There’s No Good Ending
Warning: Emotional Triggers. Please read at your own will. Thank you.
How did we get here? There were pictures of his car with his exact license plate number, along with that woman’s car parked in front of Motel 6. There were records of telephone lines that date back to when and how long he talked to her. Those times were perfectly aligned with his 10-minute-breaks and one-hour-lunches. There were motel receipts hidden in different pairs of his jeans and jackets. There were strands of blonde-streaked hair that were left on the passenger side of his Tundra. Mom’s hair is all black. I’d find shoes, sweaters, and small jewelry that didn’t belong to Mom. He started coming home later than usual and would make up some poor excuse like, “Oh, Boss held me back today to fix another car.” You took advantage of Mom’s kindness. He stopped doing his random Friday check-up calls with my siblings. They stopped expecting you. He became distant to the family. Family? He began spending more time alone. You weren’t thinking of family when you cheated, right? He thought I wouldn’t notice? Shame on you, Dad.
The doorbell rang. It was that woman’s husband. He had a reputation for cheating on his wife through orgies, prostitutes, and secret relationships with younger women from overseas that he kept from his wife throughout the years. There was an instance when Mom and Dad had to visit their home because he had beat the shit out of her. Half of her face looked like it was almost torn off by some sort of shovel. That shovel became known as the fist of her drunk husband. Red and purple bruises stained on her skin from her neck down to her legs like the glass art that one would see in churches. Her husband stopped coming around family gatherings ever since. He was probably so embarrassed for being tied to the name “a Dog-of-a-Husband” or “the Local-Hmong-Wife-Beater.” Word travels around quick when you have a small community. During family gatherings, his wife would come alone to show her “support” and his name would be found in the gossips of our relatives.
“Oh my, I heard that her husband hits her in front of their children, right?” an older auntie whispered to another lady on her right.
“I heard that too! Why is she even here? Isn’t she embarrassed?” the other lady fed the gossips.
She pretended like she didn’t hear it. When she was around my family, she acted like the nicest auntie ever. Blind to flaws, deaf to gossips, and kept her mouth shut so she satisfies her own cravings later. She knew her end goal, and so she waited patiently in the shadows until it was her time to attack. Little did I know, she was already brewing her own set of spells into tearing my family apart. All her little fruit baskets that she’d bring to Grandma every now and then, all the times she came over to massage Grandma because she had, “free time,” all the times she needed help to get her car fixed, all of those times “coincidentally” happened only when Dad was home. She didn’t care for her Dog-of-a-Husband, in fact, she probably didn’t care that she was getting beaten. Therefore, she’d carry her tail that’s tucked under her ass and sit it before my dad. Naturally, like any man with a penis, he’d stick it into anything with a hole. That was why she was so full of herself. That was why she had so much audacity to show her face in front of my mother.
For four whole years, Dad deceived the family. He completely betrayed us, especially Mom. My poor mother learned three valuable lessons that she didn’t deserve. Number one: trust should not be given so easily. Two: blood is not thicker than water. Three: the person who you lay with at night isn’t the one who loves you the most. I’ve seen her carry the weight of her six children, the ocean of support for my father when he was still a scholar, the mountains of responsibility and expectations as a Hmong daughter-in-law, and most importantly, the anchor of duty as a shaman. Despite all, she doesn’t let me go hungry. Despite not knowing a single word of English, she makes sure I have my homework done and is doing well in school. Despite being the hated daughter-in-law, she still washes Grandma’s feet. No one, not even Dad can argue with me and say she’s not enough. If anyone even dares.
There was one more thing she got out of all of this. Four: Love yourself.
I knew Dad knew that he had to end their situation-ship sooner or later in order to stop feeling guilty for the sake of his own sanity. I knew he’d knew that the family would start noticing the different changes he’d make in his schedule. I knew he’d knew that the excuses weren’t going to last him. I knew he’d knew that woman and him would’ve never worked out and that she was just solely for the use of his own narcissistic cravings. I knew my dad or so I thought. He’s the type of person who can’t lie about small things but will keep the big lies to himself or maybe he was just a huge petty liar. He would be quick to argue about who turned on the AC but wouldn’t discuss of his affair when prompted to give answers. Even if telling the truth were to save him, he’d rather save his face and his reputation. Again, small community. He’s the perfect example of, “Fake it till you make it.” In this case, he didn’t make it, so it’s just, “Fake it…” for him. Fake, fake, fake, for four years.
No wonder. Months before that Dog-of-a-Husband rang the doorbell to show Mom all that evidence he’d been pettily collecting, Sister had brought it up already. I remember that night very well. Mom, Dad, Sister, and I were in their room. Sister had expressed that she wanted to talk to Mom and Dad because of something that has been weighing on her chest. Till this day, I remember the face he made when she said, “You always look like you have two wives.” His face was that of someone who had been caught red-handed after murdering someone. You murdered my feelings. After her remark, he denied the accusations like a criminal who had no lawyer, consistently fumbling through his ABCs of contradictions and collocations.
He tried to dodge the question by dismissing her feelings, “Don’t worry about that, go to sleep. That’s not true!”
As the discussion progressed into something bigger than my sister’s feelings, Dad built his walls and became far more defensive than Sister and I had ever seen him, than Mom had ever seen him. What came out of his mouth next was something that I had to learn how to deal with now as an adult, and that was how to not take words that aren’t meant for you to your heart.
“How could you doubt me like this? I am your father!” a true victim would never oust themselves out like this.
“I’m not doubting you. I’m just asking you why she has to go everywhere you and Mom go.” Sister kept her composure, although, I could tell she was breaking inside.
“This is why I never feel loved! It’s because you guys always accuse me of shit like this!” And this is why Sister left. Before my sister could even begin her next line, my father had already stomped out of the door, leaving the three of us in silence. He looked like a toddler who was upset after getting their iPad taken away.
I could tell Mom thought hard about Sister’s attempt in making Dad confess his four-year-long affair. She never spoke a word about it, but I just saw it in her eyes. She was speaking to mine through pain. The pain of doubting herself, the pain of not being good enough, the pain of bearing the fact that her husband might leave her one day. There were little clues within her body language that showed me she was slowly detaching herself from Dad. She woke up later than usual to cook. The bags under her eyes were darker. She stopped taking care of herself and her hygiene. She started to spend more time in the backyard with her chickens. She sang traditional Hmong folksongs about unfortune. She recorded her venting sessions into her iPhone and never touched it again. The one that was most noticeable was her cooking. It wasn’t delicious anymore. You made her like this.
After receiving the evidence that man brought to my mother, my siblings and I decided to decipher it first before bringing it up to Dad. My oldest brother tapped into his phone log searching for any random number that may seem to have a repeated pattern to follow each week. Soon enough, he found it. An unfamiliar area code. The cheaters were trying to be clever about cheating. Spoiler Alert, cheaters always get caught. My middle oldest brother reached out to our cousins which of whom would be the children of that tail-less woman and that Dog-of-a-Husband. He seemed to have a different approach on doing any sort of investigation on Dad’s affair, so he first reached out to the other family as well. And what happened? They cut us off. My youngest older brother waited and my older sister was simply too shocked to do any sort of further digger. Sister couldn’t believe that her intuition from months ago was actually correct.
“Dad! Why are you still shamelessly denying it?!” my brother had been screaming all night as if he was begging our dad to choose us. “Stop denying it! Tell the truth! Please!” he’d continue to give him chances to admit his wrongs and make them rights.
“But I really didn’t do it!” He could’ve fooled me. You did. You fooled all of us! The more he denied it, the more I felt obligated to just let him off the hook. Although the evidence was all there, when I looked at Dad’s face, I didn’t know whether I should feel sorry for him or anger towards him. Or maybe I was feeling sorry for the family as a whole. Dad would never get on his knees and beg us to forgive him as if he was praying at a temple to worship a god. However, that night, his denials and cries sounded more like, “Please don’t leave me behind!” And I just couldn’t seem to put the blame on him.
I felt so sorry, for whatever wrong reason I chose to listen to. I wasn’t even crying anymore. I just remember blankly staring at his dumb face while my brother yelled and yelled his throat away, clearly sounding like he was breathing sand at that point. You’re probably the reason why he hates us now. Motionless and quivering, I sat just listening to my brother being hurt. I still remember the tightness I felt in my body from all the series of crying sessions mixed in with the impulsive outbursts of screaming at him. The physical tightness pulsated throughout my whole body like a shockwave reminding me of how much suffering I’m in, both mentally and physically. The type of suffering that can’t be handled by mindset alone anymore. The type of suffering that forces people to talk to themselves about re-considering their purpose in life. The type that makes people dig their fingers into their craniums, carving out pieces of their own DNA. The type that leaves people forever in the mood of grief no matter how big or bright of a smile they may have. The type of suffering that makes you want to end your own life with your own hands inside of your own room that you’ve filled with your own demons because Daddy wouldn’t admit he did it. It is a feeling I never, ever want to feel again. That feeling of defeat, betrayal, and abandonment.
How will you ever make me feel right again?
Note: please take this story as a universal struggle and refrain from asking further questions about this story.
