King Me

One

There was a time I lived with the foolish notion that I didn't have a mother and never had. I was eight years old when I found a worn snapshot stowed away in my father's study while looking for a tape roll. Our yard was recognizable in the backdrop but the woman featured was a stranger. She was tall and slender; facing away from the camera with her head turned just slightly over her shoulder to give the photographer a patient smile. She was classically beautiful: creamy fair skin, high cheekbones, and perfectly bow shaped lips. Her smile, warm and familiar, gave me a need to know who she was. Naïve, I assumed that my father would neither notice nor care about this single picture. I lifted it from the drawer and went running off to my older brother.

As was typical on a weekday afternoon I found him in the kitchen rooting through cupboards for something that was edible without any preparation. As I entered the room he hopped off the chair he'd been standing on. In his hand he held package of cookies.

"Hungry?" he asked me, dropping the pack onto the table. I shook my head.

"Who's this woman?" I asked him while shoving the photo into his hands. My voice was nearly accusatory. Perhaps, in my subconscious, I already knew the answer to this question but I wanted to hear it directly from his lips.

Ray looked down at the picture and his impish charm faded away. He turned cold and stiff, something he rarely did with me. His smirk collapsed into a flat line and he was silent for a long time before he answered.

"Our mother."

"Are you sure?" I looked down at the picture in his hands with new curiosity. I had a burning need to know more about the woman who had birthed me—the mother it turns out I actually did have at one time. A thousand questions danced and dipped in my head.

"Of course I'm sure," he said, pushing the picture back into my hands. "You think I'd forget our own mother? Besides, can't you see she looks like you?"

"I guess from the right angle..." I tilted the photo slightly, trying to see the resemblance he was referring to. We had the same hair, I supposed. My mouth opened to ask more questions but that was the moment my father thundered into the house.

We heard the door slam with such force that it rattled the windows but we didn't even jump. He came into the room, loosening his tie as he strode over to fridge for a cold one. He yanked the fridge open with similar force, pulled out two clinking bottles of beer, and slammed the door shut. If his usual patterns had continued he wouldn't have spared us as much as a glance. He would have kept going and stalked all the way back to his study where he would slam that door too and lock it for the rest of the evening. It must have been from the corner of his eye that he caught my rapt expression and instead stomped over to us.

"What is this?" he demanded, tearing the picture out of my hand.

Like Ray, his demeanor changed entirely as he registered the image. His face grew very dark and I knew that I must have done something really bad to make him so angry. Back in those days I looked at my father with little less than reverence. I was deluded enough to think that any anger he expressed toward me was justified. An apology clawed its way up my throat but not fast enough—never fast enough.

"You little brat," he hissed, throwing the picture. "You've been in my study haven't you? Haven't you!? Answer me!"

I whimpered, unable to form words while I watched the photo flutter to the floor just inches away. The best I could do was wince, steel myself for the strike that I knew was coming.

"What did I tell you about going in there?" he roared, looming over me with one, thick hand raised high above his head in the upswing. "What did I tell you about pawing through my stuff? Are you an idiot? How many times am I going to have to—!?"