Broken Family Portrait

Day One: Monday, August 21, 2000

All right, I have a secret to tell you, a deep, dark secret. It’s a secret so shocking, you may never look at me the same way again. But I feel I need to get this out, because if I don’t, you may not want to listen to the following story. All right, now that you’re prepared, here is the secret.

I don’t believe that family is all that sacred.

You heard me: I don’t believe that family is all that sacred.

This may sound sad and ironic, considering that I am a father of twin boys. But to fully understand my poor attitude, you need to understand everything I’ve been through with family up until this point. Now, I hope you’re planning to stay with me over the next few days or so, because this is a long story.

Much of what I went through centred on my eldest sister, Abilene. She always believed that family was the most important thing in the world, like it was everything that ever mattered, and would put it on the highest mountain, never mind a pedestal. She loved it when her family was always together, and when she lost part of it forever, she gave up everything she had for a much older man– a soldier– who gave her the family, the children, she desired.

My other older sister, Olivia, also held family in this unhealthily high regard, but Abilene was more obsessive. Unfortunately, this led both of them into abusive marriages where their husbands physically, verbally and emotionally assaulted both them and their children. I remember it well. I would never associate with these men much because they used their military status to act almighty and powerful, like my father did with me. I can’t stand stereotypes like that, I just can’t. The only difference was that one would get out alive, while the other would pay for it with her life.

Oh, you probably want to know about me, don’t you? Well, first off, my name– my birth name, anyway– is Robin Marchland. Or if you want to be formal, Robert Raymond Michael Marchland. But that’s not the name I have right now– that would be Robin Callbeck. I took my stepfather’s name when my mother remarried. More on that later, I promise, but let’s get back to my family. As small children, Abilene, Olivia, and sometimes my youngest older sister, Susan, (I’m the youngest of four) would watch these movies that Disney put out in the 1960s and early 1970s, both animated and non-animated. Abilene especially liked the non-animated ones, because they did a better job in teaching the importance of family togetherness. Movies like Mary Poppins, Swiss Family Robinson, and I think Pete’s Dragon, too. That’s the only logical explanation I can come up with. We’re not Catholic, we never grew up in the South, and Marchland isn’t an Irish or Italian name. Now, I don’t want to bash the talents of a company that’s entertained innocent children for so many years, but I can’t stand these kinds of movies. I would never allow my sons to watch them. If you ask me, they give people a very unrealistic view of the classic family model, and I don’t think you should ever lose yourself in this fantasy.

Another factor in Abilene’s obsession was her relationship with our father, Sergeant Raymond Marchland, who doted on all my sisters. We lived on base in Winnipeg, and while he was supposed to be all tough, running his home like military barracks, I’d never seen him yell at or spank any of them– especially not Abilene or Olivia. Disciplining my sisters was my mother’s department. Of course, those two would do what he told them the first time, and literally bend over backwards for him, like little Stepford children. Meantime, he would always use whatever was within arm’s reach on me whenever I made mistakes– and I’ll freely admit this was not a rare occurrence. My mother, Marion, would never understand Dad’s motives. But for the many mistakes I made, you can blame my cerebral palsy.

I guess I forgot to tell you that. I’ve lived with a pretty serious form of cerebral palsy since birth. Perhaps I can label my birthdate– June 18, 1970– as the day my parents’ marriage “jumped the shark,” so to speak. I was almost a month premature; I was supposed to be born thirteen days after Canada Day, not thirteen days before. I was in the hospital for two weeks, but there was very little the doctors could do with me. As a result, I’ve gone through life with an underdeveloped, even damaged brain. Now, many biologists would argue that the brain is the first to develop in the womb, but that’s not true for all babies. My brain was certainly developing at different stages. Because of its unfinished business, I’ve had some serious problems with learning and development, including problems with walking, running and balance. People say I trot like a horse. I could never play any sports, nor could I walk in a straight line or balance on one foot. I am the most non-athletic person in the world. I have a pretty weak left side and slow reflexes, and I can only stand still for the length equivalent of our national anthem and maybe the Lord’s Prayer; after that, I just have to move around. I can’t do very much heavy lifting before my arms tire out. And until I was around seven, I had a horrible time sitting properly. When my parents were together, the whole family would attend church every Sunday. Every week, I’d squirm around in those bloody uncomfortable pews, sitting in any position other than on my bottom. This infuriated my father to no end, and I’d get belted for acting up in church when we got home. It took a few weeks, but Mom figured out that I could never sit still in church, and they left me with a sitter every Sunday morning.

And you want to know what was worse? My learning and comprehension problems in certain school subjects, that’s what. Math and science were always my worst– and least favourite– subjects, while I surprisingly excelled in language arts and high school English. Which is one of the reasons why I’m now a successful radio personality. But most importantly, I have a brain filter that’s never worked at all. As a result, I have this knack for saying whatever comes to my mind, whenever, without thinking about it first; as well as talking back to people, and saying some pretty shocking and offensive things. I’ve learned to time my thoughts as I’ve gotten older, but what I say and the backtalk to others has pretty much stayed the same.

My mother always blamed herself for this, and still does to this day. One thing you should know about her is she used to be quite a smoker, smoked during all her pregnancies. She forced herself to cut it out after I was born. I don’t remember her nicotine withdrawals, but she’s said she spent much of it cursing God, asking Him why my sisters came out healthy and normal, and I came out the way I did. Abilene was even overdue, born on December 21, 1964, instead of December 13. Olivia and Susan came right when they were supposed to: Olivia on April 23, 1966 and Susan on February 4, 1968. Mom eventually came around and realized she hadn’t taken very good care of herself when she was pregnant with me. Because of this, she never could find the heart to forcefully discipline me.

My problems, however, did not stop my father. I remember him spanking me hard on my diaper at six months old, or forcefully holding me down in my crib for crying too loud during the night. Whenever he whacked me, I would cry really loudly, and he’d whack me harder until I stopped crying and was quiet, which never worked. Finally, Mom would have to snatch me from my Dad’s forceful hands and rock me for a long time until I went to sleep, then feed me. This annoyed Dad to no end.

“For the love of Christ, Marion!” he would scream. “Are you going to come to his rescue every time I try to set him straight? He needs to understand that he can’t be noisy in this house!”

“You simmer down right now, Ray!” Mom would seethe back. “He’s only a baby. He wouldn’t understand. And I don’t think he will understand for a long time.”

“He’s just a baby,” Dad mimicked back. “That’s no excuse! He needs to learn order! Did any of the girls act like that when they were babies?! No, they didn’t!”

Oh, right, like she had to believe that Abilene, Olivia and Susan were all quiet and sleeping through the night, never needing nightly feedings at six months old. What a bloody crock!

From then on, my father would use his hands, fists and belts on me whenever Abilene and Olivia told about things I shouldn’t be doing, or he caught me going into various rooms and touching things that didn’t belong to me. And I did a lot of both. Getting things the first time wasn’t exactly my strong point, so I would repeatedly write on the walls, bang on tables and floors and scream, and jump on beds and couches, and whatnot. And I was always the type to go exploring, especially in other people’s houses. I would be wandering in and out of bedrooms looking at things, touching things to see how they felt, climbing up onto beds and getting comfortable.

I remember this one time during Victoria Day weekend, when I was almost four. We were visiting my Uncle Walter and Auntie Ellen’s house, and my parents were talking and laughing with them after dinner. When I got bored playing with my sisters and cousins, I went downstairs into the basement and looked around at everything in the den. I turned on the TV, but I couldn’t hear it very well, so I turned it up about five notches. Seconds later, the evening movie came on and without warning, I saw the famed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lion in one of those Technicolor logos they used in the late 1940s, early 1950s. It was one of the scarier lions, trust me. Anyway, the roar was so loud, I screamed in such bloody terror, loud enough for everyone to hear upstairs. They all came down and everyone looked quite concerned, me being as white as fresh linens.

“Mommy, Mommy!” I cried. “That lion on the TV scared me!”

My father was very angry with this. He took a strong grip on my arm, stormed over to the television to shut it off, then screamed at me, “You do not go wandering around other people’s house touching stuff, do you understand me?! That [censored] TV did not say, ‘Robin, play with me!’”

Oops, I apologize for breaking my own rule here, no cursing on the radio. But this is actually what my father said, and you’re going to hear more of stuff like this as I talk about my family.

And before I could say anything, he positioned me on the coffee table, took off his belt and whipped me hard on my rear, back, and alongside my head. It made me cry, which prompted Dad to spank me harder. At one point, I overheard Susan pleading with him, “Daddy, stop! He didn’t mean to! He was only finding something else to do!”

Oh, did I say that my father doted on all my sisters? Sorry, I take that back. You see, Susan was the only sister who ever doted over me and protected me when I was a child. My father hated this with everything. I was somehow relieved when he stopped whipping me, but was horrified to see him position Susan against a wall and whip her bare bottom with his belt. He screamed at her, “How dare you defend your brother like that?! He’s a bad boy, and you know it! I’m only trying to get him to smarten the hell up!” It was around twenty whacks before he was done with her, then he went right back to me. Finally, Mom had enough and snatched Susan and me away, then handed us both to our aunt and uncle. Walter and Ellen took us into a spare room upstairs to hold us and quiet us down. We could hear our parents screaming at each other. Now, much of what they said, I can’t repeat on radio airwaves, but let me share this small part.

“I believe Susan when she said he was bored!” Mom barked at Dad. “Perhaps he shouldn’t have had the TV up so loud, but I’m sure he never knew what would be on!”

“Quit making excuses, Marion!” Dad shouted. “He needs to understand that he can’t go wandering through other people’s houses, touching things that don’t belong to him! And Susan needs to understand that she can’t stick up for her brother when he does bad things!” Then afterwards, “He is going to get it when we get home!” Which I did, when he tossed me on my bed on my stomach and whipped my bottom fifteen more times.

In all this fighting, I would overhear Abilene and Olivia crying so loudly and pleading for them to stop. They would beg Mom to stay with Dad and not leave him. “Please, Mom!” Abilene especially would cry. “Our family wouldn’t be complete if Daddy wasn’t here!” I think Mom had been contemplating divorce since I was around two. The only thing that ever kept her back was the constant begging from my obsessive sisters.

This reminds me of another obsessive memory with Abilene. Every year at Thanksgiving, Mom and Dad would go around the table and ask us kids what we were thankful for. At first, I could never think of anything, but as I got a little older, I would say, “I’m thankful that Mom decided to keep me with us, despite the learning problems I have, and may have in years to come.” (That after a little prompting from Mom.) Abilene, however, would say the same thing: “I’m thankful that my Mommy and Daddy are still in love, and that we’re all here together as a family, because ‘family’ is the nicest word in the English language.” Every year, without fail. And Olivia would say nothing, just smile and nod in agreement. I never minded that at first, but it started to make me sick at around age four. But I digress.

Many of the whippings and beatings I got came courtesy of Abilene and Olivia, but mostly Abilene. I swear to God, she had to be the worst sister I ever had. One time, when I was five, I was in my parents’ bedroom, looking at all the pretty colours of Mom’s makeup kit, all the eyeshadow and lipstick. I wanted to see how it looked on me. So I took some purple eyeshadow and covered my eyelids and eyebrows with it. I put rouge on my cheeks until they were fully red, then covered my lips and the napes of my nose and chin with the lipstick. Actually, I looked like a goof. But then, I saw Abilene and Olivia in the mirror’s reflection, standing at the doorway. They looked like they couldn’t believe what I’d done. So they ran off yelling, “Mom! Dad! You won’t believe what Robin did!”

Moments later, Dad stormed into the bedroom and looked just as shocked as the girls. He threw me on the bed, slapped me alongside the head a few times, then took off his belt and whipped my face until his arms got tired. I think he got some of the makeup on his belt, but I don’t think he cared. When he was through, he pointed at the makeup and said, “Why did you go through your mother’s makeup like that?! Do you know how much you wasted?! Did it say, ‘Robin, touch!?’”

I can’t tell you how much I hated that question. It made me feel like I should label everything if I wanted to touch it. However, I was just starting with the smart remarks at this time. So I said, “Gee, Dad, I see Mom put it on all the time. Maybe I wanted to see how it looked on me!” Maybe it was the tone I used, but that got me spanked hard for a pretty long time. When he was done, he physically threw me in the bedroom I shared with Susan, landing me on my bed, and yelled at me to stay in there without dinner.

That night, Abilene and Olivia came into my room looking concerned. I could tell they’d heard what went on because Abilene started to lecture me on the spanking I got. She said, “What you did was really wrong, you know that, right? You know, Daddy only spanks you like that because he loves you, and he wants you to grow up to be a good person.” As if she was so smart.

Except I had never heard Dad say he loved me and mean it after any spankings or beatings. I don’t remember him saying he loved me or showing it ever. He never gave me anything for Christmas or my birthday. He never gave me a hug when I needed one. But I chose to ignore that. I replied, “What about you? I’ve never seen Dad hit you or Olivia, only Mom doing that. And Mom should’ve spanked you for tattling.”

“We don’t do half of what you do,” Olivia replied. Mind you, Olivia was a bit more reasonable, but she would go along with whatever Abilene said, because they were closer in age. “Abbie and I listen to Daddy very well, and we do what he tells us the first time. We love him too much to make him unhappy.”

Ugh! Abbie! That was the one thing I never did with Abilene, was call her “Abbie.” What did she ever do to deserve that from me?

Shortly after the makeup incident, I was in the living room with my sisters, finger-painting. My fingers were really gooey with paint, and when I looked at Abilene, I can tell she had some evil plan. Without warning, she picked me up, took me to the nearest wall and proceeded to smear my paint all over it. I was screaming for her to stop, which attracted my parents’ attention. To say they were horrified was an understatement.

“Abilene Marion Marchland, now that was not very nice!” Dad ordered. That was pretty much all the reprimand she got from him. Meanwhile, he took me into the kitchen, bared my rear and gave me a good spanking. This time, I didn’t sense my mother coming to rescue me, because she knew I had done something very wrong. When she took me into the living room, I saw she had a hairbrush in hand. I seriously thought she would whack me, too.

To my surprise, she didn’t. Instead, she sat me in the easy chair and made me watch as she spanked Abilene, long and hard. She spanked her about twenty-five times before the hairbrush snapped and broke. She then removed her belt and proceeded to whip her just as hard. In all of this, Abilene never cried or screamed, which I think made Mom even madder. I’d never known Abilene to cry after a spanking. Anyway, when Mom was done, she yelled at her, “Now you get a cloth and clean up the mess!”

I could tell Abilene was furious with me. Just as I got out of the easy chair, she shoved me on the footrest and beat me up, this instead of what she was asked to do. Fortunately for me, Mom caught her, and guess who was spanked again? Meanwhile, Dad felt that I wasn’t punished enough, so he dragged me into my bedroom. He called me a screwed-up kid, like he’d sometimes do. Then he yelled, “You will stay in this room for the rest of the damn weekend. If I catch you coming out of here once, you’re going to get it harder.” He slammed the door before I could ask what if I had to go to the bathroom. I know he’d hit me if I wet my pants and bed.

Maybe you would agree with how Dad was treating me, but I truly felt he needed to be harder on Abilene, and not leave such a burden on Mom. I spent much of this time thinking, wondering why my father would always be heavy on me and not my oldest sisters, especially not Abilene. “Why me and not her?” I’d ask myself. “He knows Abilene is the oldest.” But I had several possible theories.

One theory was that he couldn’t accept my limitations, and that I’d never go into the military like him. Especially since I was his only son. Now, I know what you’re probably thinking: “Robin, why should you let your cerebral palsy keep you from going into the military? It’s very respectable.” Well, maybe I wouldn’t if this were a perfect world. But law enforcement, fire-fighting and military are very demanding, both physically and mentally. With my poor running skills and inability to do math and science, being a police officer and firefighter were both out for me. And the best I’d do in the military would be a desk job writing up correspondence and serving coffee to soldiers. I know Dad would expect more than that from me. Every father wants their son to be just like them, and Dad was probably upset that this wouldn’t be me. However, if this were true, Dad would’ve left when I was younger, despite all of my sisters’ begging.

Another theory was that he had this “old world” mentality that the daughter was the apple of her father’s eye, while the son could do no right. Now, that has to be the most outdated, clichéd way of thinking I’d ever heard. I certainly know of no modern father who thinks this way. This would for sure result in a lot of spoiled girls, and a lot of rifts in marriages that would cause the wife to leave. Of course, Dad was the oldest, like Abilene, and he had two younger sisters. Whenever he wasn’t whipping me or Susan, I would overhear him tell stories of his childhood, how Grandpa Marchland would smack him with hands, belts, paddles, birches, wooden spoons, beat him with a rolling pin, even broke a few glass bottles over his head, for his own frequent scrapes. Grandpa would dote over the daughters for their good behaviour, and leave the spankings on them to Grandma Marchland. Both of my paternal grandparents died before I was born, and I never really asked Dad about them. He never would’ve told me anything if I did, given his lack of affection towards me.

Finally– and this was what scared me the most– there was the theory that he never wanted a son, that he was happy with just daughters. I shook my head and said to myself, “No, this can’t be true. Why wouldn’t he want a son?” After all, show me a father who doesn’t want a son, and I’ll do something weird like eat my shoes. I know that every father wants a little boy to play ball with, to help him through “growing up” problems, and to explain the facts of life. But, “What if he never really wanted me?” I felt like crying. I shook my head rapidly, telling me to kill that thought. “It’s not true!” I told myself. “Maybe he’d love you better if you came out strong and healthy.” Yes, it had to be my cerebral palsy.

My thoughts were interrupted when Dad slammed the door open and brought Susan in. He threw down on her bed and on her stomach, and spanked her hard for a minute. I’d never heard her cry so loudly. He screamed at her, “You be quiet!” then he glared at both of us.

“You both will stay in this damn room for the rest of this weekend!” he yelled. “If I even catch you even tiptoeing out of here to use the restroom, you will be spanked harder, is that understood?!” He slammed the door before we could answer. Susan turned to me, her face soaked by crying.

“Did you tell him the finger paint on the walls wasn’t my fault?” I asked.

She nodded miserably and started crying again. “And I asked why Mom had to spank Abilene instead of him!” she wailed. “He treats her and Olivia like little princesses, like they would never think of that on their own! But I saw Abilene’s look, too. She is so spoiled by him. If it weren’t for Mom, she’d have everything she wants!”

I sighed. I had to agree with her. Seriously, if Mom hadn’t been the one spanking Abilene when she needed it, she would be brattier than ever.

As for my learning, it was quite a chore at first. When I was four, Mom had a learning specialist over to our house. She would come on a weekly basis with things like flash cards for vocabulary and arithmetic, and paper and pencils for drawing. I wouldn’t have any of it. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to learn how to draw and read and print letters and count, it was just that I’d rather play games with Susan and Olivia.

The first time the specialist came, she and Mom decided to wait until I finished a game of Chutes and Ladders with Susan. When I lost that one, Mom told me, “All right, Robin, now it’s time to come to the table and work with the lady here.”

I looked up at her and asked, “Aw, Mom, can’t I play one more game with Susan?”

“No, it’s time for you to work,” Mom answered. “You need to get as much of a head start as you can before starting school. Please come sit at the table.”

“But I wanna play another game!” I protested. “I need to win!”

“Now, Robin!” She looked pretty peeved with me.

Here, Susan decided to be my “child whisperer.” She took my hand and said, “Robin, if I were to sit at the table with you, would you work with Mom and the nice lady?” She brought me to the table and sat down next to me, and I would do whatever they wanted. It took about twenty minutes, and when I was all done, Susan would smile with Mom for doing a good job, and give me a hug. So, whenever the learning specialist came, Susan would sit at the table with me while I worked. She was a great support system.

Unfortunately for me, school was something else. At the elementary school I went to, (a short walk from my home) they had a waiver that parents would sign, allowing teachers to spank and strap students if the need called for it. Though my mother taught at a junior high school in the city, and therefore couldn’t keep watch on me, I know she tried to refuse, explaining my cerebral palsy and limitations. But my father overrode her, saying that if I ever acted up, not listened or got spanked in class, that they could jerk me up and haul me to the principal for the strap, then he’d take care of it when I got home. How was I supposed to know his exact words; I was never there with my parents.

I wish I could say I enjoyed kindergarten. It sure would’ve been a lot more fun if it weren’t for the teacher, Mrs. Simpson. Now, picture your typical nightmare teacher from hell, the one old lady dressed all in black, with the wire-framed glasses and hair in a bun, ready to whack your knuckles at the slightest infraction. That’s exactly what Mrs. Simpson was and more. She had no patience for small children if I knew her, frustrated very easily, and seemed to thrive on yelling and punishments. Seriously, these types of people should not get into teaching in the first place.

Mrs. Simpson would tell you I was the worst, because I could never sit properly at my desk or during story time, and my malfunctioning brain filter always caused me to interrupt with so many questions and comments. But mainly, it was because of some of the work I had to do. I enjoyed painting pictures in art class, and learning how to print and write letters, but I remember we also had to do word problems and geography maps, which I found boring. I had the same attitude as I did at home; I would much rather play than do this kind of work. Whenever she caught me out of my seat with my worksheets incomplete, she would turn around and give me a hard spanking, that and for my numerous outbursts during reading and lectures. I think I got a spanking from her once every two weeks, plus a trip to the principal’s office once every month. When I got home those days, Dad would carry out his promises to spank me with a belt. Mom would attempt to stop him, saying, “That damn teacher is too strict! Maybe he needs to learn to work faster, but he can’t help the outbursts.”

“Marion, that’s not going to help him to prepare for the real world!” Dad shouted back. “How’s he going to learn if I don’t whip him?” Then he would proceed with his thing. If Susan tried to intervene, he would whip her, too. When we were sent to our room, we would hear Abilene and Olivia pleading for the fighting to stop, and for Mom not to divorce Dad. Same old routine every two weeks.

First grade wasn’t all that better. My teacher that year was Mrs. Kalember. She was a little younger than Mrs. Simpson, with light brown hair just starting to turn grey. There wasn’t very much playtime this time around, but there was story time some afternoons, and we did get into writing complete sentences and double-digit addition and subtraction. The subtraction was a lot harder, because I couldn’t understand carrying… or borrowing, whatever it was called. In a quiz we had to do, the only questions I got right were the ones I which I didn’t have assume the second digit for the top number had a one on it, as Mrs. Kalember tried to teach me. Questions like 17 subtracted from 48. I got a score of 28 on that one, and I cried like a goof– not because I failed, but because I was afraid at how my parents would react.

At the start of first grade, Mrs. Kalember said that if you fail a test or quiz, you had to take it home to get it signed by your parents. When I showed this to my parents, my father literally flew in to a rage. I can’t tell you much of what he said, but one of the cleaner things was, “I can’t believe I’m paying for your schooling, and these are the marks you bring home!” He proceeded to remove his belt, but Mom stopped him just in time.

“He clearly doesn’t understand this!” she cried. “And I never really expected him to the first time. We can go to the teacher tomorrow and request practice worksheets for him to take home! We can hire a tutor for him! I think that would be a better idea.”

“We can’t afford to hire a tutor!” Dad bellowed. “And that’s just an excuse to not whip him into shape. He needs to know that as long as I pay the bills and taxes in this damn house, I expect better results!”

Oh, yeah right! What a load of trash that they couldn’t hire a tutor for me. I know that sergeant is one of the higher ranks in the military, and officers in Dad’s position are paid more than privates and corporals. If my father could feed, shelter, clothe and educate four children with his salary, then he could bloody well hire a tutor to help me in problem areas. But no, he felt it was easier to tear my butt up good for bringing home poorly-graded tests. Naturally, Mom gave in. I think it was because she feared he’d walk out on the family if she didn’t.

And he continued to punish me the same whenever I got spanked in school. In science class, Mrs. Kalember decided to teach us about rock formations and different types of clouds, and in social studies; British kings, famous Canadian explorers, and how Canadian settlers lived. I thought these were too advanced for first grade. I mean, Susan was learning the same things in her third-grade science class, and about the settlers in her social studies class. Same with Olivia learning about explorers in her fifth-grade social studies class. But it was in social studies during the explorers lesson that I got so bored, I fell asleep. Mrs. Kalember’s response was to whack my desk with her yardstick and scream, “Pay attention, Robert!”

I was both surprised and livid at her. Here was where I really started using my brain filter. I screamed at her, “Don’t you ever do that to me again! Maybe if you’d make this a little more interesting, I wouldn’t be falling asleep, now would I?”

Mrs. Kalember got so angry with me, she yanked me from my desk and took me out into the hall for a good spanking. I guess she didn’t like doing it in front of other students. Then she hauled me off to the principal for the strap. This was one of eight spankings I got that entire year. Now, take this as a warning that teachers do not like being told what to do in their jobs. That and being called hurtful, offensive names like “stupid,” which I also did. Naturally, when Dad learned about that, he decided to spare me the belt. Instead, he pounded me on the head, trying to “pound some sense into me,” so to speak. He pounded me so hard, I cried louder than I did that time at Uncle Walter and Auntie Ellen’s house. He also sent me to my room for the rest of that night.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot– I also failed a couple of tests in the aforementioned science and social studies classes. I got a mark of 35 in rock formations, and a 41 in Canadian explorers. You could probably guess what Dad did to me then.

That whole year, I got less stellar grades on my report card than my sisters. Abilene, Olivia and Susan managed to keep up the A’s and B’s they maintained throughout school. On the last day of school, we received the final report cards. It was eleven days after I turned seven. When I got my report card, I saw A’s in art, music, and reading and speaking in language arts; B’s in writing, math and French; and C’s in science and social studies. The latter grades never really improved over the year, and I fully blamed my cerebral palsy for that. I know my mother did, too. I couldn’t really be jealous of my sisters. Both of my parents marvelled when they read my sisters’ report cards. But with my report card, it was different. Mom was a lot more understanding at the C’s than Dad was, especially since she blamed his refusal to have me tutored. Dad, on the other hand, became enraged. He grabbed my report card and backed me into a corner of the dining room, his face only two inches away from mine.

“Robin, what the hell are the grades you keep bringing home?!” he screamed at me. “C’s in science and social studies?”

“Ray!” my mother cried. “Stop screaming at him like that! You just be grateful that he’s going into the second grade next year!”

“That’s not the point, Marion!” he barked back, then turned back to me. “I can’t believe I’m paying for all your damn education, and you’re bringing home crap results like this! You know I expect better from you than this! This is disgusting! This is pathetic! I will not have a stupid son! And I’m gonna get that through to you!”

He took off his belt and whacked me harder like never before. I’d never lost consciousness from belting, but I sure did that time. The last thing I saw was Mom and Susan’s horrified reactions as Dad hit me over the head, until I fell into a coma.