Trauma

That's the word I'd use to describe my childhood.  Such a wild assortment of chaos, fear and trauma.  We never knew when he would come home drunk.  It would all begin on any given day, when we would see his truck at the Moose or P-Bar.  Didn't matter where.  We just knew.  It's not going to be a good night.  The absolute fear would be like a knot in my stomach. 

My sister and I would be home after school.  We always had to vacuum the house, every day, and had to make sure the lines on the carpet were just so... and don't dare walk on that carpet and leave footprints.  After taking turns vacumming, we would pretend, and hope, that things would be ok that night.  We would watch Carol Burnett or Sanford and Son on TV, and each of us live in our silent, unspoken fear of what could come of that night. 

Mom would come home.  She was always our rock.  She knew as well what could come of that night. She would make dinner and if he wasn't home in time for dinner, it sat on the stove to be warmed up when he decided to come home. 

We lived in a trailercourt, way at the top of a hill.  My mother would eventually go to bed, she had to be up early the next day for work.  My sister and I would either retreat to our own bedrooms or sit and watch TV.  We knew the shape of his truck headlights, and even the sound of his truck coming around the corner.  We both sat in silent fear of what may come of that night.

Through the living room curtains, we glanced at every vehicle coming up that hill.  Whew.  It's not him.  But I wished it was, because the longer he stayed out, the drunker he was.  Finally, eventually, it's his headlights.  My sister and I would rush to turn off the TV and get to our rooms and pretend we were asleep.  I would pray so hard that he would just eat his dinner and go to bed, or pass out in his recliner.  But most times it didn't happen that way.  He would get my mom and us girls out of bed, and the trauma would begin...