Fight

According to my father, I’m out of control. It’s no wonder I’m single and completely undesirable! God forbid a woman want some respect, right?

            I’m sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m just so furious at my dad, I can’t even think straight right now. Okay, deep calming breath, and from the beginning.

            I went along with my dad and Eliza to a business dinner. I didn’t have any other plans and I wanted to see how my dad was getting along, since he tends to have some pretty outrageous ideas and we really can’t afford to lose any business. The dinner was fine, it was some of my dad’s associates and their partners, nothing extraordinary or terrible.

            But on the way home, Dad began his criticizing. Mrs. So-and-so had gained weight, Mrs. What’s-her-name shouldn’t have cut her hair so short, Mr. Whatever had a bald spot forming. Everyone’s looks were scrutinized, and I found it hard to stay quiet like I usually did. Dad tried to compliment me and say that I looked five years younger thanks to that anti-aging cream he gave me for Christmas—which, by the way, I have yet to use—and Ms. Whoever could take a page from my book.

            His suggestion that I was somehow better than the people we had just had dinner with set me off. Looks aren’t all there are to a person, and we have no right to criticize someone for how they choose to live their life, which I let him know. I also told him that I found his Christmas gift demeaning and insulting, and that some crow’s feet weren’t going to affect my state of happiness.

            Dad laughed at me, called me naïve, and said that one’s first impression came from one’s appearance, and to not pay attention to every aspect of one’s physical appearance meant that they had no self-respect.

            And then…it got really ugly. I said, “That attitude you have is what killed Mom before she was even dead.” Dad got red-faced and puffy and asked what I meant by it. I screamed out about how I’d seen why Dad had done to Mom. How she denied herself any fattening food in favor of working out more because she had to stay thin, for him. She would slather on creams, and force herself to keep on her high heels despite the blisters and blood on her feet, all to please him. She smiled, but it rarely reached her eyes, because she was doing so much to make him happy, she made herself miserable. 

And then, when she was bald and skinny and pale—he refused to show any affection toward her. They slept in separate rooms, supposedly for her own good, but really only so that he didn’t have to see her. It still hurts me to remember how excited she was to be feeling well and able to go out for the first time in weeks, and how her face fell to find Eliza had taken her place by Dad’s side for a party. She didn’t smile at all those last few years of her life, because Dad had been so preoccupied with what her cancer had done to her body, he failed to nurture her soul, to love her.

            That’s when Dad got into me. Told me I had only been a child, unable to see truth and instead, as an adult, had made up fantasies based off of those stupid movies I liked to watch. He said that my lack of care for my appearance is what has made me so repulsive to men, and now, with this new lip I was forming, would ensure that even a blind man wouldn’t dare be with me. Without control, I’d never be someone’s wife.

            We’d pulled up to our house at that point. I said I’d rather be alone forever than to ever give up my independence and opinions, then got out of the car and hurried up into my room, listening to a lot of angry music (well, angry for me).

            And now I remember why I stopped living with my dad. I mean, I’d never exploded at him like that, though I honestly always wanted to, but he always made me so upset at how he viewed other people, how he treated Mom. It’s making me wonder if this, moving in the city with him and Eliza, was even a good idea.