I would have been six or seven years old at the time, asleep in a daybed upstairs at my grandmothers in the middle of the night. The room I was in attached by large pocket doors to the room my parents slept in when we stayed there, but only my mother was in the bed. My father was carrying me silently away. I woke up but stayed silent until my mother woke up too and quietly told my drunk father to put me back. Somehow I was dropped and she was sent falling down the winding staircase and soon the entire neighborhood was awake with our drama. I remember his gun. And I remember my paternal grandmother calling my maternal grandfather from down the road to come with his gun because my dad was going to kill us all. The fight rolled outside. My sisters and mom and I went to a house across the street while the police who were two doors down had their lights flashing through the black night. Eventually my father fled then my sisters and mom and I went back with my granddad.
There was a pivotal shift for me that night. Nothing from above gave me a second thought because other than it happening in a neighborhood this time where others got involved, nothing was out of the ordinary for us. The violence, the yelling, the closeness to death – all of that was normal. At some point my father showed up at my maternal grandparents and even though he didn’t stay everyone seemed like things were fine. But as dawn drew near the local news station aired report of a manhunt for my father and I saw it from the living room tv with everyone else. He had just left and we knew where he was going, so I innocently asked why we weren’t calling the number on the screen. Because even with all the information in the world, he’ll never be held accountable for his actions. I lost all faith in ever being taken care of that night.
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