Perfectly Imperfect

~33~

~Adam~

"Did dad hit you again?"

I asked before I could stop myself, before I could wrap my head around the impact of the question and mom's reaction to that question, the panic in her eyes, her hands gripping each other till I could see her knuckles turning white and her almost agitated breathing.

Did she actually think I did not know or that I had forgotten?

"Mom, why is dad always beating you?"

I once asked her that question. I was 8.

Her answer was to bend down to my level, something like fear in her eyes. She had cradled her face in her hands, her fingers running over my face gently.

"Your dad is not a monster, Korede."

That was the first thing she said to me, a slight tremble in her voice.

"He has... He just have things going on. That's why he's like that. He just... He's a good man and he's going to change soon."

If there was any change, it was the fact that he had gotten worse over the years.

"You should forget this and just remember that your dad is a good man."

How can I forget when over the years, I had watched mom sink deeper and deeper into her shell?

When I've seen her crumbled over and over again?

Right from that moment, we never talked about it again and judging from her expression, she actually thought I had forgotten.

That I had forgotten, that I was actually capable of forgetting some thing like that.

"Adam.."

She called out, her voice, a frantic whisper. She just called me Adam. I can't even remember the last time she called me by that name. She avoided looking at my eyes and she biting her chapped lips, her skin turning more red than yellow.

"Korede, what do you.. What are you...?"

She trailed off, her voice cutting and I could tell that that was the onset of a sob. I could feel my heart splittering into a thousand pieces, each piece hurting as it splitters.

"Korede, your dad is not...."

"My dad is not a monster? Is that what you're about to tell me again?"

I asked-shouted, shocking myself at the intensity, at the anger I was feeling, this intense anger, compared to the calmness I had felt just minutes ago.

Mom was shocked too because she looking at me with bewildered eyes, huge eyes but I wasn't done.

"Mom, please. I've tried, really tried, all these years to see dad, to unsee dad as a monster but how could I? When I keep seeing are the bruises on your back, on the whole of your body. How could I unsee him as a monster when every day, I keep hearing sounds of him hitting you?"

There was a frantic fear in her eyes now as if it was all dawning on her that I really knew and what the impact of that was doing to me.

"Korede, we.. He.. doesn't. He is... Just..."

My clenched fist came slamming down when I realized that she was really going to to defend him again. The ice pack and the empty bottle jumped and mom jumped too, shocked at my violence.

I've always, always try to avoid anything that would trigger me to violence.

"Mom, do you even have an idea what this thing is doing to me? How much this thing is breaking me? I can't even have my friends come over whenever I wanted. I can't even really be at peace when I'm not at home because I don't know what I'd return to..."