Family Secrets

Family secrets are the worst-kept kind.

Not because they eventually come to light,

But because they make you question:

“How could I come from such a blood-stained line?”

The worst secrets are those that make you want to crawl out of your own skin.

You grew up hearing your father say his grandfather was his favorite person,

But how could such a cruel man be his favorite?

Was it because he never saw the abuse the girls suffered?

Because he was a boy?

Did he benefit from a kindness the girls never did?

Did he get to stay a child, while they were forced to grow up too soon?

He was the favored grandchild, while his sister avoided their grandfather at all costs.

Because she saw things he never had to.

Because she was almost forced into things he never had to witness.

They called it his “little perversity,”

But the older I get, the darker I realize it always was.

The older I get, the more I understand that my father’s hero was a villain in so many lives.

And that haunts me.

Because if he’d still been alive when I was born,

Would he have just been another villain in my story?