Four

“Get out here, now!”

He sounds mad.

Really mad.

I don’t think I want to go.

But I do.

I know it’ll be worse if I don’t go.

He’s in the dining room.

“Follow me,” he says.

He marches me to the bathroom.

“What do you do after you go to the bathroom?”

I just look at him.

“Huh?

Answer me.

What do you do?”

He was getting really heated.

All the sudden, he lifts me from my armpits and slams me on the ground.

I must black out, because the next thing I know he’s up in my face, yelling words I can’t comprehend.

My hearing starts to return, and he’s yelling at my mom.

“She’s three.

It’s time she flushes the toilet on her own.”

I didn’t flush it because mommy was in the shower.

I didn’t want to burn her.

And then I forgot.

But I don’t tell him that.

He won’t listen to me, anyway.

And I don’t think I can move.