My father's mouth was like my own; pouty and wide, and sometimes when he laughed I could see my own smile resembling the one stretching across his face. When he drank, his eyes became scarlet with a flame of rage that could be ignited just as easily as it could be doused. His voice was a booming roar, one that frightened both me and my brother so much that it immediately caused our hearts to race with panic. We’d hide, rarely splitting up and finding what we thought to be the most difficult places for one to be pulled out from.
My mother was a woman who could out-drink any man. Her fair looks and witty sense of humor fooled even the most reputable person into believing that she was nothing short of picture perfect. That was unless that reputable person lived beside us and was subjected every night to obnoxiously loud parties and random people pissing in their bushes or jumping into baby pools to win ten dollar bets.
They were always drunk, my parents. I don’t think I even got to know them in their right states of mind until I was about eleven or twelve. That was only after they’d finally finished with happy hour and realized that the children in their house were not a hallucination after all. By then, though, the damage was done.
Of course, we went on. We picked up the pieces, patched hearts back together and mopped up any leftover tears. Most importantly, we didn’t blame.
No, we never ever blamed.
