At this time, my father tolerated that I had a "boyfriend."
It's called OSCAR.
He was a beautiful, kind boy who lived very close to my house.
I was 7 years old.
At that time, my sister and I used to make kites and hats, as well as boats folded with newspaper, the funny thing is that we sold them.
Also, sometimes, our friends would accompany us to go along the road picking up boats, until kilometer 30.
We walked a lot.
When we gathered enough.
My sister or Oscar were going with me to go to a huge junkie on the road.
When I went, I felt like a big person doing business.
On the way back, with that money, we would go to a cooler to buy half a bar.
With this, a scraping brush, lemon and chili powder.
We used to sell "little monkeys".
Scrape chili and lime.
Friends would get together, we would give them a discount, and those who helped us sell, we would give them a scratch.
Those children were a spark of life in our darkness.
There were many reasons why, since we were kids, we had to work.
My father did not object, if he knew, but at that time he was absent.
It was common for him to get angry.
He was going to live with his older sister.
In those days, we had no income, so we worked to help my mother.
Who, I don't remember since when, worked in secret from my father, during the hours he worked.
That way, when she left, she would secure food for us.
The bosses were sympathetic to her at the factory, especially when she arrived late or had to leave early.
The cycle was endless.
After reading the book called: Men are from Mars, women are from Venus.
I was able to come to an agreement.
His sister's house was my father's cave.
If in doubt.
I invite you to read this book.
Some of my memories at night weren't good.
It almost always happened at night.
The times my father would fight with my mother.
I could never understand why.
To this day it is a mystery.
Many were the nights when we were woken up by screams in my parents' room.
The thud of whipping could be heard on the wall.
My mother's screams, begging my father to stop, her voices, agitated and crying noises, it was my mother's voice that wept.
My sister and I shared a bed.
Whenever this happened, we woke up looking into each other's eyes, terrified, we knew what would happen.
It didn't take long for my father to arrive along with my mother.
Beaten, crying, her face swollen from the blows.
Sometimes he threw her on the bed, on top of us who were hugging, curled up in some corner of the bed.
After yelling and hitting my mother a few more times.
That's when he went to his room.
My mother, she always held back her tears, I know it hurt her that we saw her cry.
Afraid of hurting her, we hugged her, trying to soothe our pain.
On some of the occasions, he would beat us along with her before going to lock himself in his room.
On those nights, she stayed with us, sitting in bed until dawn, none of us had been able to sleep.
When we heard the door slamming, that's when we could hear my father's footsteps down the hallway to go to the kitchen, where the door was to go out, he went to work.
Sometimes my mother would get ready quickly to go to work as well.
I can't imagine what my mother was going through psychologically.
Not only because of the fact that he had to endure the blows, the insults, swallow his tears and have to go with his beaten body to a place to work a whole shift.
With the blows, still latent.
It doesn't fit in my imagination.
Maybe I wouldn't have that courage myself.
Without a doubt, self-esteem was at rock bottom.
Like a vice.