SANCTUARY OF SCARS

People always say every family has problems. I heard that a lot growing up. But I don’t believe it. Not for a second. Problems are small things. A disagreement about money. A stressful week. What I lived in wasn’t a house with problems. It was a warzone with a roof.

My normal was the sound of shouting that started low, like a storm brewing in the next room, and then exploded. It was the crash of something breaking—a plate, a chair, a piece of my sense of safety. It was going to bed not with prayers, but with a tight ball of fear in my stomach, wondering if the night would be quiet or if the battles would begin.

The only time my father ever said he was proud of me, I was eight years old. I don’t even remember what I did. Probably something small, like getting a good mark at school. But he put his hand on my shoulder, looked at me, and said, “I am proud of you.” Just like that. Those words felt like sunlight breaking through a sky that was always grey. I held onto them. I replayed them in my head at night. That was the first time. It was also the last. He never said it again. The grey sky closed up for good.

What filled the space instead was violence. My parents didn’t just argue. They fought. Proper fights, like you’d see in the movies, but there was no camera, no director to yell “cut.” It was real. My mother’s hand flying through the air to connect with my father’s face. The two of them screaming words that were like knives, for hours, until the anger became something physical. They would grab, push, kick. Sometimes, things became weapons—a shoe, a broom, whatever was close. To my young eyes, it was like a terrible anime fight. Like two ninjas from Naruto, not using chakra, but using all their hatred against each other. The clash was real. The pain was real.

The strangest thing? They never left. No matter how much blood was drawn—not always literal blood, but the kind that leaves scars on your soul—they stayed in that house. They stayed together. Year after year, the war continued. And my siblings and I, we were just children living in the trenches, getting scars of our own.

And here is the thing that confused me more than anything else. My father was a pastor. He wasn’t just a man who went to church. He believed, truly believed, that God had called him by name to preach. My mother came from the same cloth. Her own father was a pastor, a respected man of God. So to everyone outside our walls, we were the perfect family. The holy family. The family that prayed together and, surely, stayed together in peace.

Inside the walls, it was the opposite. Their marriage didn’t feel blessed. It felt cursed. It felt like two forces that should never have been joined, locked in a battle that would never end. Trying to get them to stop fighting was as impossible as asking Goku to stop training, or telling Tom to give up on chasing Jerry. It was in their nature. Their love wasn’t the soft, gentle kind you read about. Their love was a loud, crashing, painful thing. It didn’t build you up; it broke everything around it, especially me.

As their child, I had no escape. Nowhere to run. I grew up watching these two people, who were supposed to be my protectors, tear each other to pieces. I would sit in my room, hands over my ears, and wonder: Why? Why would God put two people like this together? Why did my safe place have to feel like a battlefield where I was always caught in the crossfire?

This question ate at me. How did they even get here? How did the wedding happen? The mystery of it haunted my young mind. I couldn’t take the not-knowing anymore. So one day, when I was seven, I gathered every bit of courage I had. It felt like gathering pebbles, trying to build a wall. I marched to my mother’s room.

She was sitting on the edge of her bed. In her right hand was a book. I remember the title clearly: How to Control Your Anger. The irony of it didn’t hit me then; I just saw the book. I stood in the doorway, my whole small body trembling.

“Mommy,” I started. My voice was a shaky whisper. “How did you marry Father? Did you love him?”

She looked up from her book. For a beautiful, hopeful second, her lips curled into a soft smile. It was the mom-smile, the one that meant everything was okay. “Yes, my son,” she said, her voice warm. “I loved him then. I still love him now. I married him because I loved him. Does that answer your question?”

I nodded. A wave of relief washed over me. She loved him. That was the answer. She waved her hand, a gentle signal for me to go. But as I turned, the other question, the bigger one, the one burning a hole in my chest, pushed its way out.

“Mom,” I called again.

She looked back, her face patient but curious. “What is it?”

I wasn’t a fool. I knew this question was a lit match near gasoline. So, before I spoke, I did the smartest thing my seven-year-old brain could think of. I reached out and cracked the bedroom door open. Just an inch. Just enough for a sliver of light from the hallway to cut in, and just enough for me to have a head start.

My mother’s eyes changed. The patience vanished. “Why are you opening the door?” she asked, her voice now tight.

I ignored her. I had to get the words out now or I never would. “You say you love Dad, right?”

She gave a single, firm nod.

I took the deepest breath my little lungs could hold. “Then why do you always fight and argue with each other?”

The change was instant. It was like watching a storm cloud swallow the sun. Her eyes went dark. The softness vanished, replaced by something hard and cold. Her fingers tightened around the anger book, her knuckles turning white. Her whole body went stiff.

I didn’t wait to see what came next.

As she lunged from the bed, I ducked. I spun and shot out of the room like a rabbit that just heard the shotgun click. My feet barely touched the floor of the hallway. My heart wasn’t just beating; it was a frantic drum solo against my ribs. I didn’t stop until I hit my own room. I flew inside, slammed the door, and fumbled with the lock. Click. I leaned against the wood, gasping.

Safe.

The thought had barely formed when the first THUD shook the door. Then another. BOOM. BOOM. She was kicking it. Each kick was a earthquake that traveled up my spine. The wood groaned and protested.

She’s not getting in, I told myself, pressing my whole weight against the door, as if my skinny body could be a barricade.

I was wrong.

With one final, massive kick, the world exploded. The door didn’t just open. It shattered inwards. The sound was a deafening CRACK-BOOM as it broke free from the frame and crashed flat on my floor. Dust flew. My heart stopped.

Fear, cold and solid, filled my veins. I stumbled backwards, falling hard onto my backside. I could only stare, wide-eyed, at the wreckage that used to be my barrier.

And then she stepped over it.

My mother. Her eyes were no longer the eyes of the woman who read books about controlling anger. They were blazing. She stepped over the broken door like a soldier stepping onto conquered land. There was no love there. No remorse. Only a fury so complete it was terrifying.

I scrambled back, crab-walking on my hands and feet, desperate to get away. It was useless.

She was on me in two steps. Her hands grabbed the front of my shirt and yanked me up into the air like I was a rag doll. For a second, I hung there, suspended in her rage.

Then came the pain.

SLAP! The first one exploded across my face. My head snapped to the side.

SLAP! The second one, from the other side. Lights danced behind my eyes.

SLAP! The third. The world became a blur of stinging, white-hot agony.

I screamed. It was a raw, tearing sound. But she didn’t stop. When she finally let go, I dropped to the floor like a stone. Every part of me ached. Tears poured down my face, hot and fast, but she didn’t see them. Or she didn’t care. There was no comfort in her face. Only that cold, finished anger.

Sobbing, I tried to crawl. My bed was my target. Under it was dark, safe. I could hide. I got one knee under me before her hand shot out and closed like a vice around my ankle.

With a strength that seemed impossible, she yanked me back into the center of the room. My legs flailed. I was caught.

And then I saw it. In her other hand. The spatula. The ordinary kitchen spatula, with its flat, smooth end.

That’s when I knew. Truly knew. I was doomed.

I screamed. I begged. “I’m sorry! Mommy, I’m sorry!” I tried to twist away, to find a corner she couldn’t reach.

But she moved with a terrible, efficient grace. It was like she could see my next move before I thought of it. There was no escape. No mercy. Just the relentless, burning punishment for asking a question that had no good answer.

That day, beaten and broken on my bedroom floor, I learned two lessons that were carved deep into my bones:

Some questions are better left unasked.

And never, ever underestimate a mother’s wrath.