husband and me challenging. I find myself in the fight, flight and freeze mode. Still, I know Dad did the best he could with what he knew, but it wasn't until I lived with him that I came to see my father in a more positive light. Who he was when he didn't drink.
He's the type of man to punch out a guy lying to him when he asks that same man if he's seen his daughter, and that man lies and says he hasn't seen her.
Anxiety rises and clenches my throat as I write this because I genuinely believe the outcome of my life would be much different than it is now if it weren't for his quick-thinking actions.
As mentioned earlier, I lost the fear of the neighbourhood I roamed. The fear that would have acted as a protective hand.
At a friend's house, I was invited to a house party. My friend's brother, the eldest in his mid-twenties, asked me. I was maybe fourteen. I called his parents, Kookum and Mooshum—Grandma and Grandpa in the Cree language. I had no reason to mistrust these people.
On the night of the party, at the last minute, plans changed, and the brother called a friend to get a ride to the party. I didn't know the brother's friend, but he drove a flashy, white Iroc Z22. The only caveat was that he needed to pick up some weights and cash his cheque. Feeling unsettled about the change of plans, I still went. It was the first party I was invited to. I figured I'd be okay since they told me where they were going, and everything they said happened as they said; plus, it was my friend's brother.
We headed to get the weights, the guys returned, and we stopped to get his cheque cashed. I waited in the car because I was worried Dad would see me with them. By rights, I was fourteen and had no business with two adult men. As an adult, I look back at this, and it hits hard how much potential danger I was in.
My friend's brother stepped outside to smoke, and who should roll up? Dad and Alan, another girlfriend's father had come looking for me after they found my ten-speed bike thrown down casually in an alley. I kept still in the backseat as Dad strolled over to David to ask him if he'd seen me.
When my friend's brother replied he hadn't, Dad exploded, grabbed the guy, and threw him into a headlock—simultaneously calling him a f*ing liar. Shouting that he could see me in the back seat of the car he was leaning against. I hopped out of the vehicle and pulled at him trying to stop him from nearly choking David within an inch of his life.
While nothing untoward had happened until that point, Dad quickly pointed out it was highly likely I would be the party. I shudder to think about what could have happened. After that evening, David wouldn't interact with me save a few sentences. Later I heard he was diagnosed with HIV and then full-blown AIDS.
Whatever the night held, I maintain my father saved my life in a crucial way, and from that day forward, our relationship shifted to one of closeness because I knew that he was willing to take on guys twenty years younger than himself to protect me. It was the first time I knew with certainty my Dad loved me.
My Dad still lives on the North End and is a changed man. He's still as generous as he is hardworking, and I know he loves all his daughters. Writing this reminds me I should call him. We don't have many more days left, and I shouldn't be wasting the days between by not talking regularly.
Whoever he was before isn't who he is now, and whatever passed between him and my mother is none of my business.