Broke Family

My mother, Summer, and my father, James, were never the love story people imegine when they think of parents. Their story begn with pain, long before I was born. My mother was young, vulnerable, and trapped in a relationship where love had been replaced by fear. He drank, disappeared with friends, came home angry, violent, irrational. And my mother, with a child from a previous marriage, endured everything in silence.

Her son saw it all. Every fight. Every bruise. Every moment she tried to survive.

When I came into the world, nothing magically changed. James worked far away, in places two or three hours from home. And according to what my mother told me, in those places he had other women, even children, which explained why he stayed away for days and nights. She waited for him without knowing when he would return or what state he would be in. And instead of using that distance to grow, he used it to control her. He didn't let her sturdy. He din't let her work. He bought cars she couldn't drive so she wouldn't have independence. He kept her small so he could feel big.

And the worst part-the part that still hurts even though it wasn't my fault-was when my mother was pregnant with twins. She went to a bar where he spent his nights drinking, and whenshe confronted him, he kicked her. That kick ended the pregnancy. Two lives gone before they even began.

Later, when she was pregnant with my sister, she finally got a protection order. They placed her in a safe home for abused women. But he always came back crying, apolognizing, promising. And she always forgave him, even if they lived separately. That was the version of them I grew up with: together, but broken. Connected but never whole.

As a child, I watched my friends with their fathers and wished for something that simple-a present dad, someone to talk to, someone who would listen. I grew up with that emptiness, with a space I didn't know how to fill.

My teenage years were a mix of confusion, sadness, and unanswered questions. I didn't understand why my father wouldn't change, why he kept drinking, why he didn't seem to care about what he could lose. And I didn't understand why life had to be this way for us.

He got prostate cancer. He got better. Then he stopped going appointments. He kept drinking. I begged him to stop. He didn't. It felt like he didn't care if he left us behind.

My mother eventually decided to move to United States. She asked him to come, but he refused. He said he wouldn't leave my grandmother alone. But he treated her badly too. He ignored her, rejected her food, told her not to bother him. When she fell and needed help, he wasn't there. He was out drinking.

That's how my parents finally separated-not through a decision, but through distance.

Here in United States, my mother met someone new. He drank too, but differently. I didn't trust him. I didn't trust any man after what I had seen. But he changed. He stopped drinking. But he is alone. And that breaks something in me, even though I understand why things turned out this way.

I live far away. My sister does too. He only had his sisters now. And sometimes it hurts deeply to know he is alone, even though many of his wounds came from his own decisions. Sometimes I wish he had been a better man so we could have been a real family. Sometimes I wish he had loved my mother the way she deserved. Sometimes I wish he had loved himself enough to change earlier.

But now, at 27, I finally understand.

My mother saved herself. And James saved himself too late.

And even though it hurts, I know this: My mother has a life. My father is not in prision. And I survived the space between them.