Unfaithful
"Close the window." I grumped, turning on my side to get away from the intruding light.
A sharp pain in my side made me whimper and stopped my movements. I opened my eyes to unfamiliar surroundings. I was in a room with beige colours that had nothing except two beds. I was on one and there was an IV drip connected to my wrist. On the second bed was...was my mother!
"Mum!" I yelled, but she didn't respond.
Both of her eyes were swollen shut and she spotted several cuts on her body and face. The blood had been cleaned off but she was still almost unrecognizable. I yanked off the drip, wincing slightly at the pain before rushing over to mother's side. She still wasn't moving, but when I put my finger under her nose, I felt her breathing. I exhaled in relief that didn't last long. The heart monitor started making erratic noises when mother began trashing on her bed. I ran out of the room to get help when I stumbled upon them.
There were two silhouettes just a corner from the hallway I was standing in. I would have run to them for help, but their conversation derailed that plan.
"The beatings are becoming too frequent Frank, you need to reign in your temper." A nasally voice stated.
I realized two things immediately. We were in Dr Boyle's clinic and the man he was talking to was my dad. Dr Boyle was a pudgy, bespectacled man with wispy hair that started in the middle of his head. There was something about him that I didn't like. Maybe it was the slightly creepy way he stared at me or maybe it was because he was dad's friend and helped patch mother up after an 'accident' because the ER asked too many questions. This man looked the other way while my mother was being abused. It didn't matter that he treated her, he only did so to get paid and then sent her back to the man who would beat her up and send her back to him in two weeks or less.
"She has two broken ribs. Her shoulder is fractured and she has swelling around her head. If you hit her again, she won't wake up again. Ever." Dr Boyle warned direly before walking away and leaving dad in the hallway.
My mum would die if dad hit her again. I wondered how long it would take dad before he succumbed to his beastly nature and beat my mother. Probably a week, or less if someone annoyed him at work, or at the gas station or club or God forbid the neighbors speak too loudly. The next time he hit her, I wouldn't have a mum anymore.
I bit down savagely on my hands to smother my scream. What torture was this? I saw dad leave without even bothering to pop his head into the ward and check on the woman he had nearly killed and his flesh and blood. On a whim, I tiptoed after him on barefoot. What I planned to say to him when I caught up to him, I didn't know but he needed to understand that he couldn't carry on as before. Someone had to talk sense into him and it seemed like I would have to do it. By the time I hobbled outside the stupid maze that was Dr Boyle's clinic, dad's sports car was gone.
I sighed loudly, glanced at the weak sun and walked in the direction of home. Another night spent in the hospital. I should have turned back and gotten some shoes but I was too wired up and antsy to wait that long. Our house was in a private gated community and Dr Boyle's clinic was on the other side of it, which meant home was three miles away and I had no idea how long dad would be home for. If he was even going home in the first place. No matter, I'd be waiting no matter what time he decided to show up.
By the time our house came into view, there was a hitch in my thigh, my foot was beyond sore and completely blistered. I huffed out as I tried to get in enough oxgyen to live. Oh God. That was officially the dumbest decision I ever made. Why did I walk barefoot over three miles to catch up with a man driving a sports car? The walk wasn't that long but after the trauma of the past few hours, my body was rebelling this new torture.
A gleaming red car in our driveway stole my attention. Dad was home, thank goodness. If he'd gone out anyways and my trek through hell turned out to be for naught, honest to God I would bawl my eyes out in the middle of the street. The front door would be locked and for some strange reason, I wanted to enter the house without dad knowing I was coming in. If he was trapped without an escape, then he'd have to listen to reason. I hobbled around back and crawled in through the broken patch in our fence. Since the door was locked and I didn't want to raise dad's ire further by knocking, I brought out the old rickety ladder from the shed and climbed into my room. It was exactly as I left it, dark and the bed unmade. More than anything, I needed shoes. I was wearing my flats when I heard it.
Loud, jarring female laughter. The sound came from the direction of my parents' room. Why was there a female laughing in my parents' room while my mother lay unconscious in the hospital bed? Some instinct told me to keep my presence in the house secret. I tiptoed out of my room towards my parents' room where the giggling only got louder and happier. I found my parents' door ajar and I craned my neck to see the most disturbing thing I'll ever see in my entire life. It was the stuff of nightmares. My father lay butt naked on the bed with an equally naked blonde bimbo atop him giggling as she did some wild bronco move. I backed away from the door and gagged. That was more of dad's skin than I ever wanted to see. Eew. Someone get me a bleach. Stat. I needed to unsee that, like immediately.
"But bae, when will we be moving to cancoon? You promised you'd be done with Lame-o soon." She whined plaintively. Was she referring to my mother as Lame-o? That stupid cunt!
"I know, but it will be soon baby. I promise. Kiera is nineteen now. We just gotta wait until she turns twenty one and can receive the inheritance." Wait. What? Why were they talking about me?
"Two more years?" She yelled in her shrilly voice. The whole of her front jiggled as she fumed at him. "I've been waiting for seventeen years and now I have to wait three more years?"
He had been cheating on mum basically their whole married life! What a scumbag.
"I'm sorry love. I thought it would be done as soon as I married Louise but her father changed his will into Kiera's name when he found out that Louise was pregnant. I swear, if I'd known he was going to do that, I would have kicked that stupid pregnancy out of her." He vowed, trying to placate her.
This man was not my father. He wasn't even human. He was a demon from the depths of hell in human form. My back smacked against the railing painfully. I slumped down the railing and fell on my butt. The doctor said the next time he hit her, she would never wake up again. From the sound of things, he needed me alive only to get my grandfather's money. If mother died, I would be stuck with him. Who's to say he wouldn't kill me off once he had his hands on the money. How could a man be this cruel towards his own family?
I wanted to find a box of matches and a keg of gasoline and set this whole house on fire with the two of them in it.
Now that I thought about it, it wasn't a bad idea.