Sad Songs

I knew who Roberta Flack was at a very early age; God knows I heard every song she sang. I love her still, yet undoubtedly she reminds me of him. Daddy sat with his record player on the floor, his legs crossed in what some called, "Indian style" which by the way is not correct to say now. I don't know any other word to describe it though. He would smoke Marlboros, drink cheap beer or dark wine and cry. Daddy cried a lot. I did not know why way back then. As a broken woman now, well, I guess he had good reason. Nothing soothes the soul more than music. We remember who we are, where we were, why we smiled, all because of music. Late at night I miss him despite his need to keep moving, not only place to place but woman to woman. I was his only until I wasn't. My Momma loved him even when he was cheating, threatened with statutory rape by an underage girl's parents and that left us broke, Momma scarred and lost in his wake. Momma took up more than one job and he didn't help us one bit. He told everybody he did help us though. He was always so charming, as smooth as chenille, and oh so handsome just like a movie star. His lies were so believable it made anyone who contradicted him look bad, let's just say, he had a hold on people; good people who believed in him sometimes questioned other good people who were also up against a wall with their truths, their own 'believe it or not stories', that were entwined with his lies. There were so many others than me with their own broken up dreams, their need to feel safe, to be heard. I was part of his tribe until I began to remember and as always girls like me are just considered delusional. I have half sisters and brothers, too. None of them really want to know my story 'cause it messes up theirs. I remember his fourth wife coming to live with us. She did not want a daughter older than she, I mean who would? She believed in him after I had given up a million times and damn, she was cold. It was clear there would be no place for me in my nostalgic, narcissistic, father's life once she set foot in the door. Where should I be, where should I go? She not only wanted me out from my father's home, but just gone, like in disappear. It was a slow burning fire and I was not about to see my, at that time, only baby sister be distanced from me. Suddenly, at least to me, this wife became the accessible one, the reliable one, the Alpha. Losing my baby sister's faith in me when I had taken care of her alone, when he was drunk and falling all over the place felt like a wasp sting in the heart, hell, a whole hive of wasps stinging me to near death. To watch him manipulate and groom this new woman younger than myself was, and still is, an unnerving experience. I know deep down my sister loves me, yet she became the good one and nobody saw the good in me anymore. So, back to my father's love of a good time I remember us flying down the highway in a convertible and blue grass music was blasting; I hated the wind so I was scrunched down into the backseat floorboard. He had a girlfriend I liked a lot who had a dachshund named Lucy. Anyway, in that little space between two leather bucket seats I saw my daddy's hand slip over to his girlfriend's legs, then he moved it up to the top of her pants and wedged it down the front. What the heck was he doing? He then started talking about cotton, rubbing her and saying how he missed her little cotton. I was frozen. It did not come to my mind until I was a young teen; after babysitting somebody from church's kids the father drove me home. He smelled like booze and at a side road he slowed the car down, he put his nasty hand on my thigh and leaned in to kiss me. I knew right then to push him away as no way he was going to try to touch my cotton. He said something about he had the wrong impression. I was fourteen, what impression did I give him? When I got home and went inside, just like always I said nothing. The wife of this man would call and ask me to babysit and I'd say no and Momma didn't understand; I was so afraid to tell her. What is wrong with me? I ask myself this a whole lot lately. My little me pushes through and wants grown up me to deal with my creepy past; I wish my memories could be stolen. I'd do anything to sleep through the night and not remember no more.