Gingerbread House

Fattened up and happy

He would leave us there as kids, especially Mary Katherine and me while the two younger kids would nap. It was meant to be "time with Dad," but it became "time with Grandma." His father would sit in an armchair in the living room while she made cookies with us. Her old bones tired, she would slump into one of the old colonial round-back kitchen chairs I cherished - hugs in wood form.

I never learned where he would go when he was meant to spend time with us. I just knew that Grandma was great, and she wanted to be with us, even if he didn't. And she let us use the pretty brown clay plates. With the blue flowers.

Pop would call out, and we'd hurry into that front room, eager for his love. Shaking hands unwrapping caramels, patting us on the head. We'd sit like puppies, watching television with him, fighting with our eyes over who would sit closer and soak up more of the extra love (and any dropped candy). Hoping someone would open one of those Little Golden Books and read to us. Or let us play with the dice of Boggle.

Aunt Mary, my funny aunt, would come down and bundle us out of the dark room, back into the kitchen - my sad aunt, I wanted desperately to understand - my mad aunt whose anger made no sense as it was aimed at the two people she seemed to have tied herself to. I wouldn't understand until later the price she had been forced to pay.

I loved that house. We swam in attention and baked goods. We never needed to say we were hungry; food was handed out as if it was nothing.

My lucky cousins would come from out of state and sleep upstairs, where we were never allowed. My first experience with jealousy was learning I couldn't ascend when they went to bed, instead being shepherded out the door, my sleeping brother and sister in arms while MK and I fought over who could sit in the back-back. Some kind of something would pass between my father and his brother, and I knew I needed to stay quiet. Children of alcoholics learn these things young.

He didn't leave us breadcrumbs

What comes back is that he left us there. I have heard the stories. I now know that arms were broken and more. I know about locked doors and babies' cribs left on porches all day, how dead a mother can be when in her cups.

And he just left us there.

I cannot forgive my father for the things that he did, less than half of what I've learned he and his siblings went through. As a horrible daughter, I feel a deep sense of relief that I never needed to ask the question. I brought my kids to my childhood home and never had to relive those things with him as he questioned why I wouldn't let him babysit. His death was hard, but not as hard as his living would have been.

But he brought us back and left us there.

My kids don't fear the sound of the car in the driveway. Slamming doors don't have them running for cover, but they aren't the only grandchildren of my father. Not every cycle continues, and not every cycle gets broken.

My father listened to us fight over which child Pop loved best. He ate cookies we made with Grandma. He never warned us. What did he feel in these moments? Did he believe we were safe?

I teach my children that sometimes it's okay to cut off contact. It's okay to turn your back on those who've hurt us and never asked for forgiveness.

More than anything, I try to warn them. I learned too early that innocence is not an armor. Evil lurks in sweet exteriors; I will never leave them there.

Originally published on Medium.com