The Adult I Needed (Part 2 of 2) [thismustbenormal.wordpress.com]
When I was ten, my mother remarried. Two weeks later, my new stepfather revealed himself to be an abusive alcoholic with a gun fetish. I’m guessing that the first time he went on a drunken rampage my mother chalked it up to a bad day. Maybe she shook her head and said to herself, “men.” Before long, though, the now well-known cycle of abuse established itself in our household and that was that. Before long, I stopped calling him “Daddy”. It would be three years before my mother could manage...