Fated

The year I met Eliot Hale, I was fourteen.

Plagued by chronic malnutrition, I was both shorter and skinnier than my peers, appearing significantly younger.

From my earliest memories, my dad was always idle, shirking any semblance of responsibility.

Our family of three scraped by on the meager monthly wage my mom earned from the garment factory: one thousand bucks.

My father was addicted to gambling, a habit where his losses far outweighed his wins.

Whenever he lost money, his mood would sour, leading him to drown his sorrows in alcohol, which inevitably ended in him lashing out at my mom and me, leaving the floor littered with broken dishes and leftover food.

At five years old, I witnessed one of his worst losses.

He came home reeking of alcohol, grabbed my mom by the hair, and threw her onto the concrete floor. He smashed her face against the ground until he tired, then switched to kicking her stomach.

“Do you think I’m a loser now, huh? Is that why you look down on me?

“You worthless woman, failing to bear me a son, I can’t even hold my head up because of you!

“It’s all your fault my luck’s been bad. If I hadn’t married you, I’d be successful by now.”

My mom curled up on the floor, her blood matting her hair in clumps. She didn’t try to escape or fight back, naively hoping to awaken some shred of decency in him.

When there was no unbruised flesh left to hit on my mom, he turned his fury towards me.

“And this little wretch, a whore’s daughter through and through.

“What are you looking at? You want to hit me back?”

His heavy slap numbed my face, muting all sound as if everything was encased in glass, utterly isolated.

The blow ruptured my eardrum.

My mom, amidst her sobs, shielded me in her arms, her frail body absorbing the brunt of the storm.

The man’s curses and the woman’s screams ceased only when the assailant exhausted himself.

In the deep of the night, his snores mingled with her quiet sobs.

After treating my wounds, my mom silently cleaned up the chaos.

We huddled together on the small bed, her arms wrapped tightly around me.

“Mom, can we leave this place? I’ll earn lots of money and take care of you,” I whispered.

She gazed at the moon through the window, missing a chunk as if bitten off.

“We can’t leave. Your dad was very good to me when we were young. He saved to buy me a gold bracelet, carried me for miles just to watch fireworks, and bought me more beautiful clothes than I could wear.”

I tugged at her faded, misshapen clothes.

“Mom, you’re lying.”

She stroked my head, stubborn in her belief.

“I’m not. Your dad’s just confused right now. He’ll get better. He promised to take care of me for life. He promised.”

“Like the moon outside, it will be full again someday,” she murmured, as much to herself as to me.

The next day, as if nothing happened, my dad sobered up and joked with my mom, asking for money.

“I still love you, Grace. I was just drunk and foolish. Once I win some money, we’ll live a good life.”

With a few words, he charmed her into submission, and she handed over her salary.

This scene was hauntingly familiar.

I wanted to ask my mom if she remembered promising to use this month’s salary to enroll me in kindergarten.

I was already five and had never attended kindergarten.

But seeing her so happy, her eyes filled with nothing but my dad, I stayed silent.

It’s okay, I thought. She’ll remember me next month.

But she never did, and I missed kindergarten entirely, only attending school thanks to government education policies.