‘I was angry that she could never understand what it felt like to be abandoned by your parents.’ Illustration: Susanna Gentili/The Guardian
By Nikkya Hargrove, The Guardian, June 12, 2023
The grease hit my bare skin and landed in the space between my shoulder blade and the arch of my back. We were in our kitchen, my mom frying a chicken meal on the stove. My father was soon to arrive home from work, and she always worked hard to have his meal ready.
My dark chocolatey skin sizzled, and I cried in pain. My mother picked me up and tried to calm me down, wiping tears from my cheeks. As soon as my father opened the front door, she saw disappointment all over his face. He greeted her with “What happened to her, Lisa?”
She put me down, preparing for what was coming next. His open hand smacked her across the face, and from there, they fought. This would happen whenever my father drank too much or whenever either of their fiery personalities got the best of them, but this time was the last straw. My mother left him, and neither of us ever returned to Texas or my father’s home again. In many ways, that was also when my mother distanced herself from me, both physically and emotionally. She left me with her parents while she went about her life, a young woman who had a failed marriage and a young child before she was even 20 years old.
Comments (1)