Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 108342 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 542(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108342 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 542(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
“My father was having a lot of problems at work. Business had declined, and my mother offered to get a job, which he found insulting. He never wanted her to work outside of the home. He was very old-fashioned that way. Not because he minded women working, per se, but because he didn’t want her to have to worry about money, and just do the things she enjoyed.” She nodded in understanding. “At one point, he worked with his brother, my uncle, and then my paternal grandmother died, and disagreements arose in the family.
“My father did not handle the fall out with his brother well, and the death of my grandmother was both unexpected and overwhelming. My father went from being a good listener, a loving husband, and funny father who showed care for all of his children, to someone who was distant and at times, extraordinarily cruel. He did eventually pick up additional work, but one of those jobs didn’t end well because he fell off a roof while he was helping to repair it. He hurt his back badly and ended up on pain medication and bed-ridden for months. His drinking became worse during this period, and when he was drunk, he would say things to Dmitriy … things that chipped away at his self-esteem. He focused his insults on him more than anyone else, about ninety-nine percent of the time.”
“Why do you think that was?”
He shrugged as if it were obvious. “Dmitriy was an easy target for my father. He was weaker than me and Mark. Not physically, but mentally and emotionally. He wasn’t as resilient. He was sometimes overly sensitive, too. He didn’t like the same things we did, either. He wasn’t book-smart and charming like Mark, or athletic, handy and resourceful like me.”
“You know, you and he look so much alike. It’s unnerving, really.”
“He and I looked a lot alike for the majority of our lives, and were sometimes confused for one another, but other than that, we were like night and day. He just was kind of there. He existed. He didn’t get excited about much, or plan to do anything. It was like there wasn’t much he looked forward to. He was shy and quiet as a child, and cried easily, too. I bring that up because that continued into his early teen years. Dmitriy was also a little eccentric.”
“How so?”
“He liked going to the beach and collecting shells, ocean samples in glass vials, and even insects. He could spend hours at the beach just doing those things. Those eccentricities rubbed my father the wrong way. This angered him. Anything that made Dmitriy seem different, or not like other boys, enraged my father.”
“Do you believe it was because your father was old-fashioned? Like you mentioned regarding your mother working?”
“It went deeper than that. My father was recovering from his back injury, but he was still drinking. Mixing pain medication with beer and liquor. He didn’t think Dmitriy was masculine enough. Tough enough. The alcohol seemed to make him obsess over it. We never thought much of it. I mean, never thought much of Dmitry being different. He was our brother, and we loved him. My father started verbally abusing him though, and then that escalated into him hitting him. We couldn’t understand why he was turning so violent. He was nothing like that when we were younger. My mother would jump in to break up fights when Mark or I weren’t around to do so.
“She and my dad would then get into it, too. My father had started picking on him more if he was able to get him alone, knowing that if we weren’t home, no one could save him. Then, things got even worse. We never saw him in the act, but we realized at some point that my father also had a substance abuse problem. That explained the violence.”
“How did you discover he had a drug problem, and what was his drug of choice?”
“This belief was based on a phone call we overheard him having when he didn’t think we were home. The three of us were in the basement watching a movie. My mother was at the store, and we heard him talking through the vents, in the kitchen, on the phone.”
“Were all three of you together?”
“Yes, all three of us. Mark, me, and Dmitriy. Our father was on the phone trying to pick up some drugs. He was abusing Oxycontin, Porsche. He left the house right away. While he was gone, we never spoke of it. We just looked at one another. Then, in typical fashion, we never addressed serious problems. We just all went to bed. When my father came back home later that night, he made a lot of noise, waking us up. We heard what sounded like a big ball being thrown hard against a wall. Mom, me and Mark rushed out of our rooms to find my father had yanked Dmitriy out of his bed and began tossing him against the wall like a rag doll. It was like… it was like my father had supernatural strength. It was one of the most horrible things I’d ever seen. There was blood everywhere. My mother was screaming and crying, and my brother and I jumped in and pulled our father off of him.”