058: Parents

My dad... he didn't like me. I don't think he liked me even before, but after...

I was... different and I knew things he didn't want me to and sometimes if I was there long enough to be in school people would start asking questions and he'd get so angry and say we had to leave.

He drank a lot and he would rant and yell and swear and say terrible things about me. How bad I was. That I was a freak. That I should have been the one killed instead of my mother. That he wished I was dead. Other stuff like that.

Not like I couldn't hear what he was thinking anyway.

He didn't really hit me. Much. But when I got older he'd look at me and I could hear the things he was thinking. Things you're not supposed to think about your kid.

So I ran away as soon as I was 16. Before anything happened.

People here tell me he was wrong and not good, but I still... I still kind of love him. 'Cause he was my dad, you know?

But I don't ever ever want to see him again.

My mother... I wish I remembered more about her. But I remember laughter and cuddling. Her long hair wrapping around me like a curtain. And if I listen very carefully I can still almost hear her talking to me. In Lakota or English. I know she loved me. Loved me so very much.

And people here say she'd want me to be happy, that she'd say my dad was wrong and that I was okay and that most of all she'd wanted me to live.

I hope they're right. I like to think they are.