I noticed a small tree house standing high overlooking the cliff across the street. Three young boys played around under the tree while one remained in hiding above in the tree house. My father had helped us build that tree house. The boy above was my little brother George, keeping watch to make sure no girls were around while us, older boys, played beneath. My mother was angry with me for not letting George play. I had responded that he was too young for our games. She replied that he was eight and not an idiot. And that two years wasn’t that big of a difference. The next time my friends, Johnny and Billy, came over George played with us. He tried to do his best, but he didn’t know how to play. It would have helped if we had told him that you were supposed to hide every now-and-again and not just run up and try not to get hit by the pirates. I turned the book and strained to see what was in the binding: I noticed a tall, thin man. It was my father. He was yelling at me to quit playing and do something productive. That was the first time he’d yelled at me when he was drunk. It only got worse. I shook my head remembering what my father had done to me and my little brother. I could only fathom what he had done to my mother. Saddened, I turned the page.
Behind the large group of people was a little church. I noticed myself standing awkwardly in a tuxedo next to my bride. It was my wedding day: one of the happiest moments in my life. My father had thought I got married too young and did not attend the wedding. My mother, bless her heart, tried to convince him that twenty was not too young to be married and that he should come to the wedding anyway. He stayed at home and got drunk. My brother and sister, George and Sheila, stood in the wedding party. My wife did not have any siblings so mine were the bridesmaid and groomsmen. My brother was looking at my wife’s second cousin who was quite pretty: later becoming his wife. I looked to the bottom of the page. A small black car with colorful windows and streamers everywhere was to be our get-a-way car. We fought through all the flying rice: it had not been banned yet. I smiled remembering the next few years with my wife. I turned the page.
There was an office. It was small and cramped. I stood next to my desk on the phone with someone. I did not know who, I had been on the phone with many people during my occupation as assistant for an automobile CEO. I looked to the assistant who seemed so eager to help me fill in the gaps. He looked solemnly at the navy blue carpet and told me that I was on the phone with my mother, who was sobbing. It was October 7, 1997. Tears came to my eyes remembering that awful conversation with my mother. She was indeed sobbing. She had come home after a long day at work. She had told me she stayed at the school as long as she could before going home so she would have to spend as little time with my father as possible: he was drunk most of the time now and he was an abusively mean drunk. When she entered the door, she did not hear yelling of the most vulgar language imaginable like she usually had. It was silent. She knew something was wrong. She carefully made her way into her bedroom. She turned the light on and screamed from what she saw. There was my father, his feet not quite touching the top of her bed. Blood had pooled on her bedspread. She found a note carefully placed on her desk. It was a suicide note from my father. She never disclosed what it had said to me. As I looked at the picture that was in front of me: me in the office, I could see the permanent stress in my facial expression: I looked almost forty five instead of thirty. I had remembered feeling the slightest hint of joy after that horrifying phone call. My father was gone and he could not hurt us anymore. Hoping to forget the terrible sounds of my mother’s cries, I turned the page.
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