DAY ONE OF DADDY’S PUNISHMENT

DAY ONE OF DADDY’S PUNISHMENT




Then, with a look of grave seriousness on his face, Daddy said he was angry, and that he was very disappointed with me. I don’t know what I did to make him so, but I was sure scared; last time Daddy said he was angry at me he made my lip bleed, and he made me stay in my room for a long, long time. I thought about hiding so Daddy couldn’t find me, but I knew that would just make him more mad, and I’d get it twice as bad when he did find me, so I just told him that I was sorry for whatever I had done, and then I started cleaning up our dinner plates.

Daddy didn’t say another word; I am kind of used to that, Daddy stays really quiet when he is mad, that’s how I know he’s still mad, because when he is no longer mad he will talk to me again. He watched as I cleared the table and then took the dirty dinner plates to the sink, and when I put the ketchup and the butter back into the refrigerator, but he didn’t say a word. When I’d finished clearing the table I went to the sink to wash our dishes, and I could feel him staring at me, still sitting in his chair at the table, and I was afraid to turn around to look at him because that would probably just make him mad all over again.

The water from the faucet was so cold that I could feel goosebumps pop up all over my body as soon as I put my hands in the water, but Daddy says that hot water is too expensive so I have had to get used to doing the dishes and taking my baths in the cold. I’ve tried to get used to it, but it’s hard; I guess my body still isn’t used to it because I still get the goosebumps, and it’s been almost six months now since the heat was shut off, but I am thinking that maybe it’ll be easier when it gets to be Summer again, and the days are warmer.

I was washing the glasses we drank out of at dinner, and I guess I let my mind wander a little because I was remembering back when I used to sit on Daddy’s lap after dinner and he and I would watch Mommy standing right where I was then, doing the dinner dishes with her back towards us, and that was when I got really, really scared. I didn’t hear Daddy get up from his chair and walk up behind me, I was still thinking about watching Mommy when she would do the dishes, but when he spoke right next to my ear it scared me so much that I dropped the glass I was washing and it shattered on the tile floor.

I started to cry right then; I knew Daddy didn’t like cry-babies and I knew I shouldn’t do it, but I just couldn’t stop myself. Too many memories of what Daddy did to Mommy when he was mad at her, and how he would remove me from his lap and then get up and walk to where Mommy was standing at the sink; he would be mad at her and he would make her cry, and now he was mad at me and I was sure he was going to make me cry, and it was all his fault in the first place because he was the one who snuck up behind me and talked in my ear, I wouldn’t have dropped the glass if he had not done that, and I was already scared because he had told me he was mad.